What really defines an RPG?

RPG Codex.

Jury's still out on that one.

Is Cuckdex anything but a den for senile elitist antisocial fags?

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It means that the game puts emphasis on playing a specific role. Western RPG's stem from tabletop RPG's and allow the player to create their own role in the game's world and make their own choices throughout the story. With JRPG's, it's more like the role a movie actor plays; your role is chosen for you, and you must play said role as effectively as possible.

Meaningful character choice, in story and in build.

If you play a role it's RPG. Mario is a prime example since you play the role of Mario.

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Mariorpg is a perfect example. Thank you user. But this shit is still confusing as ever

archive.is/ttEUN
RPGs are games where the primary test of skill is the player's ability to build and manage choices of a single character or group of characters. The choices and interactions in development typically center around building character statistics, properly arming them and keeping up an inventory, interacting with NPCs through dialogue or combat, and making other important decisions within the game world to affect its state and the player's progress.

It differentiates itself from other super-genres such as Action, where the primary test of skill is in the player's motor skill and reflexes typically through the control of a single character with precise control of their actions, or Strategy, where the test of skill is in the player's strategic and tactical decision making and skillful thinking through control of many different characters and sometimes bases and economies that are commanded much less directly.

The two categories you describe are just different kinds of character development that an RPG could employ.

Straight logic is bait? You would rather have meaningless buzzwords rather than logical and informative genres?

A roleplaying game is a game where you immerse yourself in and interact with a world through meaningful choices; usually via NPC interaction, moral dilemma, and scenario decisions and outcomes. Progression comes from interaction with events and the world, and the progression of a narrative or exploration and resolution of a theme or question. (ex: Planescape: Torment)

A similar, and often crossed-over 'genre' is the Character Development Game, where a character, party, or warband is managed through details such as class, stat allocation, and equipment, and these mechanics are used as the primary means of world interaction and progression through a sandbox or narrative. (ex: Elder Scrolls: Skyrim)

The WRPG/JRPG split comes from old tabletop; where WRPG referred to more open ended games focused on choice and creativity/exploration (ex: Wizardry), whereas JRPGs were originally more narrative-driven, with set parties and characters (ex:Star Ocean, Xenogears). Now it's just used as a label of origin.

From the guy invented RPGs:

What we can extract from this about what is expected of an RPG -
There must be a character for you to play the role of.
There must be some form of statistics implemented within the game
Your character has an appearance and backstory, but you are not necessarily the one who decides it. Sometimes you play a character who was premade, sometimes you make your own character.
It's not about personal player skill - you are limited by the abilities of your character. Your success depends on how well you play your character, not how good you are as a general player.

This is where things get complicated. With a CRPG you pretty much don't have other players, and often have to take control of an entire party of characters instead of just a single one (which is an option, though not a recommended one, in traditional RPGs). The computer also runs things instead of the DM, taking over that role. The key is that you are still able to interact with the characters operated by the computer in some way - whether it be friendly interaction or combat. Strictly speaking, it could be nothing but combat interaction, with no social aspects.

There must be a certain degree of character progression. Whether it be in the form of levels, equipment, reputation in-game, or something else, there must be some form of advancement.

TL;DR: These are the components required for an RPG to be an RPG -

Pretty easy definition.

It was always about this. Also, in proper RPGs you create an entire party. Choice and larping is optional.

Lots of games that aren't RPGs have stats and progression.

This better be bait

I know you're trying to make the point that any game where you take on a role is an RPG but citing Mario doesn't help you seeing as there is about 12 Mario RPGS

Is TES 6 going to be a true RPG and how do I preorder it?

This shit I think should be a list of requirements to call yourself an RPG
1.) Open world, or at the very least a hub-world with multiple diverse "zones" and make it environments players WANT to visit, not too overwhelming but not too boring and realistic. If I want a fully realistic environment I'd fucking go outside. Making it fun and interesting.

2.) interesting towns with shops and shit

3.) Lots of NPCs. How do you make GOOD NPC? Give each NPC a vague, but telling thing to say to add depth to the games world, but make sure what they say can actually be pieced together by the player to add to the games world

4.) Lots of items, the more items the better

Thats pretty fucking much it. The battle system can be turn-based or realtime but that doesn't matter much to me as long as the above 4 aspects are honored

Your list is retarded.

