Role playing [is] about you developing a personality for your character.
That is very possibly the best definition I've yet read of what makes something a "roleplaying game". To me, at least. Very,
very well put.
So by this definition, BioShock and Max Payne aren't RPGs. Good. The character has character development, but it's plot-driven at the whim of the game designer, not the player. Diablo lacks sufficient scope or choice for the PC to develop anything other than a combat strategy and an inventory packing policy: these aren't enough to constitute a personality.
Under this definition, Oblivion and GTA:SA are quite down at the "shallow end" of the RPG pool: you very rarely have the ability in their quests to make any decisions that affect you character's development: you kill who you're told, you progress to the next quest. Character development happens mostly in the "free time" activities you do in between the scripted quest stuff.
Deus Ex and the Ultimas are more like RPGs, because of the variety of possible ways to complete each task and quest (even little stuff like "get past the camera without getting shot dead"), and because of the variety of repercussions of your actions: kill people in the first level, make one faction happy; use nonlethal weaponry, and you make another happy.
I agree that in itself, killing has no bearing on whether something's an RPG or not (combatless RPGs are still RPGs). But how many options you have to deal with an encounter has a huge amount of bearing on how easy it is to develop your character in relation to combat. If you have no choice but to fight, then your character must develop into a warrior and a killer: your control over these aspects of your character has been taken away by the game designer. In magic alone, how does a mage deal with a goblin? Kill it with a Fireball? Take it out of action with a sleep spell? "Confuse" and sneak past? "Confuse" and talk your way past? Each one allows your character to be developed. You might be irked if "Fireball until dead" were the only option.
But I also argue the other side of the coin: if you can't kill the defenceless, then your character
must be a "good guy". And by having that choice taken from you, even if you choose not to take it, you lose depth to your character's "goodness".
An example of this shallowness from lack of choice was in BioShock, early on. I was defenceless, and carefully edged my way along a fragile, high walkway, below which there was a ferocious beast. And then I thought "I'm gonna do it! I'll jump down and face my fears!" And... and nothing! I didn't fall, as there was an invisible wall stopping me jumping off the walkway. The remainder of the walkway was boring for me: I was "on rails". Along with the chance of doing it "wrong", the fear had gone too. This was the point, fairly early on, where it became "just another shooter" for me.
Remove the
possibility of doing bad, and you remove the
meaning of being good. GTA, where you have little choice but to do "bad", doesn't cause me moral problems, as I'm "on rails", being led by the game designer. Deus Ex and BioShock, however, give me the option: be bad or be good, and the outcome is on my head.
And choice is the root of all player-driven character development.
