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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Barastrondo" data-source="post: 5669599" data-attributes="member: 3820">Gotcha. Then would it be fair to say that although the writing in the books inspired you to go after roleplaying as a valuable hobby, it didn't do the same for everyone? Yep. And I've seen a tremendous difference on an RP server between the people who consider themselves to be roleplaying, and the people who are just there to play the game. One group has "characters," the other group has "toons." And the roleplayers are frequently held in contempt by the other folks. The definition I experience is pretty much how I was defining "roleplaying" back in the day. Some people are roleplaying -- others are just playing an RPG with no interest in roleplay. I saw that in tabletop 20 years ago, too, and it's still around today -- within a minute I could find a post where someone sneers at "amateur thespianism" in their D&D game.In video games, "RPG" terminology generally means mechanics derived from tabletop RPGs -- character advancement being the big one. Diablo counts as a video game RPG because what it takes from Bard's Tale and Wizardry is not the ability to make choices as your character would (which was kind of absent in those games as well), but the ability to level your characters up, select "classes" for them, itemize them, etc. Technically Diablo's an action-RPG, Final Fantasy Tactics is a strategy-RPG, and of course WoW is an MMORPG, whereas something like Mass Effect or Skyrim is generally a "pure" RPG. I know a number of gamers who are irritated that the term's been coopted to mean "leveling up and itemizing," but it's a bit late to put that particular genie back in the lamp. Or not enough fluff, specifically. I can think of two high-water marks where fluff was concerned: the 2e Monstrous Manual, and the 4e Monster Vaults. But there were plenty of monsters written up that were reliant on the GM to deliver more than a couple lines of fluff. I mean, I have much respect for the froghemoth, but if you ran into it in the MM2 without having read/played Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, you had no sense of an ecology or what to do with it other than "It's a giant killer frog-thing and it seems likely you would fight it in a swamp." And again, I'm not disagreeing that it would be nice to see more roleplaying in the hobby overall. In my experience, I just find that there are fewer differences between generations as far as whether it's more common, and why or why not.</blockquote>

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