Do you consider Mass Effect to be an RPG?

[rusty_shackleford]

Mandatory 'you must explain your reasoning'

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In continuation of my last two threads:
Do you consider Witcher 3 to be an RPG?
Do you consider Gothic to be an RPG?

[logincrash]

Having replayed it this week, I can't bring myself to think of it as an RPG. It's strayed too far into the "action-RPG" realm, which just defines an action game or a shooter with a "numbers go up" system.
Also, the dialogue system was finetuned to be as "cinematic" as possible, because vidya games of that period were considered lame and "not art" unless they were as close to the inferiour non-interactive medium of cinema.
And that "cinematic" nonsense morphed it too much into an "experience," rather than a proper RPG. I'd say Dragon Age Origins might've been BioWare's actual return to form after Mass Effect and their last proper RPG. Anything after that was just slop made by increasingly more incompetent teams being forced to make stuff they were crap at by the ******** and avaricious publisher.

[Stack of Turtles]

Mandatory 'you must explain your reasoning'

My reasoning for my choice: I have not played Mass Effect.

[Kolgrim]

No because it doesn't have golf in it.

[Bertram_Tung]

I don't rightly know.

[aimlesshealer]

You are encouraged to think about the world and your place in it. You're meant to approach scenarios and make decisions from the perspective of your character. Regardless of how well the game actually accomplishes this, that was the intent. I think that makes it an RPG even if the series derailed itself into 3rd person shooter land. Admittedly I've never delved into the debate about the hairsplitting, precise definition of an RPG because I'm more concerned that a game is fun and knows what it's trying to be rather than whether it fits into this genre or that.

[logincrash]

You're meant to approach scenarios and make decisions from the perspective of your character.

I think the Paragon/Renegade system and the dialogue wheel actually discourage this. Some people don't even read the dialogue options because they know "top right is always good, bottom right is always evil, middle left are infodumps."

[aimlesshealer]

You're meant to approach scenarios and make decisions from the perspective of your character.

I think the Paragon/Renegade system and the dialogue wheel actually discourage this. Some people don't even read the dialogue options because they know "top right is always good, bottom right is always evil, middle left are infodumps."

Over time the player definitely falls into this, but coming in blind you don't understand the dialogue system that well (or how the game will hamstring you for not playing it "correctly"). The designers shot themselves in the foot, but it was an error, not their intention.

[rusty_shackleford]

It's no different than traditional dialogue trees, it just makes the issues associated with them more obvious. Dialogue trees suck, but they're the best we have(for now)

[Val the Moofia Boss]

One of my grievances with the dialogue system is that I would read the options, pick one, but then Shepard behaves very differently than what the dialogue wheel line said he would. Like trying to be nice to someone and you click it but then he is an ******* and just antagonized the person I was talking to.

[DecadeRiptide]

Mot really. I only associate RPG with medieval/fantasy. Idk why but that's how it works for me

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Because of the NPCs conversations in the hubs, being able to pick your party members, the sidequests on random planets, being able to customize the character's background and his class a little bit, yes it is an RPG.

[Maledict]

Mandatory 'you must explain your reasoning'

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In continuation of my last two threads:
Do you consider Witcher 3 to be an RPG?
Do you consider Gothic to be an RPG?

Yes because it has choices in it which affect your world-state, so you play a role.

[Irenaeus]

I always considered it more of a shooter with RPG characteristics. However, the same could be said about Bloodlines and Alpha Protocol which I like and consider both good RPGs. So, I should change my answer to "yes" since shooters with RPG characteristics are usually considered RPGs, particularly here, but I won't because the games are so bad

I only played a little of the first game, up to the ice planet, some 15 years ago. The plot, characters and dialogues are cliche and poorly written outside of some sci-fi concepts. The more I read about it and watched videos about it or even watched people playing, the less I liked it despite the hype. From the cutscenes I watched, I'd say it's like watching a bad movie series. For sake of brevity I won't go into details and I know a lot of you are fans of the series so if that's you disregard all this.

I'm biased against BioWare, but I'll grant that the series is a smash hit and some memes from it are funny, even if I'll always be confused by its success.

[J1M]

For questions like these, I think a lot of people do some visual pattern matching of screenshots to reach a conclusion instead of applying some sort of first principles approach.

The dead horse 2025 joke was that to be an RPG a game needs visible damage numbers. For 2026 I submit that the RPG litmus test should be if a game has equipment with stats that can be sold to a vendor.

► Tangent about specific examples

Under the 2025 definition:
-Mass Effect 1 & 2 and Darksiders 1 are not RPGs
-Darksiders 2 is an RPG

Under the 2026 definition:
-Darksiders 1 and Mass Effect 2 are not RPGs
-Darksiders 2 and Mass Effect 1 are RPGs

So either Darksiders 2 is really an RPG or the heuristic needs work.

Our current discussions on this topic feel a bit like trying to manually step through the calculations an LLM would perform.

Forget the rest of the internet/game industry. Words there are meaningless. Perhaps we could define what an HQRPG™ is and debate whether a game meets that definition instead...

Unlike other genres (FPS, RTS), the RPG genre seems to be comprised of many elements, but none absolutely mandatory. Here's how I would start refining a definition of an HQRPG:

1. Select 10 RPG elements, preferring ones not found in many other genres and elements not similar to each other.
2. Decide how many of these 10 RPG elements a game needs to be an HQRPG. Let's assume 7 as a starting point.
3. Test the definition by identifying 10 games widely agreed to be RPGs, each lacking a different RPG element while meeting the overall criteria.
4. Based on the test, either refine the list of 10 elements or come to the conclusion that a handful of RPG elements are present in all HQRPGs!
   
