This is a topic I see quite often in many forums I visit, and it's of an interest to me since I consider myself an RPG enthusiast -- I've played the classics of old -- Ultima, Might & Magic, Wizardry, Betrayal at Krondor, Realms of Arkania, ect. and I've studied the evolution and changes within the genre.

Interestingly, having done this, I've noticed a lot of misinformation regarding the genre. The most prominent one I've seen is that first-person/real-time is an evolution of the genre.

The truth is that it has existed since the dawn of the cRPG genre, beginning with Akalabeth:World of Doom and gaining widespread popularity with the Wizardry and Might and Magic series and, of course, Ultima Underworld.

It is as old if not older than top-down/turn-based.

Another contention I see a lot of is that RPGs are primarily about story-telling devices:

• Dialog as a way of progression


• Branching dialog trees


• Branching questlines


• NPC depth


• Choices and consequences

This to me, forgoes many of the aspects that make up the genre, from character building, item collection, to partially probabilistic combat as a way of progression in a game.

Many of the RPGs listed above didn't really have much in the way of choices and consequences, but they excelled in other areas, especially character development and probabilistic combat.

Many people have varying definitions for an RPG, but I think it's fair to say that all RPGs that have been defined as such have shared common characteristics which can be readily seen -- some games simply focus on areas more so than others.

From my point of view, Fallout 4 is just as much of an RPG as Might & Magic 6 for instance or Ultima 7, in some ways. Simply, it excludes elements important to the original Fallout's, the story devices namely, while focusing on other elements -- combat, free-roam exploration, items, and character building.

What do you guys think? Is it an RPG?

There is no exact border defining a RPG i think.

In my opinion you can call it a RPG.

On the other hand, if someone asked me if i know a good RPG to play, FO4 wouldn't come to my mind.

I think there is. The genre has existed for close to three decades in computer form, and long than that on tabletop. I think it has defining characteristics that separate it from other genres, which I enumerated above.

It's hard to say Borderlands is a full-blown RPG in the same way Fallout 4 or Wizardry are.

But I have to ask -- why wouldn't Fallout 4 come to mind?

Yes, but my beef with this kind of discussion is that RPG is simply a very broad genre category, and too many people treat it as some sacred honorific.

As for things like the storyline, and branching dialog... regardless of what the other Fallout games did, Fallout 4 is Bethesda's best work in this regard. At least I think so. And remember that Bethesda's forte has always been open-world RPGs focused on exploration and character building, and hardly on story - even Morrowind's story was a just string of fetch quests and banol tasks, it was the lore and the setting that made us love it.

Bethesda? RPG? Is that an oxymoron? I thought Bethesda made random Genres of games that they only label RPG to sell it?

_{(this is a joke, By The Way)}

It is a very broad genre to be sure. I think people get caught on too many fine details that may have defined their experiences with other games. I will not deny that playing Fallout 1 had an impact on what my idea of what RPGs could be, but by saying that RPGs have to include the same elements that made up that game excludes the vast majority of RPGs hitherto Fallout 1.

I wonder what many people think of the Goldbox titles since they had virtually no choices and consequences nor dialog influenced quests. It was simply free-roam exploration and combat, much in the same way Fallout 4 is, except Fallout 4 has more of the above than did say Champions of Krynn.

Because he asked me for a "good" RPG... and while FO4 is a good game with a nice mix of features, anyone i ever played RPGs with wouldn't be satisfied with it.

It just feels too shallow, the dialogues, nonexistant choices... for some this would be a no-go.

For me RPG video games are (Role Playing Video Games).

You can create fully customizable female Player Characters (PC's) and fully customizable male Player Characters (PC's) in Fallout 4.

I consider The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim a action adventure RPG video game.

Fallout 4 might be a action shooter RPG video game?

All Bethesda Game Studios developed video games are RPG video games, but I feel like the RP is getting removed more and more in each new video game that Bethesda Game Studios develops and releases for sale in the future.

