What defines an RPG

This is another subject I wanted to talk about in more details. There's been several debates on forums about what constitutes an RPG game.

The term RPG litteraly means "Role Playing Game". The term was created for the Dungeon and Dragon tabletop games at first, and then used for computer and console games that used a similar system of stats and level up progression. This is opposed to action games like Super Mario Bros that is all about jumping and evading obstacles.

But the freedom of action of tabletop cannot be converted fully into a programmed game. The coding that would allow to destroy any object, burn any peasant and do any action regardless of story would be impossible to code down. Or else you'd be in the Matrix.

Thus the term RPG was divided into two categories : Pen&Paper, and Console. Pen&Paper is never used, but RPG still mostly defines this kind of game fully. Console RPG is the term given to any kind of computerized RPG. But commonly speaking, not many people will call it "Console RPG", they will just short it down to RPG. The same reasoning applies to video game creators, like Nintendo or SquareEnix, that only create computer/console games, thus it would be redundant to call them "Console RPG" in their advertisement.

The need to call the games RPG or not is mostly for categorization purposes. Alot of people will take a better look at a game knowing what category it belongs to, such as First Person Shooters, Platformers, Puzzles or Sports. In reality, most serious gamers with access to the internet will know the genre of the game without needing it to be explicitly written, due to impressions, reviews and such. The categorization ends up being used mostly by casual gamers, a bit like people looking at the ESRB rating.

But what defines an RPG, or rather a Console RPG? With the progression of consoles, stronger CPUs and better graphics and sound, some games break the mold and dwelves into different genres at the same time. Let's look back at the basis :

Dragon Warrior was released in 1986 by Enix. Instead of having our hero hop on monsters or shoot from a toygun, our hero sets out in a quest that involves talking to people for clues, battling monsters for exp and gold, buying your equipment and lodging, seeking ot treasures at the bottom of dungeons. Instead of going from point A to B like in most platformers of the time, the game left it to the player to figure out where to go next, thanks to the various clues left.

A similar game was released by Nintendo, but had a much different gameplay. The Legend of Zelda was equally non-generic by the progression, yet differed in many ways, like the hero only grows in strenght thanks to tools found in dungeons. The NPC interaction for clues is practically non-existant at the time, turning it into a task of 'burn down every tree' to find the next dungeon entrance, only to go through it and realize you can't progress due to a missing tool that is in a different dungeon, meaning you went in the wrong order.

While the two shared similar aspects, there was only fundamental difference that I believe makes the entire difference between the two games : Random.

In Dungeons&Dragons, the idea was to replace physical and mental stats into numbers. That was due to the fact that you can't simply use real life strenght to pose an action from a make-belief world. and your character can vastly differ from your real life persona as well, thus the basis of a Role Player Game. To translate the various factors that goes in the process of a successful action or not, they used Randomization with dices. The success or failure translates outside factors like stress, misjudging distances or slippery surface of terrain or tools.

In video games, most people will consider 'RPG elements' when it contains stats, levels or menu based interface, yet those do not make or break the RPG genre alone. Alot of games well known as RPGs will also use various gameplay features to make the game fresh and new, rather than a copy of another game with a different story.

For example, the Tales series is one that changed out the battle system from strictly menu and turn based to a more dynamic street-fighting style of fight. Final Fantasy 4-5-6 chaned the team-turn base system to a speed-based system that allows speedy characters to get more attacks than monsters. This is not considering the more Action games that incorporate RPG elements, such as Dynasty Warriors using levels and experience points, or Dirge of Cerberus that is essentially a First Person Shooter that uses levels, stats and money.

For stats, levels and experience points, not all RPGs will even use these. Final Fantasy II and X for example don't use any levels, FFII doesn't even use any experience points at all, while FFX changes those into Sphere points and level, which essentially acts the same but allows the player to progress in different paths for both stats and abilities gained. Other games like Final Fantasy : Crystal Chronicles replace levels entirely by items you gain after certain levels.

So if Stats, Levels, Experience points and Menus don't constitute an RPG alone, what will ALL RPG games have in common? Yes, I said it before. Random.

Take the Tales series again. The battles are street-fighting, yet you have little to no bearing on wether or not an attack will land, and most attacks you won't get to evade either. Yet the game will randomly decide if you land a successful attack, or if you block an incomming attack.

In Dirge of Cerberus, even a point blank shotgun attack can result in a miss, or a critical hit even if not aiming for a vital point like the head in most First Person Shooters. Also, damage dealt by attacks are entirely random and dependant on your stats.

In Dark Cloud, the characters don't even have stats properly, everything is from your weapons. You find items to increase your HP as well. Yet your attacks can still miss and your damage will vary with some amount of randomness.

There's a difference to make between randomness of stats, damage, accuracy and evasion, the the randomness of monsters behavior. For example, Dynasty Warriors may contain random elements like officers blocking your attacks or different soldier placements, yet damage, accuracy, blocking and evasion are consistent with your button press. There was no such buttons to block or evade in Tales game, as a comparison.

Random monster pathing has been part of alot of games, like Zelda. Yet Zelda is not an RPG due to the lack of any randomness. Your damage dealt and receive will be unvarying from the same attacks, different attacks will obviously deal different damage, but there's no variance whatsoever between two of the same attack.

Your own damage progress with the sword/tool used and the type of attack, but otherwise is also static, two of the same monster will need the same amount of hits. Attack, defense and evasion are entirely at a button's press. Zelda pretty much created the entire category known as "Action Adventure", which other games like Castlevania and Metroid share similarities with.

As a conclusion, the category may be a tool to help people pick games of their taste, but with the genre broadening, stretching into other genres and constantly trying to make new things, games are hard to fit into a single category nowadays. Most games seem to be hybrid of several genres, very few entirely are 100% pure action or pure RPG with nothing else. It begs the question :

Does it really matter?