   Corollary to defining HQRPG: Now people can scientifically refer to their favorite game as "100% RPG" and other people can denigrate a game you like by referring to it as "less than 50% RPG".

[WhiteShark]

I continue to maintain that action games cannot be RPGs. If we look at the history of RPGs, the only crossover points between player and PC are the will and the intellect; everything else is separate. If I can best the game by my own, real life dexterity, then we've left RPG territory.

[rusty_shackleford]

I continue to maintain that action games cannot be RPGs. If we look at the history of RPGs, the only crossover points between player and PC are the will and the intellect; everything else is separate. If I can best the game by my own, real life dexterity, then we've left RPG territory.

But I've already said this is wrong

[Magick]

Yes. The first one is absolutely an RPG, that just happened to have shooting as it's method of combat.

The 2nd (presumably 3rd and 4th) were shooters, that happened to have a little bit of RPG elements.

[lucky-SVLLa]

dialog wheel, character creation, character progression, text to read... so

[Bertram_Tung]

I voted yes because Fox News declared it an RPG.

[TKVNC]

Dialogue wheel with choices that don't match what is said.

You ARE John Shepherd (or you're a *** who plays a woman). You don't realistically control anything in the narrative.

It's not an RPG. It's an action adventure.

[Demonic Fate]

If Call of Duty is 0% RPG and something sandboxy like Kenshi or Daggerfall is >90% RPG, Mass Effect is around 20-25%.

There are genuine RPG moments when I found myself asking 'what would THIS Shepard do' and acting accordingly with no other considerations, but they're few and most of your time is spent sightseeing and fighting mandatory linear fights.

[pol_345polex]

Dialogue wheel with choices that don't match what is said.

You ARE John Shepherd (or you're a *** who plays a woman). You don't realistically control anything in the narrative.

It's not an RPG. It's an action adventure.

I would argue the only roleplay mechanics are how you want to shape/roleplay Shepard's character in the spectrum of Paragon/Renegade and his class.
The fact that there is no true evil path and that the story and game doesn't change much based on the path you chose disqualifies it from a deep Rpg. As you said it is an action adventure but with some Rpg flavour.

[J1M]

"The game contains a separate game where you can do the opposite of the main narrative" seems like an awfully high bar to clear. Can you give some examples?

[TKVNC]

"The game contains a separate game where you can do the opposite of the main narrative" seems like an awfully high bar to clear. Can you give some examples?

It sounds ironic, but BG3 is a good example.

It has an evil (albeit more, mass murderer) playthrough.

[wndrbr]

Even though Bioware removed a lot of mechanics while transitioning from ME1 to ME2 and 3 (such as inventory, loot, mods, party member customization, dialogue skills, etc), I feel like ME1 is actually worse than ME3 and roughly on par with ME2 when it comes to RPGness.

Been a while since I played those games, currently playing through ME1 and it feels really brain dead. Don't think it even has 'character builds', you just equip stuff with bigger numbers and put skillpoints into abilities that you like. And the only time you feel like the game gives you a bit of agency is during Noveria space port sequence, where you can get the garage pass in two different ways.

[rusty_shackleford]

Of the games I've asked so far, I think Gothic passes this and Witcher 3 / Mass Effect fail it. If you make the main character defined, you lose this specific aspect of roleplaying:

Being able to write a journal from your character's pov might be a strong contender for (part of) the definition of an RPG.
Games that tend to be gray areas often fail this because you're playing as someone else and might at best guess their thoughts.
Much to think about!

Shepard is Shepard is Shepard. There might be a few ways Shepard expresses himself to pick from, but it's a small range of expression. Nameless Hero has a wide range of expression with much less restraint on the player.

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Note that this is unrelated to the character having lines at all, e.g., Link is a well-defined character with his own goals and motivations.

[rusty_shackleford]

Even though Bioware removed a lot of mechanics while transitioning from ME1 to ME2 and 3 (such as inventory, loot, mods, party member customization, dialogue skills, etc), I feel like ME1 is actually worse than ME3 and roughly on par with ME2 when it comes to RPGness.

Been a while since I played those games, currently playing through ME1 and it feels really brain dead. Don't think it even has 'character builds', you just equip stuff with bigger numbers and put skillpoints into abilities that you like. And the only time you feel like the game gives you a bit of agency is during Noveria space port sequence, where you can get the garage pass in two different ways.

Everyone insulted me when I replayed the trilogy some years back and came away enjoying ME3 the most
I thought it was actually really fun and wasn't going to let a bad ending ruin the rest of the game.

[wndrbr]

Everyone insulted me when I replayed the trilogy some years back and came away enjoying ME3 the most

i remember a lot of people agreeing with you.

[Bertram_Tung]

Of the games I've asked so far, I think Gothic passes this and Witcher 3 / Mass Effect fail it. If you make the main character defined, you lose this specific aspect of roleplaying:

Being able to write a journal from your character's pov might be a strong contender for (part of) the definition of an RPG.
Games that tend to be gray areas often fail this because you're playing as someone else and might at best guess their thoughts.
Much to think about!

Shepard is Shepard is Shepard. There might be a few ways Shepard expresses himself to pick from, but it's a small range of expression. Nameless Hero has a wide range of expression with much less restraint on the player.

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Note that this is unrelated to the character having lines at all, e.g., Link is a well-defined character with his own goals and motivations.

You're telling me that Fox News is wrong?!