An essential feature of RPGs is the menu-driven combat. If the combat is not menu-driven, what you have is not an RPG.

what do you value in a RPG? I'm just tired of shit with lame-ass unemersive worlds and lazilly designed characters and lore

Choices and consequences.

I was going to debate that but then I realized that I couldn't think of anything short of an ARPG that didn't rely on a menu in some important way

Even the Elder Scrolls series, open-ended as they are, would have to be considered an ARPG despite that the older titles handled combat with dice rolls behind the scenes

patrician taste

Character development

The reason most RPGs are dialog heavy is because they are trying to develop your character which sometimes is you. Character development in any other media is how a character changes through out the story. How the character grew. Which is why in video games rpgs they had "levels". In older/more traditional western RPGs, if you where the main character, you developed more as a character, as you learned the rules of the game world, and start having preferences to different strategies skills and items, even if your player avatar never said a word. Dialog decisions was very big and important too because in a sense you would start developing towards a certain preferences towards those decisions. All to help "play a role".

In story driven rpgs as well as my japanese anime rpgs that you don't really have any decisions and you are playing a specific main character, you are playing the role because you are constantly being reminded that you are character X. Even though you don't have and decisions in the dialog, you are helping their character grow by their stats, they "developed enough" for them to continue on their adventure. Character X would be this developed before he did moved on. Since a game needs a goal or else its not a game. You don't have any decisions in the character dialog because you are playing as that character, of course he won't say what you want to say.

Then fill in the blanks with everything in between.
Do people complain that character would never do that? Is it breaking character? Its a shitty role playing game.
>What about a game that lets me create my own unique MC, but features no dialog decisions or even dialog pantomiming would be consider dialog in this example and it doesn't feature any any sort of character growth "ie stats or skills" outside of the player getting better at the game.
Is the game-play even reflecting the "role", of what the main character is doing? In ether case its not a role playing game.

1. You create a character
2. You can imagine how your character would react and chose from a variety of options according to it

/thread

I can't define an RPG, but I know it when I see it

Roleplaying means you're bound by your characters skills, you can't really use your real-life skill, you can solve problems in different ways based on your character's stats.
No matter how good you are at FPS, if you don't put point in weapons skill, you'll shoot like shit in Deus Ex, or no matter how intelligent and cultured you are, you'll play a drooling retard if you don't have enough intelligence points in Arcanum.

Brigandine does this extremely well.
Overarching story : General overthrows previous king. War breaks out. Pick faction on fight.
Character stories : Sending certain people on quests unlocks bonuses, like armor, equipment, monsters and sometimes even more characters. And they sometimes have their own unique stories, which can happen when both X and Y character are on the battlefield.
It's almost purely rollplay in that you do tactical fights, see what you conquer and what you leave unguarded and manage your wins / losses.

I don't care about TES being an rpg or not, I don't even like RPG. All I want from the next TES are better combat, colorful writing, and crazy spells lifted from Morrowind.

Lots of nongame elements, particularly autistic ones.

It's definitely not fetch'em or count'em quests.

Troika games defined RPG. Its either you follow their concept of RPG, or its not an RPG, its simple.

The most important thing in role-playing is controlling how your character THINKS. Thier motivations and desires, independent of what you need to do in the game. That's what it means to get into a role. If the game tells you what your character is thinking all the time it can't be a real rpg no matter what it says on the box

It is worth mentioning that gamism is a completely seperate persuit in tabletop rpgs than role-playing. In videogames that essentially means that gameplay systems like like levels have next to no impact on role playing as an aesthetic. Role-playing is more of a type of narrative structure than anything else

^

Literally anything not bade by Bethesda.

Lotta good answers ITT. To add to them, I think a big part of an RPG is that you play a character, not an abstract entity trying to maximize their gold/stats/killcount/etc.

that's only because **we are the
E N T I T Y**

final fantasy 7 is a better rpg than every wrpg

fuck, something went fugg with the spoilers

These are good posts.

If you can't make it out by the words "role play game" you might be retarded.

I don't think Bethesda has ever made an RPG.

This is what the roguelike community actually believes.

Found the MMO fag.

God tier post. Couldn't have put it better myself. Strategy and statistics, not player skill, determine success in an RPG. Your character has the skills, you choose to use them. If you're engaging in real time combat or lock-picking minigames, you're not playing a proper RPG, you're playing an action game with XP and loot, because your success depends upon your skill, not the skill of your character.

