What is Roleplay?

[skoo78]

Oh gosh, this is embarrassing. I know what fan fiction is but not Roleplay. What is it? and what is the difference between writing a story and Roleplay? Help an Asian sister out. :P

[darkcser]

Oh gosh, this is embarrassing. I know what fan fiction is but not Roleplay. What is it? and what is the difference between writing a story and Roleplay? Help an Asian sister out. :P

I assume you mean "what is a role-playing game"? Role-play is essentially just that pretending to be a person that you are not. Some people use it to work out relationship issues or mentally prepare for interviews and the like.

Since you mentioned fan fiction in the same sentence I assume you mean the RPG application. Here you usually have a dungeon master/game master/storyteller set a plot (e.g. a murder mystery, a dungeon crawl, a casino heist, etc.), and have players (other people) create characters in this setting (e.g. detectives, forensic analysts, warriors, wizards, gamblers, cat burglars, security experts, etc.) who will work towards some goal (e.g. find the murderer, defeat the undead king, make off with millions, etc.). There are usually rules for an RPG that dictate how skilled/powerful characters are, what is possible and what is not, determine outcomes of conflict (e.g. if the suspect can lie in a convincing manner, whether you can hit what you are aiming for, if you can disable the pressure sensitive floor plate, etc.). In the end it's basically an elaborate game of pretend with rules and structure -although free-form roleplay also exist where people just make stuff up as they go without any rules. You can also think of it almost as an interactive play where the actors have some degree of free-will in their characters.

It's something near and dear to my heart because last week I played in a game of Star Wars where we were a rag-tag bunch of scoundrels who carried out a hit on Kreba the Hutt to pay off our debt to another Hutt who wanted us dead... Also just bought Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition. (it's like coming home again, sniffle).

[skoo78]

I assume you mean "what is a role-playing game"? Role-play is essentially just that pretending to be a person that you are not. Some people use it to work out relationship issues or mentally prepare for interviews and the like.

Since you mentioned fan fiction in the same sentence I assume you mean the RPG application. Here you usually have a dungeon master/game master/storyteller set a plot (e.g. a murder mystery, a dungeon crawl, a casino heist, etc.), and have players (other people) create characters in this setting (e.g. detectives, forensic analysts, warriors, wizards, gamblers, cat burglars, security experts, etc.) who will work towards some goal (e.g. find the murderer, defeat the undead king, make off with millions, etc.). There are usually rules for an RPG that dictate how skilled/powerful characters are, what is possible and what is not, determine outcomes of conflict (e.g. if the suspect can lie in a convincing manner, whether you can hit what you are aiming for, if you can disable the pressure sensitive floor plate, etc.). In the end it's basically an elaborate game of pretend with rules and structure -although free-form roleplay also exist where people just make stuff up as they go without any rules. You can also think of it almost as an interactive play where the actors have some degree of free-will in their characters.

It's something near and dear to my heart because last week I played in a game of Star Wars where we were a rag-tag bunch of scoundrels who carried out a hit on Kreba the Hutt to pay off our debt to another Hutt who wanted us dead... Also just bought Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition. (it's like coming home again, sniffle).

OH THANK YOU! I've been waiting for somebody to answer this.

Honestly, I didn't know what fanfiction was until this year when I told my friend about my stories I've drawn out and who I would love to see playing my characters. Although my stories aren't loosely based on comics, novels, movies, etc., mine were more of original fiction type. LOL. See how illiterate I am about the web?

I understand RPG as in video/computer games, because my siblings (even my dad) play it..LOL...but RP in a context what what you described above, it's still new to me. It sounds like LARP right?

I saw a couple of websites and all they do was roleplay. I registered myself in one of their sites solely for the purpose of photography and curiosity. lol...Now, with my curiosity, I want to try it BUT I don't want to make a big fool of myself and angry the whole mob...if you get my drift...

So my question is, do you have an example of how RP is like? What I mean is do you type/talk among other players what you going to do or kill in the setting? Like a dialog? What if you die? do you just resurrect yourself and get back into the game? I guess I'm still confuse on that part. Maybe you can show me how it works...I might get addicted like you!

[darkcser]

OH THANK YOU! I've been waiting for somebody to answer this.

Honestly, I didn't know what fanfiction was until this year when I told my friend about my stories I've drawn out and who I would love to see playing my characters. Although my stories aren't loosely based on comics, novels, movies, etc., mine were more of original fiction type. LOL. See how illiterate I am about the web?

