Post originally by Ezekiel Black at 2004-09-22 07:16:10
Converted from Phorums BB System

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It's a role playing game in the sense that you play the role of a Troubleshooter in Alpha Complex.
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Ok, while limiting, limitations can be good for some RPGs...

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You may not have piles upon piles of angst, or ramblings about how you are continuing a grand tradition of storytelling that goes back to the dawn of civilisation, but that doesn't stop it being an RPG, any more than the absence of a combat system in De Profundis stops *it* from being an RPG.
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Great, I never said that any of that (angst, grand tradition of storytelling, blah) had anything to do with being a RPG, "roleplaying" does however, seeing as RP stands for "Role Playing". And like I said, it seems that this game is more tactical than anything (tactical games can have setting, complex rules, the main difference is you do not roleplay your character, you play yourself directing your character)

A game without a combat system is still a RPG if you are roleplaying. I believe the mid-90s phrase for this would be "duh"

The absence of RPing stops an game from being a RPG, and it's that simple. If Paranoia has no RPing, it's not a RPG by definition. I thought it looked like a strategy game without the board.

The others answered my question quite nicely, and I do believe that Paranoia is a RPG due to their comments, I just wanted to clear up the definition of RPG for those not immediately familiar.

RPG = Role Playing Game = Game in which you play the role of a character, taking on a different persona than your own.

While this isn't an official definition of RPG, it is close enough to a literal definition.

Angst has nothing to do with it, and the only angsty RPG I can think of is VtM, a game I hate, and I dislike the old version of the Storyteller system, but I'm unsure exactly what Dan was getting at. Oh well.