What is an RPG?

[Bofferbrauer2]

HoloDust said:

Bofferbrauer2 said:

A levelling system, and that's one of the defining systems of the genre, if not THE most defining system. Otherwise games like The Legend of Zelda would also also be RPGs, but they're actually Action-Adventures.

Also, not all RPGs have social interaction. Roguelikes in particular often don't have any real interaction other than combat, especially older ones.

Technically, you could do an RPG without combat, instead levelling other tasks outside of combat. if you would remove the combat from Rune Factory 5 for instance but still keep the progression system in place, it would be an RPG despite not having any combat.

Edit: If you want to know more about what constitutes an RPG and the history of CRPGs, head right over to the CRPG Addict, who tries to play through every RPG in a more or less chronological order. He's currently (after over 500 games!) in 1993 apart from some odd missed older entries. But those odd entries keep piling up, he's been in 1993 for almost 8 years now...

Well, Zelda II has actual experience and 3 stats (Attack, Magic, Life), and it could be argued that BotW/TotK have 2 stats (Health/Stamina), though they are gained by orbs and not XP, so those (especially Zelda II) might be considered action-RPGs, though yeah, for the most of its existence Zelda was action-adventure.

RPGs without combat are fairly common in its tabletop variety, especially if you take into account that pretty much any system that has unified resolution (that is, treats combat just as any other skill check) can just ignore combat all together if that's what a particular campaign is not about. In VG space, Disco Elysium is a good example of that.

I wonder if CRPG Addict will ever get to even the end of 90s, given there are some really long games from 1994 onward.

Yeah, Zelda II is the most RPG of the Zelda titles, and Botw/TotK are arguably also RPGs due to their progression.

And yes, several RPGs allow for pacifist runs, but most of them do have combat as a mechanic. Like you said, Disco Elysium is a good example of this. Age of Decadence is one where you can do this too if you know what you're doing. Graveyard Keeper also could be considered as an RPG without combat, though quantifying Graveyard Keeper as just one genre is pretty difficult...