People often find a connection with others through RPGs. Is this because we lean away from our own lives and look to live in a more dramatic or approachable world? “Because they are so close to reality, these games tend to be less popular as entertainment,” (Sundberg, n.d.). Of all genres, ‘realism’ is the least popular. Our morals often affect the outcome of a game, evident in games like Until Dawn, a game that is solely based on your previous actions in the game. For example, fantasy RPG players report to be less feminine, less androgynous, have lower empathy, describe themselves as scientific, and engage in leisure activities such as reading and playing on computers,” (Douse & McManus, 1993). “Personality traits are likely to differ between groups interested in any particular hobby to some extent.
Our personalities often lead to the games we choose to play. Those that play RPGs have been found to fall into certain stereotypes and to hold similar characteristic traits. This further proves that the definition of an RPG is up in the air.įigure 2: Screenshot from The Witcher 3, a traditional RPG Kao discusses “juiciness, colour, audio, feedback and seductive details,” (Kao, 2020), as their main components of an RPG, whilst Liberty leads with “a player controlling a character where the character has game statistics and/or relational attributes with other game objects, important fictional/narrative relationships with other story elements and the player makes decisions for the character, stepping into that role and making choices as if they were the character,” (Liberty, 2017). Liberty discusses how parts of video game RPGs miss the tabletop RPG components “Tabletop RPGs, being multi-player games undertaken in person are inherently social…Single player RPGs lack this, but can make up for that by adding an online community to their game,” (Liberty, 2017).
RPGs first began as tabletop games, like Dungeons & Dragons or World of Warcraft and the videogame RPG definition derives from the tabletop definition. The definition of an RPG is debated though it is officially defined. What is an RPG? “…every game is a role-playing game if the player feels like they are roleplaying,” (Liberty, 2017). Figure 1: (Game Genres popularity in 2018) points out that in 2018, 11.3% of games sold in the US were RPGs. According to , RPGs are one of the most popular game genres available. It is possible to assume more than one character and for RPGs to be in different, fantasy settings. A Role Play Game (RPG) is a game genre where the player assumes the role of a character throughout play.
0 kommentar(er)
