What is an RPG now a days? Rant warning

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
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I get a little annoyed by all these games now-a-days being called an RPG. The lines have been blurred to the maximum amount to where every game that comes out is a so-called RPG. It’s not. Hear me out and let me know what you think.

Black myth wukong is a hacker/slasher not an rpg, it has the same gaming concepts as Castlevania from the NES.

Well then the argument could be oh well any game that you can modify skills and become stronger as the game goes on is an rpg - elements of progression. Nope - that’s not it. That means megaman is a RPG. It is not.

How about character creation? Nope. Shining force, Xenogears, FF7, Phantasy Star, Dragon Quest. ← ALL legendary RPGS with no character customization. So that doesn’t hold up.

Perhaps it’s the game story. Nope, even Mario had a story. → Save the princess from Koopa. Every game has a story. I don’t know many games aside from ping pong and tetris that doesn’t have a story.

Oh what about stats and different abilities. Nope → Streets of rage. Hacker slasher.

Creating a character and acting out a character’s decisions. → Nope. There was no alternating path based on decisions and if they were they were VERY minor changes in world renowned legendary RPGs like shining force, vandal hearts, xenogears, FF7… the list goes on. The sims has character creation with major decisions, is it an rpg? No. It’s a sim game.

Does it have to be Side scrolling or turn-based to be an rpg? No, but most and if not all turn based games are rpgs.

It’s because RPG’s have been wrongfully aligned as “Role playing” when it should have been called “Roll Playing”. That’s right! Roll the dice. ALL THE GAMES THAT ARE REAL RPGS HAVE THIS ONE THING IN COMMON. You have a chance to hit, miss, dodge, parry, block and so does your opponent. You are immune to fire attacks, but take double damage on ice attacks. Based off your “rolled stats” you have a chance to roll a good or bad attack or defense against your opponent and he does the same to you.

Calling all these FPS games an RPG is blasphemous. And no one can truly define what role playing is because all this junk has been twisted and confused over the past 20 years. New final fantasy games → More of a hacker slasher. The reason turn-based games are mostly regarded as an RPG is because they were designed with that very thought as the basis for combat! Let’s keep going.

Dragon Age Veilguard → hacker slasher disguised as an RPG.
World of Warcraft → RPG with hacker-slasher elements
Skyrim → RPG with hacker-slasher elements

Why does everygame try to be an RPG now? The reason I don’t play hacker/slasher games is because it’s a brainless reactionary game with no strategy, barely any thought goes into actually playing the game the game. Plus I’ve already played the best hacker slasher game of all time and no one will be able to touch it → Dynasty Warriors. The game is just amazing. And no there are no RPG elements in that game.

Just because in a game you can block, cast an ability and roll away does not mean you are playing an RPG. You have to have a chance to hit, a chance to block, a chance to dodge. The development of these game’s simplicity in the 90s have made it possible to to focus on other things aside from being a brainless game. For instance - strategy RPGs like shining force, Vandal Hearts, Final fantasy tactics, Dark Wizard, etc… fighting combat is so simple the story can get really into depth.

First you had the RPG, then you had the story, then you had the Character Creation, then you had the gearing up, then you had the elements of progession. All of these things make the RPG game more in depth.

And that’s where the confusion comes in. Since in the definition of it being a “roll playing game”, this allows the game to be a bit more complex. Where the simplicity of an RPG allows for more complex things to actually happen within the game. In ex. FF7 - I remember when I got into an intense fight back in the day, it was STRESSFUL. Reviving players, healing, casting shield, and fighting. It was complex enough to be as just as stressful as playing contra or megaman. And you can say “oh well it’s just brainless turn-based stuff”. Now play FF7 remake ← barely an RPG IF IT IS!!!, it’s just brainless hacking and slashing and moving out of the way, with the OPTION of casting abilities. Big game companies started moving away from real RPG elements for player’s wants and needs to faceroll the keyboard turning every renowned game into Street Fighter 2.

