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]

There was quite a lot I liked about 4e as a GM. Skill challenges and monster stat blocks and minions and the way enemies were tiered. There were some drawbacks as well, but quite a bit I liked.

On the player side there was less I liked. My group enjoyed it for a bit, but I think the novelty wore off.

They asked to move over to Pathfinder, and I agreed. A move I now regret because Pathfinder for me was....ugh. It was a slow spiral down into everything I had come to hate about gaming.

My knowledge of 3E/PF is a bit like your knowledge of 4e - limited play experience + a lot of reputation.

That knowledge base gives me an impression that 3E/PF has extremely complex PC build rules (rivalling Rolemaster, it would seem) which don't seem to deliver a lot of pay-off, in the sense that PCs can vary quite wildly in mechanical effectiveness for no reason that seems to make much sense from the point of view of game play or game design.

There are also a lot of keywords whose function seems to be to generate a connection to the fiction that strikes me as rather superficial - eg dragons can have double-digit natural armour bonuses, but in the fiction I don't know what that is meant to mean given that the best forged armour bonus seems to be around +15 or so for +6 magic plate armour. What does it mean to say that a typical adult dragon has natural armour that is tougher than what a powerful archmage, or even Hephaestus, can forge?

One of the things I like about 4e is that, while the rules don't always come out and expressly tell you, it's generally pretty easy to see what bits of the build mechanics, and the stat blocks they yield, are concerned with the fiction and what bits are about locating this particular game element within a metagame context. So the "power" keyword on a bonus is about the latter - it's part of a stacking rule. Likewise the +30 to attack on an epic tier character or creature - that's a system-based comparator used against an equally-metagame defence number, and the high defence number signals the story significance (ie epic rather than heroic) of the entity in question.

But keywords like "fire" or "cold" or "arcane" or "teleportation" - while they can have mechanical significance - are also straightforwardly anchored to the fiction. To give an example that came fairly early in my 4e GMing experience: when a player wanted his PC to use the Icy Terrain power, which has the "cold" keyword, to freeze part of a stream or pond (I've forgotten the precise details) I had no trouble saying yes (again I can't remember the precise details of resolution, but I probably called for an Arcana check). This seems a natural application of, and extrapolation from, the DMG discussion of using powers to affect objects (the example given there is of gauzy curtains being particularly vulnerable to fire damage).

That's not to say that the game is perfect. There are some published creatures that have levels and associated numbers (attacks, defences etc) that locate them in (say) the paragon or epic tiers while the associated fiction gives no explanation of what makes them any different, story-wise, from a typical Orc or giant ant. Some obvious keywords weren't initially included where they should have been.

As an example of this last point, consider the Deathlock Wight's horrific visage:

Horrific Visage (standard; recharge 4, 5, 6) * Fear
Close blast 5; +7 vs. Will; 1d6 damage, and the target is pushed 3 squares.​

I remember loving this when I read it - the wight fixes its gaze on its enemies and they recoil in horror (it also demonstrates mechanical elegance in design - the "blast" keyword can do duty both for "cones" like burning hands and for facing-based attacks like gazes; and the push mechanic can work not just for a target being moved by its attacker, but for a target moving instinctively in response to something its attack does to it). When I used a deathlock wight in play of course I had a pit nearby, which one or maybe two PCs fell into as they fell back from the undead.

But the damage should have the "psychic" keyword. I can't remember now if I fixed this at the time; but WotC picked it up and fixed it in a revised version of the creature published on their website.

There's a school of thought that sees 3E/PF as very "rich" or "deep" and 4e as "shallow" or "superficial", but I don't get that at all. It seems to rest on a very different conception from my own as to what makes a RPG rich and what the relationship between mechanics and fiction should be.

 

[pemerton]

I tend to think 4e excels at co-operative combat romp far more than anything else, but I can see how it could be used in the way mbc and @pemerton regularly describe. I just tend to find other things better suited to that style - such as PbtA and Burning Wheel!

One of the "knockabout cooperative combat romp" aspects of 4e is its success rate, which is much higher than in BW or (I suspect, but based on less play experience) PbtA.

Which means it puts less pressure on the players, I think - or at least less emotional pressure. It can be quite high on technical pressure!

 

[Imaculata]

That knowledge base gives me an impression that 3E/PF has extremely complex PC build rules (rivalling Rolemaster, it would seem) which don't seem to deliver a lot of pay-off, in the sense that PCs can vary quite wildly in mechanical effectiveness for no reason that seems to make much sense from the point of view of game play or game design.

I play 3.5/PF exclusively, and that is not my experience. PC build options in 3.5/PF have a lot of options which can create radically different characters, but they are not difficult to understand at all. The variation in effectiveness that can occur is a feature of almost any good system where you can create a character: not every choice results in an optimised character. That is the point and fun of building your own character. You can specialize or you can be an allrounder. Some feats are powerful, others less so. But you can create PC's that play very differently from one another and can do very different things.

There are also a lot of keywords whose function seems to be to generate a connection to the fiction that strikes me as rather superficial - eg dragons can have double-digit natural armour bonuses, but in the fiction I don't know what that is meant to mean given that the best forged armour bonus seems to be around +15 or so for +6 magic plate armour. What does it mean to say that a typical adult dragon has natural armour that is tougher than what a powerful archmage, or even Hephaestus, can forge?