Player influenced stats and level ups.

Name me one decent RPG released on PC from 2010 onwards.

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If the real-time combat or lock-picking minigames are governed by stats, they can still be RPGs. For example, if you run slowly because your Speed stat is low, if your sword swing does terrible damage because your Strength stat is low, and if your dodge is crap because your Agility stat is low, you are still playing within your "god given abilities". Many games fuck this up and let someone with 4 Lockpicking unlock anything with enough joystick jiggling, but that's still an RPG, just a really bad one.

underrail

What you're speaking of isn't really an element of the game and its design, but rather the metagame surrounding it. The game's design (the basis of its genre classification) can dictate what kinds of actions are available to a player, but not what they will take them (where at best they can just direct them).

The roleplaying that occurs in the narrative of the game (the actions that occur) is distinct from the meta-roleplaying that occurs in a player's head. While the former is informed by the latter, the former is what has an actual structure and design behind it while the latter is unstructured and directed almost completely by player behavior.

People need to stop using "player skill" as a shorthand for "motor skills" or whatever else is used in action games. All games need to test some sort of player skills in the challenge it presents. The skills core to RPGs are character building, management, and decision making.

I think choices in the storyline aren't technically required for a game to be RPG. Just like said, I think any form of interaction between pc's and npc's is enough to make something technically qualified as an RPG game.

One has to make a distinction between role playing game and role playing interactive novel.

They never made a pure RPG, but everything Bethesda made before Skyrim was RPG game with action elements (as opposed to action games with RPG elements). Statistics always determine an outcome far more than player's reflexes. It's just their retarded level scaling system that makes progress seems less apparent.

Anything based off D&D 3.5Come at me

Off the top of my head
If a game is missing any single one of these, it's not an RPG. JRPGs completely castrated the genre. Games like Witcher and Dark Souls are action games. Having numbers doesn't make your game an RPG.

One more thing to add:

It really is the perennial RPG Codex question.

lol

It's just that, the more this happens the more a game becomes an RPG. DaS isn't really an RPG, it just has some elements common in RPGs, it is more of an Action/Adventure game.

Amazing that you imply that something came along and ruined the genre, when you have a child's understanding of it in the first place. If you think a game needs a morality system and a blank slate character to be an RPG then you are either talking out of your ass or functionally retarded.

Just get out.

There are no video game RPGs

Façade is the best videogame RPG.

whatever the hell a writer/publicist or the PR Department wants to call it

Okay, answering unironically it is the first one, playing a role, and most things called RPGs today are simply mislabled action games with RPG mechanics.

Basically, most videogame "RPG"s are terrible RPGs but okay tactical or action games. This is simply down to the medium being unsuited for it. Computers cannot be as flexible as a GM and the need to create visual and Auditory representations of every action mean that the game must be limited to a predefined network of paths as opposed to a true (P&P) RPG, which (with a good GM) is more akin to an overgrown forest that players will cut their own path through. The goal of a CRPG (being used literally to mean "computer rpg") that actually wants to be an rpg, is to make the network of possible paths match as closely as possible all of the likely paths players would carve for themselves in a tabletop rpg. An easy and quick way to estimate this is how limiting the dialogue system is. Every time you want to say something but can't, that is a failure of the game designers. That is the reason I (ironically) said that Façad is the best RPG, it's dialouge system is the most fleshed out implementation i know of of a freely typed input, and the characters reactions mostly match up and force you to play the roll of a friend counseling a couple experiencing marital issues, without dictating what that friend's personality is or how they will go about it. Dialogue is far from a perfect measurement, but it if a game fails the dialogue test it probably isn't going to let the player solve problems in a variety of creative ways and you definitely aren't going to be punished for not playing a character well.

#NotmyRPG

It's the same as it's always been: Roleplaying Game. And, no, that doesn't include any game where you play just any old character. Kratos from god-of-war isn't an RPG character.
An RPG, when not pen and paper, is about stats and the player's ability to control how those stats grow. Dark Souls, in spite of it's very action-y combat, is an RPG because it all still boils down to the stats in characters, armor, and basically everything. Your stats determine how effectively you can use Havel's set, or if your combat style is more or less calculated. This is usually supported by classes, or something similar, which will guide or limit what sort of equipment you use. Not always the case, but it's usual.

