Adventure?

You could probably say that every adventure game is also an RPG :D

Before I start, I never heard of Dark Souls and the encounter I've had with FF is when my son and nephews played it 25+ years ago (and after watching a few minutes, I decided FF was not an RPG...eventually my son, +/- 12 at the time, agreed)

Perhaps you're correct when you say it's not a platformer. I know I was to being too melodramatic when I used that term, but I wanted to equate it with something as far from rpg as possible. (Perhaps a classier Mortal Kombat would be a better analogy ... another game I never played)

Insofar as story, I maintain I'm right. A sketch/outline of characters is not a story; it is an outline. To say that there Is a horror in the basement and you have to kill it doesn't make it a story. How would you compare DD's plot to that used by Baldur's Gate? Or the Ultima series? Or any of Spiderweb's games? Or even the story line in Dragon's Age (the original)? Is it as compelling? As fleshed out?

Is there a sense of things/places going on outside (or even in) the hamlet? Where did all the character classes come from? Do any of them have families?

No. Why? Because they are cannon fodder. Because, if those things existed, the world the game exists in could not exist. You cannot find an endless, infinite amount of idiots to get chewed down by unspeakables in a non-descript dungeon.

A story implies the reader needs to be immersed, feel for the protagonist. But in DD there are no heros, only soon to be nameless dead. (How many characters did you rename?)


Don't get me wrong. On some sick level, I enjoy the game. But it is not an RPG

No it would not. You should probably try to equate it to things you understand ;-) Like it or not, Darkest Dungeon draws a lot of mechanics from RPG games, whether or not it is, itself, an RPG (question I honestly don't care about, call it whatever you want to.) As such, it is not as far from RPGs as possible. It is, in fact, fairly close to classics of the genre, mechanically speaking. And guess what, for videogames, their mechanics, how they work, is as important (if not more) than their stories. All you achieve by trying to be "dramatic" is making communication with you more difficult.

Well it's sure more compelling than Baldur's Gate :-P Still, if you are trying to say that you either have a story as complex as Ultima or you don't have any story at all, Baldur's Gate suddenly has no story.

Yes. As I said, trough narrator's narration, a lot of what was and is happening in the hamlet is explained, and at the end of the game, you are given a fairly full picture. Videogames do not need to structure their story in the same fashion as books or movies do.

Not explained in the game, but they do come from somewhere and do have rudimentary backstories. So far, 5 were drawn.

And the narrator is the protagonist. Well, antagonist, but central figure. Still, this sentence is entirely false of course, you need neither protagonist nor antagonist to build a story, not even in books.

Eh... In gameplay? What party composition do you take, which skills do you pick, which skills do you use against whom, which rooms do you wish to visit in which order, which items do you wish to take? There's tons of decisions being made in Darkest Dungeon. They're just not being thrown in your face.

Perhaps I have been somewhat loose with my language, so let me use the dictionary's definition of role playing:

NOUN
1.the acting out of the part of a particular person or character, for example as a technique in training or psychotherapy.
2.participation in a role-playing game

and its definition for a role playing game:

NOUN
1.a game in which players take on the roles of imaginary characters who engage in adventures, typically in a particular computerized fantasy setting overseen by a referee.

and since it was mentioned, Wiki's:

A role-playing game (RPG and sometimes roleplaying game[1][2]) is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting or through a process of structured decision-making or character development.[3] Actions taken within many games succeed or fail according to a formal system of rules and guidelines.[4]

Now, if I understand you correctly, you are roleplaying anywhere from 24 to n-1 characters within the confines of Darkest Dungeon.

How do you do that? You actually take on the roles of all those disposable characters? Or, are you simply equipping them as best as you can and send them on to the next mission?

How is that any different from equipping Super Duper Megatron Killer with a super duper slicing laser, popping six enhancement drugs and sending him/her/it into an arena?

Darkest Dungeon may have rpg elements, but having similar elements do not make it an rpg. Saying so is the same as saying:

A fish swims
A person swims
therefore, a person is a fish.

I was ... Actually talking about its story that you claimed doesn't exist most of the time, as for it being an RPG, all I said was:
So uh... Call it what you will, I honestly don't care. Neither your nor my opinion on this matters in the slightest, whatever you say in this discussion, it'll still be marked as RPG on all major game retailers. At any rate, there's something called Semantic Change. Abbreviation 'RPG' is not used for games strictly focused on role-playing for a very, very long time now - or it's role-playing in the very loosest sense, like Jann180 described. So you can either tilt at this particular windmill and ensure you'll be misunderstood in most conversations about videogames or quite simply understand that a game belongs to whatever genre majority puts it in and just go with it.

Call me Don Quixote :D

Mario Bros. is an RPG. The Role you are Playing is Mario. And it's a Game.

The point, EVERY video game where you take control of a character is a RPG.

Make sure to grab the specialized anti-windmill lance.

Now that is terrific! Not sure, though, that El Burro would appreciate lugging it around.

Simple game for simple taste? Call it what you want, if you think your Mario just cause you move and jump then you clearly need to be in another 'AWESOME' thread somewhere in 'AWESOMEVILLE'. ;)

RPGs are defined by choice and have been since before you were a sparkle in your daddy's eye. Marketers and PR people have tried to blur the lines for noobs who don't know any better, just to increase profits.

Oh yes. My tastes are oh so simple. Doesn't change the fact that what I said is true. But I mean, if choice is the definition of RPGs, then are all JRPGs not RPGs? No real choice in any Final Fantasy I ever played. But I would say I took on the roles of the characters in my party. But no more so than I do when I play Mario. You know, back in 1985 when I got a Nintendo.

:) I cannot believe this discussion still goes on. It is quite obvious that whatever measure you put there will be someone opposing the definition. DD is absolutely not at the core of RPG genre. The same is with Mario (seriously :) great example how broken is the definition), Dark Souls (full time hack&slash), Final Fantasy (probably the closes to core RPG but still hack&slash) and many many other junk pseudo RPG games. Game industry developed numerous ways to sell their products as immersive and "RPG" is the essence of such interaction. Who cares that your role playing is limited to kill that, jump there and suddenly the "immersion" is boiled down to the ability of controlling your mouse and shortcuts on the keyboard. Great RPG experience, way to go... . DD is one of the best examples of the rouge branch and nor RPG. For me it is like younger, mentally challenged brother of FTL.