That is my rant for the month, thank you for reading if you did. Hopefully there was nothing offensive. You can tell me I’m wrong won’t hurt my feelings bc I feel that I am right.

Thought edit 1: Let’s look at how this applies to wow. Since wow is a true RPG (combat based on rolling dice), everything is based around it. The world, the story, the classes, the abilities and etc. The reason you can handle 30 abilities and not 2 to 4 is because it is an RPG. A lot of people don’t want to give auto attacking credit but if you had to hit a button for regular attacks, it would basically be a 3d version of street fighter. “Press A for strong punch”. It can’t exist along side each other it’s almost like a “phenomenon”. It’s the difference between league of legends and wow right? There’s no story in LoL, just pick a character and learn it’s abilities. The game is obscenely fun don’t get me wrong but LoL has very few true rpg elements. Wow is waaay more complicated. There’s way more abilities and the rpg rolls are way more complex. Also there’s not a world or a story in LoL.
Wow has started to move away from complex rpg elements. In example: Taking away paladin auras. Hit rating was removed 10 years ago. Blessing of might, kings, and wisdom was REMOVED. Amplify magic removed. Arcane Brilliance removed. Dampen magic removed. You know what wasn’t removed - battle shout. They’ve essentially simplified the roll playing elements for a more hacker/slasher playstyle.

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The latter is the more common interpretation now.

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Yea making it a challenge to min-max or exploiting the roll of the dice, to where the game is broken could be entertaining to you but it doesn’t define how the game works. It takes years for people to figure out everything there is to know about a game like this which makes the replayability super high.

It’s like classic vanilla wow these days, why would we bring a ret paladin to a raid when we know he brings low dps so if you want an invite you better go holy. But then everyone knows that Priests are the best healers so why aren’t preists the only healers? Because not everyone wants to play a priest. Also, Buffs increase dps meters and that’s all that matters.

For instance, Golden Axe 1&2 - everyone picks the dwarf with the axe because he’s way better than the latter. The optimal 2 player build is the dwarf and the female for her magic, otherwise you probably won’t win the game. That doesn’t make it a role playing game that’s just the way the game is!

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RPG is one of those terms that has been degraded over time, and now it essentially just means “you control a character who isn’t you” :expressionless:

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That’s every game with a controllable character. That means Mario is an RPG. Mariokart would be an RPG. Dude… no.

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I agree but that’s the state of gamers in 2024. They do think mario is an RPG :expressionless:
while we’re on the subject, Super Mario RPG is a great game btw

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Well that’s what I’m saying people’s “role playing” - in the bedroom or whatever is not the same people’s definition as “roll playing”. Originally people “rolled the dice” in dungeons and dragons game. “play your roll”. It is a game mechanic involving rolling dice to determine actions! “Role playing” Wasn’t a thing until 1996, where RPG’s have already flooded the market. Now they just throw the term RPG behind every game for marketing purposes. It’s like “immersive action/strategy adventure character-driven RPG”. It’s like nooo, Dragon age veilguard is EXACTLY the same gameplaying style as God of War - a hacker slasher.

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The character progression system is still very important for me as part of a RPG as well as the presence of a large world with some level of free exploration even if some of it is gated by scripted events.

Random events are important too but in the way they can help immersion through uncertainty. Otherwise a lot of games have random events and are not RPGs

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Yea that was the first argument. A game doesn’t have to be an RPG to have character progression, therefore it does not define what an RPG is. Knights of the Round being another, released in 1994 on the SNES. An argument can be made that all RPG’s have character progression, which make it an “RPG Element”, since as you level your dice becomes more effective against lower level enemies or whatev.

Thanks for the response though I know a lot of people are probably like “who cares”, but I pondered this for a long time.

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Regarding your first point, I’m perfectly fine with the idea that megaman has a little RPG flavor in a mostly platform 2D shooter game.

Also RPGs are not defined by a single feature because individual game features pop up across different genres as developers reuse them.

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They were defined for probably for 20-25 years before things became mis-interpreted. True RPGs in the 80s and 90s all had one thing in common → that being rolling the dice.