Story is also important, especially considering the medium. In a proper RPG it will have some sort of GameMaster to govern over the narrative. This isn't usually possible in vidya RPGs because that would require some sort of AI with an obscene amount of freedom and a system with even more so. Instead vidya RPGs are more like pre-made campaigns that you can roll up characters for. The Temple of Elemental Evil might have the same plot, but it comes down to the players to determine how things generally go down. The point is that most RPGS, save for those with a great or particularly creative DM, will usually have a story set up ahead of time.
So it's a mix of a vast amount of character/party customization, experience gained to further customize and improve that character, and a strong narrative that frames the world that the characters interact with.

Gameplay can vary a bit because of the medium, but the surefire death of the RPG genre in vidya starts with the "action-RPG". By taking the usually turn-based mechanics and making them into real-time you are essentially sacrificing a part of what makes an RPG an RPG. Strategy isn't as important, and usually the things that would make up the effective dice-rolls of the game are either pushed into the background where they aren't thought of as much, or outright stripped for something more action-based. A hit is determined by a hitbox instead of your characters "kill things with swords" skill vs an enemies "don't get hit by things" stat.
In a normal RPG setting it'd be easy to jusify: you rolled lower than what you needed to hit so you didn't. But in an action-rpg that conflicts with something like your character's weapon clearly hitting or preceived to be able to hit them because of what they're seeing on the screen. So now your "chance to hit" vs their "armor" gets removed. Rinse and repeat until you have Borderlands being able to be counted as an RPG.

Anyways it's 2am, I have work in seven hours and an hour is already eaten up by preperation and travel time so I'll leave it at this: The purest form of an RPG in vidya form is the turn-based strategy RPG because it most resembles a PnP RPG mechanically. Everything else is a case-by-case situation, but nothing will be as close to the real thing as that.

It's a misnomer. The only characteristic consistent across all RPGs is that numbers go up and are persistently increasing across the whole length of the game.

It originally referred to improv games actors play, then came to be known for dungeons and dragons, and once roleplaying got into computers, it stopped being about acting or playing the role of a character anymore, it just became a facet of the system that a character will have given traits that are upgraded persistently and can be specialized among.

When those traits are moved from games with menu combat to other genres, it's said the resulting game has, "RPG elements"

An RPG game is where the outcome of everything is determined by nothing more than the statistics and dice rolls. Player "ability" doesn't factor into it.

Put another way, suppose two different players play the same game, a true RPG. They're both completely different in terms of intelligence, hand-eye-coordination, game skill level, playing style, etc. BUT if they both enter the same battle with the exact same character (same stats) and the dice rolls the same way, the outcome will be the exact same. Once the battle has begun, their ability has no impact on the outcome. If Stephen Hawking develops that same character and the dice rolls the same, it will STILL have the exact same outcome, regardless of his complete inability to hold a controller or move a mouse. If you have a man in prison to come up with that same character, and then start the battle on a gaming system a thousand miles away, supposing the dice rolls the same, it will STILL have the exact same outcome even though he isn't there to "play" his turn.

That's what the "role" means. A lot of people think it's the inverse, where you get to choose what the character is, like customizing a face in a Bethesda game, but it's actually rather opposite. You're not imposing yourself onto the character; the character is imposing itself onto you, and you never directly control it. The stats control it.

RPG is a medium where bunch of autists gather around for make believe and possibly throw some dice around. Nothing to do with video games.

the difference between Fallout 3 and New Vegas

Who are you trying to impress?

My dead grandmother.

You mean the difference between Fallout 1/2 and all the others. Just because you like NV more doesn't mean it wasn't an FPS.

Character's stats and actions matter more than any player input, common branching in storylines/meaningful choices.
Some degree of character stats and actions matter but the skill of the player also comes into play, light choices that don't have major effects on the world in question.
They're good fun but they aren't really role-playing games, just stats-based games. They're something a bit closer to a tactics game with long-term resource management as a concern. Note that not all RPGs made in Japan are JRPGs.

Problem is solved.

What a coincidence, I am currently making a video on exactly this because there are so many faggots that don't understand this (and they won't read essays which is why it needs to be a video with moving pictures and audio). Here's the rough draft of the script if anyone wants to read it and give feedback:
docs.google.com/document/d/1a4Oo8UY6JOr2_LD8bJTHmFAL6czhy_qRnpYeL6T04og/edit?usp=sharing

I normally just upload everything to txti.es but not if I intend for friends to be able to directly make suggestions.

