I am dissatisfied with the way video game genres are conceived.
- They are often based upon superficial features which actually don't meaningfully unite the games, such as aesthetics or the simplest aspects of gameplay.
- Conversely, they are often also too strict to allow serious creative spins.
- The narrative elements are usually not considered as a factor in genre-naming.
- The general marketing buzz is making meaningful naming harder.
Role-playing games has been hit quite hard by this. In this essay, I will first discuss the history of term "role-playing game" and the many ways it is understood today, try to unpack what constitutes a genre and then attempt to construct a terminology which can communicate what people try to achieve words like "RPG", "JRPG", "action-RPG" etc. more clearly, using examples along the way.
Eastern and Western RPGs
Although role-playing games had originated from board games, they found their way into video games in mere couple of years: The first edition of
Dungeons&Dragons was released in 1974. In 1979, first true adaptation of
D&D mechanics,
Akalabeth was released. In the following years,
Ultima(1981-1999)[*] and
Wizardy(1981-2017) series took off and they shaped what's known as "Western-RPG" today. "Computer-RPG" was also born as a synonym, since before mid-2000s, Western RPG developers often prefered PC as their main platform.
Folks in Japan also quickly fell in love with role-playing games, and they wanted some of that action themselves. Among the first, there was
Dragon Slayer(1984). However, unlike RPGs at the time the game used real-time combat.
Hylide(1984), similarly had a "crash into enemies" combat, and featured a lot of mechanics that would influence
Legend of Zelda(1987). Thus, Action-RPG hybrids were born. However, in many ways, the true milestone game was
Dragon Quest(1986), proved to be so popular and spawned so many clones that it ended up defining much we think of as "JRPG", "Eastern RPG" or " Console RPG", as these games were usually designed for and are still usually released to consoles.
Regardless how much they have might make sense when these terms started to gain acceptance, nowadays their usefulness are dubious at best. When people say "JRPG" or "WRPG", do they simply talk about the game's country of origin? No, they do not. Rather, they attempt to communicate a collection of somewhat unrelated ideas with a single word.
When the word "JRPG" is used, depending on the speaker's age, it can either mean "16-bit games of Square" , sometimes also including "PS1 era of Square games". Animesque visuals and character design, turn-based combat, a mixture of medieval and futuristic fantasy, linear stories instead of "role-playing" and so on. And there is certainly some truth to this stereotype, a lot of it can be directly traced back to
Dragon Quest(1986) itself. Unfortunately, stereotypes alone are not very good when it comes to classification, and are often misleading.
- Visual novels and anime have a clear influence on Japanese games; just like Hollywood, Western fantasy and sci-fi literature have in the West. However, this is by no means restricted to RPGs and there are just too many exceptions and subversions to make it meaningful for categorization. (If anything, AAA Japanese game scene is overall more diverse in terms of visual presentation than Western one)
- Turn-based battles stereotype is also misleading as not only trend started in Japan, many prominent and long-running action RPG titles and series are of Japan origin. Tales(1995-2016), Ys(1987-2016), Dragon's Dogma(2012), Bloodborne(2015), World of Mana(1991-2003), Kingdom Hearts(2002-2019), Xenoblade(2010-2017), and of course Legend of Zelda(1986-2018). (More on this later) By comparison, it took quite a while to have action-RPG titles which are commonly praised for their battle mechanics.
- Sometimes, it is said that the only true RPGs are the ones that allows the player develop a character with choices in a deep story and well-developed world. However, this is an ahistorical definition. Digital RPGs were always primarily about imitating the mechanics of tabletop games, character stats, levels, battle mechanics, monsters, dungeons; not characters and plots. This criteria is mostly applied to exclude Eastern RPGs, but it also leaves out a good portion of Western releases. If anything, the former was once again quicker when it comes to complex plots, and "real computer RPGs" as known today was a product of late 90s.
- "Computer RPG" today means "this game resembles late 90s RPG releases", but looks awkward in everything else and "Console RPG" is self evidently outdated and non-descriptive today.
