Worlds of Design: What Defines a RPG?

It’s a daunting task to try to define and characterize a segment as large and diverse as tabletop role-playing games in just a few words. But here goes.

Picture courtesy of Pixabay.
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“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” Helen Keller​

Some people won’t be happy with my definitions--which is my opinion, drawn from experience. But the purpose of such exercises is (aside from encouraging people to think) to narrow down something so that we can talk about it intelligibly.

Defining the Undefinable​

There are two ways to define something: 1) specific (as in a dictionary), but this usually leads to dispute even when what’s being defined is a single word; or 2) describe typical characteristics, even if it’s possible that some will not have all of those characteristics. I’m trying the latter, being general enough to think all the characteristics are necessary.

What makes an RPG a tabletop hobby RPG? An RPG, as we talk about them in the hobby, is a human-opposed co-operative game. There are four characteristics:

• Avatars,
• progressive improvement,
• co-operation, and
• GMed opposed adventure.

Simple enough, but in defining a concept it’s sometimes easier to explain what it isn’t.

What RPGs Are Not​

Role-playing games, as defined by the last word, are games and therefore require opposition. An RPG is not a puzzle (with a correct solution); an RPG is not a means for the GM to tell a story (reducing player agency immensely); an RPG is not a storytelling mechanism, whether for players to tell each other stories, or for the GM to tell a story. These things all exist, but to include them in the definition goes far beyond the realm of game. A game is a form of play, but most forms of play are not games.

Not Just Role-Playing​

Technically, a role-playing game may be any game where you play a role – which is a LOT of games, tabletop and (especially) video. It even includes some business simulations. I’m more interested in what makes a game a hobby RPG, a game played frequently by hobby game players. So I’ll discuss role-playing in terms of avatars.

What’s a “Pure” or “Real” Avatar?​

• A single thing/entity that represents the individual player, most commonly a humanoid
• All the player’s actions in the game emanate from the avatar
• The “pure” avatar is fully subject to risk: if it dies/is destroyed, the player loses (at least temporarily)

An avatar could be a spaceship, a tank (World of Tanks) or other vehicle, even a pizza-shape (Pac-Man). In video games, the avatar typically respawns. In hobby RPGs, the avatar is a creature, usually human or humanoid. (For more detail, read "The most important design aspect of hobby RPGs is the Pure Avatar".)

Avatars sometimes have a separate developer-provided “history” and personality (Mario, Sonic). Sometimes an avatar is a blank slate so that the player can more easily infuse his/her own personality or fictional character background into the avatar.

In many games, a "kind-of-avatar" is not the source of all action, nor does the game end if the avatar is killed. That’s not an RPG.

Progressive Improvement​

This can happen in many kinds of games. But in what we call RPGs, it’s some variety of:

• Gaining experience to rise in levels, and the levels give more capability (though the term “level” might not be used)
• Gaining skills/feats/features (which give more capability)
• Collecting magic or technological items (which provide extra options, defense, offense, etc.)
• Acquiring money/treasure (which can be used for lots of things)
• No doubt there are some RPGs with other ways to improve, for example via social standing if that is formally tracked

Does it need levels? No, but that's typically (conveniently) how increase in capability “without employing the loot I've got” is expressed.

So a game where the hero(es) don’t progress in capability – or only a little – might be an interesting game, but it’s not an RPG. Many of you can think of board, card, or video games of this kind. Well-known heroes in novel series rarely progress significantly in capability, for example James Bond.

You can have avatars without progression, you can have roles without “pure” avatars, you can have progression without avatars, but those are not what we categorize as RPGs.

Co-operation, Adventure, and a Gamemaster That Controls the Opposition/Enables Adventure​

• Yes, opposition. It’s not a game (I use the traditional sense) without opposition, though it might be a puzzle or a parallel competition
• I don’t see how there can be significant opposition without a GM/referee; unless you go to computer programming
• If there’s no co-operation, if it’s player vs player, it’s more or less a board/card game in concept

I include Adventure, because the stories coming out of the original RPGs would be called adventures. In the 21st century we do have novels that don’t seem to have any particular point other than describing everyday life, and I think that’s leaked over into so-called RPGs as well. Whether adventure is necessary is a debatable point (surprise), though I’m certainly not interested in RPGs without Adventure.

The GM also allows the players to try to do “anything” that could be done in the current situation. Some regard this freedom-of-action (extreme player agency) as the defining aspect of RPGs, and it’s certainly vital; but think of a story RPG where the linear plot (typical of stories) forces players to do just what the story calls for. That’s not freedom of action. Yet story form may be the most common form of tabletop RPG.

