Roleplaying 101

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Thu Nov 12, 2009 4:13 am

A roleplaying game is one in which you no longer are reading the book, or watching about Bilbo, Snake Eyes, Optimus Prime, Naruto, or another character to see their story and world through the eyes of an outside viewer looking into the world.

In a roleplaying game you get to take an active part in the character and direct the story for your character. You also get to see the world form your POV as that character which entitles you to more details about the word than a book, or video would avail to you.

Most roleplaying games (RPGs) have some sort of person that helps direct the action to keep things going on, and also presents elements to you that you do not know about. This person is called the GM, or the more proprietary term DM. They are responsible for presenting the world for the player to explore as their characters (PCs). They also present to the players every other inhabitant of that world for the PCs to interact with. They are the element unknown tot he players to learn about. This is a lot of work, but only as much work as the group of players and the game itself want there to be. The GM also acts on part of all these other things when a player via PC wishes to interact with them. This could be conversation, combat, or anything else.

So what does a player do with their character? Well the player, as previously mentioned can no decide if Bilbo would put the ring in his pocket while in Gollum's lair, decide if he wants Snake Eyes to meet Storm Shadow for a feud of their rivalry, or even it they want Optimus to kill Megatron on site, rather than offer him redemption. The story of the PC is up to the player to decide. But what can the player actually do you ask. Well anything they want to is open for them to try. Depending on the game, the success of what happens depends on certain things within the game, as well as the part played by the GM. So you no longer have to guess what Bilbo will do, because you get to decide what you want him to do, but still have to face the new story of what happens as a result for the new lines of actions taken by you for Biblo, or the others.

The GM also has the same option to do whatever with the character and world he controls. So while the players made decide to take their PCs over a mountain, that mountain could be a volcano that was sleeping ans erupts before, during or, after the players are on it. This makes the world become a living thing, and changes as the players do things, and just because it is not stagnant, means the players will always have new things to do within the game. Maybe someone the PCs met in a town earlier, has moved to a new town just as may happen in the real world.

There is nothing ever that limits what a player can try, or what the GM can present except for their own imaginations. Each could could have things they like or don't like and can use or exclude those things from the game from game to game. No two games will be alike. Some allow rape a a theme in the game, and others do not. There is no rule stating you have to use or exclude any theme or topic in the game. That is for you to decide.

So how do you win in an RPG, or lose?

You only lose if you don't play. But if you don't like it, then that is not even losing.

You only win if you play. There is no set goal, objective, or time limit. The game is played as long as you want to play it. The game could have many little goals along the way for the story of the lives of your characters, but only when the players decide that it is over then is it over. No person gets an award or prize. All players were awarded as they played by being able to shape the story of the characters they were playing, rather than just having to read about them or watch them.

RPGs aren't about winning or losing, but, without being too cliched, how you play the game. It is your game when you sit down to play it. No one else can tell you what you want to do as a player or the GM. That is the purpose of an RPG. To let you play in the world of the stories you have read or watched in times or lands that you could not visit and do these things for yourself. There are no limits in an RPG beyond your own imagination and what you yourself wants to make of it. No one can grant you more in an RPG beyond what abilities you have to decide things for yourself, and no one can take those away form you.

Anyone have any more RPG basics to add, or to discuss something anyone has presented before you, then use the space provided to you by the forums to do so.

Leress · Post by **Leress** » Thu Nov 12, 2009 4:35 am

You say there are no limits, well that is not true in the slightest. You yourself have put limits on people when you say that it is this genre so you can't do X. My imagination is quite limitless and unless I am playing the twins from SuperJail there will be limits with the RPG.

Being a game there are boundaries and restrictions you are not escaping that unless you truly go rules-less. Even then there will be limitations set by the GM and other players pretty much through gentlemen's agreements

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Thu Nov 12, 2009 4:49 am

You don't automatically "win" when you sit at a gaming table. There are plenty of people and RPGA events i've played in where I felt like i "lost" an evening.

Archmage · Post by **Archmage** » Thu Nov 12, 2009 5:02 am

MGuy wrote:You don't automatically "win" when you sit at a gaming table. There are plenty of people and RPGA events i've played in where I felt like i "lost" an evening.

Concur.

If you played, but you didn't "have fun" you "lost." Because, if nothing else, you could've spent those hours doing something more enjoyable.

