Who wants to edit/piece together the RPG 101 Guide

[Hatta]

Then please list some examples of ARPGs. Or do you deny such a subgenre exists?

Of course there are action RPGS. The quality of your aim, the damage you deliver and receive, the speed you can run, the amount you can carry, the success of your spells, etc, are all dependent on numerical attributes and skills. This is as much the case for modern wRPGs like Fallout 3 as it is for older JRPGs like Tales of Phantasia.

Zelda isn't an RPG because your chance to hit depends only on your personal skill, not that of your character.

My point is the best way to categorize them is by gameplay elements. I'm not trying to discredit the aesthetic or stylistic experience, but saying a game is a certain thing based on how it looks is quite shallow and frankly immature imo.

There's a lot more to "style" than simply visual elements. How obvious is the math behind the scene? How much direction does the player get in what to do next? Does the story exist to support the game, or vice versa? There's a lot more that gets wrapped up in style.

You do have a point, "JRPG" is a very heavy handed way to refer to this loose grouping of tropes, and not all JRPGs share the same overlapping group of tropes. But language is descriptive not prescriptive, and JRPG has proven itself to be a useful term. I think if you gave a fan of Betrayal at Krondor (a western tactical RPG) a copy of The Witcher (a western Action RPG) and a copy of Disgea (a japanese tactical RPG) they'd be more at home with The Witcher.

[isiolia]

It falls under the umbrella of a WRPG due to the player making their own character, and choosing a light/dark path, etc.

By this logic every single entry in the main Shin Megami Tensei franchise is also a WRPG, is that how you would classify Nocturne? Think about it, every time your main character levels up you pick a stat to upgrade and a skillset to increase aptitude in. Your decisions throughout the game follow a morality system based on Law (good), Chaos (bad), or Neutral.

But I'm sure many fans of the series would go up in flames if that was how it was going to be classified as from now on.

I haven't played through enough of them to really offer a more specific opinion. An important distinction might be whether or not you actually changing the flow of the game prior to which ending cutscenes you receive.
If the choices you make have no real bearing on the direction of the story, then that'd be different.

Changing stats, leveling up, and so on really doesn't have as much of a bearing. I mention Demon's Souls for that because it's basically like an Elder Scrolls game in terms of character creation (and I though Oblivion's facial options were terrible, yeesh). Pick a character class, adjust appearance, stats, etc. At times, the goals (or level events) will differ based on alignment.

Basing it on the inclusion of any and every customization option or yes/no type dialogue would be too broad, sure. It's more the intended ideal. Player freedom, or scripted path.

[spiritplx]

Of course there are action RPGS. The quality of your aim, the damage you deliver and receive, the speed you can run, the amount you can carry, the success of your spells, etc, are all dependent on numerical attributes and skills. This is as much the case for modern wRPGs like Fallout 3 as it is for older JRPGs like Tales of Phantasia.

Let's replace Link's hearts with HP. Let's now give him a stat screen. He starts the game with 0 attack power, and it raises to 1 when he gets the wooden sword. It raises to 2 when he gets the next sword upgrade. He has a defense stat of 1 that raises to 2 when he gets the first ring, and 3 when he gets the second. Link now has a stat sheet that varies like most RPGs. He gets new equipment that raises his stats (attack and defense) and when he levels up, he receives a hit point.

I'd say there are plenty of RPGs where how much you can carry *isn't* determined by a character stat, as well as other suggestions on your list. I realize you were trying to just list out multiple examples, but what's the absolute rule about how many of these on your list must be followed in order to be considered an RPG?

I played a D&D campaign where we didn't get experience points after every single encounter. Instead the DM decided to level us up after major events, or a certain number of play sessions. Just like how Link levels up. He can't "grind", but why is grinding a necessary RPG component? Who has played in a D&D campaign where you grinded on rats and goblins until you were level 20 (note: if you have, your DM shouldn't be allowed to ever DM again)? So are you saying that my D&D campaign wasn't an RPG? We never counted how much weight we could carry either, so perhaps it wasn't an RPG for that reason.