And consider games like Minecraft. You can try to do almost anything there, too, but it's not an RPG.

Where does this leave computer RPGs? There’s not exactly a GM, though the computer tries to be. There’s certainly not as much freedom of action as with a human GM . . . But my goal was to define hobby tabletop RPGs.

Your Turn: What’s your definition of a role-playing game?

 

[hawkeyefan]

Which is gatekeeping by definition.

Meh, I get why you say that. I just think that it's a question of intent. I don't think Lew is trying to keep any people out....just certain types of games.

He ends his post with an invitation for others to define RPGs how they like.....so I just don't take his post as an attempt to gatekeep so much as to state his opinion.

RPG's can't be defined by what you do in game because what you do in game resembles too many other games. It's the fact that you use the rules of an RPG to construct a game that will be idiosyncratic to your table at that point in time and likely can never be reproduced. Sure, modules allow for shared experiences across tables, but, even then, unless we're talking about the most railroaded, linear scenario, there will be massive variance between one table's experience of a module and another's. Because each group is building a new game every time they sit down to start a campaign.

I don't think this is very accurate because you're talking about the content of the fiction rather then the creation of the fiction, right?

When people play a roleplaying game, they are communicating to craft a fictional world. Very often this takes the form of a conversation, but it can also be through a written medium such as email or text or play by post. There are other variations on this, too.

But participants discussing and crafting a fiction together, and consulting rules as needed......that's something that happens every time. The fact that my group is talking about the Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl and your group is talking about why Alice is Missing doesn't make what we're doing different, even if the means by which we do it are.

 

[Puddles]

I've been trying to refine my own definition of an RPG after thinking about this thread over the past few days and am leaning towards:

"A game with resolution mechanics that can cope with any player input".

So, essentially any game that allows a player to attempt anything - and then has a mechanic that determines what happens as a result of that input.

This would stop wargames such an Inquistor from being RPGs, (because while it has a GM that can adjudicate unique actions, it has no resolution mechanic for actions such as "I move off the battlefield"). And also hack'n'slash boardgames like Heroquest and its descendants, (where an input such as "we wish to leave the dungeon, search for trees, chop them down, and use the wood to make a fire to smoke out the inhabitants of the dungeon" has no resolution mechanic).

I think this is similar to @pemerton 's definition, (If I am mistaken, I apologise). With the distinction between fiction and mechanics. Although rather than needing to say one takes the lead before the other, it's just that the mechanics need to be able to cope with all and any fiction.

Now this would preclude all CRPGs from being an RPG under that definition*, but I think that's needed because I think if you coded Heroquest or Gloomhaven into a computer game, I'm not sure how it would be different from Skyrim or any other CRPG except in scope. Instead CRPGs try to emulate the experience of a tabletop RPG rather than being a true RPG, (much like dungeon-delving boardgames do).

It also means 'games in which you role-play' such as murder mysteries wouldn't be RPGs because there is no resolution for say, grappling the suspect on the kitchen floor so they can't get away, (except for not getting invited to the next one).

*When I was very young, my dad had an old Amstrad computer with the 'Guild of Thieves' computer game, as a text based game, this game theoretically allowed for all player inputs, however if you typed in anything it had not accounted for, the computer simply replied with "so?".

 

[loverdrive]

I think this is similar to @pemerton 's definition, (If I am mistaken, I apologise). With the distinction between fiction and mechanics. Although rather than needing to say one takes the lead before the other, it's just that the mechanics need to be able to cope with all and any fiction.

I really don't wanna bring the argument from a neighbouring thread here, but... This definition kinda excludes D&D. And Pathfinder. And GURPS.

And pretty much every non-fictionfirst game out there.

 

[Puddles]

I really don't wanna bring the argument from a neighbouring thread here, but... This definition kinda excludes D&D. And Pathfinder. And GURPS.

And pretty much every non-fictionfirst game out there.

Would you mind elaborating? It is certainly my attempt to include those games (D&D is where my experience lies).

After all, D&D has a resolution mechanic that applies to any input, which is the DM decides the outcome. It then has a more specific mechanic, which is the DM chooses a DC and nominates the ability or skill to test, and then narrates the success or failure. And then even more specific mechanics for things like combat. The only one that is important here is that high-level one that can account for any player input. Usually this is why an RPG has a GM.

 

[Mallus]

Maybe we should switch the title heading to "Who Defines an RPG?"

