RPGs Were Never About Roleplaying

RPGs were always about the friends we made along the way

RPG isnt a genre. idk what it is but not a genre

The true rpg revival was done by Baldurs Gate 3

Jamiroquai and Chrono Trigger... good memories

ANYONE ELSE SEE THIS ANALOGY BEFORE ON A 4 PART SERIES ABOUT DAY Z DEVELOPMENT?

The finch metaphor in the beginning through the perspective of the difference between the Western influence coming from DnD, and the Eastern influence mostly coming from Visual Novels, reminds me of "convergent evolution"(like how so many things evolve into crabs). They may have come from different sources, but somehow developed simular enough attributes to be lumped together. My thoughts though, for whoever decides to read this, first goes back even further, or maybe just a wider perspective than going back. At the end of the day, Videogames are toys to provide entertainment, and in a lot of ways could be thought of as a more virtual form of the "opera". This is something I have come to appreciate about games more recently, thanks to a different channel. Typically I have thought of them as more or less as just one other story medium, but as was touched on in the vid, you don't need to have story to engage someone in a game. Yet, they aren't just the games of old either, like Chess, GO, or the like, as there is far more story potential. The one other thing most games tend to have, is music, which is where the opera comment before comes in. There is hardly any game which doesn't tap into at least two of either Fiction, Music, or Play at their roots, all this combines to make videogames be about some sort of Agency, expecially when compared to its peers in those three categories. Fiction outside of gaming is closer to those of the Visual Novels which inspired JRPGs, but even the JRPGs have some sort of agency over them. Music outside of games, cannot be acted on, unless you're part of the band itself, dancing, or a character in the Opera, and there is far more universal experience there in games. The closest thing to being the band in a game or dancing, would be rythm games, but even they have more potential for agency and choice, so long as you are going to the beat. While any story-driven game with epic music, basically allows for any player to experience what it is like to be on stage in an opera, without needing the work history and practice to do it. Its also easy to tell just how much more agency videogames have over even something like old games before videogames, even if you include DnD. Due to the computer generation, the world can be more realized, for a single experience, and a "campaign" doesn't have to last months on end to be rewarding. So, if the main strength for videogames is Agency, and RPGs specifically is about Character, then I would have to say, those games which give the most freedom as a player to interact with the playable Character, are the more "pure" RPGs, which then returns to the "role-playing game" being a more true defination than you think. As you are "playing" with the potential "roles" you take as a player, through the exercising of one's own agency for a character, within a videogame.

I call bull shit, darwinian-bullshit

Love this breakdown

I feel like character building whether linear growth or customization is what defines an RPG.

Tabletop RPGs were all about stepping in the shoes of a character and interacting with a world. Old school D&D in particular was heavily randomized via roll tables, making them resemble roguelikes or blobbers.

In that very particular sense, though, almost every single video game where you control a character (even simple ones like Pac Man and Mario) could technically be considered an “RPG.”

Blink twice if someone's holding a gun to your head and forcing you to make these puns Adam

i thought you were going to mention what i'd thought of when defining RPG: Every game is technically one.

if you're just "role-playing" (i.e. playing the role of a character), then that applies to damn near every game - even ones with characters that have minimal character (terraria, minecraft, metroid, hollow knight, etc.)

so just like the roguelike vs. roguelite debate and what a "real" metroidvania is, it's a bit of a non-issue since the definition is kinda vague.

we all play a role

Nah I still say all of this can be boiled down to and described in some way to "role playing" If you make choices about the character, you are making your own role, if it is a JRPG linear game, you are playing the games given role.

can we all give a round of applause to baldur's gate 3

pong is a role playing game where you role play as a rectangle

It's simple. RPG is a long-form genre of videogames that you "beat" by putting more time in it rather than by getting better. Feel free to argue with this definition.

... I disagree. An RPG is about playing a role... Not playing a role = not an RPG. And it isn't just about names being descriptive. It is about names not being FALSELY descriptive. For instance, the term "hot dog" isn't a dog of any sort, ergo the name is wrong.

