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I wouldn't put it that way. I definitely want people to play it. I just don't want people to play it if they won't have fun. If the tags/description were a warning label it would say something like: Play Only If This Unusual Mix Of Elements Appeals To You.
A lot of people read the description and think 'Neat, I've always wanted a game like that. They're focusing on all the things I cared about in old RPGs and toning down or ignoring all the stuff I DIDN'T care about.' There's a good chance they'll like it (assuming they can deal with the bugs).
A lot of other people read it and think 'Why would I ever want a game like that? They're focusing on all the things I never cared about in old RPGs and toning down or ignoring all the stuff I DID care about.' If they buy it odds are they won't like it.
Either way the description is doing its job.
I think the genre really needs a split in naming. I have been playing RPGs lumped togher as Storytelling and Statistics playing for 30+ years.
Perhaps a new label can be made for SPGs or split the main category of RP into subsects of RPS (role play with stats) and RPF (role play fiction).
Dunno, but it is clear there are many people who see RPG and confuse it with dice and stats and hack and slash and not the traditional cover of story development and social interaction
I do not know, personally, anyone that plays the Mouse Guard, Burning Wheel, etc, style games. Further, the best selling RPG systems are all stat heavy. Obviously some people are bored by that and hence you get the other 'systems', but some people will Role Play with Dixit (I've seen it).
It is not a 'confusion' to believe that dice and stats and hack and slash are integral to RPGs, it is the norm. No more is it "traditional" to believe that the core of RPG gaming has anything to do with social interaction.
That's just how you do it. I'm glad for you, but to try and appeal to authority (30+ years!) is weak in the first place, but then to simply dismiss the experience of others?
Hell, I don't think you've been playing 30+ years if you believe that. 90% (out of my ass number) of modern RPG systems evolved as a response to the earliest systems, which were almost entirely themselves a response to war gaming. Not story telling.
Besides, it's not like Frontiers has no stats. Just not the traditional ones, and there's an emphasis on the experience over the mechanics.
Any time someone wants to argue about whether game [a] belongs in genre [x], [y] or [z], or wants to pick at the history of a genre splitting / absorbing / being influenced by other genres or whatever, I'm totally there. I love that kind of thing.
But if that argument starts taking the form of 'genre [a] IS [x], because it always has been [x], and it shall always be [x], forever and ever unto ages of ages amen' - that's when my eyes glaze over. Not because I disagree (although I do on general principle) but because locking down genres in any medium is impossible.
No, I don't just mean 'really tricky' - I mean impossible. They harder you try to lock down a genre the farther it will drift from your definition in the long run. Genres encourage this, that's their purpose.
If genres were more like a sports rule book, where each sport sets limits that content can either observe (and be shaped by), or not, then yeah you could freeze their definitions. You're either playing soccer, or tennis, or football, or none of the above. A game is either an RPG, or an FPS, or an RTS, or none of the above.
But genres emerge from content, they don't shape it. The only thing they shape are our expectations - we invent them to maximize our enjoyment of content, which they do by first telling us what to expect and then by providing opportunities to satisfy & confound those expectations at the same time. It's easy to mistake those expectations for 'rules' but you'd be missing the point of the rule, which is to create an expecation that you will follow it, followed by a surprise when we do something different. (Imagine a sport that treated rules like this - it would be total chaos.)
Anyway, you can see the problem. The minute you argue that a genre IS [x], your definition has become a ticking bomb - it's only a matter of time before somebody makes some game that lives up to the general expectations of an RPG in every way BUT that crucial feature [x] that you've arbitrarily crowned the heart of the genre. Surprise!
You can roll with this, which would be my suggestion since it's inevitable, or you can double down and insist that a genre IS [x] for [insert historical, personal, something-or-other reason here]. But do you really want to? The only way to 'win' that argument is by speaking progressively louder and possibly breaking things. And it commits you to a bunch of other weird claims that I'm pretty sure you'd feel uncomfortable accepting.
TL;DR, Genres do the opposite of what you want them to do, and that's a good thing.
I've discussed the definition of the term RPG with friends, and I've come to the conclusion that the term is antiquated and completely useless in the modern day.
First problem: Nobody actually agrees what the term means. This thread, for example. Steam's RPG section, for example. Go look at it! It's a mess!
Then, let's take two of these common things that get bundled under the term: stats and story. Your typical Call of Duty campaign has stats and story. Why isn't it considered an RPG? What makes Skyrim an RPG and Call of Duty not? No wonder all these things get put in the same section, if those are the only qualifiers. Genres should be placing big, clear distinctions between things, based on their core gameplay, and I'm not seeing RPG do that.
