Re: What Makes A Game Qualify As An RPG? (On experimental games)
In reply to GamerHandle (msg # 5):
Even WoW could be turned into a more typical RPG...use the races and character types and the setting, but change the nature of the character objectives, and suddenly, it's a totally different gaming experience. Granted, you can't play it the same way, because you don't have the means to reprogram the game, but that doesn't mean you can't take all the set dressing and relocate it to tabletop or PbP.
It's difficult, if not impossible, to create a hard-and-fast definition for RPG because, as has been mentioned, 'role-playing' doesn't mean the same thing to everybody...short of the gross generalization that you are putting yourself into an imagined situation where you are playing someone else (or yourself in an imagined setting). And, as the OP mentioned (indeed, the very cause for the question we're discussing), there is a dizzying array of variations on how to make a game.
Even a straight-up board game CAN be played to be a role-play...if the players all adopt a specific persona that becomes an elementof the gameplay, Monopoly can enter RPG territory. It's not the game itself, so much as how you play it. I know there are purists that would debate that, but...well...all it is, is a home-brew game that's borrowing extensively from existing materials.