I understand RPG as in video/computer games, because my siblings (even my dad) play it..LOL...but RP in a context what what you described above, it's still new to me. It sounds like LARP right?

I saw a couple of websites and all they do was roleplay. I registered myself in one of their sites solely for the purpose of photography and curiosity. lol...Now, with my curiosity, I want to try it BUT I don't want to make a big fool of myself and angry the whole mob...if you get my drift...

So my question is, do you have an example of how RP is like? What I mean is do you type/talk among other players what you going to do or kill in the setting? Like a dialog? What if you die? do you just resurrect yourself and get back into the game? I guess I'm still confuse on that part. Maybe you can show me how it works...I might get addicted like you!

One person (the DM/GM) picks the setting and the general plot, and decides on a general direction of the story. This person controls everything except for the players. You can think of it like a story teller. Within this basic framework, players can decide what to do. The DM gives players feedback on their actions.


------
DM: "The crisp autumn air stirs the first fallen leaves of the season as you and your group leave the town of Nesme to head towards Silverymoon, golden fields of wheat and barley stretch out before you.

Player1: "Do you think I can buy a tressym at Silverymoon? I'd really like a winged cat."

Player2: "Are you going to keep it in a cage?"

Player1: "I was just going to keep it on a leash until it's trained."

DM: "Keeping a winged cat on a leash is probably not a good idea... but you can probably find one in Silverymoon if you know the right people."

Player2: "Why do you want a tressym anyway?"

DM: In the distance you see a rider galloping hard towards you on the dirt road."

Player1: "How far is the rider? Can I see who it is?"

DM: "About 200 feet, dressed like a farmer but not anyone you know."

Player2: "I wave at the rider. Hail and well met friend!"

DM: "The rider starts shouting when he sees you. Roll a listen check."

Both players roll some dice, and the DM compares the result to how hard it is to hear someone shouting at 200 ft. The DM also secretly rolls a spot check for each player to see if they spot the group of people some 100 ft behind the rider.

DM: "The rider is shouting something about help with the taters?" Both players narrowly missed their listen roll so the DM decides they heard something.

Player1: "Need help with your taters? Maybe need them mashed?"

DM: "As the rider closes within 50 feet you notice that there's a group of riders armed with an assortment of weapons from swords to axes, and dressed in a variety of mis-matched armor riding about 100 feet behind the farmer..."

Player2: "Oh, raiders. I draw my greatsword, and step off the path."

Player1: "Hah! Watch this! I create an energy wall across the path right in front of the raiders."

DM: "Energy type?"

Player1: "Fire."

DM: "Are you sure?"

Player1: "I just create a 10 feet wide wall on the path so they just run into it."

DM: "The path is probably 10 feet wide around here to allow for wagons to come and go. OK." Rolls some dice to see if the riders can stop in time before hitting the wall of fire. "Three of the five rider are unable to turn in time, and go through the wall of fire. The other two plow into the wheat field on either side. Of the three that went through, all are badly burned and two of them are on fire... one of the ones on fire plows into wheat field..."

Player2: "Why did you choose fire? Why not cold or sonic?"

Player1: "I'm a PYROkinetic... I like fire."

DM: "The two raiders behind the wall are riding away. The one on fire in the field seems to have fallen off his horse and is engulfed in a patch of flames roughly the size of a wagon and getting bigger by the moment. The other one on fire is off his horse, and rolling in the dirt. The last guy is trying to ride around the flaming wall through the wheat."

Player2: "Well... should we warn the town?"

Player1: "Yes, those nasty raiders torching their crops... don't worry we'll make sure they're brought to justice."

Player2: "..."

DM: "..."

--------

Death is usually permanent in games but some allow reviving the dead. Usually what happens is the player with the dead character ends up creating a new character, and that character is worked into the story somehow (a brother, a new recruit, a traveler from afar, etc.). A good DM will try to make things challenging without being too deadly, and keep miraculous saves to a minimum to maintain a sense of believability.


Roleplayers come in two main opposing varieties.

You have the "real" roleplayers who insist that being true to their character is everything, and often play very annoying characters, take delight in social/political maneuverings likely spending hours so they can subtly snub one another in character. LARPers fall into this category. "Lord Cameron was rescued from certain death at the age of 17 by wandering gypsies, while he can't directly oppose the the duke's proposal to bar all foreigners from entering the city, he will quietly remark at the ball just how unfortunate the duke's son's indiscretions have become... and that it must be difficult to deal with such weighty matters when one's children are so problematic..."

