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?

 

[Ovinomancer]

Something I would generally agree with - it would be a pretty perverse intent to deliberately design options to trick people into taking. Generally, a trap would be a ploy emerging in competitive play that a player falls for.

Yeah, I know. And as I've been saying, it's a value laden term, one that, I believe, reflects more of a deficiency in the culture that coined it rather than being honestly descriptive or constructively critical.

I'm curious what deficiency you're speaking to. Is calling an option that should be avoided or used off-description (and will be if you have sufficient skill at the system) a "trap" indicative of a deficiency? It's a simple term that grasps the core concept -- that this option is best avoided as it will be less useful that others.

 

[Campbell]

Regardless of designer intent or personal feelings on what players should be motivated by I think it's fairly obvious that some games are more susceptible than others to a player who is trying to realize a particular sort of character failing to actually do so. It's much harder to do so because of build choices in PF2 than PF1. Same goes for Exalted Third Edition in comparison to Exalted Second Edition. Same for recent versions of Vampire and Legend of the Five Rings compared to prior iterations. A lot of more recent design has been aimed in the direction of removing counterintuitive stumbling blocks when it comes to character design.

To be fair at the same time a lot if of more modern design is pointed towards shifting that burden instead to play. I am personally a fan of that, but I have also seen players get deeply frustrated by games like PF2 and Exalted Third Edition that leave living up to your conception of your character up to choices made at the table. Like I had a player walk out of an Exalted game because they just wanted to hit things and be awesome instead of engaging with the mechanics. This player was fine with more build centric games, but not more gameplay oriented ones.

 

[pemerton]

A lot of more recent design has been aimed in the direction of removing counterintuitive stumbling blocks when it comes to character design.

To be fair at the same time a lot if of more modern design is pointed towards shifting that burden instead to play. I am personally a fan of that, but I have also seen players get deeply frustrated by games like PF2 and Exalted Third Edition that leave living up to your conception of your character up to choices made at the table. Like I had a player walk out of an Exalted game because they just wanted to hit things and be awesome instead of engaging with the mechanics. This player was fine with more build centric games, but not more gameplay oriented ones.

I think 4e provides an interesting example of trying to combine build and play.

The build rules are mostly free of "traps", I think (not completely: Power Attack always looked bad to me). If you want to build (say) an archer, or a polearm expert, you do have to go through the work of putting it together, but for any given option you look at it's generally pretty clear whether or not it will help you.

But once you've got your build you can't just turn up, hit "play" and sit back. The system will force you to make choices, and making those well or poorly can have quite an influence on how your character turns out.

 

[Aldarc]

In many cases, assuming designed intent for the more toxic inclusions is the less charitable stance; ignorance implies no malice.

I don't necessarily think that there was malice on the part of the designers - none at all actually - but poor design choices from ignorance of how their system plays out in practice is not exactly a compelling argument either, but regardless of whether the design choices (and associated implications) were done from malice or ignorance, the culpability rests with the designers.

 

[chaochou]

It's labeled a trap because people want to pass on some kind of malignant deficiency toward the designers, more like.

You're a fine one to write things like this and then accuse others of 'value-laden' posts and bias.

Hypocrisy in plain sight.

 

[pemerton]

The semantics of "trap option" are pretty clear:

build options that, through name and surface-level content look like they will enable your PC to do X or to be Y, in fact turn out not to deliver that X-ness or Y-ness in the typical run of play.

Is there a word in English for something that has a different and undesired upshot relative to what it suggests by its surface appearance?

Yes. Trap, used as a straightforward metaphor.

EDIT: I went back upthread and found the same point made here:

The "trap" option is that the option doesn't do what's anticipated -- that you need to have a strong understanding of the entire system to understand how that option can be used. If you just select skill focus going by what it says, it underperforms and you can end up with exactly my situation.

<snip>

That this is labeled a "trap" is because it is -- if you don't know to look for it, you can fall into it, just as I did in my example.

FURTHER EDIT:
Of course the word "trap" is value laden. A trap is, by its very nature, something you don't want to fall into. And that's the case with these build options: you don't want to end up with stuff on your sheet that doesn't deliver the outcome, in play, that it led you to expect when you selected it.

Is it good for a game to have traps? Well Classic D&D has heaps of them in its gameplay, from stuff that, in the fiction, is literally a trap to highly metagame stuff like mimics that trick looting players or traps that are triggered when you poke 10' in front of them with a pole or rotating rooms that muck up your map.

Outwitting these is part and parcel of play.

Whether they should be part of PC build in a RPG seems a matter of taste. But 3E D&D clearly seems to have them!

 

[Aldarc]

IMHO, part of the problem with 3e's basic design was that playing nearly anything that wasn't a Cleric, Druid, or Wizard (and possibly later Artificer) - or roughly Tier 1 (and to a certain extent Tier 2) - was the real trap regardless of what feats, whether traps or not, you selected to optimize your character. But I suspect that this was partially unintended due to the designers both overestimating (e.g., fighter combat feats, Strength, etc.) and underestimating (e.g., Spell DC, spell auto-scaling, bonus spells, etc.) certain design elements they chose.

 

[billd91]

You're a fine one to write things like this and then accuse others of 'value-laden' posts and bias.

Hypocrisy in plain sight.

Given my experiences with internet gamer culture, I'm pretty sure it's correct. Sorry, not sorry, if you feel targeted or something.

 

[Aldarc]

Given my experiences with internet gamer culture, I'm pretty sure it's correct. Sorry, not sorry, if you feel targeted or something.

@chaochou: In @billd91's defense, Cook-bashing does strangely seem to be a thing among some TTRPG circles.

 

[Ovinomancer]

@chaochou: In @billd91's defense, Cook-bashing does strangely seem to be a thing among some TTRPG circles.

I'm not a particular fan of Cook, but I see no need to bash him. He just designs games that no longer speak to me (they once did). Nothing wrong with that.