Are CRPGs really role-playing games?

[Raven Crowking]

It reads to me like you're using your definition to prove your definition here.

Go back and read the context, then.

In reply to the statement that X is like Y, where X is my definition of RPGs, and Y is the qualities of a computer game, in order to show where X is not like Y, I naturally need to make use of the qualities of X, expecially as they differ from Y.

(Same for your post, and Nate Jones' post, directly preceding this post.)

The response in this particular case isn't to demonstrate that X is correct, but that X is not incorrect on the proposed basis that X is defined as not being Y, but that X = Y, which is the crux of the position to which I responded.

(If, in fact, X was equal to Y, then in this case X would be shown to be incorrect, at least insofar as its exclusion of Y goes, which makes this actually a very reasonable line of inquiry on Ourph's part, even if one that has been answered many, many times now.)

 

[Kem]

In a role-playing game, it is integral to the game itself that the game participants can choose to ignore/alter rules during play.

No its not. Why would being able to change the rules that define how to play a game, be important in that game being of a certain type?

In a role-playing game, all rules are guidelines, and the choices of the participants are limited only by the participants themselves.

Just like any single player Role Playing Game. Awesome, CRPGs are RPGs.

 

[Raven Crowking]

So if a "simulation" of a role-playing game can be itself a role-playing game, what relevance does labeling CRPGs have on whether they are role-playing games?

None, save that it answers the objection that cRPGs must be RPGs because they are not simulations of RPGs (and therefore must be RPGs). A simulation of an RPG may or may not be an RPG.

 

[Kem]

None, save that it answers the objection that cRPGs must be RPGs because they are not simulations of RPGs (and therefore must be RPGs). A simulation of an RPG may or may not be an RPG.

You do realize that, by your logic, that a Flight Simulator is an RPG while Icewind Dale is not right?

 

[Raven Crowking]

No its not. Why would being able to change the rules that define how to play a game, be important in that game being of a certain type?

Everything with sub-categories has criteria by which those subcategories are determined. That is an important part of said criteria, according to the individual who coined the term, at least in print, from the very beginning of the form.

Why he did so has already been amply covered in this and the other thread, in some cases in that individual's own words.

RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

You do realize that, by your logic, that a Flight Simulator is an RPG while Icewind Dale is not right?

I see no rational basis for your conclusion.

Please demonstrate how this is so.

 

[Kem]

I see no rational basis for your conclusion.

Please demonstrate how this is so.

I see no rational basis for it not to be so.

In a role-playing game, it is integral to the game itself that the game participants can choose to ignore/alter rules during play. In a role-playing game, all rules are guidelines, and the choices of the participants are limited only by the participants themselves.

Cheat Codes, Marcos to change things as the player sees fit (spawn a enemy fighter for ex.)

Neither dice, nor rules, nor game designers control your character in a role-playing game more than the participants desire.

Modability (or just plain ol changing the code) allows this.

RPG: You control a character.

You control the person flying the plane (Many Warplane flight sims do this especially well with promotions etc).

In order to play a role, and not merely simulate playing a role, you have to be able to make the decisions that you believe that role would make.

Weapon Deployments, mission theatre, can skip missions at a penalty.

Everything with sub-categories has criteria by which those subcategories are determined. That is an important part of said criteria, according to the individual who coined the term, at least in print, from the very beginning of the form.

Why he did so has already been amply covered in this and the other thread, in some cases in that individual's own words.

RC

Logical Fallacy, Appeal To Authority. Whoever coined the term Role-Playing Game has no say in what the word means.

Google would LOVE to not lose their trademark on the term "Google", but they are dangerously close to losing it due to the use of the term "Google" to mean "search it on the web".

 

[Ourph]

ad hominem attack.

It wasn't meant as an attack. I'm sorry you took it that way. Do you have any response to the substance of the rest of my post concerning DM control and Gary's position?

Please explain why.

Dictionary.com: "The representation of the behavior or characteristics of one system through the use of another system, esp. a computer program designed for the purpose."

Me: "A simulation is any thing X that simulates another thing Y, especially in the case where the medium used in X and Y differ."

First, Because thing X and thing Y are not restricted to systems in your definition, the definition is much too broad. A TV show, for example, is not a system. A movie is not (actually cannot be) a simulation of a TV show because neither is a system. The purpose of some computer programs is to represent the behavior and characteristics of some other system. The purpose of a movie is not to represent the behavior or characteristics of a TV show, even if both address the same subject matter. Having two things with similar content but in different media does not automatically equate to one being a simulation of the other.

Second, because the definition does not address directionality. By your definition, if Y is a simulation of X, then X is automatically a simulation of Y as well (a relationship that is not upheld in most examples of simulations). A weather simulator on a computer can produce a simulation of a hurricane. A hurricane is not, in turn, a simulation of weather predicting software.

In a role-playing game, it is integral to the game itself that the game participants can choose to ignore/alter rules during play. In a role-playing game, all rules are guidelines, and the choices of the participants are limited only by the participants themselves.

I'm still not sure how that disproves what I said earlier. I said...

If the dice, the rules and the game designer exerts no control over the actions your character is capable of taking in the game, then you are no longer playing a game, you are writing fiction. In order to be said to be "playing a game" it is generally accepted that you are following at least some of the rules of said game. If the standard for roleplaying games is "unlimited character actions" then, by definition, any game with rules is not an RPG (and as far as I know, D&D has always contained rules, many of which specifically limit character's actions). Ergo, by your definition, D&D is not an RPG but a "simulation" of an RPG.

If you choose to ignore some rules or change some rules you may very well be altering the limitations placed on your character or even eliminating some limitations placed on your character, but the only way to play with no limitations on your character is to play without any rules, at which point the activity you are engaged in stops being a game (because, by definition, games have rules). Therefore, your assertion that the thing that distinguishes RPGs from RPG simulations is that RPGs allow for unlimited character actions seems untenable.

 

[Doug McCrae]

In a role-playing game, it is integral to the game itself that the game participants can choose to ignore/alter rules during play. In a role-playing game, all rules are guidelines, and the choices of the participants are limited only by the participants themselves.

It would be perfectly possible to write a crpg that allowed players to alter its rules during play. For instance in a D&D crpg there could be a button to alter whether characters die at 0 or -10 hit points.

 

[Kem]

It would be perfectly possible to write a crpg that allowed players to alter its rules during play. For instance in a D&D crpg there could be a button to alter whether characters die at 0 or -10 hit points.

To add to this, it is perfectly possible to write a game such that ANY rule or set of rules can be changed.

Die at 0 -10 or -Con or use Wounds/Vitality instead of HP.

It is technologically possible. Mutability of the rules is a poor pillar to use as a definition of a Role Playing Game when trying to say computers are unable to create one.