On the other hand you have "power gamers" who work the game system like an optimization exercise to be the best at what they do (and oftentimes what they do isn't pretty), and treat it very much like the only goal is to kill things to acquire more loot and xp. "Tristan Darkreaver will attack with his adamantine spell storing great sword+1 "Darkreaver" while using the Swooping Dragon maneuver as a standard action, burning blade as a swift action and release the stored Poison spell as a free action... so that's 2d6+9 + 10d6 + 1d6+14 (supernatural fire) + fort save DC 23 poison + DC 35 stun"

Most are actually somewhere in between.

The other dynamic to watch for is team friendly or not.

In a team friendly game the belief is that fellow players work together to overcome problems, and players implicitly trust one another. This is often explained as part of the players back story (grew up together, same school, etc.). Oftentimes it's fan wanked as in "Hello stranger you seem trustworthy!" I personally prefer these types of games contrived as they may be.

In a non-team friendly game everyone is essentially out for themselves, and backstabbing and betrayals are par for the course -in fact any player who is friendly to another player is probably setting them up. Unless the group is really mature or very laid back these kinds of games tend to devolve into bitter rivalries.

[skoo78]

All I can say is... WOW...You made me speechless darkcser.

[LuNaR]

gat dayum darkcser, u really put effort and dedication in ur posts

[skoo78]

gat dayum darkcser, u really put effort and dedication in ur posts

darkcser's posts are worthwhile to read.

One person (the DM/GM) picks the setting and the general plot, and decides on a general direction of the story. This person controls everything except for the players. You can think of it like a story teller. Within this basic framework, players can decide what to do. The DM gives players feedback on their actions.

In a team friendly game the belief is that fellow players work together to overcome problems, and players implicitly trust one another. This is often explained as part of the players back story (grew up together, same school, etc.). Oftentimes it's fan wanked as in "Hello stranger you seem trustworthy!" I personally prefer these types of games contrived as they may be.

In a non-team friendly game everyone is essentially out for themselves, and backstabbing and betrayals are par for the course -in fact any player who is friendly to another player is probably setting them up. Unless the group is really mature or very laid back these kinds of games tend to devolve into bitter rivalries.

Thank you. It was very informational. I have been thinking last night about this. I got some other questions. When you RP, does all of this happen in one day until DM tells everyone to halt and "to be continue" to the next day? How do you guys end a game?

[darkcser]

gat dayum darkcser, u really put effort and dedication in ur posts

Heh, there are a couple of things I'll wax poetic about... or at least wax long-winded about: RPGs, Wuxia, Fantasy and evidently shooting...

I wanted to be a RPG writer when I was young... of course I also wanted to a parapsychologist

darkcser's posts are worthwhile to read.



Thank you. It was very informational. I have been thinking last night about this. I got some other questions. When you RP, does all of this happen in one day until DM tells everyone to halt and "to be continue" to the next day? How do you guys end a game?

Currently I'm in a group that meets every other Sat from 1pm to about 5pm. The last campaign (multiple sessions featuring the same story/characters) lasted about 6 sessions. The DM usually tries to pace the game so that session usually reaches some form of closure at the end. Think of it almost like an episode on a TV show or chapters in a book. On occasion you may have a cliffhanger or a two part finale for the epic battles. Those that play by posting on a message board tend to be more free-form where people just post what they want to do with contingencies, and the DM just sorts out everyone's actions as they come in.

[skoo78]

Heh, there are a couple of things I'll wax poetic about... or at least wax long-winded about: RPGs, Wuxia, Fantasy and evidently shooting...

I wanted to be a RPG writer when I was young... of course I also wanted to a parapsychologist



Currently I'm in a group that meets every other Sat from 1pm to about 5pm. The last campaign (multiple sessions featuring the same story/characters) lasted about 6 sessions. The DM usually tries to pace the game so that session usually reaches some form of closure at the end. Think of it almost like an episode on a TV show or chapters in a book. On occasion you may have a cliffhanger or a two part finale for the epic battles. Those that play by posting on a message board tend to be more free-form where people just post what they want to do with contingencies, and the DM just sorts out everyone's actions as they come in.

It's funny you mentioned parapsychologist. I thought that was cool back in my young years, but then I'm a chicken to go investigate. I'm already working at a haunted place and that is enough excitement for me.

Silly me, I should have asked you this. What does DM/GM stands for? LOL. Man, it makes me want to join now. But can I be a watcher/observer before joining in?

