Rudy Deighton

  • Home
  • Inleiding
  • De Toekomst
  • Marketing Platform
    • Delta Media Strategie Modules
    • Online Marketing
    • Delta Social Media
    • Delta Media Service
    • Delta media Platform
    • Delta Marketing Platform
    • Online business marketing
    • Online Business
      • Worth for free now
      • Work from Home 2020
      • Gadgets
      • All about Windows
      • about Whatsapp
      • Whats the
      • About websites
      • New Ways
      • New Way of Watching
      • Virtual
      • Website
      • All about Video
      • How to Use
      • YouTube Info
      • All about Twitter
      • The Best of
      • About Apps
      • Google News
      • For Free
      • About This
      • Need More
      • Why should you
      • Iphone news
      • Interesting News
      • About Amazone
      • Some tips
      • About Netflix
      • All about Music
      • About Facebook
  • Luxury Platform
    • The Indulgence Business site
    • The Luxury Web site
    • The Ultimate Indulgence
    • The Indulgence Site
    • The Ultimate Luxury Information site
    • Online luxury
  • Projecten
    • Global Diamond Security
    • Aqualith Project
    • Delta Online Projects
    • Delta Media
    • Delta Media Projects
    • Crypto info
      • What is Cryptocurrency
      • Delta Media ICO systeem
      • Cryptocurrency Information
      • About miners
      • Best Bitcoin Bokers
      • Overview Cryptocurrency
      • BLOCKCHAIN WEB PLATFORM
      • Delta Media ICO Cryptocurrency
      • Bitcoin Ticker
      • ICO and Cryptocurrency modules
      • Cryptocurrency, Blockchain, Bitcoin modules
      • Delta Buy & Sale Token
      • Buy and sell digital currency module
      • ico – Crypto BlockChain Parallax module
      • Exchange Cryptocurrency module
  • Nieuws Platform
    • RegioTV Nieuws
    • Regionaal Nieuws Platform
    • Nieuws Regio’s Tiel
    • RegioTV Buren
    • RegioTV Neder-Betuwe
    • Regionaal Nieuws Tiel
    • Micro Locals Nieuws
    • Micro Locals project
    • Lokale CSM systeem
    • RegioTV nieuws
    • Politiek Nederland
    • Politiek Gelderland
    • Politiek Tiel
    • Regio Nieuwsberichten Tiel
    • Regionaal nieuws
    • Regionaal video nieuws
    • RegioTV Nieuws & info
    • Regio Nieuws
    • Online video nieuws
    • Online Nieuws
    • Nieuws online RegioTV
    • Regionale content video
  • Promotion
  • Delta Media
    • Delta Media
    • Adverteren grote fraude
    • Menu POS
    • Delta Global Security
    • Delta Evenementen
    • LinkedIn
    • Facebook
    • Facebook Group
    • Twitter
    • Terms & Policy
    • Contact
    • .
  • Ads prices
    • Online Blog promotion price
    • Online web sites prices
    • Global Promotion Platform
  • Home
  • Delta Media News
  • What Are RPGs? Everything You Should Know About Role-Playing Games
February 27, 2021

What Are RPGs? Everything You Should Know About Role-Playing Games

What Are RPGs? Everything You Should Know About Role-Playing Games

by rudy deighton / Wednesday, 04 November 2020 / Published in Delta Media News

Role-playing games, or RPGs, are a common video game genre that’s actually difficult to define clearly. There are many types of RPGs, including sub-genres, and some games use RPG elements without being RPGs themselves.

Let’s take a look at the RPG genre to better understand it. We’ll examine the history of the genre, lay the framework for what an RPG is, and explore some different types.

The Origins of Role-Playing Games

We can trace role-playing video games back to their offline tabletop origins. Dungeons & Dragons, initially published in 1974, was the first mainstream success in this area and brought RPGs to the masses, so it serves as a great example.

In games like Dungeons & Dragons, players create their own character that has various stats. These stats, such as strength and intelligence, determine their skills in various areas. Led by a Dungeon Master, who controls the flow of the game and the story, players go on an adventure.

