What is Roleplaying?
What is roleplaying? To some people, it is a sick and twisted thing that I won't get into here. What I am talking about is a roleplaying game. A roleplaying game, is something most everyone has done once in their life. When you were a little kid might have called it playing house, or running around dressed up, pretending to be a favorite hero. A roleplaying game in the official sense is much the same way, in that, you need an imagination to play.
The game involves a gamemaster (GM) and a group of players (three or more is good). The GM tells a story, in which the players are involved via their characters. The player characters (PC's) have a goal of completing the objective in the story while staying true to the personality of the character they created. The GM controls everyother aspect of the story, or game, including the non-player characters (NPC's). The PC's must interact with these characters and other events in the game in order to complete the objective.
Players have what is known as a character sheet. This details their character and gives game statistics used to tell how well the character can perform at a certain skill or ability. These statistics interact with the rules by the use of die rolls to determine success or failure. For this reason, many novice (and veteran unfortunately) players confuse the term roleplaying with "roll"playing.