What makes an RPG?

[John Kim]

I have a somewhat different definition of role-playing.  A game is a role-playing game, if in principle someone is watching the game over your shoulder and suggests a move, to which you reply "No, my character wouldn't do that."  If this happens or could happen, then you are playing a role-playing game.  

This requires characters and actions those characters do -- thus there is a fictional narrative.  However, exploration of background/setting is not required.  For example, I could fairly easily imagine a Toon, Teenagers from Outer Space, or Paranoia scenario set in a fixed location with known characters -- the interest comes from the things which the characters do, not from revealed secrets of their background or from the setting.  

Similarly, I don't think changing effectiveness numbers are needed.  There are games for which they are not needed.  For example, I have played several mystery scenarios which don't have any effectiveness numbers or need for such.  [/u]

[quozl]

I have a somewhat different definition of role-playing.  A game is a role-playing game, if in principle someone is watching the game over your shoulder and suggests a move, to which you reply "No, my character wouldn't do that."  If this happens or could happen, then you are playing a role-playing game.  

That's a very good definition but it requires roleplaying a character other than yourself.  How do you include "I" games in your definition?

[Shreyas Sampat]

How about this:
"A game is a role-playing game if an action that's permissible by its rules can be disallowed by the (explicit or implicit) Social Contract."?
That covers games where you don't strictly have characters, as well as I-games.

[Jack Spencer Jr]

I have a somewhat different definition of role-playing.  A game is a role-playing game, if in principle someone is watching the game over your shoulder and suggests a move, to which you reply "No, my character wouldn't do that."  If this happens or could happen, then you are playing a role-playing game.  

So if someone is watching you play chess and suggest you move your knight forward four spaces and you reply the piece cannot do that, then Chess is a roleplaying game?

[John Kim]

I have a somewhat different definition of role-playing.  A game is a role-playing game, if in principle someone is watching the game over your shoulder and suggests a move, to which you reply "No, my character wouldn't do that."  If this happens or could happen, then you are playing a role-playing game.  

So if someone is watching you play chess and suggest you move your knight forward four spaces and you reply the piece cannot do that, then Chess is a roleplaying game?

Nope, because you didn't answer "My knight wouldn't do that" -- you answered "My knight can't do that".  

I can try putting that in various other ways, but actually I think that the simplest explanation is really the best.  The point here is that there is effort spent on considering the point of view of a character in a fictional situation.  Note that the character may be fictional, but may be a real historical character or even you.  Put another way:  If the personality of the character isn't a limit that genuinely affects in-game decisions, then it isn't role-playing.

[CplFerro]

Dear Mr. Stevens:

RPGs always differ from board games in two ways: manifold and playfulness.

All RPGs develop a manifold of situations imagined by the participants, and transformed by GM judgements outside of all axiomatic necessity.

Playfulness is when situations, by triggering memories of intriguing fantasy in the participants, increases the number of potential transformation-options available.

Board games have no manifold, transforming according to axioms, requiring judgements only for clarity.

Nor do they have playfulness in this sense, because the number of transformation-options is fixed from the get-go.



Cpl Ferro

[John Kim]

How about this:
"A game is a role-playing game if an action that's permissible by its rules can be disallowed by the (explicit or implicit) Social Contract."?
That covers games where you don't strictly have characters, as well as I-games.

I think this is far too broad.  For example, a group might play a board game with the implicit contract "Be nice to newbies".  That doesn't qualify as role-playing, IMO.  

I would say that games where you are playing yourself in a fictional situation still have a character:  there is still a distinction between you the player (i.e. person sitting, rolling dice, etc.) and you the character.

[Jack Spencer Jr]

Put another way:  If the personality of the character isn't a limit that genuinely affects in-game decisions, then it isn't role-playing.

OK. But this disallows Pawn Stance and is dangerously close to synecdoche.

[Bruce Baugh]

I find John Kim's definition appealing, but then that's no surprise - we seem to be thinking a bunch of similar thoughts at this point.

I do want to suggest that rigorous boundaries are impossible to achieve by definition in this sort of case, because part of what makes a roleplaying game is the intent of the participants. That is, a particular game may work as a roleplaying game for some people and as something else for others. Roleplaying is partly about the objective elements of the game, but also partly about how the folks doing it feel about it. So the boundaries will necessarily be fuzzy, and rather than talking about precisely bounded units, we're talking about overlapping sets.

[John Kim]

Put another way:  If the personality of the character isn't a limit that genuinely affects in-game decisions, then it isn't role-playing.

OK. But this disallows Pawn Stance and is dangerously close to synecdoche.

