CRAY'S PROFILE

Shinan, I doubt that a game that doesn't have ANY of those elements would be considered as a RPG by most people.
That's what I meant when I said we could use common elements to define the genre, do we really want to know what the exact definition of it is, even though most people won't agree with it, or do we care more about finding some guides that we can all agree on to define the genre?
If you don't think FF's are RPG's then what's the point of having a exact definition that no one will agree with?

"bash"? I hardly think that just disagreeing with you is bashing.
I understand your position, but I'm just saying that in this case, seeing as mostly all aspects of RPG's mentioned in the topic aren't obligatory to the genre, in order to find a working definition we can use some of the most usual elements used in that genre, that's all.

author=Shinan

author=Cray
There are tons of RPG games where you don't have choice and consequence, the early final fantasy games didn't offer you any kind of important choices to make.

I am a purist in that Choice and Consequence is completely vital to the RPG experience. I will take C&C over character skill any day for my "RPG elements". (see games like STALKER) And also I always look at the tabletop if I'm lost and in those I see that the RPG genre is built on the fundamentals of C&C. Then that most "RPGs" are linear dungeon crawls that sully the very name RPG... Well it annoys me a bit. And I think it is the very source of all the confusion about what an RPG is. It's a bit like if you took a driving game and claimed it was an action game. Now when suddenly driving games are action games it becomes harder to define the genre in any hard terms, because there's a genre of games in the genre of games that quite obviously don't fit in in any meaningful way.

So to you The early Dragon Quests and final fantasy games weren't RPG's? Because I doubt many people will agree with you on that. The idea of finding a definition is to get to a common concept that we can all (or at least most of us) agree on, you can be a purist but if no one agrees with your definition, then it's no good. :/

That's why I said I already changed it, after posting the screenshot, don't worry.

I think finding the exact definition of RPG is completely useless, as in everything, most new games that appear now are some sort of hybrid between different genres, So even if we define what a "pure" RPG is, most games considered RPG wouldn't fit in that category now.
You can find elements that are commonly used in RPG's but that doesn't mean they're completely needed for the game to be considered RPG.
To me, common elements in RPG include:
-levelling up
-use of some currency
-playing with more than one character
-a more intriguing and in depth story than a regular platform game
-while in 2d they use a top down view instead of side view.
As I said none of these elements is completely necesary but they're very common in RPG's.
I don't include medieval setting, because to me that's just a setting, doesn't define the genre.