My purpose is here is not to say "Ha! People are so wrong!" No, they have understandable reasons, but insufficient vocabulary. For example,
Dark Souls(2011), despite being a Japanese title, is not commonly referred as a JRPG. Even
TV Tropes lists it under "Western-Style Action RPGs". When Western devs make games directly insipred by JRPGs,
Undertale(2015) for instance, the games are sometimes referred as JRPGs, or "Japanese style". By this rationale,
Megami Tensei(1987-2019) series, or at least all pre-2000 releases, should be also called "Western-style", because they are heavily inspired by
Wizardy series. In fact, there are
Wizardy games developed by Japanese devs after the original Western series had ended. So are they JRPG or WRPG? Computer RPG on consoles? Despite being heavily embraced among Japanese gaming culture, are these games still "Western Style?"
Eastern and Western role-playing games have a shared history and always have mutually influenced each other. Terms which simply refer to their continent of origin are too shallow to be useful to describe any consistent and meaningful differences, let alone to define a genre. However accurate they were in 80s, now they are in clear need of replacement.
Action RPGs and "RPG mechanics"
After arcade gaming blew up in 80s, the word "arcade" came to describe a certain style of games: Instinct-based gameplay, fast, loud, shiny, and often quite difficult, providing both instant gratification and a good sense of challenge. Many of these games came to be refered as called "action" games later, a term derived from films with similarly high-noise content. RPGs were popular as they are because they offered a direct contrast, suited for a home environment. A sense of adventure, gradual gratification, a feeling of achievement gained by perseverance and good planning. However, as we discussed before, hybrid games appeared rather quickly, attempting to combine both styles' strengths. And so, Action-RPGs came to existence and today they are used, in theory, for games where the skill is as important as the character stats.
The first problem with this term lies in the word "action" itself. As problematic as the words like "JRPG" are, at least they are just coherent enough to provide a little common ground. "Action games" are simply way too wide of a genre: It covers any game with melee fighting, simple sword combat, using vehicles, shooting, stealth, with their myriad variations and combinations. This is why we treat to most of these as separate genres. The mere uniting point is that the game involves controlling a character and having combat. When combined with "RPG" moniker, it just means "Player does not pause to select moves during combat." Is this a really helpful umbrella? Are
Diablo(1996),
Demon's Souls(2009) and
Dragon's Dogma(2012) played for similar reasons? No, usually not.
Tales of Xilla(2011) features real-time combat, where the player chains combos, block, dodge etc. but outside of battles the game is quite similar to any number of games in the
Dragon Quest structure. If
Baldur's Gate featured a combat-style closer to a mouse-clicking real-time combat style, it would change the game a lot, but would that be to a degree where it's no longer
Baldur's Gate? Classifying games as "Action-RPG" is misleading as it centers the combat too much, regardless of whether this is actually right for the game in question, and obscures other fundamental similarities and differences.
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The second problem lies in "RPG mechanics with non menu-based combat" definition. With popularity of the RPGs exploding in late 1980s, many other games started to outright copy mechanics from these games: Quests, progression systems, inventory management and resources, more dialogue, elaborate plots, games overall becoming deeper and more suited to be played in longer sessions. Role playing games had such a widespread influence that, especially after the golden days of arcade had ended, many of such elements were fully normalized in general culture of games, no longer considered in the domain of RPGs.
This raised a question. Which "RPG mechanics" make a game Action-RPG? It's somewhat arbitrary.
Legend of Zelda(1987) isn't called an RPG despite being clearly designed with RPGs, especially
Hylide, in mind and attempts to hit similar notes: Adventure, gradual empowerment, secrets, a living world, dungeons, cool weapons and so on. Nowadays, this is even more confusing. Almost every large publisher action title has skill, item, character stat progression systems, conversely several RPG franchises have become more action-like. One wonders whether there is even a meaningful difference between an "Action-RPG" and "An action game with RPG mechanics" anymore.
Whatever the differences are, it's clear that neither "Action-RPGs" nor "RPG mechanics" are adequate terms to explain them.
What Is A Genre?
Well-defined names for genres provide an umbrella for the core feelings of similar works while creating room for enough diversity so that it doesn't pressure future works into being each other's clones. For movies and fantasy literature, that was quite easy; because the subjects of stories alone shape their themes, structures, tropes, so "What's this "film/book about " is usually a sufficient question for placing it under certain genres.