Hm.  Whether it is synecdoche (i.e. taking a part for the whole) depends on what you view as the whole of role-playing.  As I see it, "role-playing" is a qualifier on a game -- i.e. it indicates that one element of the game is role-playing, but it doesn't specify what the rest of the game is like.  Thus, you could have a "role-playing storytelling game" (like Baron Munchausen) or a "role-playing miniatures game".  Some RPGs use miniature figures on a map -- but that doesn't mean that miniature figures are then related to role-playing.  i.e. adding miniature figures to a boardgame does not make it more role-playing-like.

[Jack Spencer Jr]

So that I find the term "roleplaying game" to be a misnomer and that an activity labeled as such may not included elements that can be strictly called either roleplaying or game means that we shall have to agree to disagree. Superb!

[Rich Forest]

I'd like to add to the discussion by examining how some differing assumptions about language seem to be causing "static" in this thread.  Specifically, I think that before we can define something, we need to understand what we are doing when we create a definition.  I think some of the posts are coming at this process from very different directions, and this is causing problems and/or confusions.  Once we know what we mean to do by definition, we can actually work at defining "roleplaying game" a little bit more efficiently.  Bear with me--I think this is relevant to the initial question.  In fact, IMO, it's fundamental.

So I'd like to propose that definition is more constructively not approached as a process of creating a meaning for a word and making the usage fit into it.  Instead, definition is better conceived as a process of description based on usage.  It consists of looking at how a word is actually used in order to come up with a description that defines the word.  Thus, we are actually helping define a word when we say, "Game X is a roleplaying game, game Y is not, etc."  We're also helping when we say, "Here's a possible definition.  This definition works/doesn't work when game X (Y, Z, etc.) is considered."  

In contrast, we're not really effectively defining a word when we say, "game X is/isn't or could be/couldn't be considered an RPG, based on my definition."  This takes the pre-set definition as the starting point, rather than the evidence of usage.  The most useful stuff achieved in this thread so far has remembered to treat the data as a starting point.  Monopoly and chess are useful precisely because we generally agree that they aren't roleplaying games.  Meanwhile, something like D&D must be included in whatever definition we come up with because it is iconic of roleplaying games.  The usage is used to prove (read: test) the definitions.  Given this, I think it would be constructive to first get together a data set for usage, even if it's just the usage of the folks contributing to the thread.  We'd be well served by establishing something like:

What games do we agree can be safely called RPGs?
What games do we agree can be safely excluded from the definition?
What games are borderline, in that our opinions differ noticeably?

In a way, this thread has, until now, been trying to do too many different things.  1) It has been providing a place for us to propose our definitions of "roleplaying."  2) It has been providing a place for us to test our definitions by comparing them to our personal "lists" of games that are/aren't RPGs.  3) It has been giving us a place to establish a "communal list" of games that are/aren't RPGs.  I think the third point is essential to the second, but right now, it's not explicit.  Instead, it's mostly embedded in a lot of rhetoric about the first two.  

Now, looking just at some of the examples used so far, I can ask myself: What is a roleplaying game, and what isn't?  I'll start with a troublemaker: Universalis.  My usage would include Universalis as a roleplaying game (this may be mainly because I first found it through a roleplaying-oriented site).  But one of the designers, Mike, has already hinted that he might not consider it to be one.  (And yet, he might, as far as I can tell.  Mike?)  Now what about everyone else?  I don't know because we don't have a common agreement on that, yet.  In fact, there might be more people here who would exclude it from the category of "RPG" than include it.  There might be even more people outside the Forge who wouldn't count it as an RPG.  This would make my own conception of it as an RPG fairly peripheral.  Still, that I call it an RPG is one piece of information.  (Of course, this is an example.  I don't want to turn this thread into an overly detailed, and thus somewhat tangential, discussion of whether Universalis is an RPG or not.)

Ok, what about Drew's initial examples?  Well, as far as usage goes, I think it's pretty safe to say that no one is really claiming that Monopoly, Risk, or Settlers of Catan are roleplaying games.  What about Smash Brothers Melee, the RPG?  Well, I don't think it's complete yet, which makes the definition difficult.  Instead, I'll have to ask you, Drew, a couple things.  Were you playing an RPG when you tested the combat system?  Would you have called that a "roleplaying session," in that form?  If not, I wouldn't say that you were playing an RPG yet.  Will it become an RPG?  That seems to be the intent.  (As for the props, I think John has accurately pointed out that their use in the game is not definitive.  Props have been included in roleplaying games since the beginning, and their presence or absence does not seem particularly indicative of whether a game is a roleplaying game or not.  I can provide easy examples of RPGs that explicitly encourage their use, like D&D or Call of Cthulhu, and also of RPGs that discourage them, like Feng Shui.)  

