What game comes to mind when I say RPG

[themanwithnoname]

twesterm said:

Khuutra said:

twesterm said:

You need to play 4th, it's great.  It really is just a general improvement on everything.  It's pretty cool how they made even 1st level awesome and classes like fighters have more to do than basic attack and flank.

Also, I want to make one of these:

And no, ontopic, let me first start by saying this:

I know Pokemon is an RPG, don't bother "correcting" me on the following.

Looks like I was completely wrong about the Pokemon commercials, but Pokemon isn't really marketed to people as an RPG and most people, even Nintendo fans, don't think of it as an RPG.  They think of it as Pokemon, as in Pokemon is its own entity.

A kid doesn't play Pokemon because of its RPG elements, they play it for its brilliant marketing.  An adult doesn't play Pokemon because it's a deep RPG or rich narative, they play it because, again, brilliant marketing campaign.

To most people Pokemon is just not an RPG.  Aside from people that generally hang out on forums like this, which are the minority, I don't know anything that actually thinks of Pokemon as an RPG.

I really don't know how I forgot about Gotta catch them all. -_-

I plan to play 4e at some point, the Penny Arcade D&D podcasts sound delightful.

OT, and this goes for dtewi too wen he gets back:

You acknowledge that Pokemon is an RPG.

It is the best-selling RPG, year in and year out.

Ergo, it is the most popular RPG regardless of whether or not its players know that it is an RPG. It dosn't matter if they know. It's still an RPG, and it's the most popular of those games.

It is an RPG but I just can't call it the standard because most people don't even think of it as an RPG and if you do think of it as an RPG, it's terrible.  The basic gameplay works but RPG's aren't about the gameplay, they're about characters and story which Pokemon is not.

I don't think it's fair to pigeon hole RPGs into only being about characters, story, and nothing else. One of the reasons this genre is my favorite, is that some games place an emphasis on characters and story like you say, but others go in different directions with emphasis on things like battling and collecting. I can think of no better example than Pokemon. Not that Pokemon's stories and characters are bad or anything, but I highly doubt that's the major impetus that brings people to buy those games.