Many experienced roleplaying gamers ignore the section of a roleplaying game’s core rule book titled “What is a roleplaying game?” Some games don’t include that section at all.

Most likely, you already know basically how this game works.

Swords & Wizardry Complete

With the popularity of D&D and actual play videos on the internet, a publisher can reasonably assume that anyone who is looking at a game book understands what a roleplaying game is and have a general idea of what playing one is like. If the target audience are people who already play roleplaying games, it probably seems like a waste of space. Why bother?

I read this section because it tells me something about the game and the approach the designer took in developing the game.

What “What is a roleplaying game?” tells me about the game

You might imagine that after 50 years of RPGs that there is a solid consensus on this topic but there isn’t. While there is broad agreement on certain aspects of what makes a roleplaying game different from other kinds of games, there are still disagreements on details and specifics.

If a designer’s fundamental belief about “what is a roleplaying game” is significantly different from mine, I might not buy the game. The tendency I see is for designers to define a RPG as whatever it is they are selling even if that definition varies drastically with roleplaying games designed to produce a different experience while still being RPGs.

Seeing the differences of opinion help me to decide if that game is for me.

Rather than giving a definition that is broad and then saying where in that range of possibilities the game sits, they effectively write, “This game is a RPG. All RPGs are like this game,” when this is not the case.

A roleplaying game (or “RPG”) is an interactive storytelling game where everyone is both participant and audience in an adventure you all share. No one really knows how it will turn out and the aim of the game is to tell the most entertaining story. While your protagonist characters might succeed in their objective, there isn’t really a way to win. In fact, some of the most entertaining stories end in spectacular failure.

Dune: Adventures in the Imperium

I agree with some elements of this statement but not all. I firmly disagree with the claim that RPGs are “interactive storytelling games.”

The designer’s conception of RPG’s matters

What the designer doesn’t say in their definition of “What is an RPG?” can be just as revealing as what they say.

Looking at the Dune designer’s definition of a roleplaying game immediately tipped me off to a few things. A major one is that it wasn’t likely, and indeed does not, include much on the physics of space travel in Dune, the technical specifications of weapons systems, or the order of battle of the great houses.

“Collaborative storytelling” implies a game that focuses on plotlines and arriving at a thematic resolution in line with Frank Herbert’s stories. That is different from a game that is focused on answering questions posed by players with crazy ideas like, “Is it possible to highjack a Spacing Guild highliner?”

In Dune: Adventures in the Imperium, the armies, economies, and other resources are given very simple “quality” ratings or keywords. The ratings provide a way to compare the relative capability of a faction to another faction or a character to another character.

We don’t get an objective measurement such as kilometer per hour so we can calculate the time it to get from Arakeen to Sietch Tabr in an ornithopter. The ornithopter is described with the attached keyword of “fast.” If one side is using a transport to move their infantry and the other side is using a squadron of ornithopters then the side using the ornithopters gets there first.

Dune is a game in which the outcomes of player choices are treated as story beats not robust simulations of conflict in a fictional sci fi future. If you want a system that provides more of the later then Dune is not the game for you.

The designers tell us that in their, “What is a RPG?” section of the book but only through the subtext. They wrote that roleplaying games are interactive storytelling. The game mechanisms reflect that stance.

To my way of thinking about RPGs, Dune is a conflict simulation which heavily abstracts the economic, political, and military power of its factions and characters to accentuate the narratives and themes that emerges from the game play.

If you want to play a game about how many tons of cargo you can get on your ship and whether or not there is a starport in range which can handle that cargo, then you should try Traveller.

I’m not saying that one is better than the other. They are different experiences for different gamers and they are both RPGs.

Conclusion

“What is a RPG?” is an important element to include in a roleplaying game’s core rule book.

I would prefer if publishers would take on a broader view. I would like them to acknowledge, in their core rule books, that there are a lot of different kinds of RPGs which have different play experiences. Having done that, they can then state the experience their game produces and how that is different from other roleplaying games.

That is far more correct and better for the hobby than implying that any game that doesn’t do what their game does is somehow not a RPG or a bad example of a RPG.