The unique build of each character affects how they deal with challenges in the campaign, such as being attacked by monsters or needing to pick locks. As players progress through the game, they earn experience points, allowing them to level up and increase their abilities, perhaps learning new skills in the process.

Related: 17 Essential Online Tabletop RPG Software and Tools

As video games grew in popularity on both personal computers and home consoles, electronic RPGs that used many of the same rules became more common. Of course, instead of calculating stats by rolling dice and having a Dungeon Master to advance the story, video games have the advantage of letting the programming handle all of this.

What Defines an RPG?

Now that we know where RPGs started, how do you actually define a role-playing game? There are a few key points a game should fulfill to be considered an RPG:

  1. There must be some kind of character development where your character gets intrinsically stronger as you play. This often means you increase your health, experience points, stat attributes, or similar.
  2. Your combat experience must be affected, at least in part, by your character’s attributes. This might mean that the damage you do is influenced by your player’s strength or agility, for example. Combat effects from items, or the player mastering inputs, doesn’t count.
  3. Your character should have a flexible inventory, consisting of a variety of weapons, armor, spells, healing items, and other tools to use as you see fit. Items you have to use for puzzles don’t count for this.

While some RPGs have additional elements, any game that doesn’t include all three of these points isn’t a proper RPG. To put this into practice, let’s take a look at two examples of games and classify whether they are or are not RPGs, based on the above.

Fallout 3

In Fallout 3, you explore a nuclear wasteland after surviving the fallout in an underground vault. At the beginning of the game, you put skill points into various stats for your character. As you complete quests and earn EXP, you get more skill points to allot as you level up. This fulfills the first criteria.

While Fallout 3 is playable in both first-person and third-person, your player stats affect combat in several ways. For example, your strength stat and the melee weapons skill affect how much damage you deal with weapons like swords. This fulfills the second item above, as your combat performance relies on stats, not just your decisions and physical performance.

Finally, Fallout 3 has a variety of weapon types, healing items, armor, and other items that you can use. These are open to the player to choose and most aren’t required for anything specific, so #3 is fulfilled.

Thus, Fallout 3 is an RPG.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Many people classify the Zelda games as RPGs, but comparing the series to the above criteria, we can see why this isn’t the case.

In Ocarina of Time, Link can gain additional hearts as you complete dungeons, but it’s not intrinsic progression. Link has no stats or a player level that increases from defeating enemies or completing quests, so point #1 isn’t fulfilled.

For the second point, while you can earn a better sword through a certain quest, combat in Zelda relies solely on your actions. The game doesn’t have any specific stats or attributes you can view or tweak, so point #2 isn’t part of Zelda either.

Finally, Ocarina of Time has a variety of items, but almost all of them are required to progress through the game and solve puzzles. There isn’t a variety of weapons to pick from like in Fallout, so point #3 doesn’t fit for Zelda.

Clearly, Ocarina of Time is not an RPG. Most Zelda games are actually action-adventure titles because they combine the puzzle-solving and story of adventure games with the combat and movement of action games.

Read More: A Guide to Every Game in the Legend of Zelda Series

Western RPGs vs. Japanese RPGs

Early RPGs for computers, such as The Bard’s Tale, differed from RPGs that arrived on consoles, like Dragon Quest. Over time, instead of referring to RPGs by the platform that they were on, people started referring to the games as “Western RPGs” and “Japanese RPGs” (JRPGs) instead.

This is an important distinction, so let’s take a closer look at these.

Western RPGs

Western RPGs, called such because they’re typically developed by teams in the Americas or Europe, are typically more open-ended. Most of the time, they give you the choice of how to approach quests and the order you tackle them.

They often allow you to create your own character at the start of the game, who is a “blank slate” that you influence. Western RPGs may also include lots of dialog options that allow you to influence the story events, even letting you choose moral or immoral actions.

