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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6939194" data-attributes="member: 42582">Here is Prof MAR Barker on roleplaying in Empire of the Petal Throne (at heading 300). I am quoting from the 1987 edition, which I think is simply a reprint of the 1975 edition:The game requires a group of players . . . and a referee. . . . [The referee] "sets the stage" for his players, describing the scenario to them, locating them on his maps, telling them what they see, whom they encounter, etc, etc. It is then up to the players to use their wits and intelligence to deal with the challenges laid before them. The players, in turn, must establish a character using the tables set down here, and maintain this character's records, keeping track of his experience points, wealth, possessions, magical acquisitions, etc, etc. The player must furthermore keep the statistics for any non-player characters in  his employ. He makes his decisions on the basis of the information supplied by the referee, and it his task to progress his character to ever higher levels and to greater and greater powers.No reference to an imagined personality, to making decisions on the basis of that personality, etc. I don't think that was really an overt or acknowledged part of the game in 1975. (Which is not to say that it wasn't happening.)But Barker's passage would be completely out of place in a 1990s RPG book - the idea that the game is about players meeting challenges by using their wits and intelligence, thereby progressing to ever higher levels and greater and greater powers, and that that's what it means to play a role, had mostly been abandoned.</blockquote>

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