Who wants to edit/piece together the RPG 101 Guide

[racketboy]

Howdy crew!

We have more of the RPG 101 guide written, but we need somebody to edit it and fill in any missing gaps. Is anyone up for the task?

Edit: if interested, please see this thread:
http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewtopi ... 11&t=36153

[sabrage]

How deep does it delve into classic PC RPGs? I know a guy who'd love to go into that.

[Forlorn Drifter]

This might be a huge project. I mean, the history, the different types, the evolutions, the changes in formula.... its a horrible thought to think of how much you would have to put into it.

[skyknight]

Should the discussion of JRPG and Western RPG be in there?

[SirPsycho]

Should the discussion of JRPG and Western RPG be in there?

Given the vagueness and ambiguity of the title then it should go into even more detail, such as the games which genuinely inspired many RPGs from all parts of the world. Start at early university MUDs and move up to today. Move onto titles such as The Black Omen being a very early graphical RPG that set Japan ablaze with the genre, paving the way for Wizardry (an early Western game) to directly influence Dragon Quest and Yuji Horii's goal to make Wizardry's mechanics easy enough to be understood by the masses while also weaving in a more comprehensive narrative.

Games like Rogue should be mentioned too as its design inspired random dungeons in games like Diablo, Shin Megami Tensei, Torneko, Torchlight, Mystery Dungeon games, and many others (and you'll notice that those examples come from both East and West).

I only ever refer to games as JRPG or WRPG because its easier for those who haven't done too much research to know the more modern derivatives and what one could expect. You'd be surprised how little the two truly differ from each other from a game design and historical standpoint.

And Tactical RPGs, a genre that almost exclusively comes from Japan anymore, was more than influenced by the combat of early Ultima games. The only thing that truly separates Japanese RPGs from Western RPGs are aesthetics and sense of freedom, all the stuff that happens under the hood was a collaborative effort from early, inspired, and brilliant designers from any part of the Earth. Did I mention tabletops being the grandmaster of grandfathers in this case?

[skyknight]

I only ever refer to games as JRPG or WRPG because its easier for those who haven't done too much research to know the more modern derivatives and what one could expect. You'd be surprised how little the two truly differ from each other from a game design and historical standpoint.

It is true that JP and Western companies have drawn influences from each other, but each came to develop their own artistic styles and storyline development; I would dare to say in the 90's there was a visible difference between JRPG and Western RPG, but after the rise of MMO in the early 00's, things changed on both side.

[SirPsycho]

Visible because there was a difference in aesthetics, sense of freedom, and style of narrative. From the beginning the early Western games were pretty much nothing more than text or graphical representations of D&D campaigns. In the 90's guess what? Many Western developed RPGs were still graphical D&D campaigns, literally.

And the Japanese gave us such loved tropes like the naive young swordsman who saved the world, complete linearity (sense of freedom, not an actual gameplay element, this is narrative), melodramatic storylines, and anime aesthetics.

Again we come back to the point I made earlier, the only REAL difference between the two are narrative structure and sense of freedom. Aesthetics has nothing to do with programming or gameplay, its an artistic style. Western games develop a narrative around rules, in the 90's they used AD&D rules, so in many cases there was less freedom for what they could do given the licenses they used. Games like Fallout and Diablo broke this trend by using their own rules (Diablo), or rules from another game (GURPS for Fallout). Eastern games built narratives then the gameplay afterwards, unless they wanted to make a statement about being different like Tales of Phantasia and Star Ocean.

But no matter what rules they used the gameplay was still virtually identical, turn based combat revolving around finishing dungeons and including some grinding on weaker enemies for money and experience, exceptions being action-RPGs for real time combat.

Look at how RPGs are cataloged it is almost NEVER from where they came from, except from fans on either side of this 'JRPG vs WRPG' bullcrap debate. Its always about what gameplay elements they have. Is it tactical, is it an action-RPG, is it a strict roguelike, is it a strict fixed outline dungeon crawler, is it a shooter-RPG? That's how you determine where a game belongs, not from where it was made. There is simply too much overlap to use the archaic, almost racist WRPG or JRPG categorization that so many people seem so fond of.

I've been building this argument since the 90's, and I wasn't even 10 when I started this research.

[pakopako]

Uh huh. Pardon me.

With that out of the way, I'm in.

I don't mind helping, but like Forlorn Drifter put it, this IS going to be huge. And I mean from PnP to PC, from character rolling to dungeon trolling (Bard's Tale), from class-changing and plot pushing (Final Fantasy), from given the tools for a campaign to given the tools to run a campaign (NWN), and even including pay-as-you-go games (WoW)... there is a lot that those three letters cover. (And not including all the controversial games that are rife with RPG-elements such as Zelda's fetch-quests or Scott Pilgrim's stat-counting.)

Here's a fairly varied set of titles from a well-read associate @ GameFAQs. Word of warning, the Gaming Appreciation section is still WIP, but is very easy to drown yourself in.

[spiritplx]

Look at how RPGs are cataloged it is almost NEVER from where they came from, except from fans on either side of this 'JRPG vs WRPG' bullcrap debate.

I agree with what you are getting at in your post. I'd say only a few years ago I was pretty picky on what should be classified as an RPG. But after playing more and more subgenres of RPGs, I started to realize that I was being ridiculous.

RPG is a major genre type in the same vein as Action. So then why do people classify a game as a JRPG instead of an RPG? The same reason that you don't call a shooter an Action game. "Hey, have you played that one game, it's an Action game?". The purpose is for classification, so people get a better understanding of the type of game. You already posted difference between JRPG and WRPG (and I think you did a great job distinguishing them, while some people incorrectly equate JRPG=RPG), so you basically already proved my point that a distinction *can* be beneficial when you are attempting to categorize.

There are even people on this forum who get up in arms about calling Zelda games RPGs. I believe the original was the ARPG genre defining title. Yes, ARPG is a subgenre of the overarching RPG category. Why do people get upset at a classification system that's sole purpose is to help define what type a game is? Language is a "living" thing, so why can't our language based classification system be as well? As more genres are defined, we will re-categorize games so that fit more properly into the new system.

But the last thing you should do is tell me a game is an RPG; tell me what kind of RPG it is.

As far as the thread topic is concerned, I would be willing to help contribute to the guide. I would also love to see others, such as SirPsycho, contribute so we can get multiple view points. I know we have a few RPG experts on these boards (MrPopo, for one), so I hope they chime in as well.

[TEKTORO]

My writing is terrible,I have the attention span of a gnat (when writing),I proabably have like 500 Rpgs I own but havent beat.

But if I can suggest any let me know,I have an extensive list of obscuritys in my colection.Wouldnt wanna miss stuff like Car Battler Joe.lol