A role playing game, or RPG, is a game for any number of people, using only pens, paper, dice, and their imagination, in which the players pretend to be different people, leading different (and often more exiting) lives and interacting with a world or environment created by one of the players called narrator or (more often) game master. All you really need is your imagination, since the paper is only used record stuff and the dice are simply there to simulate random events.
Since this short definition is already very confusing, yet doesn't even begin to describe RPGs accurately, we'll try different approaches to the subject:
Read these in any order you wish.
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Most of us will remember a time, as children, when we entered a make-believe world and had lots of interesting adventures. We would use toys, like dolls, toy soldiers or other figures, or simply ourselves and our imagination.
We would often go there with a friend or many others, and we'd all work together to, basicly, have the most possible fun pretending to be someone else or do something different than usual, like cops and robbers, cowboys and indians or astronauts.
However, conflicts could not be solved easiliy: "I shot you! You're dead!" - "No you didn't, you missed! Anyway, I shot you first!" These could only be solved by using a strict set of rules and a random element, or by physical reenactment (meaning hitting eachother), or getting mad at each other and promising never ever to be friends again. Unfortunately, rules were for grown-ups.
Role playing games are a bit like that, in that the players pretend to be different people, but are, of course, more sophisticated and almost purely mind-based.
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Role playing is also a tool used by psychologists, to help people understand each other, and used just as often by language course tutors, to help students improve their conversation skills. This is what it would look like:
"Okay, Judith, you're the divorced mother of two who has just moved into an appartment with her two kids and her cat, Widdles. The kids need the cat to be able to cope with the change, so you're intent on keeping it. Ralph, you're the appartment manager whose old mother is allergic to cats. However, her heart would break if she were sent off to a retirement home."
This may sound like stuff from a bad soap opera, but is, in fact, a valid scenario for role playing (in the psychological sense). Judith and Ralph have to pretend to be different people, and play those people's thoughts, actions, and reactions. However, the only (acceptable) course of action is reason and "talking about it". Role playing games usually offer more than this, but it is an important aspect.
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The difference between normal pen-and-paper role playing and its "live" version is that in the latter case, the players dress up like their characters and play the entire scenario much like actors (though there's no fixed path of action), mostly outdoors. Acting out the fantasy elements, like magic or as yet undiscovered technology, needs a high amount of creativity.
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Many of us like to read books or watch films. In some of these books/films the main character will do things that we wouldn't have done in his/her place; like climb into an open window without looking inside, picking a fight with a gang of street ruffians, or riding up peacefully to a sinister group of black-robed figures. However, we have no influence on these actions, and can only read/watch the consequences.
But what if we did? Imagine, just as the suspense started to rise, being asked "What would you do now?" Walk into the door? Fight your way out? Accept this price or try to haggle further? And you could choose, would see the reactions and consequences, and at the next decision, again: "What would you do now?"
There are some books where, after every paragraph, you will be given some options, along with a paragraph number to read next should you choose this option. By choosing again and again, you could either fail or succeed in the end. On the other hand, there are only a limited number of combinations, and only fixed results. In role playing games, you constantly choose your character's actions (the person you are pretending to be), and the results are often partly random. This offers a very wide range of possibilities.
In this example, the players have entered a forest at nightfall (or pretended to, remember, this is all imaginary!). The Narrator (or Game Master, or whatever the leading player is called), has prepared an encounter in a clearing...
Narrator: "Up ahead, the forest seems to get less dense. You can clearly see the light of a fire burning ahead, though you can't see who's sitting around it. What do you do?"
Phil (playing a mage called Ignius): "Look! There's a fire up ahead, though it's a bit small for my taste." (glances at Susan) "Perhaps one of those people could tell us where we are, since even our ranger got lost! Maybe we should let the troll lead in future, he at least seems to have a sure step. All things considered, maybe we should send him ahead now to surprise those guys; some people could lose sight of the goal, right Riv?"
Susan (playing an elvish ranger named Arivella): "Hey, flame! did you find the right way? It's not my fault the tree I picked for navigation turned out to be an unusual phenomenon. And look who's talking: You were the one who set of a fireball in the middle of the forest. Pure genius, that! Besides, the troll's not only loud, but smelly, and we wouldn't want to spoil their supper and abandon all hope of getting some answers from them."
Narrator (who has been rolling some dice out of sight): "While merrily discussing each others personal problems, you suddenly hear some close yet unknown voices: 'Good evening, can we help you?'"
Susan: "What? (and turns around)."
Narrator: "Well, it seems you weren't completely unnoticed: you see 4 men in green robes in front of you, with long swords at their waist. You notice a curious tatoo on the left side of their faces - they obviously belong to the religion of Surak."
In the Narrator's world, the religion of Surak is said to perform inhuman rituals, although nothing clear is known; the only method of recognition is a tatoo on the left side of their faces. At this point the players can decide for themselves: will they attack? Will they try to find out more about the Surak (only to discover that they don't exist and the tatoos are merely birthmarks), thereby putting themselves in (as they believe) mortal danger? Or will they run away at once and tell wild tales about man-eating creatures? The players can choose from these and countless other possibilities - each one will spin the tale in different directions.
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Thus role playing games bring people together and offer creative activities and amusing diversions from every-day life without any bodily risk. Aside from their role in the development of a child, their importance for psychology and their use in our daily lives, they can be seen as a kind of multi-person storytelling or free theatre. It's like many people working together at a small, private novel - just a lot more fun!
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