The wealthy states would be most likely to win due to resources for training and education . CT , CA , NY etc . good luck MS . <| sep |> The legendary Saytow Aytee Secks based there in 1969 <| sep |> And by your post history , you ' re a feminist . So you don ' t have much experience in mutual attraction to speak from , anyway . <| sep |> I think one of the most important aspects of RPGs is the Fantasy themed story and atmosphere which encourages the player to use their imagination , hence the term role playing . I consider tabletop games the birth of the genre because of this . Imagination is a good point but this is in no way exclusive to fantasy . What about heavy gear , a scifi table top roleplaying game ? What about mass effect and deus ex , which are not fantasy but are most definitely RPGs ? Setting doesn ' t make the genre for RPGs . Besides the description you gave doesn ' t even exclude Banjo games so by your definition they would be RPGs even though you yourself said they ' re not development of the character ' s strength being determined on how far you ' ve traveled and how much you ' ve collected as opposed to keeping track of variable levels . See by this definition every single action adventure game would be an rpg which is why it ' s flawed . The key I think you ' re missing is that the character ' s growth needs to be decided by the player . Whether it ' s where your stats go or how much you level up the player needs to have a say in how much the characters grow and in some cases in what way they grow for it to be an rpg . In Zelda all you have choice over is heart containers but that is not enough . Mega man , Banjo and Metroid have similar mechanics for hit points but are clearly not RPGs . It ' s very much the player driven character growth that makes an rpg . Most of your points apply to almost anything and really have nothing that separates them from action adventure . Heck even novels fit your description for rpg better than Zelda does .