Being such a new medium like gaming has its quirks. Video games have always been grouped by their most immediate and noticeable qualities: Jumping, shooting, flying, playing ball, on the computer, has a lot of text, three-dimensional etc. Just like the creation of RPGs, video game genres very consistently born from attempts at simulating and gamifying real life activities in different ways. When the clones get diverse enough but still retain a common set of goals, it becomes a genre.
Sometimes, the immediate qualities are good answers to "What's this video game is about?" as they really speak to the core of the experience. For example, "platform games" are a very well-defined genre. They can be fast or slow, may or may not involve combat, can be linear, can require tight controls or prioritize a sense of journey, can be linear or focus on collecting things, can incorporate many different ways to interact with the world, can even successfully tell a narrative; but at their core, all platform games are mainly about giving the player a good sense of movement. It's quite possible that, despite how obvious that actually is, it is seldom questioned the fact that the player can jump several times their height and control their movement mid-air in platform games, literally no video game have even tried to make sense of it; because unlike a lot of video game clichés, it feels so natural. That's how much a basic interaction can define an entire genre.
Unfortunately, digital role-playing games are too complex for this method. All the stereotypes we use about RPGs are just attempts to reduce it into something very obvious and basic. The very word of "RPG" itself is usually just a shorthand for "This game has a leveling system for the characters". This is why
Legend of Zelda is not called an RPG while
Dragon Slayer is, the real mechanical difference the latter has a leveling system, the former does not.
If we want to define a coherent genre, we need to earnestly and thoroughly answer the question "What is at the core of an RPG?"
The Core of RPGs
Let us go back to the beginning. What was so fun about sitting in front of a small black-and-white screen, looking at plain text to simulate a battle is going on and pretend crudely drawn shapes are monsters and dungeon walls? It could not be any more different from playing on a table, surrounded by people, using extensive sheets and rulebooks, making the player's imagination go wild as they actively participate in the world and story dungeon master creates. This is our answer: Participation! Even with basic pixels and ASCII characters, the monsters they faced, the battles they survived, the dark and unforgiving corridors they conquered with great perseverance all felt real. Perseverance! No need for the motor skills and the strength of an actual warrior, no matter how powerful the foes are; no matter how unlucky the player is, they can steadily and surely will improve and their efforts will give fruit.
These are what all role-playing games have been always about. players are at the center of an adventure, a campaign, a journey. The games are built upon the transformation of the characters. If we take "magic" as an example subject, RPGs are not just toys to make magic, set pieces where magic happens, attempts to capture the feeling of being a witch or workshops to craft and maintain systems of magic and witchness. They can include all that, but they are mainly about taking the role of a witch in a specific place and time, not an abstract simulation of witchness. And this requires the witch to change, to grow, in positive or negative qualities, to make their existence materialized in the conflict, and player becomes the catalyst with their personal input.
Of course, there is a fundamental difference in board games and video games. It's not the fact as the latter is digital, you can host RPG sessions in a completely digital environment. No, in the former the author is alive, in the latter the author is dead. The former is actively created and re-created infinitely during experience, the latter is only created as an experience in the player's headspace, otherwise plays within the confines of pre-destined combinations . In this way, role-playing video games are not so much role-playing in a live setting but rather performing a role as an actor. The game world, with its total mechanical and narrative existence, is the audience,. As the player acts their role as the pirate, the highschool student, the thief, the spawn of demon god, or the destined hero they repeat their lines over and over, their acting improves, they are connected to their role and the game world is connected to the player more and more. Usually repeating lines isn't enough, they need to perform other talents, other ways to connect to the audience. Thankfully the game world is a rather patient audience. It will watch the player's every mistake, and clap
exictingly any time the they get their act correct. Players are also allowed to improvise their roles, and even encouraged in many ways depending on the game.
Defining RPGs
So far, we have tried to find answers questions like "What draws people to RPGs over over other games?", "What are the shared feelings RPGs try to achieve?", "What are the core ideals of RPG". Now that we have decent idea a more formalized definition for RPGs is doable. In order to do this, instead of giving an encyclopedic definition, we will attempt to define high and low value factors for RPGs. This allows a better focus on the possibility and convenience of calling a game RPG instead of excluding it over rigid rules.
High value factors: The more decisive factors to call a game RPG. not every factor must absolutely be correct, as deciding a genre is not a simple true/false question, but the more factors it checks, more meaningful "RPG" moniker feels.