Even if we look at it by its word by word definition - Role-Playing Game; useless as a genre definer, you play some kind of role in most games these days. Maybe that'd be useful if the majority of games were like tetris or pong, but look around, 90% of games have some character whose role you play, whether player created or written and designed by devs.
To end my little thesis here, I think it'd be much better if people used more descriptive terms than RPG. For example, Skyrim would be a fantasy open world game. A much better description than just spouting out RPG, in my opinion.
But it's much too late for that, the term has sunk in deep, and I heartily dislike it, and it will remain tacked onto everything for the forseeable future.
I didnt dismiss your comment, I simply said maybe a re-definition of the genre and its sub-genres is more apt to really hone a description of a game (system) for the purposes of something like selling on steam -- i.e. to clear the confusion of what you are buying, and more clearly define the game in the genre of RPG and what sub-genre or elements it REALLY has as opposed to the assumed attributes you want to apply because you read the letters RPG.
Seems the only person being dismissive is you, of any experience I have, wether or not you believe it.
That is exactly my sentiment as well. The term itself is too broad now.
You almost need to know the context prior to just hearing the category. Like painted cars. Yes, cars are painted, on the outside, not the inside. But someone who had no context of how painted applies to car listings might assume the entire car is dipped in paint.
A simple phrase or word "on the outside" "externally" can help to clear any confusion right off the start.
I dont think it is beyond reason to simply ask that more clarification/attribution of the main category happen.
Like for a lot of card/board games now, they are still card/board games, but they go one stepo further to say things like: bluff, deduction, puzzle, maze, memory, CCG or Miniature or even, o.0 RPG, etc...
I was being, in no way, dismissive of what you see as RPG, but with what you said here:
Which you solely backed up with your "30 years" of play.
You used the word "confuse" there, and perhaps that was merely overstatement, but that is what I took issue with. I am not "confused" about whether or not RPGs typically, and yes I mean typically, include statistics and dice. That's simply reality and I find it bizarre that someone would argue otherwise. This is especially true if, in light of this conversation, we are broadening (loosening?) the definition of "RPG" - certainly most war games would fall into the category that grew out of them. To be clear, I absolutely do not believe that an RPG *requires* statistics and dice, but that it does require conflict resolution - because that's what a game does.
I'm unsure if you're responding to me or picking up where I left off, but:
... is not something I've said.
You continued (sorry for snipping):
And I wanna just address some things. First the most egregious issue.
This comment makes it impossible to have a fair conversation, because you believe that any view other than yours is insane and that the only way to hold a view other than yours is to be completely unreasonable and, in fact, violent. That's obviously hogwash. So I will pretend you did not write that or that it means something utterly 'else' that I don't see. Hyperbole, perhaps?
You are both right and wrong in your arguments. Genres do emerge from content (typically, that is). However, genres also define content. And not simply in a 'what rules can we bend/break' sort of way, although it is true that this is often how genre is used.
To illustrate, your dear loved one asks you to paint a fresco of a pelican. Few would argue that giving her a cheeseburger would fulfill her request in any way. Personally, I might prefer a cheeseburger, but I would not be willing ot label it as a 'fresco of a pelican'.
Now you want to come closer to the mark than a cheeseburger, so you ask for more information. She says she would like a still life fresco of a pelican. Fantastic, now you know more. You go down to the seashore and you paint dozens upon dozens of canvases filled with pelicans - pelicans eating fish, pelicans flying overhead, pelicans diving into the water, pelicans spitting out chihuahuas mistaken for snacks, etc.
You bring your dear loved one 36 unique paintings of pelicans and she bursts into tears, utterly devestated at the lack of a fresco of a still life of a pelican.
Why? Because genre has meaning. You brought her canvases of animal paintings, not a single fresco of a still life. You would have been closer to the mark had you painted a cheeseburger onto her bedroom wall.
There are defining aspects of genres, otherwise there would be no purpose in discussing things in terms of genre.
Another example would be the haiku. You are tasked by Dr Patricia Ballbreaker with writing one haiku during class and reading it aloud at the end. When your turn comes you stand up and say:
You are immediately failed and when you show up at her office to apologize, saying you didn't mean it personally, she tells you that she thought it was quite clever, but that you were not failed for the content, but rather the form. That's just not a haiku.
