A role-playing game (RPG and sometimes roleplaying game) is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting or through a process of structured decision-making or character development.

-Wikipedia entry for "Role-playing game"

According to this definition, I contend that MafiaReturns is no longer a role-playing game. I hope you guys prove me wrong, but here are my thoughts on the matter. I've deconstructed the definition into four components, which I feel are equally lacking in this game.

1. Characters

The majority of players I've interacted with do not assume the role of a character. They are themselves, the player, with no distinct alterations in personality, language, or behavior when transitioning from OOC interactions to IC interactions. As a matter of fact, I don't think anyone has entirely assumed the role of a mafia character for quite some time (including myself). We write stories about our characters, but we don't assume the role of our characters. We talk the talk, but don't walk the walk.

2. Fictional Setting

This may be my weakest argument, but I don't think we really inhabit a fictional setting. I'm not saying that the actual existence of 1920s America makes us nonfictional, or that striving for "realism" in game functionality inherently removes us from being an RPG. I think that the atmosphere of the game is simply the same atmosphere you would find if all of us were just a community without the game. This largely goes back to the "Characters" section, because that atmosphere is created by the players. Because we don't play the role of a Mafia member, the atmosphere is modern and friendly, and it has drifted into a numbers game.

I refer to it as a "numbers game," because that's what we are without the roles being played. We're a shoot-em-up MMO focused increasingly on building stats rather than playing roles. That contributes to a setting unlike the 1920s America; a setting that would be no different if we were any other style of game (if we were a sci-fi RPG or fantasy RPG, we'd still have a similar atmosphere because of how we recruit, train, and behave), because we would have equally thrown out the RP nature of those genres as well (and all that would remain would be the remnants of RP still in code).

3. Narrative

The narrative to this game is dead. If it's alive, then we've been running the same narrative for years with only slight changes in names, and it's time for a change. The narrative thus far has been:

• Maintain the status quo
• Live as long as you can
• Don't do anything shady, frictional, conflictive, or persuasive, regardless of how mafia-like it may be.

This only promotes keeping your head down, playing it safe, and never risking anything (some traits very unlike mafia bosses). It's boring, and it's hard to tell new players that this is what it means to belong to the mafia.

4. Decision-Making and Character Development

This is the culmination of all previous segments, because the lack of characters causes a stagnancy in narrative development. If we were building characters, there'd be a natural momentum to develop the character, but that doesn't exist because no characters exist. Role-playing games have inertia that is directed by the players but when we eliminate the roles we play, the inertia dies, and we get stagnancy.

The narrative also promotes mainstream (meta) decision-making, which is contrary to the nature of RPGs. RPGs aren't supposed to have a "meta," because your focus should be more about playing a role or character than maximizing stats.

Causes

I think it's a cycle. People enjoy the game less, due to some incident, and so they put less effort into playing a role. Less effort in playing a role is less rewarding, because RPGs are fun at every stage of the game, if you are actually interested in playing the role. If you have no interest in playing the role, you won't enjoy it. You'll be bored, you'll die, you'll whine, and you'll sign back up because you don't know why. And you'll have less interest in playing the role, until you inevitably quit.

Conclusion

I think we are at a crossroads. We have a number of features (random Rogue spawns, Durdens, MIAs, RIAs, etc.) that make absolutely no sense RP-wise that contribute only to the "number games" of stat-building. We have plenty of players who have no interest in playing a role. We could very easily discard the RP and simply make this a pure strategy/stat-building game (which isn't far from what we are now, but we could stop pretending that RP actually exists/matters).

I'd much rather see a return to RP, but we are so far removed from it that I don't think it's feasible. Your thoughts?

I sort of border on RP. I  base my character off my real life. So sometimes i get into it but in general chat i just come across as me. Cant explain it. some people call me over emotional etc but if this was real life and your friend died or something you'd get upset and emotional. I can't really get this to make sense. I know what you mean though I have been called silly for slipping into a character though so I stopped bothering so much. it would be nice if we could all have a character etc. I change it up every time I come back for example, one of my first characters was rather hot headed. Another lacking patience etc. I can be calm and patient so its not really me. But yeah I am going to shut up now because I am really not making much sense now!

You don't need to act out in a roleplaying game to make it a roleplaying game, I've admittedly played these sorts of games a lot in my lifetime and this is one of the only ones I've played in which it has people who try forcing you to play your character within some sort of forums as well as play the rest of the game. Most of them just expect you to click, earn money, and build your character while talking in a chat of some sort.

