"A role-playing game (RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making or character development. Actions taken within the game succeed or fail according to a formal system of rules and guidelines.
There are several forms of RPG. The original form, sometimes called the pen-and-paper RPG, is conducted through discussion, whereas in live action role-playing games (LARP) players physically perform their characters' actions. In both of these forms, an arranger called a game master (GM) usually decides on the rules and setting to be used and acts as referee, while each of the other players plays the role of a single character.

Several varieties of RPG also exist in electronic media, including multi-player text-based MUDs and their graphics-based successors, massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs). Role-playing games also include single-player offline role-playing video games in which players control a character or team who undertake quests, and whose capabilities advance using statistical mechanics. These games often share settings and rules with pen-and-paper RPGs, but emphasize character advancement more than collaborative storytelling.

Despite this variety of forms, some game forms such as trading card games and wargames that are related to role-playing games may not be included. Role-playing activity may sometimes be present in such games, but it is not the primary focus. The term is also sometimes used to describe roleplay simulation games and exercises used in teaching, training, and academic research."

Wikipedia

Yes, maybe one day you will.

On Topic:

Stats are not just numbers, but any variable.

Okay I'll give you an example of an RPG which doesn't require stats, or indeed any other mechanic.

Lets make it an LARP set in the 1930's, maybe based around the Cthulhu Mythos. Every player has to write (or is given) a one page synopsis of his name, profession and interests. Prior to the game starting the GM sends a little précis of why they have been drawn into the adventure. The game begins with information given by an old codger about a haunting at a lonely isolated house, which he later takes them too. The remainder of the game revolves around talking with local inhabitants, discovering clues in the house, and interacting with one another in character - till they finally discover that they are the unwitting sacrifices for an ancient cult trying to summon a big-bad beastie. Game ends when they escape or manage to invoke the counter summoning ritual.

At no point throughout the entire adventure will the players have had any form of stat and in fact no kind of rules whatsoever. It is still a role-playing game however.

That is just one example, I have done the same thing as a table-top experience without the live-action part. You might consider it to be just a glorified story-telling exercise, but I would disagree since the whole emphasis is on players adopting the role of a character, then interacting with the game world to achieve an objective or challenge. Just because it lacks a discernible mathematical framework does not mean it is not role-playing or a game either.

LARP'ing? Seriously? I thought we were talking about video games here? Real life doesn't have stats, PnP RPGs do and that is what video game RPGs are based on.

Skyrim is thought to be an RPG. How do we know that it is really an RPG and not an action/adventure? How much of Skyrim is RPG and how much is action/adventure? Answering "stats" tells us nothing. You cannot take an action/adventure game and make it an RPG by adding stats. If Skyrim is an AA game, then having stats matters not. It's still an AA game.

When someone asks what makes a racing game, do we start preaching about the stats of automobiles or the stats of racers in general? No. Do we write deep, philosophical expositions about the choices and consequences that set racing games apart from others? No. We simply say that a racing game is a game where the objective is to race. That objective is all that is necessary to clearly set the racing genre apart from all other genres. We don't need lists of gameplay mechanics and specs and stats to tell a racing game from some other kind of game. What's a sports game? It is a game where your objective is to play a sport. What's a strategy game? It is a game where your objective is to exercise strategy to achieve an end. What's a shooter? It is a game where your objective is to shoot things.

Is there something different about RPGs that demands listing stats and choices-and-consequences and character-progression and social-interaction and miscellaneous other things, and not just role playing?

I disagree, roleplaying is just pretend make believe, the same way playing cowboys vs indians as a kid is just make believe. It's just more convincing, and advanced.

I say a game is a interactive story, because you made a distinction between interactive story, and being a game. You then present Mafia 2 as being an interactive story, Mafia 2 is also a game. Interactive story = game.

Mafia 2 is correctly not an rpg, but that is because it lacks choice, if it had branching paths, and you were able to choose/customize your role, it would be an rpg, regardless of whether or not it had stats. Video games all have stats of some kind, this is not the defining feature.



Without stats there's no video game, so it has nothing to do with roleplaying, because that comes from the Choice & Consequence. Every game has stats, the medium requires it, but roleplaying does not require it. Stats make the game, Choices make the roleplay. If one should differentiate between Roleplaying Games, and other Games, Choices is the defining feature.

Chess has choices and consequences. "Choices and Consequences" must be qualified or it defines nothing.

Choice of role and Choice of path. Consequence of role, and Consequence of path. Roles doesn't exist in Chess, so there's not really much to choose from. But really Choice and Consequence is just the defining feature when your dealing with two games where both are driven by a story, and you being someone in that story. The roleplaying game will have you alter that person you are, and have your choices effect the path of the story.