Also looking through this thread it looks like a lot of you don't understand this either. Perhaps this video is more needed than I had previously thought.

Divinity: Original Sin - Enhanced Edition

You heard it here first. I guess chess isn't about skill either because you're limited by the moves of your pieces. If it was actually about skill, it'd be about who can reach across the board and sweep their opponent's pieces off first, and various tactics to counter that.

I wish bioware would open their forums again so scum like you would have a place to shitpost without disturbing good honest people.

Don't forget Fallout 4™, which is the best RPG since you can walk away whenever you want!

It's more that it's limited by the player's ability to make use of a character's limited toolset, mr Autismo.
A true RPG doesn't let the player do everything with any character from the get-go (Bethesda I'm looking at you).

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Shitty casual gameplay that mouthbretahers can handle

Choices\consequences and actually building a character and playing however you like never mattered. Just look at all the mongoloids here that love playing cinematic walking simulators "JRPGs"

If it's like a regular game, except shit, then it's probably an rpg.

Maybe I'm just not autistic.

By that logic, Battlefield and TF2 are RPG. Dark Souls might have stats, but the outcome of the challenge is much more dependent on player's skills. The game doesn't even allow manual saving and makes you lose all your skill points when you die twice. It's like the game tries to punish players who try to trust stats and progression rather than reflexes. RPG is all about decision making out of an abstracted situation, unlike souls where character's abilities are barely abstracted.

FO4 could be a legit great game if it didn't try to be an RPG actually. Stupid shits like bulletsponge enemies, legendary enemies, perks, and VATS would disappear. The only things left would be pure FPS action and decent exploration.

Fallout 3 and NV are RPG games with action elements.

Be careful what you post from this IP in this thread, anything more than dubs in addition to ID quints might grant the power to meme any wish into reality monkey paw style.

Stop.
Stop.

Stop.

Would be better if it was 8s

In all fairness, other then in terms of geometry, the Soulsborne series is pretty linear: The only way is forwards. Eventually, you kill everything and complete the game or you give up, there's no real alternative.
Yes I know there are alternate endings

Are you people really trying to tell me you play D&D for the armour class and to hit mechanics?

Well, what I meant by that is reflex skills. Did you even read the whole post?

It's true that FO3 and NV don't challenge your reflexes very much. The games even do most of the aiming and shooting for you with the VATS. They give freedom in progressing your character's skills in any way you want. The only time player's skills are involved is when managing their distance from melee enemies.

It differs a lot from DS. DS far closer to action games than RPG. It forces you to push the boundaries of your motor skills. All the action is barely abstracted.

Stat is a measurement method of character's abilities. Games like chess where the characters' abilities are well defined may not need it, but for other games especially the ones with character creation, it's integral.

RPGs are dead, stop hoping.

Story. Also gameplay. Potentially, also setting and atmosphere.

Dwarf fortress has arguably one of if not the most complex models of character ability, physique etc. I don't think there's been a single time where I've asked something about my character, my environment, my dwarves, or my enemies and gotten feedback as a number.
I don't have 14 str, I'm exceptionally strong, I didn't deal 14 damage, I chipped the bone. I don't have 2 hp, I'm bleeding from every limb while passing in and out of consciousness.
At some point it needs to be broken down to numbers. Doesn't mean you need to show them to the player and ruin their immersion.

I did, but that use of the phrase still needs to go away.
Only because it's got bad action mechanics on top of bad RPG mechanics. Regardless of how challenging it is though, in the end your success is still largely dictated by that shitty action combat. The base difference between how Bethesda Fallouts and Souls games is that one focuses on bad action gameplay while the other focuses on good action gameplay, but their focus on action is nearly equal.
Regardless of freedom the impact on your progress that character building has is quite low, with combat skills having only marginal impact on performance in combat and most non-combat skills having almost no impact on interactions. I'd even go as far to argue that the character building in Souls games are better than in Bethesda Fallouts as they have further impact on your progress - given that they're combat-based and nearly all interactions in the game are combat there's not much neglected. The only exception would be NV where they actually made good use of the non-combat skills in character interactions and not having speech checks be purely chance-based.

Being non-linear is not a core aspect of RPG design.