Judging__Eagle · Post by **Judging__Eagle** » Thu Nov 12, 2009 7:52 am

If I'm bored, the GM is an idiot, or the rules badly written and not clear on what I can or cannot do. I've lost that time.

You can very well lose at gaming. If you fail to have fun, you have lost.

The fact that you don't understand this is why I can safely say that you don't really have a firm understanding of what role playing games are, nor of what role playing is supposed to be.

If it's not fun, there are other things I could be doing. Since the whole fucking point was to have fun.

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Tue Nov 17, 2009 4:19 am

Archmage wrote:
MGuy wrote:You don't automatically "win" when you sit at a gaming table. There are plenty of people and RPGA events i've played in where I felt like i "lost" an evening.
Concur.

If you played, but you didn't "have fun" you "lost." Because, if nothing else, you could've spent those hours doing something more enjoyable.

IF you didn't have fun isn't it partially your fault?

You are viewing as a competition against something or someone rather than the fact that you are not just reading a story, but are a part of it.

Remember roleplaying games fo the current era evolved from historical re-enactment games. Those games you had little choice in what transpired, just like reading a book. In a roleplaying game the fight shouldn't be against other people, and one random group at some RPGA event isn't the whole of the game. More people play outside of "organized" play than within it.

So taking part in the game means you have won over just reading a book. You got to help shape the story. If it was not a story to your liking, then it was your own fault for not shaping it, or allowing others to ruin what you were shaping.

It is one of the quirks about RPGs.

I guess that would lead to another thing about RPGs....not everyone is suited to play them, and not everyone is suited to play them with everyone else. Your RPGA example shows the flaw in just trying to throw people together to play something.

Maybe it also leads to a failure of the organized play idea as it has always been, to organize the game, rather than the players so that everyone will be able to work together during the game.

When you throw a bunch of groups of people together in pods of 5, you are going to end up with some unhappy groups or ones that just don't work together. That is not a fault of roleplaying but the way organized play works.

You have to separate the two from each other to see each for what they are.

One is the game, the other is bureaucracy and people accounting.

Heath Robinson · Post by **Heath Robinson** » Tue Nov 17, 2009 4:42 am

shadzar wrote:IF you didn't have fun isn't it partially your fault?

You are viewing as a competition against something or someone rather than the fact that you are not just reading a story, but are a part of it.

Remember roleplaying games fo the current era evolved from historical re-enactment games. Those games you had little choice in what transpired, just like reading a book. In a roleplaying game the fight shouldn't be against other people, and one random group at some RPGA event isn't the whole of the game. More people play outside of "organized" play than within it.

So taking part in the game means you have won over just reading a book. You got to help shape the story. If it was not a story to your liking, then it was your own fault for not shaping it, or allowing others to ruin what you were shaping.

It is one of the quirks about RPGs.

I guess that would lead to another thing about RPGs....not everyone is suited to play them, and not everyone is suited to play them with everyone else. Your RPGA example shows the flaw in just trying to throw people together to play something.

Maybe it also leads to a failure of the organized play idea as it has always been, to organize the game, rather than the players so that everyone will be able to work together during the game.

When you throw a bunch of groups of people together in pods of 5, you are going to end up with some unhappy groups or ones that just don't work together. That is not a fault of roleplaying but the way organized play works.

You have to separate the two from each other to see each for what they are.

One is the game, the other is bureaucracy and people accounting.

I know you can't read this, but getting mindlessly angry at you is very cathartic.

No, they are not viewing it as a competition, Shadzar. They are saying "if this isn't entertaining, then people are doing it wrong." That would be a fucking tautology if it weren't for the fact that they have unstated premises. A game exists to entertain the participants, therefore when the game is not entertaining either someone is doing it wrong, or it's not a good game.

Not competitive you shortsighted, witch-hunting fuckstick. You are so obsessed with other people being competitive in a collaborative system one would think that you were the one who was competitive. In fact, you very much fucking are. One merely needs look at your shitslinging competition with Roy and your frequent insulting of people on this board to understand that you are a hypercompetitive, closeminded idiot. You are trying to win discussions on the internet, and you fail to realise the irony in your approach.

In short, you are a classic authoritarian jerkface, and as one you go on and on about other people having the very flaws you possess.

