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.
​

“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?

 

[billd91]

What does your hemisphere, East or West, have to do with you being passive-aggressive and judgmental, accusing folks of "making up controversy"?

Maybe nothing, but I don’t have a problem with questioning the topic since these “controversies” are fodder for rampant gatekeeping.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Mutants & Masterminds characters generally don't progress. The PCs are created at a certain power level and stay there forever. The GM does have the option of increasing the power level if they wish, but steady increases in character ability is not part of a normal campaign.

Uhm, while superhero games are absolutely the genre that most often is used at static advancement (and where its most justified), that's absolutely not the default for M&M, which ordinarily gives out a power point per session, and a PL every 15 power points. It only presents static characters as an option.

I'd suspect you've internalized the way you're used to playing as the default for that system, and its not.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Likewise. Gatekeeping and tribalism have not done RPGs any favors.

I'd go as far as to describe it as a plague on discussion on the topic.

 

[loverdrive]

My hesitation about this definition is that it tends to define a wargame-y, "skilled play" dungeoncrawl as not RPGing: in that sort of play the character is a game-piece but not really an object of focus beyond that, and doesn't really get explored. And changes in the gamepiece (level gain, in that sort of play) are not driven by events in any meaningful way - "beating" the dungeon will earn the same XP whatever the actual pathway of events that leads to that outcome.

Well, I don't consider beating dungeons with gamepieces instead of characters role-playing, and, frankly, I don't think that anyone out there seriously does.

And even in plain dungeoncrawling, characters are important, even if the changes are as simple as "orcs killed my buddies and now I hate their green guts!".

 

[Thomas Shey]

Well, I don't consider beating dungeons with gamepieces instead of characters role-playing, and, frankly, I don't think that anyone out there seriously does.

And even in plain dungeoncrawling, characters are important, even if the changes are as simple as "orcs killed my buddies and now I hate their green guts!".

I'd suggest that a large number of people have spent much of the lifespan of D&D "beating dungeons with gamepieces (tokens)" in practical terms. Once you start getting into how much distinct personality you have to add to characters over your own to be playing in a roleplaying game, it goes to some particularly sticky places.

 

[pemerton]

Well, I don't consider beating dungeons with gamepieces instead of characters role-playing

Fair enough!

and, frankly, I don't think that anyone out there seriously does.

On this I think I agree with @Thomas Shey - I think it's a pretty common approach to the play of D&D.

 

[DemoMonkey]

Whether you are roleplaying in a game, is not the same thing as whether it is a roleplaying game.

(No, that's not nonsense. Bear with me.)

I will roleplay in ANY game, if you define "roleplaying" as "playing a role". Naming myself ? Speaking in character? Making choices based on the situation and other people at the table, as if I was the persona I've assumed?

I've done that in RISK, for goodness sake. It's not universal in my gaming circles, but it's certainly not unique.

So if you want to make a meaningful definition of roleplaying game it (paradoxically) needs to have criteria other than "can be roleplayed" and "is a game".

 

[Hussar]

I have to admit, that I've tried to push a somewhat different approach to defining RPG's because, as is seen here, trying the traditional methods (RPG's aren't board games because of this, they aren't war-games because of that) get bogged down in all sorts of counter examples.

To me, an RPG is a game design engine. Unlike virtually any game out there, you cannot simply play an RPG. You need to go through several steps - character creation, campaign creation, setting creation - before you can even begin to actually sit down and play.

In any board game, I read the rules, set up the board and start play. I don't need to do anything else before I start play besides learning the rules and setting up the table. Everything that I am going to use in that game will be included in that game.

None of that is true of an RPG. Telling someone that you are playing Settlers of Catan or Advanced Squad Leader tells them pretty much everything they need to know. They can pretty accurately describe what your game will look like, at least at the outset.

I'm playing Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition on Tuesday. What is my game going to look like?

 

[zarionofarabel]

Uhm, while superhero games are absolutely the genre that most often is used at static advancement (and where its most justified), that's absolutely not the default for M&M, which ordinarily gives out a power point per session, and a PL every 15 power points. It only presents static characters as an option.

I'd suspect you've internalized the way you're used to playing as the default for that system, and its not.

They must have changed that in the newer editions. The default for M&M was PL 10, and that's where the PCs stayed unless the whole group agreed on an increase in PL.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

I'd suggest that a large number of people have spent much of the lifespan of D&D "beating dungeons with gamepieces (tokens)" in practical terms. Once you start getting into how much distinct personality you have to add to characters over your own to be playing in a roleplaying game, it goes to some particularly sticky places.

It's certainly a valid playstyle, but one that I think is getting rarer. New players that are attracted to that style of play are more likely to become CRPG players, because that style is a whole lot easier to machine emulate.