RPG As a Genre

The technical definition of a roleplaying game is any game that has the player acting in a role, playing out the narrative through actions taken. Other than very basic arcade games, almost any game could be construed as a Roleplaying Game. For this discussion, I think it would be better to narrow this definition down to traditional roleplaying games that assign the player a class and has them complete quests, level up, equip better gear, and has a grand overarching story.

Even limiting the scope to these parameters, there are still thousands of roleplaying games that can still fulfill the requirements while playing nothing alike. The first-person shooter Borderlands and the turn-based game Final Fantasy is different in every way, but both still have quests, equipment, and classes. In the end, the point of a roleplaying game is to allow the player to feel like they are specifically the hero in question, rather than being assigned one that they simply act through.  This is where the two most key components to a roleplaying game lie.

Meaningful Choices

One of the most important parts of a roleplaying game is that the player gets to play a role. They are not locked to a single track that shows them a story unfold, but instead, they are the story.  Even if these choices are ultimately irrelevant, the player needs to feel like what they are doing matters. For example, certain cutscenes won’t trigger in Final Fantasy games if the player does not bring certain characters along on missions. While this cutscene won’t change the outcome of the game, it tells the player that the team they chose has an impact on what their experience is.

These choices can even be as simple as the player’s name. While it is getting harder to allow players to pick their own names with the advent of voice acting, character customization in any form help to reinforce that the player is the main character of a story happening around them. These choices are also reflected in the classes chosen. Did the player bring three fire magic users into a fight against a lava monster? They are going to be in trouble, but that was their choice. They either succeed or fail based on their own decisions, rather than what the game presented them with.

Progression

Additionally, a good roleplaying game has a great sense of progression. While ramping up the difficulty and new abilities is fairly common in most games, roleplaying games excel in making the player go through a very discernable evolution. In many, such as Chrono Trigger, the player starts off as a humble nobody, wielding a worthless weapon to defeat insignificant enemies. The plot starts out slowly, having the player feel like their goal is as simple as their character. As time goes on, the overarching plot is teased to the player, and the player has to grow enough to meet the challenge. If an RPG is done correctly, the player can almost instinctively tell how far along they are in the story just based on their own character’s strength. 

This isn’t to say the player can never be forced to grind out weak monsters, but it should definitely feel like a trivial task once the player is well established. Pacing is incredibly important because without some of the smaller encounters the world can start to feel too large. If the enemy scales at an even and consistent rate with the player, it could feel like nothing has changed at all. Instead, the player should recognize their own strengths while having an adversary that keeps them on their toes. This reminds them how far they’ve come but shows them how far they have to go.

Great Example

If you want to see a game that has a wonderful emphasis on meaningful choices, you can’t get much better than Chrono Trigger. This 1995 Square Enix game boasts 13 unique endings (spoilers in the link) based on the player’s decisions. The game stars the player, generally referred to as Crono, traveling through time to fix an impending doom. The beauty of the game is that the doom can be solved (or failed) in a variety of ways based on the decisions the player makes. Not only that, but individual interactions change dramatically based on simple player choice as well. A wonderful example is the trial scene that examines common roleplaying tropes as crimes against the player character.

As for progression, Chrono Trigger does a wonderful job of making the fate of the world seem more and more impending the further in the story the player goes. Within the first few hours of gameplay, Crono is a nobody kid with nobody strength. He meets up with other nobodies of any particular merit, yet all of them grow to become grand heroes based on their levels and synergies together. His earliest problems are winning carnival games and transform into world-ending threats. It flows smoothly, and beautifully.

Not So Great Example

The Final Fantasy franchise has been a staple to great RPGs for years, and I won’t begin to smear the good reputation they’ve gained among fans just because of their hiccups. I can’t even say that once they moved from Squaresoft to Square Enix that everything was awful. I genuinely enjoyed Final Fantasy XI, XII, and even XIV. The real trouble this company has run into is fairly apparent to the company’s long time fans with some of their other releases. Let’s take a look at Final Fantasy XIII.

From the moment the story begins, the world is already in great peril and the universe is already coming to an end. The main characters are already superhumans who can’t be defeated by anybody and only become more powerful as time goes on. Sure, the plot’s intensity grows with the player, but when starting off on such a high note, it's hard to see a higher note being any more significant. There also aren’t any significant choices to be made, because the plot is very set in stone. Many people have already complained about how linear the maps are, forcing the player to always move forward without a sense of exploration. Worse yet, the director says that they loved the story they were telling the player so much; they didn’t have time to let the player explore. That takes away from the RPG element and turns it into a turn-based interactive novel.

Overall

As some of the links show, there is a huge list of expectations that come with an RPG. These expectations don’t necessarily all need to be met, but they are something to consider when designing a roleplaying game. Like with FFXIII, if nothing the player does matter, they are no longer playing a role but acting out a script. Progression and choice are two of the most pivotal elements to an RPG, without which the genre could just as easily be defined by the gameplay mechanics instead. This is why I think Borderlands still gets to be called a roleplaying game, even if it is called an FPS RPG. No different than Final Fantasy XIV is an MMO-RPG. As with many genres, it's not about the moment-to-moment actions of the player, but the way the genre is used overall. Keep this in mind, and you’ll find (or make!) some great RPGs.