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]

I have not. The comic is great, and I've read the playtest material as well, but it wouldn't be a good fit for any of my groups.

Gotcha. Pretty similar situation myself. I don’t know how my group would handle that second layer of fiction...and that would be the challenging part to me....so I haven’t tried it.

 

[aramis erak]

I'd argue that Lego isn't a game. It's a toy

Play does not necessitate being a game.
A game requires rules, but play does not.
Play of a game does require that the game have rules.

 

[Hussar]

If there's no avatar at all, then I'm not sure what's become of the role-playing.

Now that's true enough. I'll agree there. But, then again, that doesn't really differentiate RPG from many other games which also depend on your actions around a single "avatar". IOW, having a single avatar is a commonality of games, not necessarily RPG's.

 

[Hussar]

Play does not necessitate being a game.
A game requires rules, but play does not.
Play of a game does require that the game have rules.

I'm not sure if you are agreeing or disagreeing with me here. I'm not seeing what you are getting at.

My point was that Lego isn't a game. At all. It's a toy. A basketball, a skateboard and a teddy bear aren't games either. They're toys. They can be played with and you could certainly make a game using these toys (I forget the name of it, but, there was an old Dragon magazine game where you made play-doh monsters and fought each other), but, they are not, in and of themselves, a game.

 

[Hussar]

Starter boxes negate that... Characters are pregens, and the adventure and rules instruction are conjoined. The ones for Star Wars and Star Trek are literally, open the box, hand out characters, and read the prompts and do the instructions. And they're decent adventures, too.

Not really.

Someone had to make those pregens, and adventures. The rules were used to create them but, in the end, it's no different than if you created them yourself. Without those pregens and adventures, what would you have in a Starter Box? Well, Basic D&D looked a lot like that - you had the rules but, you were told that you had to then go out and create your own game using these rules.

That someone else uses the RPG rules and creates a game for you doesn't change the fact that the RPG ruleset in itself isn't a game at all. It's a set of instructions for creating a game that you and your group will play through. But the game that you create will always be idiosyncratic to your table. ((Barring, of course, selling modules and the like)) Two groups, could never create the same adventure using the same ruleset unless they deliberately copied one another. If you took two groups, playing the same system, but with no connection between those two groups, and no communication, the games they play would be so radically different that it is actually difficult to say they are playing the same game.

This simply isn't true of non-RPG's. Non-RPG's do not generate the vast breadth of experience that we see even in our own small slice of gamers here in En World. People will have completely different experiences using the same system. Compare the old school notion of lethality. Some people will swear up and down that older D&D was incredibly lethal and very few characters survived into even relatively low levels. Others will have completely different experiences. And that's using a system as limited as 1e D&D. If I tell you I'm playing a GURPS session tomorrow, that doesn't actually tell you anything. Other than we probably will be using lots of charts. Even GURPS Fantasy doesn't really narrow things down very much. Because the game I create using the GURPS system and the game you create and the game Bob creates won't actually look very much like each other and will look even less like each other the longer the games go.

 

[Campbell]

Not really.

Someone had to make those pregens, and adventures. The rules were used to create them but, in the end, it's no different than if you created them yourself. Without those pregens and adventures, what would you have in a Starter Box? Well, Basic D&D looked a lot like that - you had the rules but, you were told that you had to then go out and create your own game using these rules.

That someone else uses the RPG rules and creates a game for you doesn't change the fact that the RPG ruleset in itself isn't a game at all. It's a set of instructions for creating a game that you and your group will play through. But the game that you create will always be idiosyncratic to your table. ((Barring, of course, selling modules and the like)) Two groups, could never create the same adventure using the same ruleset unless they deliberately copied one another. If you took two groups, playing the same system, but with no connection between those two groups, and no communication, the games they play would be so radically different that it is actually difficult to say they are playing the same game.

This simply isn't true of non-RPG's. Non-RPG's do not generate the vast breadth of experience that we see even in our own small slice of gamers here in En World. People will have completely different experiences using the same system. Compare the old school notion of lethality. Some people will swear up and down that older D&D was incredibly lethal and very few characters survived into even relatively low levels. Others will have completely different experiences. And that's using a system as limited as 1e D&D. If I tell you I'm playing a GURPS session tomorrow, that doesn't actually tell you anything. Other than we probably will be using lots of charts. Even GURPS Fantasy doesn't really narrow things down very much. Because the game I create using the GURPS system and the game you create and the game Bob creates won't actually look very much like each other and will look even less like each other the longer the games go.

How familiar with the style of war gaming that preceded D&D? What about board games like Diplomacy or social manipulation games like The Resistance? What about more emergent video games like Civilization or Crusader Kings?

 

[billd91]

Not really.

Someone had to make those pregens, and adventures. The rules were used to create them but, in the end, it's no different than if you created them yourself. Without those pregens and adventures, what would you have in a Starter Box? Well, Basic D&D looked a lot like that - you had the rules but, you were told that you had to then go out and create your own game using these rules.

That someone else uses the RPG rules and creates a game for you doesn't change the fact that the RPG ruleset in itself isn't a game at all. It's a set of instructions for creating a game that you and your group will play through. But the game that you create will always be idiosyncratic to your table. ((Barring, of course, selling modules and the like)) Two groups, could never create the same adventure using the same ruleset unless they deliberately copied one another. If you took two groups, playing the same system, but with no connection between those two groups, and no communication, the games they play would be so radically different that it is actually difficult to say they are playing the same game.