They should be dead by now, but autists love their spreadsheet simulators.
Technically it doesn't. It depends on the gameplay you're aiming for, really.

Touché

i never really associated dialogue heavy games with many choices with RPGs, RPGs to me were always about stats/numbers and usually turn based.
Dark souls will always be an action RPG to me.

I want to work on a Blades of Avernum clone.

What do you think about functionally useless spells that basically just set a flag that the adventure writer can take advantage of?

Eg, no reasonable game (like Morrowind) would ever have a use for a spell like Detect Scrying, but imagine casting it and getting a buff; whoever made the adventure module can check to see if the party has that buff whenever the plot wants to scry on the party, possibly branching the adventure if it was active at a crucial moment

What's "it"?

How is "bad" relevant to this discussion? By VATS and the amount of perks that can be invested on it, it is clear that Fallout wasn't designed to be an action game first, only partially action.

That's far from true. As I have said, Fallout does most of the shooting for you, and it was clearly designed with that in mind.

Technically there's still a focus on progress. And it doesn't change the fact that the game is more effectively played when players are more involved in positioning the character and making decision through VATS rather than shooting manually.

Even with percentage based skill requirement in speech check, it's still a great deal of abstraction. Isn't dice rolling the most popular outcome defining method in RPG? Outside the speech check, skills like crafting, lockpicking, hacking, and the rest of the interactions too have skill requirements. There's a lot more character's skills based interactions than DS.

RPG isn't all defined by progress.

It's a reply to

Generally speaking, I think it's more important to give your player a repertoire that he can find useful at any given time. So, you'd want offensive and defensive spells, spells that create buffs and debuffs and other passive abilities. On the other hand, what you're describing could be used to deliberately allow players to unconsciously, or unintentionally, choose a plot thread that deviates from another, and the choice would've been simply based on the type of character they rolled, which is itself an interesting premise.

Perhaps such flags/modifiers don't have to be activated by spells in the player's inventory; perhaps it could be in the form of some other item, or a buff that was given by a specific NPC, or a potion, or even something that was chosen during character creation, like a particular horoscope or race.

Does that make sense?

BOA operates on user-made modules, so I can't necessarily rely on specific NPCs or items, but I do want to give characters a variety of options to use.

Another idea I had was for professions. They'd only have 4 ranks (untrained, novice, adequate, expert) and again provide no immediate tangible benefit. However, they might provide a +2 bonus to skill or information checks during certain event, as the author chooses; they might also be used in NPC fluff dialog, "Oh, you used to be a miner!"

I was thinking of having them chosen at character creation at a 1/2/4 cost; you'd have only have 5 points to choose amongst a variety of professions, but taking a particular feat would give you +4 points to spend, meaning instead of being adequate at one job and having light experience in two, you could have mastered one, or be a jack of all trades depending on how you want your fluff to be. However, picking the feat would be a big decision, since you don't get many and it's more tangibly useful to pick combat stats.

I don't know something like that Detect Scrying in an Infinity engine game could just have text pop up saying "you feel like you're being watched" or something, and it sort of being a heads up of "Oh, get ready everyone, shit's about to go down I think."

Is this bait.

WOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Sounds like an interesting system, and I think it's better than giving players a maguffin or plot specific spell/device that can only be used to split plot threads

Sure, but original question was, "how do you feel about useless/plot specific spells/items/whatever". Your statement implies that there'd be some additional functionality to Detect Scrying, when he used it as an example of a spell that would have no use, for example, in a game like Morrowind.

By standard use, it'd be a useless drain of magicka in Morrowind, but even if a dev or modder used it as a hook for a quest, it'd still have some use. It's plot specific in that its only use is plot-based. It's like the Fork of Horripilation. It's functionally useless, but it's used for the purpose of a quest.

holy shit, that ID

...

