Lykanthrocide on Nostr: I have things to say about this: Defining "RPG" as a video game genre--or defining ...

I have things to say about this:

Defining "RPG" as a video game genre--or defining any video game genre for that matter--is neither so vague nor so difficult as the dismissive mouthbreathers who say "gEnRe DoEsN't MaTtEr/ExIsT" say it is. One must merely find groups of games which share traits as determined by what the player does relative to what happens onscreen. For the RPG genre this can be reduced to four specific traits:

1. An explorable diegesis - the "game world" must be navigable which excludes simpler strategy games like video game versions of traditional games (chess, shougi), visual novels (usually, these merely involve reading reading), and strategy games (Nintendo Wars, Dessert Commander)
2. A focus on narrative elements - the game has clear characters, setting, themes, and, often, a plot
3. Statistics based actions - specifically, actions (especially actions related to combat) rely more on in-game statistics and numbers than on the player's kinetic skill
4. Passive combat - there is not a 1-to-1 relationship between a player's inputs and his avatar's actions, i.e. a player can choose a menu item to order a character to attack (Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy) or may press a series of buttons which result in the avatar(s) performing a complex attack or series of attacks (Tales, Valkyrie Profile)

Quality 1 excludes games like chess or shougi as well as the Nintendo Wars series.
Quality 3 excludes all action games such as shmups and platformers as well as adventure games and "action RPGs".
Quality 4 also excludes "action RPGs" such as the Mana games and Zelda wherein a single button press equals a sword swing or arrow shot.

These traits go back to the earliest examples of the genre (dnd, pedit5, Dungeon) and carry on to Wizardry, Ultima, Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, SaGa, MegaTen, Pokemon, Tales, and all dungeon crawler games. One ore more of them is lacking in Zelda, Mana, Musashi, and MegaMan BattleNetwork, and Mario "RPGs".