How about this. Normal monsters that Link fight give him 0 exp, and bosses/major events give him 1k exp. It takes 1k exp to level up. Now we have an artificial leveling system in place. In other words, just because the devs made all of this visible to the player doesn't make it an RPG.

Yes, there will be people that try to apply this to SMB, or something like that. But I would imagine a fairly simple ROM hack would turn Zelda into a fairly convincing RPG (by merely changing the GUI).

And while it's great to describe a game by *all* of its game play mechanics, isn't the entire point of the classification system to sum that up into one or two words? So what all does a game have to have to be considered an "Action" game? That's probably harder to answer than the RPG question (although we can all agree on explosions). Could we call Zelda an action/adventure game? Sure. Do some agree that it has RPG components? Sure. So can't we call it an RPG adventure with action components? An ARPG with adventure components?

Zelda isn't an RPG because your chance to hit depends only on your personal skill, not that of your character.

By that logic, Oblivion isn't an RPG either.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Let's replace Link's hearts with HP. Let's now give him a stat screen. He starts the game with 0 attack power, and it raises to 1 when he gets the wooden sword. It raises to 2 when he gets the next sword upgrade. He has a defense stat of 1 that raises to 2 when he gets the first ring, and 3 when he gets the second. Link now has a stat sheet that varies like most RPGs. He gets new equipment that raises his stats (attack and defense) and when he levels up, he receives a hit point.

A fair point, but Link's stats are solely determined by item and equipment inventory. There are no levels and experience in Zelda games. Running around in circles killing Moblins will net you some rupees but nothing else. In nearly all RPGs (or at least JRPGs, I admit that my experience with Western ones is limited) there is almost always a clear correlation between number of monsters killed and strength of your character(s).

That said, I think any comprehensive article about RPGs needs to include the Zelda franchise somewhere. It's influence was enormous on action-RPG games like Secret of Mana, etc.

[mobiusclimber]

To be perfectly honest, I think the only reason a game like Zelda is excluded is so that the lonely genre of "action-adventure" will have a few more entries in it. Seriously, this genre is basically "every game that would be a platformer except there's no platforms," which isn't a very large selection of games. Oh, and "would be a beat-em-up if there were more enemies." So it's basically Zelda, Beyond Good and Evil, Shenmue (maybe) and... ?

[Opa Opa]

So it's basically Zelda, Beyond Good and Evil, Shenmue (maybe) and... ?

Ico and Shadow of the Colossus?

[Hatta]

Let's replace Link's hearts with HP. Let's now give him a stat screen. He starts the game with 0 attack power, and it raises to 1 when he gets the wooden sword.

That's part of the difference right there. He doesn't get better with practice, he gets better by accomplishing tasks in the game. Further, you don't get to choose how Link develops. There's no chance to affect the kind of character Link is by, e.g., investing more in magic instead of sword skill.

Zelda isn't an RPG because your chance to hit depends only on your personal skill, not that of your character.

By that logic, Oblivion isn't an RPG either.

Sure, but your character sheet does affect how much damage, if any, you do. And more importantly you can customize your character sheet, and that affects the way you play the game.

[pakopako]

Was anything ever decided in the "What constitutes an RPG" thread?

Nothing everyone 100% agreed on I don't think

Superduck. This is happening now isn't it?

By this logic every single entry in the main Shin Megami Tensei franchise is also a WRPG... I'm sure many fans of the series would go up in flames if that was how it was going to be classified as from now on.

It is empirical truth though. The series carries heavy WRPG-elements if not being half-WRPG. (Older games tried to mix elements, but weren't as popular; a lot of modern games are heavily mixing things because gaming in general is more popular.)

It won't make people happy, but it will be accurate.

Also, my schedule.

[racketboy]

So.... is there anyone else interested in helping on this? I had one person volunteer, but now there's time/schedule issues.

[mobiusclimber]

What, exactly, would "helping" entail? Are you looking for someone to edit it? Write it? A mix of both?