Are you just a curious onlooker when it comes to tabletop role-playing games? Maybe you have friends or family that are gamers? Interested in finding out more about this whole tabletop role-playing game hobby, either just to see what all the fuss is about, or maybe you’re considering playing or even “running” a game? Whatever your reason or interest, thank you for your visit and welcome to you, please feel free to look all around.

Don’t worry if you feel like you’re coming to the party late. Role-playing games (abbreviated RPGs) in their present form have only been around about 30 years, which isn’t a long time as things go. Those new to tabletop role-playing games will still likely be familiar with the most well-known progenitor of the hobby, Dungeons & Dragons, now published as a variation of the D20 System. A lot of things have changed since since those enthusiastic days of cobbling abstract rules onto wargame miniatures, but the focal point remains the same – intellectual entertainment and active imagination in a social setting. Whether it’s playing with friends or family members or even strangers, role-playing gamers are definitely one of the more social groups of hobbyists.

General Overview

It only takes a couple of people to get a game together, though its not unheard of for half a dozen people to all get in on a game session – RPGs are very much like traditional board games in that way, with a good player total being 3-5 – much more than that and it can get to be a real handful for everybody concerned. On average, one role-playing game session lasts 1-4 hours.

 

Game Environment

Role-playing games take place in the “shared imagination space” of all the players. Play is carried out as players verbally indicate and resolve actions (usually involving some degree of chance, generated by a random method, such as rolling dice or drawing cards), ask and answer questions, etc. In most cases, it isn’t technically accurate to use the terms “win” or “lose” in RPGs, as the games proceed along loose guidelines or plots (similar to movie plots or scripts), in which the game is “over” when the players obtain a given objective, such as rescuing the princess, finding the treasure, ridding the town of the zombies, etc.

Physical environment is another important consideration for role-playing games. Because most role-playing games, like traditional board games, require paper and pens or pencils and sometimes dice or cards, large, flat surfaces such as tables and counters, with room for all the players to have a seat, are commonly the scene of gaming sessions, which is where the term “tabletop role-playing game”, obviously, comes from, which differentiates the hobby from computer/video-game console “RPGs”.

Next: Roles and Gameplay

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This entry was posted by J P on Sunday, March 2nd, 2008 at 1:45 am and is filed under General RPG. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.