It is simply a misunderstanding of the rules on your part that you think there needs to be an ingame justification for the higher armor class in the fiction of the game. That is not how AC works in 3.5/PF. Dragons have high AC because they are top tier opponents, and their defense needs to match the offense of PC's at higher levels. That is the only reason necessary. Tough opponent == tough AC. Dragons are foes intended for high level PC's. PC's gain higher and higher attack bonusses as they level up, plus bonusses from feats, and bonusses from magical items. Add all that together, and a high level PC easily hits for 20 or 30+. So high level foes need an AC to match that.

 

[pemerton]

I play 3.5/PF exclusively, and that is not my experience. PC build options in 3.5/PF have a lot of options which can create radically different characters, but they are not difficult to understand at all. The variation in effectiveness that can occur is a feature of almost any good system where you can create a character

Of systems that I'm familiar with, the one that produces the most variation in character effectiveness is Classic Traveller. But that is an output of the underlying logic of PC building: older characters are, everything else being equal, more experienced.

I agree with @Manbearcat that one of the strengths of 4e D&D is that the wide variety of builds doesn't produce a significant variations in effectiveness.

not every choice results in an optimised character. That is the point and fun of building your own character. You can specialize or you can be an allrounder. Some feats are powerful, others less so. But you can create PC's that play very differently from one another and can do very different things.

I have no objection to characters who are different from one another! But that's not really the same thing as being "optimised" or not (optimised for what?). I guess it does relate to being specialist or an all-rounder, in the sense that if all the PCs are all-rounders then they're probably not that different from one another.

It is simply a misunderstanding of the rules on your part that you think there needs to be an ingame justification for the higher armor class in the fiction of the game. That is not how AC works in 3.5/PF. Dragons have high AC because they are top tier opponents, and their defense needs to match the offense of PC's at higher levels. That is the only reason necessary. Tough opponent == tough AC. Dragons are foes intended for high level PC's. PC's gain higher and higher attack bonusses as they level up, plus bonusses from feats, and bonusses from magical items. Add all that together, and a high level PC easily hits for 20 or 30+. So high level foes need an AC to match that.

Then why label it "natural armour"? What's the point of the keyword? Why not just call it a "level bonus" or some similar metagame label, as 4e uses?

 

[Imaculata]

Then why label it "natural armour"? What's the point of the keyword? Why not just call it a "level bonus" or some similar metagame label, as 4e uses?

Because natural armor is different from regular armor. In the 3rd edition rules, an opponent loses their armor bonus against touch attacks. This does not apply to natural armor, hence the different terminology. Touch attacks affect your skin directly, but since a dragon's natural armor is their skin, they can't lose it even when subject to a touch attack.

 

[darkbard]

Because natural armor is different from regular armor. In the 3rd edition rules, an opponent loses their armor bonus against touch attacks. This does not apply to natural armor, hence the different terminology. Touch attacks affect your skin directly, but since a dragon's natural armor is their skin, they can't lose it even when subject to a touch attack.

Doesn't this make natural armor as a keyword less logically coherent rather than more? I mean, if the idea is that mere contact transmits the damage/spell effect/whatever, how does the dragon's (or any other creature with) natural armor negate this?

 

[Imaculata]

Doesn't this make natural armor as a keyword less logically coherent rather than more? I mean, if the idea is that mere contact transmits the damage/spell effect/whatever, how does the dragon's (or any other creature with natural armor) negate this?

It makes sense as a keyword, for the purpose of understanding how armor works in 3rd edition. Touch attacks negate worn armor, not tough skin. A dragon's natural armor is not a suit of armor, it is their skin. But for the purpose of determing if you hit the dragon or not, calling it a type of armor makes more sense.

Keep in mind that 3rd edition has many other types of armor bonuses that stack on top of your base armor. There is a dodge bonus, alchemical bonus, deflection bonus, armor bonus, shield bonus, enhancement bonus, among others. Adding a new one would just make things more complicated.

 

[Ovinomancer]

It makes sense as a keyword, for the purpose of understanding how armor works in 3rd edition. Touch attacks negate worn armor, not tough skin. A dragon's natural armor is not a suit of armor, it is their skin. But for the purpose of determing if you hit the dragon or not, calling it a type of armor makes more sense.

Keep in mind that 3rd edition has many other types of armor bonuses that stack on top of your base armor. There is a dodge bonus, alchemical bonus, deflection bonus, armor bonus, shield bonus, enhancement bonus, among others. Adding a new one would just make things more complicated.

Narural armor does not add to touch AC in 3/3.5. Dunno if this was changed in pathfinder. Natural armor also does not stack with other armor bonuses.

As such, the difference between natural armor and armor was almost entirely about the fiction -- it's descriptive only outside of resting rules.

 

[Joe Pilkus]

Great piece and I wholeheartedly agree with the main points and it sparked some interesting, if unexpected, discussion. As an RPG player for four decades you cite those elements that I find most appealing.

Earlier, zarionofarabel mentions Traveller and in the original version, for which Marc Miller should be commended, I absolutely abhored the fact that there was no progression. I have a job and a mortgage...I don't want to play a game in which I have a job and a mortgage. To that end, we thus created and devised our own progression tracks.

I have put pen to paper on numerous occasions to design an RPG and it's a daunting task. I tip my hat to those who have come before me and penned these wonderful RPGs over the past five decades.

Cheers,
Joe

 

[Imaculata]

Natural armor does not add to touch AC in 3/3.5. Dunno if this was changed in pathfinder. Natural armor also does not stack with other armor bonuses.

As such, the difference between natural armor and armor was almost entirely about the fiction -- it's descriptive only outside of resting rules.

You may be right about touch attacks and natural armor. But then even then, armor and natural armor are two different things. You can have natural armor and also be wearing a suit of armor on top of it (They don't stack, the highest one applies). That alone is a reason to keep them separate.