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orphiebaby@lemmy.world â¨10⊠â¨months⊠agoI mean yeah. Most people define genres using association, and they can become a gooey mess at worst. Iâve been arguing for structured definitions for years, but itâs a lost cause. I still believe I am the only person who has a completely sane definition for ârole-playing gameâ. But I digress, fam. ^^
Syrc@lemmy.world â¨10⊠â¨months⊠ago
Whatâs your definition, out of curiosity?
Personally my first thought hearing âRPGâ is the classic game with various characters, skills, level system and tons of enemies, but thereâs a lot of games that donât fit this definition that are still RPGs
orphiebaby@lemmy.world â¨10⊠â¨months⊠ago
Iâm not sure if I want to go into the full thing because people tend to get defensive about their preconceived notions and make a big, heated argument about it. But I will say this: game genres are defined by gameplay, not by content, by visuals, or by similarities with other games people assume to be in that genre.
As simply as I can put itâ and hopefully not opening up a huge can of wormsâ I define a role-playing game as a game in which your character(s) play one of several roles meaning âclassesââ each with their own stats and abilities that play differently and often support each other. You can have one character who can choose one or more classes, more characters that each have their own classes, or more characters that can can choose their own classes. That makes D&D, PokĂŠmon, Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy XIII, and honestly a bunch of multiplayer shooters RPGs. That does not make Zelda or the first Dragon Quest/Dragon Warrior RPGs.
So the biggest problem with humans and categorizations is they are hugely assumptive, seeing surface-level things and defining it by those, and by outward similarities with other items that they already assume to be of that category. Because of this, what a lot of people do is confuse the adventure genreâ games that use exploration, puzzle-solving, and key items in order to progressâ and role-playing games, which almost always are adventure games as well. D&D? Both RPG and adventure. Final Fantasy XIII? RPG but not adventure. Zelda? Adventure but not RPG. But in most cases, RPGs are also adventures. So a lot of people think games with common adventure elements are RPGs.
I know a lot of what Iâm saying is going to fly over peoplesâ heads and theyâll go crazy in the comments. Letâs see how long I can ignore them for the sake of my own sanityâŚ
Syrc@lemmy.world â¨10⊠â¨months⊠ago
I can imagine not considering the first Dragon Quest an RPG would create a lot of discussion, I canât really speak for that since I havenât played it but I guess some of the âcanonsâ mustâve been missing since it used a password system.
Would Dark Souls count as an RPG in your definition? Thereâs no definite classes but youâre definitely shaping up your character to be a Warrior, Mage, and so on.
orphiebaby@lemmy.world â¨10⊠â¨months⊠ago
I added Dark Souls into the list before I saw this comment. Because usually when I talk about this subject I list it. I try to use variety in my examples, but I just forgot for a moment about listing Dark Souls ^^