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?

 

[pemerton]

What differentiates a RPG from a boardgame? The fiction matters to resolution.

What differentiates a RPG from a wargame? The non-referee participants plays a single figure rather than a unit, a tank, a vessel, etc.

Put these together and I would say that a RPG is a game in which the non-referee participants play single persons (typically one each, but sometimes more than one each). Their 'moves" in the game consist primarily in saying what those persons do. And the resolution of those moves - which are declared actions, quite a bit like a wargame - depends at least in part on the fiction that all the participants agree is part of the ingame situation.

Compared to @lewpuls I think that cooperation is not so important (consider RPGing with one player and one GM/referee; or an Apocalypse World game where the PCs "hang out" in the same place but don't really work together), and nor is character improvement (Classic Traveller is a well-known example which has no "internal" improvement, only money and gear; and it's possible to play Traveller with the money and gear being in a net outflow rather than inflow!).

The more that a non-GM/referee participant's move can be adjudicated without engaging with the fiction of what is the participant's character doing, the more we're getting away from RPGing I think. But this is tricky, because it clearly makes no sense to suggest that D&D is not a RPG, yet it's possible to get quite a long way in resolving some D&D combats without ever having to think much about the fiction at all!

 

[volanin]

One of the best definitions I've seen comes from TheAngryGM: What defines a Tabletop RPG is that its rules are fiction-first instead of mechanics-first. To put it simply:

In fiction-first rules, your actions are only bound by the fiction of the game. You can decide to do anything that fits the situation, and then you check the rules to see which one better suits your action. This is only possible because we have one or more human GMs to adjudicate these actions (even in GMless games, where everyone is technically a GM).

In mechanics-first rules, your actions are bound by the game mechanics. First you look at the rules, and then you decide your action based on what the rules allow you to do. We have this in boardgames and videogames (even electronic RPG games, although they do have avatars, progressive improvement and cooperation).

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.

This was almost on target, but I have to disagree on the "linear plot" argument. Even in the most railroaded of games, with a very linear story, you have fiction-first characteristics. As long as I'm not breaking the story, no GM would be against me trying to swing from a chandellier to hit an enemy, or trying to seduce the empress. And that's why linear Tabletop RPGs and linear Electronic RPGs feel so different.

 

[Umbran]

Yeah, I'm sorry, but... the OP has some major flaws.

Specifically, I want to call out "Progressive Improvement". By that measure, if you play one session of a game, it fails to be an RPG. I reject that notion entirely as being nonsensical.

I submit that RPGs are a genre of game. And much like genres of fiction, they benefit from an inclusive approach to definition. List a bunch of elements that are common in RPGs. If a game has enough of the elements (for some value of "enough"), it is an RPG. It does not need to have all the tropes. It may even be missing some that you personally feel are important. So, while progressive improvement is common, and even desirable, it isn't necessary.

Also note that being an RPG doesn't mean a game isn't also something else. Just as in fiction, where you can have things like the "space-western", games can fit multiple genres at once - they aren't mutually exclusive. Maybe an RPG is also a storytelling game, or also a board game, or also a computer game, or also a tactical wargame.

This can remove a whole lot of angst from your conversation. Embrace the power of "and", rather than "exclusive-or".

 

[Umbran]

I will add that the desire to draw strong lines around RPGs has, historically, seemed to be less about wanting to actually understand our hobby, and more to do with gatekeeping and tribalism.

If it makes you feel good (or perhaps smug) to say, "Those people aren't playing an RPG, they are playing a storytelling game," then that definition is about your feelings, not about the games.

 

[DemoMonkey]

"I will add that the desire to draw strong lines around RPGs has, historically, seemed to be less about wanting to actually understand our hobby, and more to do with gatekeeping and tribalism."

You say that as if it's a bad thing.

 

[DemoMonkey]

So, would "Honey Heist" be an RPG by the above definition?

 

[Umbran]

"I will add that the desire to draw strong lines around RPGs has, historically, seemed to be less about wanting to actually understand our hobby, and more to do with gatekeeping and tribalism."

You say that as if it's a bad thing.

Yes. Yes I do.

 

[dragoner]

"Those people aren't playing an RPG, they are playing a storytelling game," then that definition is about your feelings, not about the games.

It is also terminology co-opted by alt right, white supremacists, fascists, and such; and as such, sort of a call out to them, fellow travelers. So people that use such terminology should not be surprised when it elicits a harsh and negative reaction. I come here to game, and relax, not remember or re-live what happened to my family in the 1940's. If someone wants to discuss an idea similar to storytelling, then the onus on them is to come up with new terminology, but that is also wandering into a minefield.

Per OP, my definition is a game in where you play a role. Now that could be Clue, according to KISS or scientific parsimony, and I don't care? Fine with me, it is what one makes of it, and I sincerely wish one has fun. I also think you should make the character you want to play because it could be the last character you ever play, and why waste time with doing something else? That is important.

I know others do not feel this way, and that is fine too, because I am not trying to be some "fun fuehrer" and tell people how to play their games. I guess one does have to make up some sort of controversy, to have something to talk about though.

 

[Umbran]

I know others do not feel this way, and that is fine too, because I am not trying to be some "fun fuehrer" and tell people how to play their games. I guess one does have to make up some sort of controversy, to have something to talk about though.

So, this comes across... badly. "I'm not telling you what to do, but I AM going to denigrate your discussion as made-up controversy." Maybe you don't realize how this will read as rather passive-aggressive and judgmental, and thus helping to create the very controversy you say is made-up.