The Many Faces of Roleplaying: How ‘RPG’ Became Everything and Nothing

[TiQuinn]

I’d be interested to hear how others approach these tensions at their tables. Do you find that systems designed with a clear focus reduce conflict, or does negotiation remain inevitable regardless of mechanics? How do you reconcile divergent expectations when your group spans multiple play philosophies?

I have found that the conflict and tension is largely overblown judging by what actually occurs at the table, whether in person or virtually, versus the debate that occurs in social media and message boards. I think individuals gravitate to different games and different playstyles, and sometimes there are games that people can find enough commonality to continue playing, while there are others that someone will say they don’t enjoy that particular game.

I’ve found games with a clear focus don’t really reduce the chance of someone disliking it because typically they still have to try the game to make that determination, and then afterwards they may hear about similar games and be more proactive in saying they don’t want to play. Vampire the Masquerade to my college friends in the 90s was a more narrative game (we didn’t call it that) but looked more like our AD&D games than it would LARPing. We were turning Call of Cthulhu into Pulp Cthulhu long before that was a thing…I appreciate games that state what they are and how they should be played but it’s not a silver bullet to ensure everyone plays the game the same way.

And to this day, I play with folks who range the gamut of power gamers to role players in the true “this is what my character would do” sense of the phrase, and we get along with virtually zero tension on that score.

I also agree with Umbran’s point about sports. I was reading the essay and thinking “well, apply that to video games - they come in all varieties too.” I don’t know that there’s anything particularly wrong, or even noteworthy about the term “roleplaying games” not being strictly defined. I just don’t think it’s a big deal in a practical sense.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

While I think that's true, we have developed additional vocabulary over the years to deal with this. We talk about story games, crunchy games, solo games, rules-lite games, tactical games, and so on. I don't think there's really a problem; we're still able to make ourselves understood with ease.

That’s fair. I don’t see it as a big problem either — more an observation about how broad the term RPG has become. Within the community, we’ve done a good job developing clearer language for different playstyles. But on the outside, the label still gets used as a kind of catch-all for anything with character progression or storytelling.

It’s not necessarily a bad thing — just interesting how the same term can promise very different experiences depending on who’s looking at it. For me, it’s mostly a thought exercise — a way to think about how the language and design of games evolve together.

 

[Morrus]

That’s fair. I don’t see it as a big problem either — more an observation about how broad the term RPG has become. Within the community, we’ve done a good job developing clearer language for different playstyles. But on the outside, the label still gets used as a kind of catch-all for anything with character progression or storytelling.

But so does 'video game' which can mean anything from Pac Man to Call of Duty to Baldur's Gate 3. Or 'book' which can mean anything from the Bible to Dan Brown to Tolkien to A Brief History of Time.

 

[The Soloist]

The struggle is to remain relevant, This is from the 90's, and on another forum, talking about sci-fi people kept on bringing up Firefly as an example of something recent though if you are trying to teach 15-20 year olds how to play, that show is from before they were born. 50-60 year olds are sort of set in their ways, and whatever becomes of the hobby, it could collapse entirely when we are gone, I saw it happen with hex, and chit wargames. Nothing is forever.

Hex and chit wargames are still very much a thing but they morphed into computer games in the late 90s. Which is the ultimate way to play them (no cats jumping on the table!). As for age of players, there still are historical wargaming clubs, with players 20s year old and up. It's not about our generation, it's about the love of recreating historical battles. Historical wargaming will not die.

 

[GobHag]

VtM is a terrible example of 'picking a lane' it failed so much in it that it created the Forge.

 

[Umbran]

I have found that the conflict and tension is largely overblown judging by what actually occurs at the table, whether in person or virtually, versus the debate that occurs in social media and message boards. I think individuals gravitate to different games and different playstyles...

There's a point here - in actual, practical play, we are generally going to select games and groups that match our own needs. If someone offered you a game that you know doesn't work for you, you just say, "No, but thanks," and move on. As a GM, if I know you're not into the kind of games I run, I'm not going to ask you to play, any more than I'd ask a vegetarian to dinner at a Brazilian steakhouse. So, that self-selection will reduce friction from the get-go.