By this, does that mean Wizardry 6 and 7 are no-goes as well? I would certainly recommend those titles to any RPG enthusiast.

Truly, Wizardry has defined the genre just as much as Fallout has.

i don't remember if i played those... so most likely not.

therefore i can't answer this, not even subjectively.

Honestly, I feel that Bethesda, or any Video Game developer does not make "RPGs" in the traditional sense. They make video games that have elements of traditional RPGs in them, and players have to actually RP. Without the player being able to truly RP, the game can't truly be called an RPG, for that player at least.

I agree. The definition of an RPG is very broad and as a result people can quite easily argue it's characteristics.

Fallout is a shooter at it's core, but it has a complicated experience and leveling system, and multiple quests with the opportunity to decide what occurs though your dialogue or actions. So I'd call it an RPG with shooter mechanics. What's great about the definition of an RPG is that you could have a shooter based RPG. It's a bit like how Mass Effect 2 was a cover based 3rd person shooter, but it was also (by most people's standards) a fantastic RPG.

I consider souls series RPG where many people disagree, so yes, Fallout 4 is an rpg to me.

Or moreover, Morrowind. The dialog is built like a wiki - you hardly have any choice in how you express your character's identity, and if you use the generic topics as a way to project your own interpretation into the dialog you're still just thinking of novel ways to ask expository questions, or accept quests, without even a different NPC reaction. The quests themselves are very linear, and the majority of them boil down to "get this item" or "kill this thing". The choice in Morrowind (and arguably all Elder Scrolls games) hasn't been how you complete quests, it's what quests you take and the factions you join. Very open-ended in character-building though, and it has been since Daggerfall introduced the classmaker and skills that grow through use.

Well, it's only a shooter in the sense that you're using guns in the game instead of swords, otherwise, the combat is skill based rather than player based, at least somewhat.

My opinion personally on why the RPG genre is hard to define is due to vast marketing more so than curating. For those of us who have played RPGs from the beginning, and played the classics that have built the genre and also play table-top, it's not as difficult to define. Most, don't know how the genre began, and some have only given the genre a cursory glance by playing one or two games in the genre and then defining it as thus.

The gaming medium simply needs more appreciation for the classics, but it's very hard to do, when the marketing establishes that any new game is better than the old.

For me, all open world games are Role Playing Games, because I play a role through my character and can interact with an imaginary world.

In contrast to that, there are linear shooters, where your exploration is limited to a pre-defined area, like in the Half Life series. I would never consider those games an RPG. I play a role, I can interact with the world, but your interactions are very limited and you have to stay on the path that is laid out before you. There are no deviations permitted.

Dragon Age for instance, I do consider an RPG, even so the earlier games had a defined area and there was no open world exploration. However, your actions affected your companions and the world around you. Therefore, you could create and mold your character's role.

For instance, I can be a thief in Skyrim and ignore everything else. I can be the leader of the Minutemen and re-define the Commonwealth by helping different settlements and/or build my own in Fallout 4.

I believe that 80% of the RPG element is actually your own imagination. A game should never paint a 100% picture for you. Some things should be left over to the imagination.

Fallout 4 is considerably more of an RPG than Pokemon, which is considered to be an RPG (if that makes sense).

Point I'm making is that it is and RPG, but one doesn't have to consider it a good RPG.

I would consider Fallout 4 an RPG, as it has the basic elements of what I consider to be an RPG. And, in my opinion, an RPG can be fantasy, shooter, real-world, etc. Just because Fallout 3, NV, and 4 are post-apocalyptic first-person-shooters doesn't make them any less of an RPG. My ideal RPG model is certainly the original Knights of the Old Republic, although I prefer customizing the overall look of my characters (KotOR only gave you generic faces to choose from). By this basis, I also love Jade Empire, and Skyrim. You may even consider the Pokemon and Final Fantasy games to be RPGs, as, even though you don't customize the main character necessarily, you have control over your team and fighting style. I think there is a whole spectrum of "RPG" games, from the completely open-world to more restrictive.