At this point, you've kind of argued your position into being unable to distinguish RPGs from scenario-based war games like Advanced Squad Leader or even Panzer Blitz.

 

[Hussar]

How familiar with the style of war gaming that preceded D&D? What about board games like Diplomacy or social manipulation games like The Resistance? What about more emergent video games like Civilization or Crusader Kings?

Very familiar.

The point though is, if you sit down to Diplomacy, you will ALWAYS play Diplomacy. You have a fixed board, a fixed goal, a fixed series of plays. I cannot suddenly stab another player in the ear with a pen, no matter how much I may want to, in Diplomacy.

Or, to use wargaming, you won't use your Napoleonic rules to resolve a Vietnam era conflict. You use your Napoleonic rules for Napoleonic conflicts. Even conflicts which are occuring in the same era - say central America and the Spanish, would not use Napoleonic rules. You would likely be alright using those rules for the American Revolution, but, they'd be a very poor fit for Agincourt.

My point is, non-RPG games are playable right out of the box. You set up, according to the rules of the game, and begin play in a proscribed manner. You cannot deviate from that proscribed manner either. But an RPG does not allow you to begin in a proscribed manner since RPG's don't have a proscribed staring point.

 

[aramis erak]

Very familiar.

The point though is, if you sit down to Diplomacy, you will ALWAYS play Diplomacy. You have a fixed board, a fixed goal, a fixed series of plays. I cannot suddenly stab another player in the ear with a pen, no matter how much I may want to, in Diplomacy.

Or, to use wargaming, you won't use your Napoleonic rules to resolve a Vietnam era conflict. You use your Napoleonic rules for Napoleonic conflicts. Even conflicts which are occuring in the same era - say central America and the Spanish, would not use Napoleonic rules. You would likely be alright using those rules for the American Revolution, but, they'd be a very poor fit for Agincourt.

My point is, non-RPG games are playable right out of the box. You set up, according to the rules of the game, and begin play in a proscribed manner. You cannot deviate from that proscribed manner either. But an RPG does not allow you to begin in a proscribed manner since RPG's don't have a proscribed staring point.

You're wrong on both sides here; there are many boardgames that are not playable out of the box, and there are RPGs with constrained prescribed start points.

Specifically, again, the beginner boxes are subset rulesets with explicit "start here" and with all the characters prewritten for that startpoint. Plus quite a few indie games - the one most memorable is Grey Ranks - you're a resistance member in Krackow in a specific month during WW II. There are games without character gen, too - Marvel Heroic technically only has a process for rating existing characters, but that's close enough for many... Cosmic Patrol has a similar level of "character gen" - the intended mode for both is pregens for everyone, with the rating new characters being a "just to appease." The Dune starter box has neither character gen nor full pregens - buy it to find the details, but it's a variation on creation-during-play. And Character Creation in Feng Shui 2 is "Pick a template, transcribe/copy/print it out, put a name on it." Dallas: The RPG has only pregens as well, and has a defined starting scenario. (It's a fairly narrativist approach, even; shocking for the early 1980's.)

There are many wargames, both board and minis, that require building a scenario and have no explicit single startpoint; the best known board versions are Squad Leader and SFB, with Wooden Ships and Iron Men, and Harpoon being the second tier of being known, and for minis games, Warhammer and 40K are "Pick a point size and then pick forces..." Striker II and Soldier's Companion are GDW's equivalent efforts. Many minis wargames and many hex-based tactical sims also do the "Here's how to build a scenario" and "here's how to select forces for faction X"....

And that's ignoring the "Intentionally straddling the divide" games like Car Wars, Battlestations! (Gorilla Games), Inquisitor, and Necromunda.


You've argued that RPGs are different because work has to be done, and then discounted the "grab-n-go" flavor of RPG's because the work has been done by someone, completely ignoring that most minis wargames work the same way, and many hex-and-counter tac sims work the same way. If SFB counts as ready to play out of the box, then so does Star Trek Adventures Beginner Box or the Edge of the Empire Beginner Box. If the two starters do not count as ready to play, then neither does SFB, Starfire 1E/2E/3E, nor Warhammer 40K (esp. 1st ed).... Starfire 4e's prescribed start point involves system generation, then buying a starting fleet.... averages over an hour in 2E/3E campaign mechanics.

 

[Hussar]

Beginner sets are not full RPG's though, are they? They are, well, beginner sets. Stripped down rulesets with many of the options turned off. No one plays the Star Trek Adventures Beginner Box more than once, do they? You play the Beginner boxes with the notion of learning how to play the actual game. They aren't meant as a full RPG on their own. Even going back to Basic D&D, it wasn't meant to be a stand alone product.

You mention Squad Leader. Thing is, every time I play Squad Leader, it's going to be very similar to every other time I play Squad Leader. Sure, the specific scenario might be different, but, it's still going to be an armed conflict within a very limited time period. I can't use Squad Leader to play out Star Fleet Battles after all.

See, even the "Here's how to build a scenario" rules for wargames are still constrained by the limitations of those wargames. The scenarios are extremely proscribed by the mechanics of that system. You will never play a game of Necromunda where you are courtiers in a royal court in one campaign and dirt poor street urchins in the next campaign, and then murder hoboes in the third campaign, all with the same ruleset.

I can do all three of those with any number of RPG rulesets. I cannot do all three of those with virtually any boxed game or computer game.

I could use the Traveller rules to do Battlestar Galactica (Original or Reboot), Buck Rogers, Pitch Black or Farscape. No single non RPG will allow me to do that.