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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 5456325" data-attributes="member: 22779">I'm curious, because I don't actually know, does Blizzard describe their own game as a roleplaying game?  I know that you see MMORPG floated around on chat boards loads of time, but, is that simply shorthand?  After all, CRPG is a term used to describe a particular genre of computer game that borrows heavily from role playing games, but, it's a pretty long stretch to call a lot of them role playing games.I'm currently replaying Baldur's Gate actually.  That's about as close to D&D as you can get on a computer.  But, it still, in no way, actually rewards you for role assumption.  My paladin can, and does, rob the town blind and is not punished in any way.  I can make choices that have little to nothing to do with the persona of the character, and the game chugs right along fine and in fact actually rewards me for doing so.Tabletop RPG's do not.  The training rules in 1e actively punish players for not playing their characters "in character".  A fighter that refuses to fight or a wizard that doesn't act wizardly is forced to pay significantly higher costs for gaining levels.  In other words, you play your role (which 1e tied strongly with class) or you get whacked with a stick.Pemerton has outlined how role play ties directly to the mechanics in 4e, so I won't belabor that again.In MMO's, there is no presumption that you will play a persona at all.  You are not rewarded for doing so, nor are you punished for failing to do so.  If I want my Troll (I played EQ for a while) to walk around spouting Shakespeare, I can.  There is no punishment or reward for roleplay.  It's technically a role playing game I suppose since you do take a specific role as defined by your class/race combination.  As Shadzar pointed out, you do have the four combat roles in MMO's.  So, in that sense, an MMO is a role playing game.  But, it's not an RPG in the sense that you roleplay a particular persona.  It's no different than playing Axis and Allies.  Just because you play Germany or Russia doesn't impact your decision making processes - you base your decisions on the mechanics of the game and what you think would get you ahead the best.  Your decisions are not influenced by trying to roleplay the persona of Stalin.  The game certainly doesn't presume that you would even try.So, I don't count MMO's as RPG's for exactly the same reason that I don't count board games as RPG's.  Neither presume that the players will attempt to play within the confines of a pre-defined persona.-------------Oh, and as far as having my mind blown, it's not about your personal emotional reaction Az.  It's mind-blowing to me because if there are so many things that ARE considered D&D, I find it truly strange to discount something that really isn't all that different.  3e to 4e isn't a massive leap mechanically.  3e using something like Bo9S and Tome of Magic looks a lot like 4e mechanically.Like I said, I find it really strange to exclude 4e from a tent that includes spacefaring hippo's, dimensionally hopping centaurs and human rogues.</blockquote>

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