Sure, ten years ago this game was a forums first and a game second, you went into the streets and the like and posted or else you weren't really playing anything. The more features they added, the less and less the streets became important. This game is sometimes treated far too much like a real life job and less like a fun game for one to play when they're bored. Honestly, this is one of the reasons why I don't see this game taking off past the 500 or so people we see when it is at its finest (and at least 200 of those people are clearly inactive.) 

The fact that this game tries to transcend just being a simple game and enter into a wholly different and far more niche area is a blessing and a curse. A blessing to the people who love that sort of thing, and a curse because there just aren't enough out there who do.

I believe this game is slowly trying to actively move away from the type of RP that you want, the type of RP where you actually become a character and a game where you're more-so playing a game. I believe the admins realize they need to do that in order to make this game more successful, as they're proving with all of the new additions they continue and plan to add.

Are the Streets and Business Districts and creating a mobster persona important? Of course. They're a great thing, and the people who love that thing should obviously continue what they're doing, maybe as the game grows because of the features we will find more and more people who come which also love the niche part of the game and join in on the fun.

TL;DR just continue doing what you're doing and wait, that's really all you can do. 

Never mind. Disregard my entire response, I am an idiot who can't read threads properly. 

I'd much rather see a return to RP, but we are so far removed from it that I don't think it's feasible. Your thoughts?

I have been asking for inter city RP comps and I intend to try some myself see if it takes off, that said you are right there is less character development within the profile since I first started! One member of my crew only talks in character and he will not answer unless you do which is fair enough I respect that as its harder to reply to a message in RP than just normal text.

I role play every person I try and recruit and thats the start point they should see that is the way forward but then its up to me to keep it up and encourage street speakers and story threads and that has been hard im not going to lie.

If at some point anyone wants to make an effort to get RP back as a compulsory part of the game then only all of us singing of the same song sheet is going to achieve it.

Im not the most prolific street speaker or think im the best at anything just thought id drop my two cents in.

It's not absolutely necessary to roleplay every time you communicate with someone. 

You have the option to roleplay and not. If people rarely do it,for sure, it effects the game in a bad way, but still it is , for me, it is a role play game.

The characters, they get some fictional abilities, and they do fictional stuff. We don't rob banks IRL, or sell cocaine or kill people. So even those simple things should be considered as roleplaying.

This is a great thread. These are just my initial thoughts.

I don't feel it is necessary for the admins to step in & make any game/feature changes, etc. All that is needed is a forum to post – and we have enough at our disposal. The foundations are there. Let's look at ourselves.

My reasoning behind this belief is that I have witnessed and taken part in an interesting and intelligent role playing community here in the past. The responsibility lies in the hands of the user base.

I don't know how other players feel, that experienced the original version of the game around the early 2000's – but there has been an astronomical shift in individuals who are actually interested in acting as a mobster. Certainly, I'm under no illusion that the whole user base was a 1930's Mafia history nut, but you could tell a hefty majority loved the hell out of playing the part.

I want to clarify myself, because I don't want this to appear as though I'm having a dig at players who approach their character from a surreal perspective (lions, cats, dinosaurs, superheroes, etc.) – or even those who portray themselves as a modern gangster – as that doesn't determine their ability to write or role play, nor is it a criticism towards them as many contribute a great deal to the community. There have always been people who shared this approach, just from my perspective the balance has shifted - and it's rarer to find a 'traditional' mobster.

I just think back to how a large portion of families had intricate and well thought out histories that related to the Mafia and the criminal underworld. The illusion was strong, which set a precedent for the newer players.

I still remember Turi Giuliano: an exceptional writer who genuinely impressed the masses when he spoke, a real master class! Anyway, I'll have to end this abruptly – simply because I don't know where to take it. I'm sure I'll be back.

I agree with the no risk taking problem and that everyone tries to play safe. I've played games where the only way to succeed was not to be awarded a crew, but to shoot for one. To beat your opposition and assume power. And honestly, they were always fun because it was always dangerous. That's what MR lacks, frankly.

I remember one instance where a player conned another player out of the leadership his crew. When the conned player complained, everyone backed up the first player because this is mafia and cheating and lying is an integral part of it. Here, that con man would have quickly been shot for being a bad guy and no-one would want to play with them anymore because they are untrustworthy.

