Hi,
Me and my friend were just debating over a trivial matter: are the Monkey Island games RPGs?
In my opinion they are not, since there are no possible ways to "level up" or develop your character. Also, the obvious fact is that they are point-and-click adventure games.
My friend on the other hand thinks that it, in fact, is a role playing game.
What are your thoughts? Do you think the Monkey Island games are role playing games? What exactly are RPGs?

I always thought of a role playing game as a game with a large open word without a lot of restrictions that you get with an adventure game. And it must also have at least one bearded guy.
TBH, Monkey Island is an adventure game to me.

They're RPGs in the sense that nearly every game is a RPG.
You take on a Role (of a character/team/whatsit) and play it. In a Game.
RPGs are split up into cRPG, aRPG, jRPG, MMORPG, RPG elements, Tatics RPGs, LARPs, Pen and Paper and a dozen or more others.
A common element is a focus on storytelling and character development, but since other games also do this, we separate them (as opposed to separating RPGs) into other genres depending on what they also focus on. Genres themselves are not much more than a label used to market something.
So, a 'RPG' itself does not tell you much, unless you've been gaming for a fair while hand have certain expectations. But nonetheless, it helps to distinguish it from the other stuff.
In Monkey Islands case: A Point'n'Click Adventure.

While Ois gave a fine introduction into the subject, it didn't say much about this.
I would say that it isn't. The gameplay falls short of being an RPG, because of the lack of a proper thought out character creation system, and at least a somewhat intricate and open game world, with various quests, lore and story elements. That is at least the general for western cRPGs, but Monkey Island fails to fall smoothly into any of the RPG sub-genres, and the only possibility for it was if it was a undecided Metal song, considering the untold amounts of sub- and sub-sub- and even sub-sub-sub-genres there (like Hungarian Blackened Technical Progressive Avant-Garde Melodic Folk Death Metal), but for all intents and purposes I would call it a Point-and-Click adventure.

in every game you're role playing to some degree, so you have to look past that bit and just call it an adventure game.

So, would you say I have a future as a politician?

The industry definition of role-playing games seems to be that your avatar can level up and get more powerful abilities.
My opinion: there are probably no clear-cut lines on what constitutes a role-playing game (or adventure game, or action game, or ...), but yes a relatively open world and, more importantly, an open course of action so that I can play a role based on how I believe my avatar should act. If there's but a single path to the singe goal, I do not consider the game role-playing; multiple possible paths to a single or multiple goals - yeah. Even if the world's open and you can move about as you wish, if you have to say a (single) defined set of lines or do a (single) defined set of things to continue, you do not act a role, you merely watch a film where you have to actively chose "go to the next scene".

Indeed. You do.
And I just noticed that you edited your post, had it open for a while before looking, which was better, but that might in turn hamper your, uh... credibility as a politician.

Wonderful!
I'll spin the edit as an amendment, as it only added the last line. Credibility eh?
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Before we derail the thread too much. While we have not had a lot of comments, I'm not too sure on the 'open world' idea as a 'requirement'. But I'm struggling to think of an RPG (at least of the western variety) that was fairly/strictly linear, so I'll accept it for now.

Agreed.
In one sense, Monkey Island allows better role-playing than some computer RPGs. The dialog is fantastic, and I identify with Guybrush Threepwood (or, given my frame, maybe Mancomb Seepgood) more strongly than most RPG characters I've created.
I think the term "RPG" for computer games mostly refers to whether or not they rely on rules commonly found in pen-and-paper role-playing games, such as statistics, attributes, or number-based combat.
The best way I can separate an RPG and an adventure game is:
In an adventure game, almost all of your interaction takes place with objects or NPCs in the game world. Your decisions about your character, besides perhaps dialog choices, are fairly limited.
In an RPG, a significant amount of time is spent interacting with your own character. This may include abilities, character statistics, spells, or inventory that affects the outcome of battles in the game. An RPG may, or may not, incorporate most features of an adventure game.
Broadly speaking, this puts most games I can think of in the "correct" category. Ultima, Anachronox, and VtM fit into the "RPG" category. Classic Lucasarts games, as well as more recent action-adventure titles like GTA3, still fall closer to the "Adventure" side.

I think Mario is a turn-based strategy game.

To my mind, defining RPG as "any game where you play a role" is problematic, because then, as several people have said, almost any game from Halo (Not one) to Monkey Island (Not one) can be classified as an RPG.
So I define RPG as "A game where you, the player, define the role, not the game" That limits it to the more traditional Fallout-esqe "True RPG" meaning, as well as the original P&P meaning (which is where the acronym came from in the first place). It also excludes JRPG-style games, which I'm alright with. We can class them as adventure games (seriously).

An interesting debate.
Funny cause while playing KOTOR recently, I was thinking that solo RPGs are somehow great heirs of graphic adventure games. Mostly because, from the story point of view, there are a lot of limitations (compared to pen & paper RPG), very similar to the graphic adventures. It's basically just dialog and direction choices.
But I admit that KOTOR is not representing all different styles of RPG: it's very linear, and that's good for the story, and the combat is not the most important aspect.
Well, at least THIS kind of RPG is very similar to adventure games IMO.
As for the question, if Monkey Island is a RPG, well all has been said. The lack of customization, equipment, leveling could hardly make it a RPG, even if on the story level, it shares many aspects with RPGs like KOTOR.

I don't think there's really a clear-cut line separating the player-created characters used in Fallout or Ultima (The Vault Dweller; the Avatar) from the pre-defined characters used in Final Fantasy, Planescape: Torment or Deus Ex (Cloud; The Nameless One; JC Denton).
I'm just as able to employ stealth with JC as I am with the Vault Dweller, and just as able to turn The Nameless One into a mage as I am the Avatar.
I suppose it's arguable that all three of FF*, Planescope: Torment and Deus Ex could be defined as adventure games, but I think broad consensus (journalism, mobygames, self-classification) places them in the RPG category.

Absolutely.
Unless you happen to have the luxury of joining a RP-specific Neverwinter Nights server, or join a MOO/MUD, it's really hard to think of an RPG game which couldn't be classified as an adventure with extra features.
Which seems fair enough; the best pen-and-paper RPG sessions are such grand adventures that I want to tell my friends all about them. It would be a shame if that wasn't also true about computer RPGs.

There's a very clear cut one by my definition, Final Fantasy doesn't belong in that set, you have absolutely no control over Cloud, or any FF protagonist. You, as a player, do not define him. JRPG's are not RPG's in the really classical sense. It has little to do with stats vs no stats, predefined character builds vs player defined builds.
Torment's character backstory is pre-defined to some extent, sure, but you yourself, in almost every dialogue and action, choose how the character responds, what he believes in, how he interacts, and the game keeps tabs on this. Radically different from any Final Fantasy.
Deus Ex is similarly flexible, albiet less deeply so than some games. You define how J.C. Denton behaves, how he interacts with the world. The options are limited, of course, but there are options, again, JRPG's simply don't meet this criteria. Never have. Many games casually classified as RPG's don't have this. I posit that they are not, in fact, RPG's, traditional nomenclature notwithstanding.
"Real RPG's" are not about identifying with a predefined personality/morality. They are about being able to express your personality/morality in the game world via your avatar.