As for winning as a direct and inevitable result of playing? Fuck you. Games exist to entertain, and your statement that influence in the story is a reward in and of itself is fucking backward. It is grounded in the idea that directing the story is a privelege that belongs to the GM, and can therefore be a reward for the players should the GM let even the barest smidgeon of control over it beyond his grasp. You are a fucking railroading dickface. Go suck a barrel of cocks.

Your elitism is hilarious in light of your own deeply flawed nature. In particular your elitism about "rollplaying" and "playing the system" is hilarious, because you've demonstrated a complete inability to get along with people and have admitted to physically and verbally abusing fellow players who have the temerity to not find the game as rivetting as yourself. In fact, that implies a competition amongst your group to be the most "into" the game, which is further hilarity in light of your frequent arguments that other people are being competitive.

When I said I am glad to be on your ignore list? Consider me twelves time as joyous now.

TOZ · Post by **TOZ** » Tue Nov 17, 2009 5:22 am

shadzar wrote:IF you didn't have fun isn't it partially your fault?

You are viewing as a competition against something or someone rather than the fact that you are not just reading a story, but are a part of it.

Not necessarily. If the DM is too engrossed in his own prose to allow you to modify it, it's not your fault you didn't have fun. Showing up to contribute the name of a character in another person's fiction is not fun. Especially if he then reads said fiction aloud to you.

shadzar wrote:So taking part in the game means you have won over just reading a book. You got to help shape the story. If it was not a story to your liking, then it was your own fault for not shaping it, or allowing others to ruin what you were shaping.

That's the crux of the thing, it only works IF you get to help shape the story. And 'allowing others to ruin what you were shaping' sounds a lot like railroading.

"I spent all my time creating this path for you to follow, so you better follow it or I will use deus ex machina to make you do it."

It's only fun that way if you enjoy following a script.

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Tue Nov 17, 2009 5:59 am

Now you aren't getting into what the game is, but how to identify bad players.

They are not what an RPG is.

Stupid tangents are really pissing me off. Like how people can come in and fuck up a thread, your parents could come in and fuck up your fucking when they visit you unannounced.

It has nothing to to with the game.

People here are getting really pathetic and pitiful.

Are people really trying to define a game by the people that are fuck ups?

Is that why nobody wants to see what an RPG really is anymore because they would rather bitch about other people than learn what an RPG is.

HOLY FUCK!

All the more reaosn to explain to ALL what an RPG is. Then you don't have that shit you are talking about. Those fucktards trying to have players read their story, because they don't understand it isn't just their story.

Fuck you stupid people. Please get the fuck out of roleplaying, and go back to playing your fucking pokemon and shit for your age ranges. GOD DANN!

Leress · Post by **Leress** » Tue Nov 17, 2009 6:21 am

People here are having a problem with this is because really you are just saying things that we already know. We know what a game is, we know what an RPG is, there really isn't much to add. Now there are parts I disagree with you in describing what an RPG is definitely since you have given contradictory statements about games in various threads.

Seriously, most of us here have ran games for many years under various systems, you aren't saying anything new or something that can have much discussion.

Basics of an RPG:

Players
GM
Rules

There those are the basics, hell there are some game that try to do it GM-less.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Tue Nov 17, 2009 6:23 am

Shadzar, do you also make up the other end of the conversation in your head when you're talking to people in person?

You seriously just went into nerdrage over something someone didn't even say or even imply. Nerdrage is okay here, but it has to have a basis in fact and you have to be able to demonstrate those facts. It's why I'm totally cool with PL raging about Mass Effect in the Video Games thread. He has some very valid points as to why he feels the way he does on the game.

You, however, have essentially ignored someone's example of a DM being able to ruin a game by flying into a rage over, as far as I can tell, people acknowledging that some DMs and some players are jerkasses. Somehow, in your mind, it was turned into trying to define the game by the bad parts of it. It's hard to be clear exactly.

Have you been taking your meds properly? I ask that with absolutely no sarcasm and in all concern. Your responses are not those of someone on an even keel.

Caedrus · Post by **Caedrus** » Tue Nov 17, 2009 6:25 am

shadzar wrote:GOD DANN!

. . .

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Tue Nov 17, 2009 6:45 am

Leress wrote:People here are having a problem with this is because really you are just saying things that we already know. We know what a game is, we know what an RPG is, there really isn't much to add. Now there are parts I disagree with you in describing what an RPG is definitely since you have given contradictory statements about games in various threads.