Is that right Nello?

I do believe JohnnyNoName, Desmand and the late, great, DanTheMan pretty much warred for their families.

You need to have a backbone to get far in this game and us 3 had such a case.

I think Desmand and Johnny can speak for themselves, but we killed.. a LOT of people to get to power because we always knew the end goal and look at it now, the goal was achieved.

Kyubey, I believe he's talking about if a lone man with no friends were to, say, trick a CL into giving him a crew and then murdering said CL and claiming the district for his own - he would be called a rogue and murdered within a few hours and then not be trusted again by many people. 

In this game you have to play with groups and the groups must live long and gain many kills before any sort of coup is feasible, anyone who does it via any other means is killed quickly, which is what I believe the point Nello was attempting to make and I think everyone can agree with that whether they like the idea or hate it.

There's no room for the lone wolf type here, before me of course.

Alright, as a new player I'm not sure how valuable my input will be. Sure, you'll get the perspective from someone who has just recently joined but, at the same time...you're getting the perspective from someone who just recently joined. You know how that is.

1. Characters

I have been roleplaying a Mafia character for seven or so years and something I see here is that this community is very, very flexible. I am not saying that's a bad thing because it encourages acceptance and a comfortable experience but it has its drawbacks, such as low-quality roleplay or confusing interactions with other people. One of the most prominent things I noticed was how many females roleplay in the Mafia. Anyone who knows basic La Cosa Nostra knows that women cannot be inducted into a Mafia. They can be associated, but not inducted, however this is a piece of flexibility that encourages acceptance. Hell, even I'm taking advantage of that with Vedette Facchinello. I personally like it but I think some girls on this site take it a little too far and try to act masculine. My advice for that would be to take advantage of the opportunity you have to be female, don't try to be a big, bad Mafia man whose hot-headed and always wears a fedora. If you're going to roleplay a girl then I feel you should act feminine. If not, what's the point? Just make a boy character, that's more acceptable in La Cosa Nostra anyhow. That doesn't really make sense to me.

The amount of out of character and in character that is mixed here is really astonishing. Once again, not saying that's...entirely a bad thing, but it's a thing. When I first joined, I roleplayed a typical Mafioso and the female I roleplayed with got offended because of what I said (for example, analyzing her physically and describing my roleplay as "looking from her forehead to her abdomen and back up" and saying I "wasn't expecting a girl to run this"; she was offended by such but forgot that she was behind a desk and that was all my character could see of her and the fact that La Cosa Nostra doesn't accept females lol). It's very, very confusing to me when I see roleplay because I'm not exactly sure how to react to it or what I should take in character. I'm getting by but just barely, definitely takes some adjusting to how I'm used to roleplaying.

I don't know very many people's personalities enough to comment on how similar their characters are to them but, all advertising aside, I know some people from Wall Street and I can safely say their characters are very little to nothing like how they act on an out of character basis.

I think if people were rewarded for realistic, good roleplay then they would be more focused on improvising themselves and providing good paragraphs. However, that can't be the case because you don't get rewards for roleplaying (or, when your stats improve, there's a significantly lesser improvement in comparison to the other means of building different stats). You get rewards for petty crimes and shooting people.

I personally do not think basing your character off of yourself in real life is a very good idea. You should explore your creativity and options while here, not limit yourself to things you already know and experience. Be someone new, that's the entire purpose of roleplaying. When you turn off the computer, be yourself.

2. Fictional Setting

It all depends on how you define fictional to be honest. In theory, this would be an entirely fictional setting because what we roleplay is nothing like how the 1930s were. I feel the atmosphere may be fictional because of how unrealistic and strayed away from the actual 1930s it is. The majority of topics I see are related to the Mafia. There are very few innocent topics and, if there are (such as some in the business district) then they are ignored almost entirely. When I'm here and when I read people's roleplay, some people have fantastic, well thought-out lines, while other people make me forget my character is supposed to be in the 30s. It all depends who you play with.

What has struck me is the way people describe themselves as dressing, especially the women. People forget how women dressed in the 1930s. Not many of them wore fedoras or dressed as boys and, if they did, chances are they'd be neglected by other crowds. Here, though? Girls wear suits and this and that, completely out of the loop to what happened in the actual 1930s. For me, attire has a big impact on what I envision in my head while roleplaying. Maybe that's just me, though.

3. Narrative

Completely agree with you there, nothing more to say.