It's almost like that's what this thread is really about !

 

[loverdrive]

Would you mind elaborating? It is certainly my attempt to include those games (D&D is where my experience lies).

After all, D&D has a resolution mechanic that applies to any input, which is the DM decides the outcome. It then has a more specific mechanic, which is the DM chooses a DC and nominates the ability or skill to test, and then narrates the success or failure. And then even more specific mechanics for things like combat. The only one that is important here is that high-level one that can account for any player input. Usually this is why an RPG has a GM.

I honestly wouldn't consider "figure it out" as a way to cope with all and any fiction, and I don't think that there's a meaningful difference between DM adjudicating an action not covered by the rules in D&D and in Inquisitor.

In contrast, PbtA-games do have a generalized framework for dealing with any situation — the GM makes a move (describes how the situation in the fiction changes), and there're pretty clear rules on how to make one — there're Agenda and Principles, which provide effective lenses to decide, how to solve the situation at hand.

Also, D&D, like all rules-first games tend to discard fiction — when two people are fighting near a priceless Ming dynasty vase, the rules are silent on whether will a missed attack make the vase fall over and break — and there's need for a rulling to close the gap between the fiction and the mechanics.

 

[chaochou]

A definition of tabletop RPGing that can't capture (1) White Plume Mountain played using classic D&D rules and expectations, and (2) Classic Traveller, and (3) In a Wicked Age, and (4) My Life With Master - just to pick four of the many boundary points that might be chosen - has clearly failed.

Yes indeed! Or Burning Wheel, Boot Hill, Paranoia and Pendragon - to pick another four reference points.

 

[Puddles]

I honestly wouldn't consider "figure it out" as a way to cope with all and any fiction, and I don't think that there's a meaningful difference between DM adjudicating an action not covered by the rules in D&D and in Inquisitor.

In contrast, PbtA-games do have a generalized framework for dealing with any situation — the GM makes a move (describes how the situation in the fiction changes), and there're pretty clear rules on how to make one — there're Agenda and Principles, which provide effective lenses to decide, how to solve the situation at hand.

Also, D&D, like all rules-first games tend to discard fiction — when two people are fighting near a priceless Ming dynasty vase, the rules are silent on whether will a missed attack make the vase fall over and break — and there's need for a rulling to close the gap between the fiction and the mechanics.

Thanks for the reply. Yes, I can indeed see where you are coming from! Good points.

 

[CandyLaser]

To take a non-game word, "bi-annual" has been corrupted. Originally it meant once every two years, but about half of people now think it means twice a year (semi-annual), so many readers/listeners will be confused if you use it. Another is verbal, which once (usefully) meant "in words, whether written or oral." Now verbal has come to mean oral, to many people. Using the word verbal is confusing, and there is no word that means what verbal used to mean.

Apparently my old account is gone, or more likely I just forgot its login information. In any case, I did want to comment on this bit of folk etymology. The oldest known use of biannual is in the sense of 'twice a year.' 'Once every other year' is biennial. What's more, even if 'biannual' had changed its meaning over time, characterizing it as corruption is mistaken, as it offers up a moral connotation to a perfectly ordinary and unproblematic linguistic process. Words change meaning over time in living languages; it's just what happens, and privileging older uses which have fallen out of favor over contemporary conventions is bad practice if you want to be understood. And if you're going to do it, it behooves you to get your facts right. This is obviously not the main thrust of the argument, but this sort of quasi-prescriptivist pedantry irritates me.

Along those lines, though, I also wanted to call attention to this claim from lewpuls:

Role-playing games, as defined by the last word, are games and therefore require opposition

The notion that games require opposition is, I think, false. There are, of course, cooperative games (like Pandemic), but those do feature opposition - it's just not from any of the other players. And there are RPGs that do away with the semi-adversarial GM-player relation, such as GMless games like Fiasco and Ironsworn. These games also often feature opposition, though it may or may not be from other players. But then there are noncompetitive games such as the Ungame, which lack opposition entirely. I'd put RPGs like The Skeletons in this category, as well as solo RPGs like The Thousand-Year-Old Vampire and Artefact.

 

[Mallus]

To take a non-game word, "bi-annual" has been corrupted. Originally it meant once every two years, but about half of people now think it means twice a year (semi-annual), so many readers/listeners will be confused if you use it. Another is verbal, which once (usefully) meant "in words, whether written or oral." Now verbal has come to mean oral, to many people. Using the word verbal is confusing, and there is no word that means what verbal used to mean.

I’m guessing you’re not a linguist by training.