Seriously, most of us here have ran games for many years under various systems, you aren't saying anything new or something that can have much discussion.

Basics of an RPG:

Players

GM

Rules

There those are the basics, hell there are some game that try to do it GM-less.

Then how the hell is everything in discussions about people.

The DM did this, the DM did that, someone did this, someone did that?

It seems many people are here just to bitch about other people.

"My wife/husband is fucking my dog and it made me cry" kind of shit.

There is a good thread going on about people that like 4th on ENWorld about what it lost. They aren't really looking at the rules there, but the way the game is played. Not Bob fucked up making a non-optimized character, but how the games were played.

Why can people here not do that? Is this site just for those Tomes of what-the-fuck-ever-this-week?

Are people incapable of discussion things to find a mid point that people can agree on terms and such to have other discussions?

Also there are games that have neither GM or rules, and they are still RPGs.

Many people today don't get what a roleplaying game is other than sitting down to optimize. There is even a thread around here "why i am a min-maxer" about how someone got fucked over by a GM and decided form then on they were going to fuck over the GM and anyone else in the games they play by just running the numbers.

What ever happened to roleplaying? Did everyone let the company just make it into some quick selling item like everything else, and the consumer(gamer) is not discerning about it at all?

Also learn that all threads are not connected. Flakes need to learn to read. You don't carry shit over form one thread to another. That is trolling.

I don't go into the abortion thread to comment on shit found in the video game thread. So stop being stupid and petty.

Reply to the topic of the thread you are in, not other threads you were in.

So if everyone knows these things, then why not contribute, rather than be cock-suckers, and maybe make an interesting general RPG discussion around here?

Blahblahblah other threads...Sounds like going into Walmart to bitch about the Whopper you got at Burger King.

Since so many people don't seem to understand RPG, then maybe a discussion about what they are is needed. It has worked in game stores. Hell it must be done with many of the older parents that grew up in the Jack Chik era.

Maybe it is time for that retro thing to happen again and people re-learn what an RPG is, and how others them.

@MAxus:

The DM in one person's game or example game is NOT what RPGs are about. That is the flaw in that entire post and any like it.

Want a "MY DM sucks thread", go make it. I am sure fbmf would like to hear those stories down in the trenches area.

Leress · Post by **Leress** » Tue Nov 17, 2009 7:12 am

shadzar wrote: There is a good thread going on about people that like 4th on ENWorld about what it lost. They aren't really looking at the rules there, but the way the game is played. Not Bob fucked up making a non-optimized character, but how the games were played.

We had discussions like that months ago.

Why can people here not do that? Is this site just for those Tomes of what-the-fuck-ever-this-week?

Are people incapable of discussion things to find a mid point that people can agree on terms and such to have other discussions?

There are plenty of discussion like going on right now. Going on about basics is just plain obvious that there is not much to discuss.

Also there are games that have neither GM or rules, and they are still RPGs.

You didn't read where I said that some try with that, and even ones that say are rules-less still have rules. Restrictions are rules, gentlemen's agreements are rules.

What ever happened to roleplaying? Did everyone let the company just make it into some quick selling item like everything else, and the consumer(gamer) is not discerning about it at all?

Nothing happened to my knowledge it just some people want different things out of a game than others.

Also learn that all threads are not connected. Flakes need to learn to read. You don't carry shit over form one thread to another. That is trolling.

I don't go into the abortion thread to comment on shit found in the video game thread. So stop being stupid and petty.

If it is relevant to what is being discussed I will bring it up. If I was being petty I would insult the way you type and spelling or some other small thing.

So if everyone knows these things, then why not contribute, rather than be cock-suckers, and maybe make an interesting general RPG discussion around here?

There are plenty of those going on.

Since so many people don't seem to understand RPG, then maybe a discussion about what they are is needed. It has worked in game stores. Hell it must be done with many of the older parents that grew up in the Jack Chik era.

Maybe it is time for that retro thing to happen again and people re-learn what an RPG is, and how others them.

See that's the thing. We all know what an RPG is. There isn't really anything to discuss. Just because you feel that everyone else doesn't know what an RPG isn't going make people want to jump on the thread. I've already said about what I think the basics of an RPG are.

I pretty much agree with most of your opening post, there are just parts I don't.