[darkcser]

It's funny you mentioned parapsychologist. I thought that was cool back in my young years, but then I'm a chicken to go investigate. I'm already working at a haunted place and that is enough excitement for me.

Silly me, I should have asked you this. What does DM/GM stands for? LOL. Man, it makes me want to join now. But can I be a watcher/observer before joining in?

I was really interested in the whole ESP and astral projection thing when I was younger because I thought it would be proof that the mind/thought could exist outside of the body, and by implication that something existed beyond death. Then I took a couple of years of physics and was beaten down by the law of conservation of energy... sure there could be something extra dimensional or some form of yet unknown energy but it it's more likely that whoever experienced these things were just suffering from some form of delusion or dementia. Crazy is evidently pretty prevalent.

btw: Several years ago I worked at a place where voices were coming from unplugged computer speakers, it was pretty freaky but I could tell they were police broadcasts -I guess the radios in patrol cars are powerful enough that they can produce sound even in unpowered speakers. This wasn't just a whisper either this was normal conversation level sounds.

Dungeon Master (DM) is a reference to the first RPG game ever conceived, and probably the most widely known if not played today: Dungeons and Dragons. The initial setup was pretty basic where the players played a group of adventurers (fighter, wizard, cleric, etc.) exploring a trap-filled underground maze populated with monsters (i.e. "the dungeon") designed by the dungeon master. Game play revolved around killing things for stuff. Over time the settings became more elaborate and sophisticated such that some settings like Forgotten Realms (my favorite setting) has thousands of years of rich detailed history, a plethora of different cultures and essentially a real life quality to it... the term dungeon master however remains. Game master or storyteller are basically DMs for other games outside of Dungeons and Dragons (e.g. GURPS, RIFTS, VtM, etc.).

Some groups will allow you to sit in on their games but it might be confusing if you don't know the rules. Most non-LARPish groups will constantly break character, and use gaming short-hand to help move the plot along. They tend to be light on descriptions of common effects because they assume everyone is familiar with them, and knows what they do or look like.

"I reach into my belt pouch for the bat guano and sulfur, and start the evocation. As the bright pea sized bead of flame materializes I send it streaking into the host of humanoids, and watch it blossom into a massive ball of orange-yellow flame."

vs.

"I drop a fireball on the orcs... 10d6... total of 38, Ref save DC 17"

Groups also vary dramatically in style . I was once in a Planescape game (imagine a place where people from all across the multiverse gather), and spent two hours real time wandering a bazaar only to buy a basket of green peppers (to be fair I was playing a clueless trying to gather information from the natives who would say things like "A cutter best be keeping their bone box shut lest they get a visit from the dusties.") The highlight of that game was an attempted mugging... I disarmed our mugger, who ran away... some of the other party member chased him down and filled him with arrows... oh the excitement.

Here's link to the free rules for DnD 5th edition:

http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/feat...dnd/basicrules

It's probably a good starting point to get a feel for RPGs. I've just started reading 5th edition yesterday.

[skoo78]

Whether it is scientific or not, ESP and astral projection is very interesting to read and hear about. I've heard stories of people experiencing " astral projection" in the past but they seem to be normal. The movie, "Insidious" is actually one of the movies that I know from talking to some people that felt it hit home, because of their religious practices. Some people feel that there is something more beyond than just a scientific theory. Some even feel there's a demon sitting on top of them, that is why they cannot move but can hear and see everything around them.

Uh, are you sure it was the police broadcasting from an UNPLUGGED speaker? to me, that's FREAKY. I'll tell you a couple of freaky stories. I was leaving from work and down the hallway, I saw one of my supervisor went into the kitchen. I wanted to talk to her before leaving for the day so I followed her. When I went into the kitchen, she was no where to be found. I just left confused and didn't want to delve deeper if I did saw her doppelganger. I also do 3rd shifts sometimes and would hear banging noises from the dining table and footsteps. It didn't bother me as much as my coworkers. One of them saw a ghost manifested itself into a little Native Indian girl once and it scared the crap out of him. There's so many other ghosts experiences at work that I wish I can contact Ghost Adventures or Ghost Hunters LOL....

Thank you for the explanation on DM/GM and the link. I will check it out later. I have to admit, I will be confused of the attack moves but that is what makes it exciting to read. All of those cool combination and effect attacks. LOL. I'll start by observing and reading the rules first before diving right into it. But I must say, being a DM/GM is probably a very hard job, trying to control the story and etc. That person must be very good at stroytelling. Can you be a DM/GM too?