One can certainly argue that RPG is a broad genre - perhaps even the broadest. Clearly, someone *can* play Super Mario Brothers and role play as they go. In my personal experience, whenever girls were over to play SMB 2, they usually played Princess Peach, sometimes Toad, but very rarely Mario or Luigi. They are, to some extent, putting themselves into the role of the protagonist. But if that is all that is required for something to be an RPG, then the genre does not exist, because it has nothing defining it. Tennis is suddenly an RPG because, like Chevy Chase in Caddy Shack, you're standing there thinking "Be the Ball. Be the Ball."
Genres do set expectations. No question. But those expectations must be met in some fashion, or the consumer will be unsatisfied. Again, if you invited me over to play some pen and paper RPGs and, upon arrival, you hand me a tennis racket made of pens and a balled up piece of paper for a ball and proceded to try and coax me into playing a "pen and paper RPG" wherein I "Be the Ball" and you can "Be the Racket" I'm either going to go home post haste or ask if I can get hit off that funky stuff.
I'm using the absurd because if, as you argue, genres can have no actual rules, then there can be no line drawn. The back of the cereal box is now a novel. Checkers is a first person shooter. Lightbulbs are sandwiches.
NB: Linwood Barclay ( https://twitter.com/linwood_barclay ) actually wrote that poem.
If something meets none of the expectations of a genre, then it doesn't belong in that genre. We can agree on that.
My point was that genres encourage us to meet those expectations in ways that we do not expect, not that they encourage us to ignore them altogether. When I say 'they provide opportunities to satisfy & confound those expectations at the same time,' that's what I mean. So by my definition there's still no danger of lightbulbs being sandwiches. (Not that being either thing involves genre, but I get the purpose of the example so I won't nitpick.)
This is true, but while poetry may be a genre, Haiku is a form of poetry with strict rules that constrain its content. A literal rule-book. So this example doesn't work.
Also true but it doesn't necessarily place the game in the RPG genre. I qualify that because I can imagine a game with elements that 'accidentally' add up to an RPG despite the creator's intent, in which case re-interpreting those elements would place it in that genre. (And would be very interesting / weird.)
But someone playing SMB as an RPG isn't just re-interpreting existing elements - they're actually creating a new game in which SMB is an element. That new game may be an RPG, but SMB still isn't.
There's a nugget of truth in your tennis argument but it's hard to extract because tennis isn't a genre, it's a sport and (like haiku) has a literal rule book. You can't satisfy the expectations of a tennis game in a way that breaks the rules, because in a sport the rules are the game. So your pen and paper tennis isn't an example of fuzzy genre boundaries producing an absurd result of tennis being an RPG, it's just an example of someone playing a game they made up that objectively isn't tennis.
One way you could (kind of) make it work is by playing 'tennis plus' - play tennis by the rules, then add new elements that turn it into an RPG. Eg you have to insult your opponent in character, and each point counts as striking them with a weapon, and whoever wins takes the kingdom. Something like that. This still doesn't demonstrate the point you'd hoped to make - it ends up being like SMB where tennis is merely one element in a new game - but at least this version avoids the sports-vs-genre issue.
I do argue that genres don't have rules in the sense that sports have rules. But you can draw a line based on whether content satisfies the expectations of a genre. That line will be fuzzy because expectations are open-ended, but a fuzzy line isn't no line. It's just fuzzy.
This is why you lose me with your pelican fresco example.
Let me see if I'm intepreting this correctly. She expected a still life fresco of a pelican - the genre that she hoped for was 'still life fresco' and the pelican was incidental, right? And he screwed up by thinking she was hoping for a piece in the genre 'fresco of a pelican' and missed the 'still life' bit? To me this seems like a communication failure - he thought she was asking for one genre when she was really asking for another. If that's the case then I'm not sure what that demonstrates about genre. The issue could have been cleared up with a Venn diagram.
But maybe I've got that wrong - maybe he understood which genre she wanted and decided to confound her expectations by breaking the rule of having a still life in his still life paintings? That would be a better counter example if my definition of genre truly has 'no line.' But if that's what you were going for, my response is that there IS a line - a fuzzy line - and he clearly stepped over it.
I guess I need you to connect the dots for me on that one.
I know. Your post history showed a pattern of raising your voice in response to criticism, so I told you the only way to win this argument was by doing exactly that, knowing that you'd bend over backwards to prove me wrong.
And you did! By far this is the most thoughtful, measured post in your profile history. I know it's tacky to gloat but I'm pleased with myself for channeling your aggressive qualities into bringing out that side of you.
I'll be honest, I don't like the version of you that I saw in your history. That version is angry and quick to insult people. This version of you is a lot better.
The question now is whether you'll fly off the handle in response to being manipulated, or laugh it off and stay in this new groove. My first gamble paid off so I'm doubling down. I hope you won't disappoint us.