On the internet, though, we don't have much of that selection, and we butt up against each other, and act all surprised that someone would have the unmitigated gall as to play differently than ourselves.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

I think that that sections 2 & 3 are not accurate (IMO). I know I tend to mention some books a lot, but there's a book (The Elusive Shift) that specifically discusses the paradigmatic shift in the hobby from "wargaming" to "roleplaying games" that occurred in the 1970s, and the intellectual foment and debate that occurred during that time, as well as the arguments about the nomenclature (should it called "Roleplaying Games," or "Adventure Games," or something else) as well as early debates about the applicability of a single system that can be used for all types of gaming (the "D&D can do everything camp") or whether different systems should be developed to support different types of gaming- and whether narrowing the scope of a game makes for a more rewarding game experience (and contrariwise, whether narrowing the scope of a game limits freedom for the players).

The earliest debated about whether the use of "RPG" is a limiting term were being had by the mid-70s.

In short, while I think that your thesis might have value, it's really about presenting a preferred current argument- and it's not an accurate representation of the past. IMO, YMMV, etc.

I appreciate the insight, and for pointing me to that book. Where I’m trying to focus is less on the origin of those debates and more on how the term is still used today as a broad marketing umbrella. The interesting part to me isn’t that this was never discussed before, but that the same tension persists in modern contexts — particularly when products present themselves as serving different styles of play, often leading to mismatched expectations.

Maybe most people don’t question it because we all know what it means in context, but I think it’s worth asking why we’ve stopped noticing that the label itself can still be so generic, even as the games themselves have evolved and generated far more precise ideas within the genre of roleplaying.

 

[dragoner]

Hex and chit wargames are still very much a thing but they morphed into computer games in the late 90s. Which is the ultimate way to play them (no cats jumping on the table!).

Games I designed back then I saw turned into browser games not too long ago. It's not the same

 

[TiQuinn]

There's a point here - in actual, practical play, we are generally going to select games and groups that match our own needs. If someone offered you a game that you know doesn't work for you, you just say, "No, but thanks," and move on. As a GM, if I know you're not into the kind of games I run, I'm not going to ask you to play, any more than I'd ask a vegetarian to dinner at a Brazilian steakhouse. So, that self-selection will reduce friction from the get-go.

On the internet, though, we don't have much of that selection, and we butt up against each other, and act all surprised that someone would have the unmitigated gall as to play differently than ourselves.

That’s true. We’ve been bouncing around a lot of different games in the past year and a half, and not everyone agreed on games they liked or disliked sometimes but everyone comes from a pretty flexible mindset. I’m sure there are folks out there who would be “Hard Nos” to some games…but then they’d probably opt out of the table on their own at some point.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

I don't know that I see much value in trying to narrow the lane of what constitutes "role playing" with respect to playing these games. Whether procedural or interpretive character growth, or working with different play styles and expectations, the fact that a player is taking on an individual (or even a couple of multiple individuals) to play them out with their own focuses, interests, or growth is enough for me.
The only significant benefit of narrowing the lane, as I see it, would be ceded to the gatekeepers in determining what's really a roleplaying game and what isn't.

I think it’s exactly where the ambiguity comes from. If the defining feature of an RPG is “taking on an individual and exploring their growth,” that already assumes a certain kind of interpretive engagement that not every RPG delivers, especially in the digital space. Tactical or progression-based RPGs often abstract that element, focusing more on system mastery than inhabiting a role.

And that’s fine — the spectrum of design is broad. But the shared use of the “RPG” label pulls all of these under the same roof, which is where friction starts. People who value expressive, character-driven play find themselves in the same conceptual space as those who approach the game as a tactical exercise.

That overlap isn’t always productive — it forces negotiation over what the game is for instead of letting people find the experience they want more directly. That’s not about gatekeeping; it’s about acknowledging that the label “RPG” invites everyone into a shared space that’s often too crowded and too vague for anyone to feel at home in.