- The player is represented in the game world by at least one concrete character. No abstract godlike entities.
- A progression system to connect the player to the representative characters. Progression systems as merely as rewards for desired outcome, as a means to lengthen the play time or incentivize purchasing content, and progression which player have absolutely no control over do not count.
- The progression either occurs to the player characters, the tools they use, or the subordinates they are in control of.
- The progression systems are interconnected with other game mechanics, the setting and the narrative. More connected it is, the stronger role-playing gets.
Low value factors: These are not strictly required, nor really unique to RPGs but usually utilized to enhance the player's ability of role-making.
- A realized setting that exists outside of player's existence.
- Well-written characters that have an existence outside of serving as tools to player.
- Player are able to give their own characters depth or the characters should be written in a way that players can connect to them.
- Players are given opportunities to shape themselves, with classes, customization, crafting etc.
- Players can shape their character and narrative with dialogue choices.
- Randomized elements to solidify connection to the game world: Encounters, certain enemy statistics, the factor of chance during battles etc .
- An appropriate escalation of encounters and their rewards
- RPGs can contain many other systems for player expression: Tactical battle areas, shooting mechanics, platform elements, bullet dodging mechanics, anything can be thought of. When they are harmony with progression systems, they can enhance the role-playing.
Non factors: The world RPG should not be used to suggest the following.
- Specialness, deepness, or uniqueness compared to other games
- A particular degree of quality
- A particular battle mechanic or having battles at all
- A particular system of party, class, experience, weapon etc
- Whether the player characters are blank state, shaped by dialogue or has a full independent character.
That's not all. As can be seen, RPG is rather intended to be used as an umbrella, but we still need terminology to explain sharp differences between many RPGs. Here tabletop RPGs provide a method once again. Role-playing in a board game happens in many layers: The games mechanics which simulates characters their actions, the player input which breathes life into the characters, the lore and storylines put out by the dungeon master, and the social layer that is built by the players and DM. Because table top games are a medium where all participants are both authors and the audience, in what layers players are supposed to connect to the games are freely decided, so layers co-exists and feed into one another in the every second of play. Video games however are post-author experiences, the interactions will be limited and thus the role-playing must be directed by the game. Developers should decide whether the player character stands for the player, a character shaped by the player or an original character written by them. as a result games prioritize one of those layers over another. Thus, those layers are quite convenient to divide RPGs into subgenres.
- Player RPG: The old school RPG. Literally dungeons and dragons. The mechanical connection is emphasized over others. The player character primarily functions like an avatar of player, solidifying player's direct existence in the setting.
- Character RPG: The "Western RPG" stereotype. The game is concerned with allowing the player to shape the characters and the setting throughout a story in a well-realised setting.
- Story RPG: The "Eastern RPG" stereotype. The game emphasizes telling a story the most, the player's role as an actor is more well-defined, with player characters having independent identities.
- Social RPG: Massive-multiplayer games, multi user dungeons, co-op play; really anything that involves more than one player.
Categorizing art, like art itself, is subjective, and a work of art can fit in more than one genre, or even one medium. The goal here is not to force things into rigid boxes. Whether calling a game RPG feels meaningful or not is more interesting than declaring "this is definitely not an RPG.".
Applying Categories
It is waste of time to argue whether games that are already embraced as quintessential RPGs are actually RPGs, such as
Baldur's Gate(1998) or
Final Fantasy(1987). More interesting are the cases where the line between simulating a character and acting one is thin. Emphasis on progression helps us specifically in such cases.
In
God of War(2005-2010) series, PC is Kratos, a guy who is always mean and angry. With his mighty blades and strong hands, he breaks, cuts and smashes everything on his path. As the games progress, he slays stronger and stronger creatures and eventually gods themselves, enemies, allies and bystanders alike. There is an experience system, but it is not really tied to the character, Kratos is the perfect warrior and he ends up being a God but the system is pretty much unconnected, and does not even affect gameplay all that much . The reason why "ordinary person rising to be hero" stories are so convenient, they set up an easy justification for the player. Here, the game does not even try to cast a slightest of doubt on Kratos's victory, he is too angry to lose. The game does not connect the player to his desire of. revenge, because player is not Kratos. Instead they are effectively his body, his muscles, his blades, the vessel which channels his wrath. In turn, his story is mainly a justification to make the player indulge in action and gore. This is not a condemnation of the game, quite the contrary, the series are beautiful in their commitment to destruction and not in a "mindless" way either. This just means that player does not exist in the game, except for simulating the destruction.