But, in the end, it's all subjective.

Well, how would you define a good RPG then, and how do earlier CRPG classics compare?

Maybe, I'm assuming that everyone has played these classics, but it's very hard to say a genre should do this while dismissing games in the genre that have catapulted it where it is today, and are still just as relevant as they were 20 years ago.

The RPG genre was for smarter, nerdier gamers. As gaming becomes mainstream they strip out anything confusing to idiots, this is why every rpg is more simplistic than the one before. Previous fallout games required planning your character in advance. In f4 there's no cap, no traits, no utility perks, no morality, no skill dialog choices... just randomly generated combat missions.


If you are confused just look at the movie industry.

Absolutely, and a good one too, some people just like to have this narrow, somewhat old mindset that a RPG is measured by how complicated it is, so when 4 presents a smoother, more streamlined way of a RPG, some folks are just disappointed they cant put on there glasses and do complicated math and min/max number crunching.

I recently read something from back in the Morrowind days when they were talking about how Morrowind fits into gaming as a whole, and they said that their goal is basically to refine the essence of tabletop roleplaying into a video game form. Not making it all about stats and what not, but taking the creative freedom that tabletop gives you to do that old phrase of "Create whoever you want, and be whoever you want" and turning that into a video game.

Not much has changed since those days on that front, and for good reason since there hasn't really been a game that can compete on the same level as Bethesda. I played Daggerfall for the first time last month, and I can still see the old phrases that guide the design of the game. Open World Roleplaying is something that is quite amazing, and not easily matched. I am very glad that Bethesda has hit it big and that this kind of game can never die.

I really appreciate your response there. It's mature and honest.

Which raises a question. What's the point when a game transitions from containing RPG elements over into an RPG? I'd look at something like the Diablo games and I would not call them RPGs even though they have RPG elements like leveling, character customization, etc... But the very linear nature of the game and the core focus on combat with little in the way of focusing on influencing the game through dialogue would both push it away from my own definition of an RPG.

To refer to a very recent game, Stardew Valley might be an RPG. You level, there are quests, there's a story there that you make, your interactions and dialogue with NPCs determines how your relationships with them progress and to an extent how your game progresses. But it might not. It's a farming sim with heavy RPG elements. So does the presence of the characteristics of another traditional genre override the title of RPG? That's especially an issue now that turn-based combat has been removed from the RPG characteristics. There are a lot of real time RPGs out there (Mass Effect is a good one) that would appear to defy that characteristic.

The presence of RP options are also a point to ponder. How much is necessary for a game to be considered an RPG? Fallout 4 has a number of moments where, through dialogue influenced by your stats, a quest can be completed without combat (Skinny Malone for example). The quantity of those situations does appear to be less than in a classic RPG like Baldur's Gate. But Baldur's Gate also had many situations where the character was railroaded into decisions with no opportunity to RP their way out.

I don't have an answer here. But I like how this thread's staying very civil so far, and that's always leads to the best conversations IMO. It's also a topic that's close to my heart so I'd love to see where this one goes.

The original Fallout was the quite the black sheep then as opposed to many RPGs during and before it with it's heavy use of themes and fast-paced combat for the time, not to mention single-player focused and use of heavy dialog for progression purposes. The genre didn't begin with Fallout, and Fallout kind of did dumb down aspects consistent with the genre. It was a pivotal game, that may have changed the genre for good, and it's also one of my favorites, but even Fallout streamlined many aspects of the genre. It would be difficult for me to say that they were appealing to the lowest common denominator, just as it is difficult for me to say that concerning Fallout 4. It's simply not true.

To answer the question in bold: The player is the point where it becomes an "rpg" or not. IF the player can RP in the game, it can be called and 'RPG' because that player is a ROLE PLAYER. IF not, then it should not be called an "rpg" because the player can't Role Play.

You can play an "rpg" all day, but if you are making the same decisions every time, are you truly Role Playing?