Can you do the following in the RPG you are currently playing?

1. Drop an item from your inventory.
2. Pick the item back up.

If you are able to do this, then you are probably playing a WRPG. If you can do 1 but not 2, you are probably playing a JRPG (or perhaps an early CRPG like classic Wizardry). If you can't even do 1, you are playing a rather simple RPG (Final Fantasy Mystic Quest and Costume Quest are examples of this), or a game that gives you an unlimited inventory (so the developers didn't feel the need to include a drop function).

How do your favorite RPGs fare given this test?

Also, this test can be generalized to any game that has an inventory, which I believe is common in adventure games.

Well, you forgot the distinction between being able to pick it back up immediately, versus being able to leave the area, come back much later, and pick it up. While there is something to say for the realism of people (or other creatures) eventually picking up what you dropped, the fact that they vanish after a while is often just an engine shortcoming.

RPGs, with their item-swallowing grounds and buggy containers, made me paranoid about dropping and even storing stuff away. I'm never at ease with it, no matter how solid the game (meaning that past experiences sometimes ruin my enjoyment of new games). But item persistence is, in my eyes, a quality factor. It's the first thing I check in FAQs and guides.

If I remember well, Morrowind was relatively good about it. Project Zomboid too. Maybe Fallout3 as well ? Thing is, my memories are blurry, given that even when playing, I tend to shy away from testing item persistence (or just go "okay, it stayed there so far, but maybe NEXT TIME it won't be there).

I'd also say that a difference between adventure games and RPGs is that adventure games with limited inventory space suck.

That distinction doesn't really seem to separate genres. If we compare, say, Ultima 6 and Wizardry 8, those games still feel like they are in the same genre. (While we're at it, we could add TES: Arena to the mix.)

In any case, these games are all WRPGs that pass the test, but they vary in terms of how they handle the case of dropping an item and leaving the area. For these examples (and throwing in Dragon Quest 3, a JRPG, as a point of comparison):

Ultima 6: The item can be picked up if you don't leave the area. If you do leave the area, some items (which I refer to as "transient") will disappear; these usually include items that are created during the game (like those you purchase or that enemies drop, for example). Other items (including those that exist from the start of the game, and all quest items) are what I call "permanent"; they do not disappear when you leave the area. In this game, you can preserve transient items by putting them into a permanent container (the chest in your room in Lord British's castle works here). In the reverse case, if you put a permanent item into a transient container, when you return the item will be on the floor. Quest items can be dropped, and because they are permanent, they will be there when you return.

Wizardry 8: Items can always be picked back up. There is actually an issue with this: If you put too many items on the ground in an area, the game will slow down in that area, and there is no good way to delete many of these items. Quest items can't be dropped, but you *can* put them into containers; doing so with the artifacts can cause strange effects (including making the game unwinnable if you leave them in the Rapax Away Camp).

TES: Arena: The item can be picked up immediately, but if you leave the area (or even just change floors), the item disappears. Incidentally, Daggerfall is like that, except that items stored in a house or ship that you own do not disappear.

Dragon Quest 3: Dropping an item will cause it to disappear for good; there is no picking the item back up. (This game fails the test, as you can do 1 but not 2.)

i play skyrim ok? and i can do both. in fact i had to get rid of my alchemy ingredients because i'm getting too rich by selling potions and i might reach the max gold limit. i googled this and internet says that in oblivion, if you get 4+ mil gold then game freeze and it's probably the same in skyrim too. i don't understand why they store the gold as an integer value and not a string because string is infinite

Darkest dungeon lets me do 1 but not 2 but isn't a Jrpg

What if (1) & (2) can be easily done but you really feel unable to do the (1) and eventually become a hoarder of all useless things the gameworld is filled with? And what if this RPG enables you to buy a house and instead of having just some valuable stuff to show off to visitors, you eventually fill the whole house with all the useless crap you picked up during your adventures as an aftereffect of not doing (1) ever*? Would that mean that your favourite RPG is a Bethesda RPG?

* while not in your house ofcourse.

In my home all items I put on floor lie there until I pick them up back. In outside areas it depends on location. So I probably live in mixed RPG world :)

Fallout Tactics, yes to both.

I just wish those Fallout games had less items that apparently serve no purpose whatsoever. Novels? Army ID tags? Playing cards? Why are they in the game? You normally don't even get any money if you try to sell them.

Then again, I also first thought the meals/food were useless, and serve only occasional purpose, like one NPC wants you to give him food in order to tell you something. Only much later I figured it out: hey, you actually get a bit of health back if you eat them yourself! Duh! I just used the stimpacks and first aid kits/doctor bags for that.

Guacamelee doesn't let me do that, therefore it's a JRPG.

I am currently having a blast playing Might & Magic 6. You can drop all your stuff and then pick them up at any time. I believe they stay on the ground until the zone respawns. I also seem to remember all the containers respawning, even if you had stored items in them.

Even quest items are droppable, but they have an NPC you can talk to who gives you back everything you have lost.

A fun thing is that when you drop your items, they are thrown forwards a short distance. Hitting a NPC will cause them to play a stagger animation. I have to say that the gameplay engine they used for M&M 6-8 is a thing of wonder, if you take into account that it was their first venture into real 3D environments. Very few games have the same level of immersion and fluid controls.

Finally made my cleric a master of Dark Magic. Time to see if the pesky Sea Monsters are immune to Armageddon. Would be fun to see if their sprites have anything below the water level (Armageddon damages everything in th current zone, and throws them high upwards).

Soon time for another allnighter at work, so I will leave a fitting image to cheer me up.

No, dropping an RPG with an armed warhead usually results in a big explosion.

The most recent RPG I've played, Harbinger, admittedly more of an action RPG, allowed me to store items permanently by just dropping them on the floor of the hub level. I guess I was role-playing a lazy character as they do give you a pretty large stash as it is.

Blackguards is not a JRPG.

In Wasteland, dropping an RPG is no different from dropping any other item.

Unfortunately, I don't remember if Wasteland would let you pick dropped items back up. (I know that Dragon Wars would not, but that game doesn't save area state the way Wasteland does.)