What is a Role-playing Game?

[Agamemnon]

This is a section that lives at the front of every role-playing book. I'm thinking there's some kind of union rules about including it, or maybe some kind of legal obligation to do so. One of the two. Maybe both. I can't think of any version that's ever been particularly good or added much to the conversation. Thus, I'm happily open to feedback in this regard. Any suggestions or ideas for the section are welcome.

If you haven't picked up the theme yet, I'm working full-steam ahead on this draft. All of the major rules changes have been made and now I'm just reorganizing/fixing/editing the content. Along the way, I'm tossing anything that I have no particular feelings on back to the forums for feedback.

[hector]

Honestly, I don't see this being anybody's first RPG - I certainly don't imagine them picking this up without having at least played a session or two of an RPG first. As such, rather than "What is an RPG?", it might be better to start with "How does this game differ from other RPGS?"

[Agamemnon]

In truth, you'd want both to one degree or another.

[DannyBoy]

The only RPG that needs a "what is an RPG?" section is DnD, because that game is almost always everyone's introduction to tabletop gaming.

[EinBein]

But for DnD players, you'd need a "what is an RPG" section in any serious RPG to teach them that what they played until then was no RPG at all...

[higgins]

But for DnD players, you'd need a "what is an RPG" section in any serious RPG to teach them that what they played until then was no RPG at all...

This!

[Agamemnon]

But for DnD players, you'd need a "what is an RPG" section in any serious RPG to teach them that what they played until then was no RPG at all...

This!

[higgins]

I'm sure EinBein meant 3.x

[Benedict]

I believe that we all agree that role-play is basically acting in a group where each individual (aka player) gets to portray one major character and the GM gets to serve as the sensory input for the players. That means he also gets to portray all the other characters not controlled by the players.

It could be likened to a novel, a movie, or a theatric play.

A huge difference is that in these three mediums there is a predetermined script. A role-playing game can have two forms: story driven (railroading) or character driven (sandbox). It is clear that BoB (or what it will be called in the future) is a character driven game.

All of the above are common knowledge to most of us.

Not to someone who is new to RPGs tho.

Assuming that a game won't be the first game for someone and there's no need to bother with introductions feels extrmely elitistic to me.


Imho what most mainstream/popular RPGs fail to answer is not "What is a RPG?"

What they fail to state is "Why play a RPG?" and/or "How you win in RPG?"

Also in most games I see headings in the likes of "Have fun". But what "have fun" really means?

DnD has been heavily critized by everyone, and not unjustly. Still if one goes back to the roots of DnD (DnD 1E and early ADnD 2E) will realize that, no matter what the meta was, these guys had nailed it. The idea was to "play your character and create exciting stories by playing your character", not to own the biggest swords/armors/spells/whatever.


Imho these three questions always need serious consideration and firm answers:

What is the game?
What is the goal of the game?
How said goal can be accomplpished?

Every time I come across games that are either elitistic or don't answer those three questions sufficiently I simply skip them. I might borrow a good meta to use in my homebrews, but that's as far as I go with them. It might sound harsh and I might be missing a great game. But after years of RPGing there are some things that really annoy me, elitism and bad meta being the most important ones.

Do note I've been playing RPGs since 1986 as a payer and 1990 as a GM.

[EinBein]

I'm sure EinBein meant 3.x

Pathfinder is the only I ever played, to be honest...

[Benedict]

I'm sure EinBein meant 3.x

Pathfinder is the only I ever played, to be honest...

Try getting some old DnD adventures like "Keep of the Borderlands". And play that with any system you like. You'd be surprised how sandboxy early DnD could get.

PS Not trying to advertise DnD here. Neither will I derail this thread any longer.

[Agamemnon]

I'm sure EinBein meant 3.x

Pathfinder is the only I ever played, to be honest...

Try getting some old DnD adventures like "Keep of the Borderlands". And play that with any system you like. You'd be surprised how sandboxy early DnD could get.

PS Not trying to advertise DnD here. Neither will I derail this thread any longer.

