this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2023
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Gaming
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Where?
How do you define a role playing game?
You're playing as a person in an alternate reality.
You have character stats and builds.
Someone else is in control of the overarching narrative (you can't just decide to become a plumber for example).
Stat blocks don't make an RPG.
Part of the definition is that you in fact play a role. This means making decisions from their perspective as if you were them and their world was your reality. Any game that doesn't allow you to make informed, meaningful decisions isn't actually a role playing game.
Naturally, video games can't really give you total freedom in that regard, as any option you can pick needs to be anticipated and coded by the developer. But there are candidates that fit the requirement somewhat more and those that definitely don't.
Cyberpunk, while being a fun experience, doesn't really give you a lot of meaningful choices, at least not in the bigger quests, especially not the main plot. Most often different dialogue choices only lead to slightly different answers and the same outcome. You can't decide to rat Panam out to Militech when stealing the tank for example. You're not really playing the role of V, you're watching their story play out and maybe deciding what to do first and last.
CDPR have their own inhouse example of a better RPG to compare against.