Quote from: estar;652334I don't think defining tabletop RPGs as games that focus on players acting as individual characters within a setting where their actions are adjudicated by a human referee is very narrow at all.

p.

Like I said, I realize I am in the minority here and I am not trying to start a debate or anything. I wouldn't necessarily disagree with the definition you offer. What I do find I resist is attempts to say this game or that game, because it has some mechanics that give the players a bit of narrative control or potentially take them out of first person view point, are not rpgs. I think there are games are the far end that I would agree, best to call them something else. But games like Marvel Heroic or Dungeon World, as much as they don't interest me personally, still seem like rpgs to me the more i read about them. It feels like the definition of rpg is getting narrower and narrower here to me. I am not sure tweaking the powers of the GM a bit really makes it a different type of game. Maybe a different type of rpg. But not neccessarily a different game.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;652343What I do find I resist is attempts to say this game or that game, because it has some mechanics that give the players a bit of narrative control or potentially take them out of first person view point, are not rpgs.

All RPGs are hybrids of one sore or another.

"Traditional" Tabletop RPGs still have a wargame at their heart. What was a game of man to man combat wargame called Melee was turned into a traditional RPG called The Fantasy Trip.

For me it about the what the game focuses that puts it into one category or another. Which is why SPI's Freedom in the Galaxy/Swords & Sorcery/Lord of the Rings are all rightly considered wargames while MERP, AD&D 2E's Birthright, etc are tabletop roleplaying games.

All of them have individual characters, a campaign, and extensive detailed subsystems. But the focus of the SPI games is on two players competing against one another. While the focus of the others are on players playing individual characters where their actions are adjudicated by a referee.

The same with games with narrative focus. Just as a RPG can feel too wargamish, (Mechwarrior 1st edition) a RPG can have too heavy of a dose of narrative mechanics. Feeling either like you are playing something so focused that would be better off as a adventure module. Or little different than playing Once upon Time and you are left feeling why did they market this as a RPG in the first place?

It also doesn't help that narrative mechanics are a form of metagaming and therefore considered cheating by some tabletop gamers. Again because the narrative mechanics allow the player do things outside of what their characters could do.

My view is that it is not cheating but it is a distraction from the roleplaying of individual characters as it causes players to play the game not the character. My view also pertains to the wargame side of RPGs which is why I don't care for D&D 4e as a tabletop RPG. Why when I use detailed combat it something like GURPS, Hero System, or Harnmaster where the rules are a one for one reflection of the reality of the setting of the game.

Quote from: estar;652334I don't think defining tabletop RPGs as games that focus on players acting as individual characters within a setting where their actions are adjudicated by a human referee is very narrow at all.

It's narrower than it needs to be, and exclude a lot of games (including original D&D), if real literally. Perhaps it should be " . . . adjudicated by a human referee or random die rolls as determined by the game mechanics. Which means that adjudication is always shared between gamemaster and players.

You don't agree with it, and that's prefectly reasonable, but honestly, I find the idea that an activity that is pure roleplaying, with no gaming, isn't a roleplaying game to be on the border of silly.

You're (collective "you") not arguing who is right, you're arguing who gets to decide who is right. And I don't think any of you realize it.