To all intents and purposes, this is the most common question roleplayers at
The SAGA Project get asked by non-roleplayers, and roleplayers alike: What is roleplaying all about? The problem is, it's not easy to explain the concept of roleplaying to someone who has never tried it. However, if you're looking for a brief description, how about: Have you ever read a book or seen a film, where a character did something really silly, really stupid, and you thought, "No! Don't do that! You do *this* and..." or "If it were me, this is what I'd be doing in that situation..." In a roleplaying game, it *is* you. In many ways, roleplaying is very much like improvisational acting, but it's also a game where you have fun with your friends, and interact with them in a real social setting. It is quite ideal for everyone who would like to try your hand at acting as a hobby, but can't be bothered with learning scripts and all the other tools that go along with acting. But this is getting a bit ahead of ourselves...
If you're new to this hobby of roleplaying, and some of you reading this article may well be, the idea and the nature of roleplaying may seem strange to you. Don't worry; it will make more sense as you read this section and
The SAGA Project, in particular. The short and simple of it is: Roleplaying games are a highly imaginative activity that can provide hours of fun and a means of creative expression.
The roleplaying hobby, although most didn't think of it as such, began in the early 1970s, and grew out of miniature wargaming. People got somewhat bored with sending historical armies up against each other's forces; they had a desire to mix it up with elves, orcs and wizards. Fantasy gaming was born. After that, some people stretched the boundaries even farther, by playing individual heroes rather than whole armies. Wargaming turned into roleplaying, where players not only fought enemies, but acted out the roles of their characters, creating dialogue for them and histories detailing the character's birthplace, upbringing and what his or her goals in life were.
The players of roleplaying games collaborated in the creation of whole worlds, environments for their characters to adventure in, and were usually inspired by the works of J.R.R. Tolkien and Robert E. Howard. Roleplaying game publishers provided pre-made worlds for gamers to use, and new supplements for the most popular of these worlds were eagerly awaited by avid gamers. Eventually, gamers began experimenting with new genres, such as science fiction, post-apocalypse, superheroes, horror and even Westerns as the settings for the rpgs, as roleplaying games were called for short.
The hobby has grown over the years to encompass a wide variety of gaming methods, from hack-and-slash combat with detailed rules for combat resolution, to intensive storytelling with much broaderc rules designed to help move a story forward rather than slow it down with dice rolling. Different people prefer different methods.
"But how do you go about it?" you ask. "How do you create the character and know what's going on?" Well, in nearly every roleplaying game, what we call RPG for short, you create a fictional character who is placed in given situations appropriate for the roleplaying game. You play the role of that character, just like an actor does, but unlike acting, there is no script. Everything that you say and do is done in an ad-lib fashion according to the situation and the personality and background that you've established for the character. As a general rule, how much you actually perform of the character's actions is dependent on the game, personal preference, and the style of the person running the game (we'll call him or her the GamesMaster, or GM for short). Usually, you just describe actions, and only conversations are played out. In some gaming groups, however, the roleplaying is much more intensive and the GamesMaster is more of a referee, judging the results of your actions inside the framework of the story (or script) that he or she has created.
Each player character will have traits (usually, these are a series of numbers) that tell you how good he or she is at doing a variety of things. For example, in a fantasy roleplaying game, a player's character might have Characteristics of Strength, Agility, Endurance, and Dexterity, and will have Skills such as 1-handed Sword, Lockpicking, and Spellcasting (to use a simplistic example). While there are a group of players, one of the number of the group, called the GamesMaster, DungeonMaster, Storyteller, Referee, or whatever, plays the part of the director. This person sets up the adventures, the encounters, and the rewards for the players, and plays all of the other people and/or creatures that they will meet during the course of the adventure - villains, princesses, alien, creatures, whatever - and keeps the game running smoonthly. It is this person who interprets the rules when the player characters take an action, and thus determines the results of actions taken by the player characters and the non-player characters (NPCs, for short).
