Care to back it up with something?

I acknowledge that people are entitled to their opinions and that in the ideal world all of them would be catered for…
What I would like to know if those opinions are based on personal preferences or something more substantial...

Please note that the opinion based on personal preference is still a valid opinion,
I am simply looking to identify and better understand various trains of thoughts or preferences.

Personally I participated in many RPG games ranging from dungeon feasts where you lived and died by your stats to outstanding character driven adventures that included no stats or dice rolls.

I've played in a lot of these, too ... but I wasn't aware that there's anyone, anywhere, calling them roleplaying games.

What would you (or what did you) call them? :)

Well, they have to be specifically referred to as freeforms, because without that qualification, stats are implied.

Well, the line of reasoning is this: compile a list of every single game every made labeled an 'RPG'. Find out what percentage have some sort of mechanic where your avatar/avatars have stats, and those stats increase.

I'm betting the majority have that feature. I could be wrong though.

Another way to look at it: if I asked you to make a list of the top 5 more famous/popular RPGs of all time, what would you come up with?

1: Dungeons and Dragons
2: World of Warcraft
3: Final Fantasy series
4: Elder Scrolls
5: Baldur's Gate? my brain is sticking :D

Anyways, point being, the most famous and well known "RPG"s have statistical avatar progression.

So you are basing your opinion on what is popular and socially acceptable, fair enough, can't argue with that. :)

Though as I have mentioned before, the line is a little thin here... since after all FIFA 11 does allow you to design a edit/evolve the stats of a footbal player... I do acknowledge that it is an extreme example but it still falls into the category what many people would consider to be a role playing game without a second thought (or until confronted with the example).

I suppose this explains why I tend to sit on the other side of the equation and call excessive stats use as a roll playing.

I remember watching a Mass Effect 3 interview during the last E3 and hearing that the game will include much more role playing elements, after which the examples were given, they included character customization, skill sets and extended purchasing/sales of equipment. I had rather depressing thoughts about BioWare using those examples as a defining elements of an RPG…

Since it's a question of semantics, and popular usage is what seems to shape our language, then I think my line of reasoning is a decent way to go about it :)

I'm not sure if your Bioware example is Bioware's fault or the fact that the whining on the forums was put in the terms of "wanting more RPG elements" and that's what they were responding to. In any case, the term is horribly imprecise.

Would it be better to split it up and use 2 terms, "roleplaying" and "RPG mechanics"? Those seem like terms most everyone can recognize.

The elitist tag sure gets tossed around casually. I just want all parts of the game to be at the same level of sophistication.

And who get's to dictate what that level is? :)

to me, RPGs are all about choice. 1) Choice in how you build your character, 2) choice in how to talk to people, and 3) choice in making big decisions that affect the world.

1) there are plenty of games that let you build your character without seeing a single stat number. the final fantasy games often have different leveling systems (FF12's license board, for instance) but the large number of paths and options for building your character still make them RPGs, imo. alternately, you can have games where you get lots of points to distribute as you see fit in traditional categories such as STR and DEX. there's a WIDE spectrum of leveling systems, and no one is 'more legitimate' than any other, so long as they focus on having choice.

2) your basic standard for many people, but numerous games that could be considered extraordinarily deep RPGs omit it. the pokemon games, for instance, have an extremely robust stat-based combat system, but there's virtually zero choice in NPC interaction. so choice here varies from game to game.

3) most games shy away from this; eastern RPGs in particular as they're trying to tell a set story. in western RPGs this is a big selling point, and bioware's Mass Effect series is trying something on an unprecedented scale with its major decisions.


so if a game has 1 or 2 of those "Choice" elements, then i consider it to be an RPG. TW2 happens to have all three, so i'm happy. :)

Jeez you guys are waaaay off topic. Instead of getting entangled in the semantics (and your own view) of what defines an RPG, we are supposed to talk about HOW UNSURPRISINGLY EASY KAYRAN IS ON HARD (capitalized for maximum emphasis and coolness)

Hmm that's a pretty good way to look at it. Ties everything together under the 'choice' umbrella. However I'm not sure if only 1 element is enough. I mean, the Civilization games are based around #3, and they're not RPGs :p

well, the underlying assumption is that the game has a story. :P