By contrast, a series such as
Legend of Zelda is firmly about making the player part of the world. Not with a narrative usually, but primarily through mechanics. Weapons, gadgets; all Link uses to interact with Hyrule evolve as the adventure deepens. The player's role being the hero of Hyrule, Link is the costume, the tools are the player's lines and Hyrule is the stage. The games my lack some common mechanics of RPGs but they are still solidly player RPGs. Link is the literal link between the player and the game. The "player RPG" title demonstrably is not a judgement of the story of the games, in fact, they are often viewed as succesful on that front too. The terms show that it shares the same basic goals with more traditional series like
Dragon Quest. When looked at this way, it is no surprise
Breath of the Wild came to exist. It was not following the trends of big budget titles, but the logical conclusion of the series' principles in 2018.
When we look past the superficial differences we can see that
Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim shares a lot of core ideals with
Legend of Zelda and classical Japanese RPGs. Simplified battle mechanics compared to their predecessors, centering player's agency, dungeon exploration with puzzles, a living and changing "overworld", towns primarily offering functional value over narrative value. Dragonborn is very similar to Link or Light Warrior, or Jim in the sense that the game is aggressively uninterested with them as a character. Dragonborn is only important insofar it makes the player obtain dragon powers, collect flowers, be an assassin, shoot fire balls. All narrative choices are essentially serve to determine what the player earns in gameplay: Be a vampire or a hunter, get a new companion or a demonic staff, choose between the red team and the blue team. There is a real effort to make the world feel alive and believable, and this effort serves to create a world where player gets to be a Dragonborn. Notice how this separates the game from the likes of
Far Cry 4(2014),
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City(2002) or
Just Cause 3(2015), where the game world is just a sandbox for the player but the PC is almost entirely separated from the player. Such action games, just like in God of War, are chiefly about simulating things.
Skyrim on the other hand, is in a lot ways a very traditional player RPG. The game has certain problems to present itself as
one, but the game is usually very open and clear about its goals. As a result of the bloated meaning the word "RPG" carries, there was at least a vocal group among fans and critics who were disappointed about game's lack of narrative depth. How we classify games clearly shape player expectations.
Linearity and openness in games have multiple dimensions: Level design, combat, puzzles, narrative and so on. Player RPGs have often open gameplay with linear stories. Character RPGs on the other hand focus greatly on the narrative agency, even when it comes at the expense of player's own freedom. Certain quests will block others, the player can't win over every NPC nor they can't just attack an NPC just because they feel like it and expect nothing happens. Another common method is to limit the character building options: The player does not have free access to every spell, ability, weapon etc. and for the course of a play through, must choose for the character. Permanent choices are the main engine for progression. That makes this sub genre easy to spot. Many works of Obsidian and Bioware can be categorized as such. So instead, let's look at a non-obvious example.
Bioshock 2(2010).
(Spoilers ahead)
The game is mostly linear structurally and narratively. The only character decision in the game is to ability to spare Little Sisters and certain enemies. This is connected to the mechanical progression system, where sparing the girls means the player has less ADAM to unlock skills. It's a very simple choice system but it does create an avenue for building a character. The Subject Delta can be the strongest Big Daddy: Uncaringly crushing everything to find one and only Little Sister they care for. Or, he can be something more, a truly failed prototype,with an intact humanity. There is yet another dimension to the choices, they also directly influence Delta's daughter. With choices simple as they get, the player essentially builds two characters. In a very basic and pure sense,
Bioshock 2 is a character RPG, and a
good one at that. More so than the first game, the game is quite responsive to player choices, both in the story and the gameplay. The endings are varied and giving up powers actively creates a difficulty spike.