"So why," some people ask, "is this RPG thing all about weird things like dragons, vampires, monsters and stuff?" The answer to that is remarkably simple - roleplaying games are firmly grounded in the fiction and the elements of the fantastic. Roleplaying games are very much inspired by fantasy, science fiction, or horror literature. Sometimes all three at the same time... I can't really say why this is true, but I suspect that it may have to do with the fact that roleplaying games are inherently an escapist pasttime. The players forget about themselves for a while and play a heroic (sometimes tragic) character with abilities far beyond their own. Many players play someone or something that they themselves are not... It's the idea of escaping from real life and indulging in a flight of fantasy. After all, if the player were playing a perfectly normal person, what would be the point? - that's very much along the lines of being a normal person in everyday life. While it's true that there are some roleplaying games that deal with such things, for example Boot Hill which sets characters up in the Wild West, or Call of Cthulhu, which is a horror roleplaying game in which the players play normal human beings caught up in very strange, and terrifying, events, for the most part roleplaying games involve characters who are special in some way, even if it means that they are adventuresome and heroic.
The emphasis on rules and dice gradually changed, as sophistication began to infiltrate the roleplaying game hobby. There are currently RPGs that do not use dice at all... Some use playing cards, instead. In other games, the GamesMaster just decides on whether you succeed at a task or not. Other RPGs keep dice-rolling to a minimum, and concentrate on the roleplaying element. Many times in the current crop of RPGs, we hear that roleplaying is an "art form" - this has led to accusations of pretentiousness on the part of many roleplayers. Too many people seem to believe that RPGs are or must be either hack-and-slash oriented bloodbaths or fine expressions of the inner torment of the soul. Whatever the case may be, a lot of times the perceptions of how the roleplaying game should be tends to be influenced by the person who is running the game - the GamesMaster or Referee. It is this person who literally creates the illusion of what the game should be simply by the way he or she designs the adventures, by the way he or she encourages players in hack-and-slash or spiritual actions, and a myriad of other ways.
One of the key elements for players, and their GamesMasters, to remember is that you should never play in a group where the others don't have the same basic moral fibre and sense of ethics that you have, and you should never play in a group that differs totally in the "rpg outlook" that you might have. Most GamesMasters are quite flexible, and take the needs of their players into account. Most GamesMasters, and players for that matter, want their games to be enjoyable for everyone, not just the players, and that means the GamesMaster should be having fun as well. It isn't easy for players and GamesMasters to balance out all these different emotions, sense of fair play, ethical behaviour and the like, and that is where the social element of the game comes into play. Social intercourse is the central element to any roleplaying game and to any group of gamers.
Roleplaying games have been accused of being "evil"; people who play roleplaying games go out and hurt or kill other people, or commit acts that are socially unacceptable. Please don't be put off roleplaying by this. I have dealt with many of the issues in a separate article, but the nature of RPGs being evil should be dealt with here. While you may think that there is no smoke without fire and all, it's equally true that people are ready to condemn what they don't understand - and roleplaying is definitely misunderstood.
By and far, no person has ever committed suicide because of having played an RPG. Roleplayers, like most people, have problems, and problems manifest themselves in a lot of different ways. The actual evidence suggests that roleplaying gamers are less likely to commit suicide, because of the higly cathartic nature of roleplaying games and the social intercourse that surrounds these games. Additionally, no person has ever committed murder because of a roleplaying game. Psychotics are not sane to begin with, having deep and often hidden motivations for committing murder, and as a general rule, do not play roleplaying games (because of the cathartic effect), according to some studies. The evidence indicates that those who engage in violent behaviours and the like are less likely to engage in those behaviours if they have played in RPGs, because they are able to "vent" their aggression in the roleplaying context. Indeed, many roleplayers tend to abhor violence because of the sheer scope of violence and its many forms that they see in roleplaying games. The exposure to violence in RPGs tend to lend itself to "shock treatment," in the sense of seeing what violence can do in a society in these games, and that it is *not* a solution in real life.
Most of the roleplaying games that are on the market expect the players' characters to be good, heroic, and fight evil. They stress the triumph of good vs. evil. Yet, players are usually given the option of playing an evil character if that is what they wish, and this should not be seen as wrong. Most actors love playing evil characters - it is cathartic, of course, but it prevents them from being typecast. It can keep the roleplaying experience fresh for the players, especially if one plays a character with a taint of evil, something that one normally doesn't do with one's character for the most part.
And when all is said and done, ultimately roleplaying games are escapist and fun...
...and I have never met a roleplaying gamer who didn't understand *that*.
MPortela is webdesigner for the amazing friendship based roleplay community at
The SAGA Project and can be contacted at
MPortela Design.
