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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7167382" data-attributes="member: 29398">Which highlights one of several very fundamental differences between what's defined as a boardgame and what's defined as an RPG.  RPGs, almost without exception, have within their structure some sort of referee or GM or DM or whatever other term you give it, whose roles are to oversee the game, provide the backdrop, make rulings, and in one way or another keep it going smoothly.  In this way...but only in this way...it's closer to many types of sports, where these functions are filled by some combination of an organized league and the in-game officials.Most boardgamers, maybe.  However, you've here highlighted a second major difference between (almost all) boardgames and RPGs: in a boardgame you're playing as an individual, and playing to win against the other players.  In an RPG you're most often playing as part of a group and not trying to win against the other players.  You could be said to collectively be trying to win against the game world, except for yet another major difference:A boardgame (almost always) has a clearly defined win condition - you reach home first, you destroy all the other armies, you checkmate the king - and the game ends when a player (or a predefined number of players) reaches this point.  An RPG never has such a thing: there is no predetermined win condition, and no defined end point - you can't "win" D&D.  The best you can do is survive through the campaign, which probably equates to a tie.  And in some RPGs e.g. CoC you can't even hope for that much; the game dictates that you are going to lose, and the only questions are how long will it take and what can you achieve in the meantime.Sure, in an all-out PvP game you could knock off all the other PCs - but that still doesn't mean you've won, because the game world is still out there waiting for you...If in "most of us gamers" you're including boardgamers and card gamers and so on, you're likely right; if only because those games work as you say and have more players overall.  But if you limit "gamers" to only RPG players then I'd say you're flat wrong, once you get beyond your own gaming community which does, I must say, seem rather unusual.Lan-"the rest of the post I quoted here didn't make sense - did you miss a quote tag somewhere?"-efan</blockquote>

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