Computers beat up my role player

[Gentlegamer]

So, someone can go on about how KOTOR, Final Fantasy, and Neverwinter Nights aren't RPGs, but no one is going to stop calling them RPGs.

I don't think anyone is asking for them to be not called "RPGs" (at least I'm not). We all admit there is a genre of video games that has been termed "RPGs." Similarly, there are other genres of video games such as Action, Adventure, Action Adventure, Fighting, Sports, RTS, FPS, TPS, Puzzle, Simulation, and so on. Within the context of video games, calling KOTOR and the rest "RPGs" is accurate (while calling the Legend of Zelda series RPGs, is not, for example).

The analogy is closer to this: the Madden NFL series of video games are called "football games," but no one considers players of those games to be actually playing football. However, within the context of video games, it is accurate to call them "football games."

 

[Gentlegamer]

If you ask someone what kind of game Final Fantasy is, people will say its a RPG, despite the lack of roleplaying involved in the game. And, they aren't wrong. Final Fantasy is a line of computer roleplaying games.

You're right: speaking in the context of video games, Final Fantasy is an RPG. However, speaking in the context of the full meaning of the term "role-playing game," it is not.

 

[diaglo]

And the day after there will be threads on messageboards telling us that our claims to have done it that way before the Computer are just rose-colored glasses....

hey as a wargamer... all i can say is roleplaying games of any stripe are for kiddies.

now that's rose colo(u)red for you.

but i like playing kids games.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I don't think anyone is asking for them to be not called "RPGs" (at least I'm not). We all admit there is a genre of video games that has been termed "RPGs." Similarly, there are other genres of video games such as Action, Adventure, Action Adventure, Fighting, Sports, RTS, FPS, TPS, Puzzle, Simulation, and so on. Within the context of video games, calling KOTOR and the rest "RPGs" is accurate (while calling the Legend of Zelda series RPGs, is not, for example).

The analogy is closer to this: the Madden NFL series of video games are called "football games," but no one considers players of those games to be actually playing football. However, within the context of video games, it is accurate to call them "football games."

That's a much better answer than mine.

Within the realm of computer games, a "football game" simulates football, whereas a "role-playing game" simulates RPGs.

Well put, Sir.

 

[Dromdol]

Does anyone recall my humerous little anecdote, "The Giant's Bag"?

No, but recursive self-congratulations are always beneficial in actual arguments. Please enlighten us.

No computer-run game short of the Starship Enterprise's holodeck could begin to duplicate that sort of play,

Oh, I doubt the holodeck would suffice. The computer still wouldn't be a DM, would it? I mean, you play your little semantic games and trash anything you can't wrap your head around, why is that any different, 3D graphics? The chance to be stuck with Data in his Sherlock Holmes hat? It's elementary my dear Gary, ye are livin' in the past.

and encounters of that sort were common in the play of the Greyhawk Campaign...as they should be in all true RPG campaigns.

Personally, I think any roleplaying (or is that role-assumption?) that doesn't dig in and leave some psychic scars must be for chumps. Now, contary to what some ego-feeders have said in the posts above, you didn't invent "roleplaying". I trust you haven't blinded yourself enough to forget that "roleplaying" grew from a Freudian conception of ego-projection, and the term has been around for several decades longer than a game. So maybe step down from the pedastel before dictating what a "true" anything is.

This debate is certainly a waste of time and effort,

Any argument in which one party remains in willful, blissful, self-imposed ignorance is a waste of time.

because while it is demonstrable that the computer can not curently provide an RPG, those that wish such games were classed as that form of game will attempt to define the RPG to suiyt their view,

And those without a clue will continue to do the opposite. I have demonstrated how your "apples" were the same as my "apples". But now you're quibbling that Granny Smith's aren't, because only Red Delicious is "real" apples.

thus make the dead electroinic "RPG simulation" game into the living human-managed and all-oarticipant interactive RPG.

This is what truly and fully offends me. I know and have met people I met in that "dead electronic" RPG simulation. I have friends I've only seen in the gameworld. They are just as real as anyone I've met in person, and my friendship is as real. Emotional attachments and relationships, stories and memories, aren't real because of the medium, but because of the people. If you play an MMORPG and never develop a relationship, a friendship, a camraderie with those around you, well, that's your loss. Don't project that inability to connect to everyone else.

So I am out of here.

But of course you are. You never had anything of substance to add to the debate in the first place, as you wallow in your self-imposed ignorance.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Any argument in which one party remains in willful, blissful, self-imposed ignorance is a waste of time.

Ad hominem attacks?

Or a suggestion that those of us who differentiate between RPGs and computer simulations thereof are wasting their time because you aren't interested in actually refuting the positions we hold?



RC

 

[Gentlegamer]

Now, contary to what some ego-feeders have said in the posts above, you didn't invent "roleplaying". I trust you haven't blinded yourself enough to forget that "roleplaying" grew from a Freudian conception of ego-projection, and the term has been around for several decades longer than a game.

Gary Gygax has never claimed to invent the term "role-playing." He invented "role-playing games" as a type of game. In the type of Freudian exercise you reference, "role-playing" probably is synonymous with "role assumption." But that is not the context in which we are discussing the meaning of the term "role-playing."

 

[ThirdWizard]

I guess the two big questions are:1) If one is playing a roleplaying game, but isn't roleplaying, is said person playing a roleplaying game? and 2) If one plays a roleplaying game in the same way one would play an MMORPG, is said person playing a roleplaying game?

 

[Gentlegamer]

1) If one is playing a roleplaying game, but isn't roleplaying, is said person playing a roleplaying game?

You're continuing to use "roleplaying" and "play-acting" or "role assumption" as synonyms. That is not what "roleplaying" means in this context. Without giving a huge thesis, the entire activity of playing D&D (or GURPS, White Wolf, etc.) is role-playing. Role assumption and play-acting are just two aspects, out of many, of the game-play activities that constitutes role-playing.

 

[Umbran]

With respect, if anyone has the authority to define what the term "role-playing game" means, it would be Gary Gygax, and I believe that his definition is the best one.

With respect - you included the "if", and I plan to use it. I don't think anyone has that authority. Again, like defining a fictional genre, it is best defined by consensus of the community that like it, rather than by a singular authority. To say Gary should be the one to define the term "RPG" is rather like saying William Gibson is the only one who can define the term "cyberpunk".

With all due respect, the man no longer represents enough of the design experience out there to be called a strong enough authority to define it alone. Gary and his compartriots defined where RPGs started, sure. And he deserves a boatload of kudos for that vision. But to be honest, he's not been at the forefront of design for quite a while, now. To stick to his definition would be to deny that growth can occur, that a thing can evolve, and even improve, with time.

Overall, we should respectfully accept the fact that the creation has grown beyond the vision of the original creator. The can of worms has been opened, and they won't fit back in that first can anymore.