When I'm not playing character-driven drama story games, I'm playing old-ass TSR-era D&D or OSR games emulating it. I think I enjoy it for the same reasons I enjoy stuff like 'Bastards. You get cool stories out of players making interesting and difficult decisions. Also much like 'Bastards, it's a relatively quick and deadly experience, with player-skill and decision making mattering a great deal. It just happens to be a very different focus. 'Bastards is largely about your player confronting themselves in one way or another, being forced to see how far they will go and what they will do to further their drives. OSR games are external - about overcoming challenges and dangers outside the character.

They scratch very different itches for me.

[Benedict]

When I'm not playing character-driven drama story games, I'm playing old-ass TSR-era D&D or OSR games emulating it. I think I enjoy it for the same reasons I enjoy stuff like 'Bastards. You get cool stories out of players making interesting and difficult decisions. Also much like 'Bastards, it's a relatively quick and deadly experience, with player-skill and decision making mattering a great deal. It just happens to be a very different focus. 'Bastards is largely about your player confronting themselves in one way or another, being forced to see how far they will go and what they will do to further their drives. OSR games are external - about overcoming challenges and dangers outside the character.

They scratch very different itches for me.

I can relate to this in many ways. However the first character-driven drama story game I've ever played was in fact ADnD when Ravenloft hit the shelves back in 1990. The whole horror and downward spiral to damnation theme was just superb. We even ported that to Greyhawk and remade it into a gritty character drama about a world torn by war. From that point on I always went after character-driven drama no matter what.

Imho, as I said above, a RPG is about portraying characters. Characters are not just numbers used to overcome external challenges. Characters are personas that create a story. As I said earlier, I'd have no problem at all if my expert swordsman has his eyes torn out and his right arm cut off, I'd still play the poor bastard cos that is material to make great stories. Provided the GM and the group are up to it.

To cut it short, what matters most in my mind is the story. Not to be confused with Railroading vs Sandboxing. I'm no huge fan of railroading, but sometimes the players will go "uh, what we should do?". This is acceptable in some part if requested. Still, I avoid it when I can.

A RPG is about people telling a story. Imho this is where the real fun is hidden. A good RPG is that which is built to make story-making easier for everyone involved.

[dysjunct]

So here's my slightly navel-gazing thoughts. This could probably go just as easily in the GM chapter.

I can't remember where I first heard, this, but I once read a critical analysis of the difference between theater, film, and television as artistic media. The author posited that each of them had a core strength or focus.

In theater, the focus is on ideas. The stage is too far away for most of the audience to see subtle expressions, so the script tends to be broad and focus on big questions.

In film, the focus is on plot. Freed from the confines of stagecraft, it lends itself to telling any sort of story. But the 90-minute format limits the amount of depth one can explore.

In TV, the focus is on characters. The long format allows for in-depth explorations of character.

(Of course all of these have their exceptions and edge cases.)

I would extrapolate that to the RPG realm by saying that in RPGs, the focus is on choices. RPGs don't do that great at exploring grand ideas, because a tableful of six people will often have radically different reasons for coming to the table; a lot of time the plots are meandering and only make sense in retrospect (and after editing out all the random nonsense); and most campaigns rarely last long enough to explore deep, full character development.

But RPGs, due to their improvisational nature, excel at presenting choices to the players, and letting them experience the consequence of those choices. So to that end, RPGs that maximize choice are "good" (or at least, taking full advantage of the medium) and RPGs that minimize choice are "bad" (or doing something that is better served by another medium -- the popular "GM as frustrated novelist" trope). And the better the choices are -- i.e., the more difficult and interesting they are -- the better a choice-maximizing game will be. So RPGs are improvised narrative games about exploring difficult, interesting choices and their consequences.

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Incidentally, I think both TROS-style Narrative games, and OSR sandbox games both do very well at choice-maximization. Like Agamemnon, I like them both for different reasons.

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Unknown Armies defines RPGs as "improvised radio theater" to illustrate that it doesn't have a visual component like live improvised theater does. That's a pretty good definition too, although as a fan of systems and mechanical incentive loops, I don't like that their definition doesn't mention the game part.