This.

The best things are hybrids. The "new sound" is usually a hybrid of two or more "old sounds".

The work that will become a new genre itself will be called Skyrim. TES is it's own thing.

I was challenging Xarnac's statement that roleplaying games need stats. His assertion did not delineate between types of RPG. I was proving that you can have a RPG without any stats, even a table-top game.

As many others have pointed out, yes you need some mathematical model of a character when running the world/game on a computer, but the player does not need to know or be able to tinker with these variables for it to still be an RPG.

Some DVD movies offer a scene selection feature where you can select what a character will do next and the movie plays an altered scene. Watching movies is NOT roleplaying. In these interactive multi-linear/branching story games, the same thing happens. Player watches a cutscene, like a movie; game sets player free and sends hordes of enemies where all interactivity is killing, another cutscene where player is offered a choice and game selects the next scene. I can't see the difference.



I think we can say that's because the world is interconnected on a very high level in Morrowind, at least compared to other games.

And I found where Daygon is mistaken.

There is a difference between roleplayable game and roleplaying game. RPGs need to have additional qualities, mechanics for roleplaying. Just because one can roleplay Mario doesn't make it a roleplaying game.

Now what's needed for roleplaying. There is only one stat needed and it doesn't have to be put in the game but it can come from player directly. Personality. This is all what it's about. A simulation of personalities. This happens between humans naturally so MMOs can get away with it. MMORPGs will need to have some support to deserve the RPG part. From roleplayable game to roleplaying game.

Well, I am broadening my previous definition here. The MMORPG will need to add some support, this can be character customization, stat system, jobs, classes and so on. The important part is only one of these qualities will be enough. It defines the game's goal to be an RPG. To only have one of these is not ideal but it can be seen as enough. So this definition lets a game with only stats to be an RPG where at the same time shows stats is not a must.

This is all true for singleplayer RPGs too except human interaction and freedom are needed so it can compete with MMOs.

My only problem with this definition is what if I'm roleplaying the last man on earth. Maybe I can see Dungeon Master as a human so game as dungeon master can provide the needed interaction. (Sunshine!!! Q.E.D. :teehee: )

PS. Things that can be added to the list are for supporting. These can sometimes limit the player naturally but for good reasons. Choices&Consequences is not included in the list because C&C is anti-roleplaying. It is removing freedom completely with fake choices and killing roleplaying. I'm not talking about real choices and consequences but those turn-the-page adventure games with fake choices.

In Chess you're playing the role of an emperor or strategist or god. Chess has a great variety of choices and consequences--EVERY move has a choice and consequence--and the story is one of the oldest: 2 warring kingdoms. From what you've argued so far, the main difference between defining Chess as an RPG and your definition is that Chess has more rigorous and well-defined rules.

I think it's ridiculous to classify Chess as an RPG, but by your definition Chess is probably a truer RPG than most. I get the feeling that what you and several others are really arguing is that rules, and particularly rules governed by numbers (i.e. precise rules) are limiting, and thus vague rules are better.

What several others and I have argued is that when rules become vague there's very little or no difference between an RPG and play-acting or freestyle improvisation. Improv has even more freedom than LARP, but when you start arguing that point you're pretty much splitting hairs. There's a difference, but the only people who would care are LARPers.

I agree with your post, but I'm going to nitpick a point. Sorry.

Real life does have stats, but it doesn't have a HUD (though good or bad that's on it's way). It's easy to measure physical stats and their progress, and most if not all pro athletes do**. The whole point of steroids and similar drugs is as attribute-boosters: strength, strength + speed, or endurance, depending on the drug and training regimen.

**Usually with spreadsheets.

It's simple. For me, playing a role (my own defined role) is what seperates an RPG from an Action/Adventure game. this has little to do with actual stats or combat or whatever, it's more about the character(s) themselves.

For instance, I play Tomb Raider, I get to play Lara Croft. Period. And she has a very limited set of choices she gets to make for her game to continue.

If I play D&D or Oblivion, things are much more open-ended. I can create a magic-based character who winds up dabbling with theft and falls in love with an NPC (in my imagination). She can make wrong choices which get her kicked out of the MG. She can get hungry and grab a pear that belongs to somebody else, who could possibly get the guards after her. Overall: This is MY character. MY role. The fact that Oblivion and D&D also have many paths to explore (some of them quests, some of them spontaneous non-quests on my part) further defines the line between RPG and AA.