Heath Robinson · Post by **Heath Robinson** » Tue Nov 17, 2009 7:14 am

shadzar wrote:It seems many people are here just to bitch about other people.

shadzar wrote:People here are getting really pathetic and pitiful.

Are people really trying to define a game by the people that are fuck ups?

Is that why nobody wants to see what an RPG really is anymore because they would rather bitch about other people than learn what an RPG is.

HOLY FUCK!

All the more reaosn to explain to ALL what an RPG is. Then you don't have that shit you are talking about. Those fucktards trying to have players read their story, because they don't understand it isn't just their story.

Fuck you stupid people. Please get the fuck out of roleplaying, and go back to playing your fucking pokemon and shit for your age ranges. GOD DANN!

IRONY!

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Tue Nov 17, 2009 7:46 am

Leress wrote:See that's the thing. We all know what an RPG is.

I don't think that is true. The term is flung around wildly, just as saying "I play D&D" by many just as a generic term for playing RPGs.

So I don't see that everyone DOES know what an RPG is.

Just look at how 4th tries to redefine "role". The industry is confusing the gamers, and someone needs to decide, and it should NOT be the industry as they work FOR the gamers, not the other way round.

So if an industry is doing something wrong, the consumer must address it with them, but first the consumers must all be speaking about the same thing, or at the very least understand what each other is talking about.

Leress · Post by **Leress** » Tue Nov 17, 2009 7:56 am

Just look at how 4th tries to redefine "role". The industry is confusing the gamers, and someone needs to decide, and it should NOT be the industry as they work FOR the gamers, not the other way round.

The word "role" means a different thing in different games. It's always been like that. Just like staggered, dazed, or a whole lot of different terms. 4th uses the word to describe general function. Other games use it to mean just being a character period.

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Tue Nov 17, 2009 8:15 am

Sadly that change has a big effect on D&D. Other games could have used it how they wanted, but looking at D&D it, like "core" has caused many problems.

One of the reasons to get down a vocabulary that all agree on, either by choice or just definition.

The role 4th uses for example is that of the class/function, just like MMOs. That is a problem because a TTRPG doesn't work the same way. There isn't a button to click on to decide what quest tot ake, because there is no DM in an MMO to make on the spot things for players to do.

So we really do need to discuss as gamers, rather than let the industry just decide.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Tue Nov 17, 2009 8:48 am

I'm just going to chime in and confirm that I was (in that earlier post) equating "losing" the game to not having fun. No, I don't think that the game is particularly competitive. I was pointing out (what should be the obvious fact) that the objective of the game is (or at least should be) to have fun. If I sit at a game table and don't have fun (no matter why it happened) I equate it to losing and I feel all of the associated things that go along with losing. IE I won't repeat the actions that lead me to losing, I feel like I wasted my time, etc. In my opinion there is no "right" way to play the game. You, as an individual, are either having fun or you're not. Fun is subjective, just as the notions of right and wrong are. If someone likes the MMO style of play I don't feel that they are playing any better/worse than someone who isn't as long as they are not ruining the experience for others than IMO who the fuck cares.

violence in the media · Tue Nov 17, 2009 1:49 pm

shadzar wrote:Then how the hell is everything in discussions about people.

The fuck? Because, you ignorant misanthrope, if you can't deal with people then you can't play games with them. Maybe you're the sort of person that will accept any basement-dwelling morlock to your gaming table, but I generally require things like compatible personalities and personal hygene. If I don't like you as a person, then I don't want to game with you. I don't give a flying fuck how good of a roleplayer you are, or how deep your love of the game is.

So it all comes back to people. The rules, the genre, and the story are all meaningless second fiddle to that first property of the social group.

Tshern · Post by **Tshern** » Tue Nov 17, 2009 5:16 pm

violence in the media wrote:
shadzar wrote:Then how the hell is everything in discussions about people.
The fuck? Because, you ignorant misanthrope, if you can't deal with people then you can't play games with them. Maybe you're the sort of person that will accept any basement-dwelling morlock to your gaming table, but I generally require things like compatible personalities and personal hygene. If I don't like you as a person, then I don't want to game with you. I don't give a flying fuck how good of a roleplayer you are, or how deep your love of the game is.

So it all comes back to people. The rules, the genre, and the story are all meaningless second fiddle to that first property of the social group.

QFT

As a rule of thumb, if you can't keep a knife on the table without stabbing the guy, you two shouldn't be in the same game.