The R in RPG - Part 1

While RPG's have had a significant influence on both the PC and console gaming communities for decades, it has become increasingly difficult to determine just where to draw the line between an 'RPG' and a game which happens to have RPG elements. This line is only going to become more blurred as time goes on and I certainly am not going to try to place it, but it may help to take a look at the two main interpretations of what the word 'role' even means.

The first take on 'role' is the one generally favored by JRPG's and most indie RPG's; the protagonist is a predefined character who will inevitably take certain actions and the player takes on the 'role' of this character. Although games which use this take on role-playing are frequently referred to as 'Japanese' RPG's, this interpretation is extremely similar to the way actors usually portray roles in plays even in Western cultures.

Basically, the important actions, motivations, and general personality traits for the protagonist remain the same, but the player-as-actor has some freedom in their 'interpretation' of this character (answering with Yes or No, ignoring sidequests or actively searching for them, etc). Likewise, an actor in the role of Romeo in Romeo and Juliet may make different movements than other actors, may stress different words, or may even change a line or two, but, with rare exceptions, will still kill Tybalt in Act 3 and inevitably will take his own life specifically via drinking poison at the end.

Silent protagonists not just in RPG's, but in general (ex: most Nintendo protagonists) fall into this interpretation as well as any character with an extensive amount of predetermined dialogue (the protagonist in any main game in the Final Fantasy series starting from Final Fantasy IV, Kratos, Master Chief, etc). While some people tend to call this take on role-playing 'inferior' or 'outdated' due to a lack of total freedom or due to silent protagonists 'lacking personality', there are two things to keep in mind.

First, such claims have the repercussion of extending outside the realm of video games; if playing a predetermined character role is automatically 'inferior' to more freeform roles, this would mean any actor in a play or movie is inferior to any given improv artist.

Secondly, even if a silent protagonist does nothing in terms of speaking other than answer questions with binary choices, actions taken and the way other characters interact with the protagonist both go a long way towards giving at least a basic feel for the personality of the protagonist; it would be rather difficult to argue that Chrono of Chrono Trigger is 'Lawful Evil' for instance and even someone who never played a Nintendo game before could get a good sense of the personality behind the mostly-silent Luigi from playing Luigi's Mansion.

In short, this is very much the 'older' interpretation of role-playing as it has its roots in the realm of theater, stretching back thousands of years. It doesn't allow for quite as much freedom as the second common interpretation of 'role' in games, but it is balanced out by allowing for a more focused narrative and more well-defined character relations.


Well, that's it for today's look at role-playing. In part 2 we'll take a look at the second common interpretation, of the character playing an undefined 'role' in the world, which is often favored by Western RPG's.