D&D is a Roleplaying Game
- Thread starter Bullgrit
- Start date
Einan
First Post
I tend to think game is more important. It's about the fun. If you're not having it, try something else or change it up a bit. If I DM and I look around the table, only to find my players are nodding off, I throw something off the cuff in there. I just started a D20 Modern game with players who have never played it before. The group is diverse, so getting them together is a hard time. I looked around, saw some bored looking faces, so I had two characters get involved in a drive-by shooting and two others witness a kidnapping. Instant interest. (Then I stopped the game, as the kidnappers sped away after seeing the witnesses and just as the bullets began to fly, cause I loves me the cliffhangers...)
Einan
Einan
Jürgen Hubert
First Post
It's about playing some weird people in another world who have a more or less horrible time so that we can laugh at their misfortune.
WayneLigon
Adventurer
'Roleplaying' means a lesser form of acting; it's like a combination of acting and writing. It means you strive to create a consistant beleivable personality, a 'second life' as it were, just like you would create a major character if you were writing a novel or movie.
That personality should have a history or at least a sense of history; it should know where it comes from. If you can't give specific incidents, then generalizations are useful as well - there is - or should be - a great deal of difference between a character that comes from the continent's largest city and one who comes from a remote forest hamlet. If there is not, something is very wrong.
It should have likes and dislikes and definable character traits, often different from your own. It should react and interact with it's environment. You the player should strive to invest the character with at least some aspects of what makes a person a person, instead of treating it like a mobile game peice. You the player should spend at least some time on character notes; how does this character - this person - feel about X? Some thought should have been given to their experiences. They should learn from the past.
'Game' means that there is a rules structure for handling how that character interacts with his world. There are set standards by which things happen, to at least attempt some fairness and, dare I say it, balance. Without some kind of rules structure, you're left with people that can think fast and improvise gaining an unfair advantage over those who are more laid back and thoughtful.
A game is not a rigid thing, though. That's why it needs a GM, to act as a go-between between the rules and the players.
It is not a simulation, but rather two or three steps back from that. Simulations stive to emulate the real world. Roleplaying games emulate the fiction that spawned them. Every strict simulationist attempt in RPG's has either been laughably bad or unplayable - or unplayed.
That personality should have a history or at least a sense of history; it should know where it comes from. If you can't give specific incidents, then generalizations are useful as well - there is - or should be - a great deal of difference between a character that comes from the continent's largest city and one who comes from a remote forest hamlet. If there is not, something is very wrong.
It should have likes and dislikes and definable character traits, often different from your own. It should react and interact with it's environment. You the player should strive to invest the character with at least some aspects of what makes a person a person, instead of treating it like a mobile game peice. You the player should spend at least some time on character notes; how does this character - this person - feel about X? Some thought should have been given to their experiences. They should learn from the past.
'Game' means that there is a rules structure for handling how that character interacts with his world. There are set standards by which things happen, to at least attempt some fairness and, dare I say it, balance. Without some kind of rules structure, you're left with people that can think fast and improvise gaining an unfair advantage over those who are more laid back and thoughtful.
A game is not a rigid thing, though. That's why it needs a GM, to act as a go-between between the rules and the players.
It is not a simulation, but rather two or three steps back from that. Simulations stive to emulate the real world. Roleplaying games emulate the fiction that spawned them. Every strict simulationist attempt in RPG's has either been laughably bad or unplayable - or unplayed.
Ranger REG
Explorer
It is? I thought that roleplaying is like improvisational acting, which is a challenging form. I mean other than being equipped with character sheets, you have no script and no director telling you what he want from you in the scenes.WayneLigon said:
howandwhy99
Adventurer
Make Believe
Roleplaying is when you relax with your friends and play. I think it's very close to the way kids play without needing rules or a reason of any kind. We run around, imagine we're airplanes zooming across the playground, chasing the girls, climbing the monkeybars, and cracking each other up.
I'm older now and roleplaying is less physically active, but has become more intellectual at turns. Because we play D&D it's often the same continuing game too, which could get boring as a kid. But now, as an adult, playtime is less and less common, so the continuity isn't a bad thing.
Roleplaying is when you relax with your friends and play. I think it's very close to the way kids play without needing rules or a reason of any kind. We run around, imagine we're airplanes zooming across the playground, chasing the girls, climbing the monkeybars, and cracking each other up.
I'm older now and roleplaying is less physically active, but has become more intellectual at turns. Because we play D&D it's often the same continuing game too, which could get boring as a kid. But now, as an adult, playtime is less and less common, so the continuity isn't a bad thing.
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