Additionally, Western RPGs differ in tone from their Japanese counterparts in that they’re often more serious and star older characters. Typically, their combat takes place in real-time on the same screen as the rest of gameplay.

Examples of major Western RPGs include the Mass Effect series, Skyrim, and The Witcher 3.

Japanese RPGs

Japanese RPGs differ from their Western counterparts in a few key ways. Usually, JRPGs feature a more charismatic protagonist that you can’t customize much, if at all. The pacing is also much more streamlined: instead of an open world where you can tackle quests as you see fit, Japanese RPGs are often linear.

Their battle systems differ greatly, too. Most Japanese RPGs include turn-based combat, where you select commands from a menu instead of battling in real-time. A lot of JRPGs, especially older ones, include random battle encounters on a separate screen instead of showing enemies in the field.

The characters in JRPGs are typically younger, and you may have an entire party of characters that travel with you (instead of being alone, which is common in Western RPGs).

Some popular Japanese RPGs include the Final Fantasy series, the Persona series, and Chrono Trigger.

Sub-Genres of RPGs

Now you know how to define an RPG and distinguish between the two major types. But this isn’t where the genre’s confusion ends: there are also sub-genres under RPGs. We’re referred to some of these in passing already, but let’s quickly take a look at some examples so you’re aware of them.

Action RPGs are role-playing games with a heavy emphasis on combat. These include games like Skyrim, as your real-time actions during combat play a big part in whether you’re successful.

Role-playing shooters are shooter games with RPG elements. Borderlands, for example, has you put points in various stats as you level up.

MMORPGs, or massively multiplayer online role-playing games, are RPGs where you play online with other characters, such as World of Warcraft. These games continue to run even while you’re not playing, unlike single-player titles.

Read More: The 10 Best Free MMORPGs That Require No Download

Tactical RPGs take the story and stat elements of RPGs and combine them elements of turn-based or real-time strategy games. These include series like Disgaea and Fire Emblem.

There are other blurred genres, but these are some of the most popular.

Enjoy Role-Playing Games Today

RPGs are a broad genre, thanks to their long history and mixing with other game types. Lots of games contain some RPG elements, but proper RPGs are easy to identify once you know what to look for. They’re a great game type if you enjoy getting into a character and stat-based gameplay that doesn’t rely on your physical skill as much.

There are lots of other video game genres you might not know about, so why not look into some of them next?

Image Credit: paulzhuk/Shutterstock

MakeUseOf – Feed

  • Tweet
Tagged under: About, Everything, Games, Know, RolePlaying, RPGs, Should

About rudy deighton

What you can read next

E3 2016: Why Nintendo Might Still Impress Us All
Zoom vs. Houseparty: The Best Video Chat Apps, Compared
Save on Smartphone Battery Backups and DC TV Shows on Blu-ray [Canada]

Rudy Deighton Corporate Blog

  • 6 Ways to Check Who Is Tracking You Online

    How much do you love online content? So much yo...
  • Apple Adds Repairability Scores to iPhones and MacBooks in France

    A lack of repairability is a criticism that has...
  • Canon Releases the EOS M50 Mark II Mirrorless Camera

    With the incredible reach that platforms like Y...
  • TerraMaster Launches the Upgraded D8 Thunderbolt 3

    World-leading storage hardware manufacturer Ter...
  • You Can Now Pre-Order the Ring Video Doorbell Pro 2

    Amazon-owned Ring has unveiled its latest video...
  • YouTube Launches Supervised Accounts for Parents of Tweens and Teens

    YouTube Kids is a little too limiting for older...
  • Microsoft Launches Windows 10 Cumulative Update Preview

    Microsoft has released the latest cumulative up...
  • How to Play Google Stadia on Your iPhone or iPad

    It’s been a long time coming, but Google ...
  • Is the DeviantArt Mobile App Worth Downloading?

    Years after deviantART launched in 2007, the ar...
  • TikTok Has Chosen 100 Users for Its Black Creatives Program

    During the second week of January, TikTok opene...
  • Microsoft, FireEye, CrowdStrike, and SolarWinds Speak at US Senate Hearing Into Massive Cyberattack

    Tuesday, 23 February, saw the first of a series...
  • What Happens If You Reject WhatsApp’s New Terms of Service?