There is a common phrase in-game criticism: "Telling story through mechanics". Story RPGs are notable because they do the reverse. In
Final Fantasy 4(1991), in order to stand against evil Cecil must become a true hero in every sense of the word, so he gives up his dark powers and rises up as a paladin. At Level 1. It is not exactly the most fun thing for a while, but that's part of the role player takes when acting as Cecil. The volume of story is not enough to make a game story RPG, the mechanics should be informed by the narrative. This is why "the phoenix down" is memefied: "Why the characters can't revive the dead now?", the player asks. "Because that's what only player does, the item doesn't actually exist in the narrative's setting", the game answers. In those moments, the game quits being a story RPG. Story and gameplay being separate is fine for a player RPG, or a non RPG, but it is more noticeable in story RPGs. The problem is not game being unrealistic, it is that the player is forced to break their act, or worse, doesn't really act like a character at all. This is why
Trails series(2004-?) is very consistent about this: no matter how over the top the battles are, no human character ends up in grave injuries in the end and so when someone seriously gets in the trouble, the games can justify that the items are not enough. Such are little details, but they
add up in a long way to make sure players exist as real characters, not just through avatars or worse, in possession of bodies.
Strategy games in particular highlight this difference. In these games, players often only exist in the game world in the most abstract sense: The games might refer to player as a leader or pretend they are represented by someone in the game, but that's merely window dressing. The players are too omnipresent, can both control on a macro scale and every little behavior of individual units.
Civilization series(1991-2019) are about progression of your faction in size, might, wealth, knowledge etc. In
Warcraft 3(2002), there are units which can gain experience, unlock skills, carry items. These progression systems don't create any connection with the player, just like a chess piece being upgraded suddenly doesn't make it alive. In latter case, there is a story progression as well, but this isn't really connected to the gameplay beyond justifying game levels and objectives.
Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm(2013) is marketed as a regular strategy game, and looks like one at first glance. However, it is deeper than that. The game follows Kerrigan as she regains her place as the queen of Zerg swarm and gets her long-waited revenge. Zerg are a hive-mind species, their whole will is connected to Kerrigan. They can mutate and breed fast, and don't really do much else besides killing, morphing and expanding. In other words, they work like just as if they are in a real-time strategy game and on a character scale, it makes perfectly sense why she is able to command as if she is playing a RTS game. The game has two progression systems for Kerrigan. A skill tree for her psychic abilities and the growth of her swarm. As she grows in power, she starts to see the Zerg as a natural part of herself, and the Zerg , and the player, grow as the manifestation of her emotions. They truly become one. Regardless of its writing quality, structurally the game is a solid story RPG strategy title, resembling less the rest of
Starcraft(1998-2015) series and more the likes of
Final Fantasy Tactics(1997).
"Story RPG" doesn't imply complete lack of agency in narrative, but rather the agency doesn't serve character building. In
Trails games, there are various optional side quests but the decision of completing them doesn't say anything about the main characters, these quests are canonically part of their adventure, it just means player are free to not experience them. Similarly, there are various dialogue choices in many quests, but there are obvious rights and wrongs in their choices. The player is allowed to improvise if they forget their lines but the script is very clear, they are not playing their roles as well as they are supposed to do.
Sometimes, the creative freedom of the player isn't so obvious.
Persona 3(2006) is such one case. On the one hand, the main character is a silent protagonist, can engage in various relationships as player desires. Such relationships enhance his character build and can be affected positively or negatively by dialogue options. He can even choose different endings. On the other hand, he is not completely devoid of personality. Being usually silent is part of that personality, he is calm and unfazed. Although he can be very sociable, he also enjoys being alone. Furthermore, it can be argued that abstaining from social links is not choice that builds a personality, and when you get people angry in social relationships it doesn't affect the narrative at all. So, depending on how much one projects themselves into the main character, the game can be thought as both a character RPG and story RPG. Genres serve better as groups to highlight common patterns rather than boxes to fit media in after all.
Classifying can get really complicated when the game in question is confused about its focus though. This is usually the greatest flaw of Bethesda games, and
Fallout 4(2015) in particular. Bethesda wants to eat the cake and have it too. They have some design philosophies a lot of people enjoy. Yet they still want to stay faithful to
Fallout name a little, and also want to catch up with current AAA trends. As the game begins, the player is introduced to a main character with a very clear background, lifestyle, relationships, motivations and even their own unique voice. The main core of the game however is a classic "explore, fight, get loot and xp" loop with crafting on top, directly contradicting what the PC wants to do. And sometimes, the game suddenly decides player should have agency in narrative, but not a lot. It is an end up uneven mix of story, character and player RPG where the ingredients don't really complement one another.