Lara Croft gets to make maybe a choice or two here and there. She must explore a very limited area to gain her rewards. This can be a lot of fun, but sometimes I want to see what's beyond that door, or beyond that wall, even if there's nothing there at all. But I can't do it, usually. In TES on the other hand, 95% of the time I can explore this.

Where does it say that I'm a emperor or strategist or god? What is the difference between playing an emperor or a strategist or a god in chess? There's one way of playing chess.



No, that is not what I've argued. I've argued that roleplaying is not dependent on stats, I've said nothing of which is better. Chess is obviously not an rpg, because there's no distinction between roles, all play by the same rules, nothing changes depending on your "role". If I play a beggar in a rich city district, some rules will apply to me that will not apply to others based on the background that I'm playing.



I've said nothing about rules, playing a specific role automatically applies some sort of rules to you based on the setting you roleplay in. One is restricted by ones character. That is the whole point with choice and consequences, if there are no rules, how can there be consequences? And we are of course talking choice of character and choice of path, based on the character. The choices in chess are the same choices as choosing to walk left or right at a street. Or choice of whether to reload in Halo. Everything is a choice, and everything has a consequence, this is not what is meant by choice and consequence being the defining feature of rpgs. It is choices in relation to who you have chosen to be in the game, and the consequences thereof.



I don't really know what to say to this, I think you think I'm arguing something I'm not.

Hmmmm.. OK. If Skyrim doesn't have stats, what are your skills, health, stamina and Magicka? (Only the confirmed stats, I'm sure there will be more like armour rating)
I'd also like to point out that the new system actually allows you to fill the role that you want to play more effectively and without punishing you.
In Morrowind and Oblivion in order to boost your stats. (and maximise your chances of success), you were forced into behaviour that you did not WANT to do in order to satisfy the effective leveling requirements. As Todd Howard as said, players often had major skills they didn't want to use in order to maximise their leveling efficiency. Im not sure thats good role playing...

Thanks for the clarification. I don't know if I will start using Choice and Consequence to identify RPGs, but it sounds good so far.

hmm looks like i didnt have to argue any more, people did it for me lol

they do need stats, you just described a story, thats not a game. choosing left or right isn't a RPG. Its as much a game as picking a number one through ten is a game. Stats make the RPG, without it, its an action game. A bunch of people larping with no stats, is a bunch of people playing pretend in the woods. That's not a even a game. That's playing cops and robbers like you were kids. Its OK if you wanna do that, but its no RPG and definitely not an RPG video game. Name one RPG without stats. There are none. Playing with toys in the woods like kids is not an RPG. Its playing in the woods.

lol you just dont give up eh lol your crazy bud

Why are you quoting me then?

OK, thanks for providing more details of your definition. I appreciate that you're being thoughtful in your posts, and we may just have to agree to disagree. I've got a few more questions.

First, I assume you're not saying that you have to be able to choose your character to be playing an RPG? I'm talking about Planescape:Torment, or role-playing Robinson Crusoe, etc.

Second, how are rules defined and adjudicated if you're not using stats? Games like tag work by simple mechanisms like touch. American football works by tackles and boundary lines. But for both of these examples, the outcome for any situation is determined by actual physical skill. If you're role-playing combat, how do you play a character who's stronger, taller, and an expert swordsman (without stats)? How do you roleplay a footrace or any event? I assume that somebody acts as a judge, and that they arbitrate events. To me, that sounds very much like "guided improvisation" or role-playing minus the game, but YMMV, and I don't have any experience with a non-stats system.

Another problem is social interaction. Let's say person x is annoying, has poor social skills, etc. They want to role-play a character who is charming and loved by all. With stats you might end up with a less than perfect system to govern behavior, but you should be guaranteed certain outcomes on average. I'd expect any social game without stats to have serious problems representing politics and social interaction, because real-life attributes and skill would be constantly biasing the results.

The devs tend to not want to label it too much. They don't necessarily set out to make a great RPG but rather just to make a great game... which just turns out to be an RPG.

He's right though. Stats = variable base character interaction, seen or unseen.

You must have STATS in a Role Playing GAME to achieve a representation of a Variable Character. If you have no stats then it's just role playing and you can do that in any game.

Now we have also established that stats alone do not an RPG make so...

RPG ingredient #1 = Variable Character(s) <--Provides basic choice and consequence in the form of Stat Based Character Progression.

So what is it that separates a Party based RPG from say Madden NFL career mode? Both have multiple characters that level up while doing what they do.
Is it item and person interaction perhaps?

RPG ingredient #2 = ???