Welcome to the Finder’s Archives, where this week I’m taking a look at RPG Genres. Now before I get started, I’m going to put in that I do NOT mean normal genres for RPGs (horror, sci-fi, fantasy and so on), but more specifically I want to talk about WHY we don’t see much in the way of the so-called -RPGs in Tabletop Gaming.
So without further ado, here we go:
Western RPGs vs. JRPGs (Japanese RPGs):
So this expression obviously comes from the video gaming world, but since both are RPGs, I thought it was something worth looking at, especially since both of these spring from a commonplace, tabletop gaming. (There’s a lot of information about this stuff, and Extra Credits even dived into this topic, though from the video game perspective, over on Youtube).
So why is it that we do not see much in the way of JRPGs among the tabletop scene when they spring from a common interest in tabletop games? Well to look at that, we need to look at what each genre does well. (Bear in mind that a lot of this takes its roots in the Extra Credits episodes on this topic, so you should really watch (or re-watch) it if you haven’t).
Narrative vs. Expression
Narrative, traditionally, is the art of telling a story. A carefully written book, story, novel, or comic book in most cases. Or in the case of a game, it’s the story of a protagonist and a group of people coming together, in order to accomplish a predetermined goal. Traditionally this is a strong point of JRPGs.
Expression, on the other hand, is more free-form. It allows the players the freedom to follow their own choices, and where the narrative often puts you at one remove (i.e. you’re not the actual character, but someone controlling it), expression heavy games allow you to take on the mantle of the protagonist, become that person, and shape their world around what you wish to do. This traditionally is a strong point of Western RPGs.
And this is our first divide. For most Table-top RPGs, you take on the mantle of the protagonist. You and your friends set out to shape the world that your GM has created for you. Sure, there will be narrative elements within that story, but unless your GM is heavily into railroading, it’s up to you how to accomplish that goal, or even ignore it entirely in favor of one that you make up. Where JRPGs are strong on the relations between the NPCs for example (or other members of the group) a traditional Western RPG has less focus on these (though there may be some), but TTRPGs (Table-Top RPGs) tend to leave these out, as they’re unseen by the player characters. (Some games and gamers have experimented with what are, effectively, “cutscenes” within their games, to establish the strength of villains and the like, but normally this will be through direct interaction with them, or those affected by them instead).
To put it as Extra Credits, did “JRPGs tell you a story, and Western RPGs place you within that story.” And that is where TTRPGs shine.
Abnegation
The one thing that RPGs have on both sides of the divide though, is the concept of abnegation. The desire to stress out, reject what’s going on, or plain just relax and detach from everything. Computer RPGs on both sides of the divide are good at that (as are most computer games in general).
However, that is one aspect that TTRPGs has none of. You cannot really entirely detach and just turn off your brain when you’re playing a TTRPG – of course, you can do that to some degree by playing with people you already play with, or playing a favorite character of yours, or even that trope that you always find yourself coming back to.
However, that leads me on to the element that almost none of the computer RPGs have (outside of MMOs): a social aspect. For you to get the most out of a TTRPG, you need to be playing with someone else. Sure you can make a character sheet, or tell a story, but to get the most fun out of the game, you need someone else sat across that table from you, for you to play with. Otherwise, you might as well plonk yourself down in front of your computer or console. This is why so many of us play with our friends because these are people we WANT to spend time with (as opposed to the colleagues from work that you HAVE to), and you want them to share the same wild and crazy fantasies that you experience.
Choice of Game
Finally, we come to the one thing that probably keeps JRPGs from becoming as strong as Western RPGs within the TTRPG system. That is the choice of game that you can have. Most JRPGs have a menu-based combat system, and while that, on the surface at least, appears to be similar to that which you get in many TTRPGs, it really isn’t.
The difference here is that while you can argue that any given TTRPG has a menu-based system (especially for combat), it’s almost impossible to argue that they’re all the same. Look at things like FFG’s Star Wars: It uses the narrative system, but the one just before that used the d20 system. The one before that used the D6 system. And that’s just within one very specific game, set in a very specific setting. All of these systems could potentially be applied to any other TTRPG, ranging from Warhammer to Paranoia, to Toon, to Lord of the Rings. Equally, it’d be possible to change any other system into Star Wars. Rolemaster Star Wars anyone?
This gives you an abundance of CHOICE within how you play your games, and how you allow both yourself, GMs and other players to express themselves within their games. You can simply pick the type of game that you think will fit your group best, because you know that your story can be adapted. A more traditional JRPG-style TTRPG wouldn’t be quite as easy to do so, as a well-crafted game of that type, would have it’s game-system intimately tied in with the story that you wanted to tell. And that’s not a bad thing, but it would make it more difficult for a GM to adapt his story and his vision of the game, to the one that his players would want to experience.
And that’s it for this time. Hope you all enjoyed this little rant. 🙂
Kim Frandsen
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