So to reiterate my main point: Meanings are created through usage.  We'd be most effective if we focused on collecting a data set first.  Then we'd be better prepared to propose definitions and test them.  In the absence of this, I think it's at least worthwhile to always keep in mind that the usage is the starting point, not the other way around.  

Rich

[M. J. Young]

I think I may be able to synthesize Vincent "Lumpley"'s and John Kim's notions into one; bear with me, though, because I'm feeling my way through this.

A role playing game requires at some point that the player provide some degree of characterization for whatever in-game element or elements represents or represent his ability to act within the confines of the sphere of exploration that is the game.

Thus, D&D is a role playing game because players must at some point bring their interpretations of who their characters are into expression through play.

Universalis is, I think, also a role playing game, because even when played without characters it is still necessary to charaterize the elements that are interacting, such that they have different identities which interact.

Alyria is a role playing game because the players cooperatively create the core character identities of the characters in the stories, and expand these through in-play interactions.

Baron Munchausen is a role playing game because the players express distinct created personalities as they weave their stories.

Multiverser is a role playing game, because the game is played through an in-game expression of the player's character, which may change in response to in-game circumstance independently of that of the player, and so requires characterization.

Monopoly is not a role playing game, nor Magic, nor Chess, because even though the player might choose to invest themselves or their in-game representatives with personality, this is not a necessary nor a functional part of play.

It does not matter at what point in play this characterization becomes necessary; what matters is that it does or does not become necessary in any play of the game that is not abortive at an early stage.

Does that work for everyone? Have I included a game that should be excluded, or excluded a game that should be included?

--M. J. Young

[Brian Leybourne]

Monopoly is not a role playing game, nor Magic, nor Chess, because even though the player might choose to invest themselves or their in-game representatives with personality, this is not a necessary nor a functional part of play.

Does that work for everyone? Have I included a game that should be excluded, or excluded a game that should be included?

By that definition, the same game could become or not become an RPG based on who is playing it at the time. I have certainly seen people play a fighter in D&D who has about as much personality as the Knight in a game of Chess. Does this mean that D&D isn't an RPG for them?

You could even argue that for many "roleplayers" (perhaps I should say "gamers" instead, given the connotations of that term in this thread) giving their characters a personality really isn't a necessary part of play, which might apply across many different games which I would otherwise classify as an RPG.

So yeah, I think your definition doesn't quite cover it. It's the closest I have seen in this thread yet though.

Brian.

[clehrich]

At the risk of initially sounding a bit "me too" here, I'd like to second Rich Forest's formulation of definition as a process.

Here's a few modes worth thinking about, just in the abstract, if we want to undertake definitions as a problematic:

1. Formal Taxonomy
A series of binary questions differentiates any given element from another.  Thus, "Does it have A or not?" "If it has A, does it have B or not?" "If it has B, does it have C or not?"  And so forth.

The issue becomes a singular defining characteristic or essence.  Given that a particular element (game) fits all characteristics up to X point, it is/is not an RPG if it has Y.

2. Phenomenological List
A variant of the taxonomic, this postulates a list of required elements without regard for logical or temporal order.  Thus "In order to be an RPG, it must have the following 7 elements; if any one is missing it isn't an RPG."

Again, you tend to reduce to a singular essence, because most of the borderline cases will have the same 6 elements and it'll be the same 7th element that's in question.

3. Polythetic Classification
Not popular outside statistical biology, but probably the best system around.  You have a list of elements, and you say that in order to be a member of the class, if must have a certain number of those elements.  So if you have 20 elements, and you say that it must have at least 8 of them, then it's possible to have two games with no overlapping elements that are nevertheless both members of the same taxon.  The great thing about this is that it can't be reduced to an essence or singular element because the elements aren't prioritized.  The down side is that the list tends to be long, and you have to debate how many elements are required.

But here's a really important point, already made in Rich's post, but in different language:

A definition must serve a theoretical end

To put it differently, any definition must serve the function of classifying at least two things together under a determined rubric.  Thus it serves the procedure of comparison, in which X and Y (the games) are compared with respect to Z (the definition, or a sub-issue).  So we could compare two games with respect to Narrativist uses of Director Stance, or whatever.  In order to justify this comparison, we'd need to establish that both fit the formal classifications of Narrativism and Director Stance.

But the thing is, the definition is valueless without such application, which means that the definition is constructed for the purpose of such application.  There isn't a right answer: "RPG" is not a thing, but a classification.  If that classification serves an analytical end, great; if not, it's worthless.

I personally think this discussion demonstrates that the analysis of the category is worth doing.  But let's not lose sight of the fact that there cannot be a right answer, because that implies a metaphysics of truth that nobody can or should try to formulate.

Anyway, enough pure theory.  And thanks, Rich!