4. Decision Making and Character Development

Completely agree again, but there are people here who are very good at developing characters and roleplaying their characters accordingly. For example, Godfathers roleplay Godfathers and those who are made roleplay made. Not to mention associates can roleplay associates at times. More often than not, though, people are inducted into crews too fast because of the lack of selectivity (or filters for lack of a better term) and they're free to roleplay made after that because, well, they are. There was no build-up, there was a message asking if they wanted to join a crew from more than likely a good friend and bam.

I personally am working on building up my character development via including very, very noticeable emotions in my roleplay every time I make a post. I find that, if you understand how emotions work, you can use them to your advantage and to better roleplay your character, however it's easier to have and feel emotions than to understand them and try to put together how your character would feel in a certain situation. A big tip for anyone aspiring to do this would be to carry emotions between roleplay lines. For example, Vedette got a massage today at Trixie's speakeasy in New York and, when I roleplayed going back to my strip club, I carried the feeling of tranquility and relaxation I got from the masseuse at Trixie's place.



Sorry for any spelling mistakes and/or grammatical errors.

if its not a rpg what is it? not a FPS not a RTS not action/adventure not a puzzle not a simulation (ive seen the goat simulator its way better than this)

I don't agree that it is no longer an RPG. It isn't the same as it once was in the streets and not nearly as active but it is still in every aspect an RPG. Just because users aren't posting in the streets as much and HQ thread activity along with PM/chat activity not really ever being in character doesn't mean that it is no longer an RPG. You create a character at the start of your "life" and that is your role, you receive introductions and "life events" as you go along, your actions usually have some sort of dialogue. This is a text based RPG. There are numerous text based RPG's that have absolutely no user input when it comes to dialogue and a few MMO's as well in that category. How many RPG's online or not on your consoles have user input for dialogue? Out of those, any with user created dialogue or is it a few choices?

I did come across a few people who roleplayed good. I'm still interacting with some of them. Just... try to avoid people who come up to you asking if you want work and try to get along with people who uses the language efficiently and roleplays properly. It's more fun that way. RPG's are supposed to be realistic and it's up to us to make it realistic.

Yeah this game is definitely not an RPG game. I play two other games (They are Browser-based RPG games) along with this game, and this game is not similar to them at all. I can't sell drugs and buy again on the other games I play. If I attack someone on the other games, they don't die and have to start over. I know my stats on the other games, which isn't as cool because you don't have that air of mystery that you have on here! RPG games are fun and all because you can chat with friends on there, make allies, make enemies, fight in wars, post in the forums, train in the gym, perform crimes, etc.. But this game is so different and unique. It's more of a challenge because I have the risk of ACTUALLY dying off and having to completely restart on everything, achievements, training, criming, leveling, etc.. This game is definitely a good change of pace for me since I have only been playing RPG games for the last year or so.. 

Off topic: Thanks to the creator/s of the game for creating such an awesome, unique game :)

Im not sure its POSSIBLE to truly "role-play" in an online game.

Having been a Dungeons and Dragons player (NOT the computer version but the original with BOOKS and dice) I consider myself knowledgeable of what "role-playing" means.

But as difficult as it may be to achieve, I have to disagree with the orginal poster and say... I have been playing so-called "role-playing" games online since they existed. And with 15 hours a day MINIMUM, 7 days a week to do so....Thats a BUTT-LOAD of playing.

And THIS game...has FAR more "role-playing" than any online game I have ever seen.  In fact Im not sure I can get as deeply into it as some seem to be...

Annie, what you described as an RPG has nothing to do really with a RPG. You do not need skills, interaction with certain types of people (ie. drug dealers) or death. You simply take on a role, here it is a newcomer that can either choose to start a life of crime or simply be target practice. You can then be absolutely whoever you want with how you interact with others and what skills you choose to train and focus your time on. Just because some, myself included do not jump into the text-based role playing does not mean that this is not an RPG. Most of the other popular RPG games I have tried to play have absolutely no user interaction other than attacking and messaging. Normally they are simple mindless click click click and wait games. I feel this game is what you make it to be, if you just want a click click click and wait game you can do that here. If you want a hard core RPG you can do that here as well there are still those that really enjoy that here. I would like to hear a few examples from those that don't consider this to be an RPG consider to actually be an RPG, especially a text based RPG. For a bonus, let's hear about one that has been around for over a decade(if I remember correctly?) and still have this user base.