Undertale stands as a good example of a unique hybrid.
(Incoming spoilers) Depending on player's actions, the relationship between the player and the player character dynamically change. A normal run has many endings, and the personality of PC is shaped by whom the they kill. They might be "a fight everyone in your path" person, they might spare some people because they feel close to them or think death might be unjust sometimes. In this way, the game is a character RPG.
In a genocide run, the presence of "the player" as an entity becomes the most vivid, with each kill the PC becomes a little like an empty vessel for the player's "adventure". Sans makes it clear: the player fights them because they can. They are curious, they want to complete, they want to overcome the challenge. This is one of the most underlooked points of
Undertale, the point here is not condemning the player for killing fictional monsters, it is commenting on the fact that player doesn't have a personal connection to the game universe, and as a result the player plays the game like a classical RPG. The difference here is that the genocide run has no self-justification from the game world, no excuse plot, no sense of grandeur, it doesn't even foster greed or malice. The more player progresses, the game world erodes into a hollow shell, In the end, the monsters. the setting, dialogue, even battling all become meaningless. As the universe completely ends, the only thing you see is just pixels and numbers. Chara has motives, reasons and relationships and even they end up ultimately meaningless, as after they destroy the universe, they are aware the player can still best them, by deleting save file, because they are just data after all. When those things matter to player even a little, they don't enter a genocide run, because they have an emotional attachment to the universe. Genocide run is a player RPG in the purest sense possible, player defeats enemies, becomes strong and defeats all who stands in front of them.
In the pacifist run, the player agency shrinks and PC grows as their own character. After they enter the lab, PC won't attack anyone, because "despite everything, this is you". That's who Frisk is. The silent and aloof kid who doesn't like fighting. By playing in a particular way, the player becomes an actor of Frisk's story. After the game ends, the characters explicitly ask the player to not reset the timeline again, so the player can either respect the story and restrain their agency for the story, or decide that they are what really matters.
Player can reset again and again, load different saves, delete existing ones; and thus alcan be considered both as a participator, and a dungeon master to the character they are role-play as, in their own single player campaign. In this way,
Undertale approximates tabletop experience from angle most RPGs don't. It is both a mix of a single player RPG experience and something unique as a synthesis.
Single player isn't all there is to it of course. From Multi User Dungeons, MMOs, co-op mode in
Divinity: Original Sin 2(2017), competitive and collabatory multi-player of
Souls series to weird not-really-social gameplay of
Fallout 76(2017) social RPGs are a huge world which I don't feel qualified to analyze in-depth. Instead, here is an exercise for the reader: If multi-player games you are playing have progression systems, do they serve to the player or to artificially make the game longer?
Further sub categorization is possible. Couple of examples: Dungeon-crawlers. Games heavily focusing on conquering mazes or dungeons. Rogue-likes: Characterized by permanent death and heavy focus on randomness. Metroidvanias: Where player's growth is much about their ability to exploration. And much more... They are not covered here in-depth because the they are not directly about role-playing, and this article is long as it is now.
Last Words
Genres matter, they influence how games are developed and perceived, intentionally and unintentionally, as they don't exist in a vacuum. Better analysis of genres helps us to understand where the game resides on the cultural sphere. Good genre naming requires to look past superficial similarities, marketing buzzwords and presumptions and instead look at what's at the heart of the games and how it differs from the games who offer similar experiences. Dogmatism doesn't help, it's likely a game can be categorized in multiple distinct and equally acceptable ways. While I will use my "method" forward, the main purpose of this article was to encourage the reader about the words we use without much second thought.
This article is written thanks to my dearest Patrons and special thanks to: Acelin, Alexandra Morgan, Emelina, Laura Watson, MasterofCubes, Makkovar Otakundead and Spencer Gill.
A mudcrab[/caption]
Giant hitting a guard, resulting in the guard being flown to the sky[/caption]
Two blue butterflies[/caption]
A black kettle on the head on a woman. The kettle is obscuring her head to chest.[/caption]
A Vigilant of Stendarr standing near a vampire and a daedra, two things he is supposed to hunt[/caption]
A dirty brown dog[/caption]