It's entirely up to the player to do it or not, and given that letting it do the shooting for you is less reliable than direct action, its inclusion undermines the character building by overtaking it as the major element in success in combat interactions. Compare this to Souls games where the actions are a player can take are less abstracted and more direct, but the build of the character has more influence in the proficiency and success of those actions. If you can shoot worth a damn in Fallout then combat is easy as shit if you have the resources, but regardless of your skill with the combat mechanics in a Souls game, your success is still heavily influenced by your character's stats and gear.
Movement is still done in real-time and is part of the game's action mechanics. Just because it's simplistic not as fleshed out doesn't mean it doesn't have the same importance to it.
Which is bad choice considering that even with the random bullet spread when shooting manually, it's far more reliable to shoot manually as it doesn't consume AP and is more reliable than a percentage against the relatively stationary enemies.
Progress is central to all games - typically in the form of the progression of player skill/ability and the progression of a difficulty curve. The difficulty curve in Bethesda Fallouts is at odds with itself where the progression of difficulty is almost entirely based around the character's progression and thus the character's progress, but the player's own progress with the game's action mechanics undermines that progression in character ability and thus the progression of difficulty. In Souls games the progression is much more intertwined, as players generally won't in combat unless they've improved both their character build and had their skill with the action mechanics.

Beth!Fallout and Souls are both ARPGs, but the former's design is at odds with itself while the latter actually integrates them together. The closest the former came to being more sound in design was when Obsidian made NV, but given they had to work within the bounds of FO3's systems, they could only go so far with the combat interactions and only really improved on non-combat interactions.

A game that features a player character whose skills improve over the course of gameplay, and that allows for roleplaying in both mechanical (offering different play styles) and narrative (offering a reactive story) senses.

So Fallout isn't an RPG?

This is the only true answer, RPGs are not numbers, they aren't menus, they aren't experience points, they aren't quests, and they aren't necessarily story decisions.

They are just games in which you are encouraged to role-play.

Pffft.

It's not a real RPG if you aren't a custom made role with a unique character that you yourself created and a storyline and plot you made up based entirely on your own actions where the only planned parts are the mechanisations of the world itself such as its physics, creatures, and environment.

Nearly all "RPGs" today are themepark adventure games with character locks.

I need an RPG to sink time into. Have 3DS/Vita/PSP/computer. Give me something obscure but not waifu shit.

Choices and Consequences. A typical RPG will give you a broad range of choices to make, either in character creation, equipment, story progression, combat, dialogue, endings, etc.

A GREAT RPG is one that not only gives the player a broad range of choice, but also gives those choices diverse and meaningful consequences.

The confrontation with Benny in New Vegas is actually a really good example of what can make an RPG great. If you ask 100 people who played the game what they did to Benny when they finally caught up with him, you'll probably get 100 different answers. You might get 75 people who say "I killed him!", but then those 75 people might have different stories about how specifically they killed him. That is what makes an RPG great, variety both in choice and consequence.

What?

stat-based interaction

Persona 4 is more of an RPG than Skyrim

RIP

Some flawed OC, In retrospect I think the context was that it wasn't exactly liara's baby being delivered, but I filled out the spaces assuming otherwise because she was one of the fuckable characters in the game and I didn't pay super hard attention to the alien lore. This pic is from like 2010 though, I just chose it cus it sort of illustrates my point.

Most games will give you choice, a good RPG will give you a lot of choices, and a great RPG will give you a lot of choices that are each worth playing through (or savescumming) to choose.

You gain intangible points that go towards improving your character or your character's skills. Usually, this means you gain experience points that go towards leveling up but Final Fantasy 2 (the real one) and Mana Khemia are notable exceptions.

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, however, does not fall under the criteria for an RPG in spite of what this game featuring an elf with a sword would have you believe.

The game has a lot more VATS perks than action perks.

Unless you're talking about FO4 where some guns perform better without VATS, it's far more reliable to shoot with VATS. Some guns even has bonus perks when shot using VATS. Direct action in FO3 is treated as a last resort when you're out of VATS. There's even a perk that fills up your VATS meter entirely if you kill an enemy using VATS, the best strategy in FO3 is obviously to stay with VATS.

Have you ever played FO3? The enemies are fast, they run all over the place while shooting at the same time. Unlike games like STALKER where enemies walk slowly when shooting and jog only to find cover. It's hard to hit enemies even at point blank range. VATS however isn't affected by the movement speed of the enemies.

Are we talking about all games or RPG games?

The difference is Fallout is RPG game with action mechanics while souls is an action game with RPG mechanics.

You're kidding me. The progression system of Dark Souls is quite shit due to the game punishing players who depend on stats and progression rather than motor skills. The game is better left off with only starting stats and without leveling system. This is the reason why Souls is far less RPG than FO3. FO3 doesn't deliberately halt progress and punish players who trust decision making over motor skills.