    While WhatsApp has extended the deadline for it...
  • 5 Stress-Busting Apps to Rant to Strangers Online or Vent Into the Void

    Do you want to rant and rave about the frustrat...
  • Microsoft Launches Coalition to Combat Media Disinformation

    Microsoft is joining forces with other major te...
  • iOS 14.5 Will Crack Down on Zero-Click Attacks

    A zero-click attack is a terrifying kind of cyb...
  • The New Echo Show 10: Everything You Need to Know

    The Amazon Echo Show lineup took the features t...
  • Donald Trump Might Make His Own Social Media Platform

    After a flurry of people raided Capitol Hill la...
  • iPhone 12 Success Could Push Apple to Amazing $3 Trillion Valuation

    Apple’s valuation has had a rocket strapp...
  • 11 Ways to Easily Identify Manipulated Images

    Adobe Photoshop and other image editing tools b...
  • The 5 Best Apps Like Cash App

    Need to make a quick payment or send money to a...
  • TikTok and UFC Seal a Multi-Year Partnership

    Last week, TikTok was named the Global Sponsor ...
  • Report: Clubhouse Doubled Its Downloads in Two Weeks

    The scarcity principle says that the more rare ...
  • How to Mute Specific Words and Hashtags on Twitter

    Sometimes, Twitter can be an information overlo...
  • 6 Clubhouse Apps to Make the Audio Social Network Better and Solve Its Restrictions

    Finally, got an invitation to join Clubhouse? Y...
  • Report: Google Pixel Users Are Experiencing Camera Failure

    The Google Pixel devices are an impressive line...
  • How to Divide in Excel

    You don’t have to be a business analyst o...
  • How to Fix the "Task Manager Has Been Disabled By Your Administrator" Error in Windows 10

    Have you experienced a situation where you can&...
  • Nikon Announces Release Date for the Z6 II/Z7 II 1.10 Firmware Update

    Nikon ranked third behind Canon and Sony in the...
  • Microsoft Officially Announces Office 2021

    Microsoft has tried its hardest to convince peo...
  • Apple TV App Launches on Chromecast With Google TV

    The Apple TV App is now officially available on...
  • Hour One Debuts Its Digital Clone Technology

    Surely you’ve at least entertained the id...
  • Nintendo Announces Zelda-Themed Joy-Cons

    February’s Nintendo Direct has been and g...
  • Facebook Bans News in Australia Over Proposed Legislation

    Facebook is taking a stand against a proposed b...
  • New Amazon CEO Commits to Making Video Games, Unlike Google

    It is (kind of) official; Amazon will continue ...
  • Introducing FocusEx: A Digital Reading Aid for People with ADHD

    Have you ever found it difficult to stay focuse...
  • How to Enable Burst Photos on iPhone

    Burst mode has become a standard feature across...
  • 6 Reasons Why You Should Be Using pfsense Firewall

    When it comes to choosing firewall software, th...
  • How to Record, Edit, and Promote Your Own Podcast

    You listen to podcasts all the time—but h...
  • Microsoft Edge’s Collections Are Getting a Handy Update

    Microsoft has been working hard to make its Chr...
  • Regret Deleting an Instagram Post? Now You Can Restore It

    Instagram’s Recently Deleted feature allo...

DELTA MEDIA ONLINE MARKETING PLATFORM
An Arte di Riunire Investments GmbH Division

Office:
Delta Media

Arte di Riunire Investments GmbH

Address: Lood 207F

Postcode: 3803 Beatenberg (Swiss)

email: rudydeighton@hotmail.com

rudydeighton@deltamediagbe.com

 

 

Online Platform

Menu POS Systeem

  • GET SOCIAL
Rudy Deighton

© 2014 Delta Media - Arte di Riunire Investments GmbH Division - SWISS All Rights Reserved

TOP