I never knew that Square and Enix specialized in Visual Novels back in the day. That explains so much.

Baldurs Gate 3. done and dusted

Ah vampire Masquerade bloodlines good times, good times

Thanks for the vid

I think that it's pretty interesting that in Poland we use RPG interchangibaly with the term "Gra fabularna" which means plot-driven game. But you are proposing that RPGs are games that are focused on character or characters and balance between storytelling and strategy. But if so shouldn't more games fit under RPG umbrella. Like adventure games, The Longest Journey/Dreamfall series for example?

It is what it is XD

player agency is so important because thats the element that seperates games and movies

because of your initial question, "which finch is the true inheritor?" anyone who knows what evolution is also knows that you don't understand evolution.

an rpg is a game where you play as a role, or use different types of roles in order to progress and win the game. you have a set constituency of types of characters that you have to balance in order to progress and build your character/s into ones that have the needed traits to get to the end and win.

that all.

storytelling doesn't matter. fighting doesn't matter. choice of how to grow your character's ability is all that matters -- that's what makes an rpg an rpg.

all finches are the true inheritors of the original just as all of my kids are my children. they are all my true children. cows, deer, buffalo, gazelle, are all true mammals -- so are all species that have the dna to make mammary glands. we are all the true inheritors of whatever constitutes our dna.

I love your videos

Many, if not all, of the names that genres have in video games aren't great at describing what it actually is. Medroidvania, rouge-like, and rouge-lite are some that come to mind. Then there are descriptors that haven't yet become genres, specifically souls like comes to mind here.

Considering RPG stands for Role Playing Game, any game where you actually can be considered to be playing a Role, it's an RPG if we're going to use the idea that word do, and should have proper meaning. But so many video games focus on RPG being "number gets bigger". I'd consider Fallout and Elder Scrolls more of an RPG than Final Fantasy games, as they have both a more free form open exploration and an increasing stat system. But most video games also don't allow for full freedom of decisions, like Deus Ex, you certainly fill a role, deciding how you want to progress, but you still have to be an augmented secret agent. You can't be a tabaxi rogue or elven wizard but still attempt to solve the same problem completely differently.

And games like early D&D having various issues, I didn't get started into D&D at all until 2nd edition had been around a while, and none of my friends were ever about that stats part being the focus, but, the Role. Because of this, I don't think you can just say D&D 1st Ed was the first and definitive meaning of what an RPG is. Again, Role Playing is part of the name, and if D&D 1st Ed was bad at that, then I'd argue the game was badly labeled rather than being part of the genre.

But again, I believe nearly all of us can agree RPG is being reduced to "make numbers bigger" by many games. And I believe the only possible true RPG would be those supremely focused on personal decisions on how you play, possible being exclusive to TTRPGs, or even LARP where stats tend to get thrown out of the window entirely (or maybe into the window back indoors, given the amount outdoor LARP for the space). And that means many games could technically be badly labeled, even many of the classic "obviously" it's an RPG ones.

Thanks for the thoughts and video, but I must disagree. There was an original finch, and it's none of the current finches.
Instead of describing everything that calls itself an RPG, we should look at the definition of RPG and the original impetus behind it, and then assess whether a particular game is mostly an RPG or just another game with RPG elements.

I always thought that "RPG's" were always when there's character sheets in your game

Soviet Womble used the same galapagos finch analogy when discussing DayZ, it's really a useful connundrum of "which one is THE thing?"

Idk rpg is a lot about roleplaying to me

Of course we all kill thousands, steal millions, and become all powerful. No playing roles at all. Stupid title.

So my take-away from all of this is that Duolingo is an RPG

Great video the galopigoes fish parts worked really well to form a narrative through line and a non game example of the argument you made about rpgs very well done

That was great, thank you!

did you get into Honkai Star Rail?

"dumb gambling game" lmao good one bud

Oh this video has a nice proper take away I thought to myself; than the Gary Gaygax comment came and I was like no, this is actually more based than any take away as a long term table top RPG fan that I forgot what the other takeaway was.