Back when I was a news editor over at PlanetPS2, I floated an idea for an article comparing and contrasting the differences between Eastern (read: Japanese) RPG’s and Western RPG’s. The senior editor never picked up on it, but I still think it’s a contrast well-worth considering, especially with the volume of Western-crafted console and computer Role Playing Games.

One game franchise I never hear mentioned in the same sentence as RPG, however, is Grand Theft Auto. And…I wonder why? I’m sure the implied geekiness of the term is partially responsible (after all, GTA unrepentantly appeals to the lowest common denomimator of the gaming crowd, even as it satirizes it).For all of it’s other virtues (and they are many), the Grand Theft Auto series, especially after the move to its’ current open-world model, is in many ways more of a pure role-playing experience than many other well-known RPG’s. And Grand Theft Auto IV, released yesterday, reinforces this notion.

Japanese RPG’s, in particular, are pernicious in the amount of control they take from players’ hands, allowing them to customize their character and engage a finite number of pre-programmed subplots. Non-player characters, and indeed the entire world, are there simply to help or hinder their progress towards whatever ultimate goal (or plot device) the designer has in store for them.

Western RPG’s have increasingly bucked this trend, a movement that has it’s greatest champion in the Elder Scrolls series, the last two installments of which (Morrowind and Oblivion) have been ported to home consoles to great critical and publc acclaim. While these games include core questlines and subquests, just as their Japanese counterparts do, they also impart an increased sense of empowerment to the player, making the main quest only one of a multitude of choices available. At the same time, the world is built as an environment for the player to inhabit, and to interact with as they wish. Morrowind, in particular, allowed the player to make the main quest impossible to complete, through killing a needed NPC, for example. Instead of forcing them to reload the game at a previous point or rendering certain NPC’s invulnerable, they were given the option to continue living in the gameworld, exploring as they wished, or to restore their game.

Many would argue, and I am among those number, that it’s this very freedom that defines an RPG. Just as the original tabletop RPG’s gave players the freedom to make choices unbound by a narrow ruleset, so do games like Oblivion – and Grand Theft Auto. I constantly hear games referred to as ‘Role Playing Games’, merely because they give one the ability to customize their character, or to improve their abilities through an incremental leveling system. I think this misses the forest for the trees. While these systems can be traced back to RPG’s, they are not the heart of the role-playing experience.

Grand Theft Auto IV and its’ predecessors seek to free players from the ‘plot-tyranny’ that pervades most games, the feeling of being funneled down a narrow corridor, with limted choices in how the story unfolds. And while I think we’re a long ways off from creating a truly ‘open’ environment, in which the story is generated by a virtual ‘game master’, tailored to the choices the player makes, I believe it is games like Grand Theft Auto that represent the future of RPG’s.

Now excuse me while I go smoke me some bitches online.