“Roles” and Gameplay

There are both out-of-game and in-game “roles” that gamers fill.

Players and Player-Characters

In most RPGs, although everyone are referred to as “players” (in the general sense of the word), all of the players except for one will be creating and narrating the behavior and actions of their own fictional character or alter ego, within a shared imaginary world.

• out-of-game, the people who create the characters are simply called Players (note the capital P)
• in-game, the characters the Players play are referred to as Player-Characters (or PCs).

The Player, via their PCs, are expected to play fairly and try to behave in-character (a typical knight in shining armor, for example, wouldn’t turn down a request for help from a fair maiden), and to keep their PCs’ actions and behavior within the framework of the game (no blacksmiths inventing laser rifles) and to play within the spirit of the game rules/guidelines, and to try to present entertaining and interesting PCs.

The Game Master

The one member left out of the PC group is a different kind of player, whose responsibilities and duties differ significantly from the others. Usually, this person is referred to by a title (which tends to vary from game to game) indicative of his position, such as Dungeon Master (DM), Referee, Moderator, Keeper or Storyteller.

• We’ll use the most common term for this player’s role, that of Game Master (or GM).

Unlike the Players, the GM does not have one specific character that he plays; instead, he is responsible for the operation of the entire rest of the world, everything from a friendly cat looking for scraps to a horde of slimy monsters bent on the destruction of the world (and the PCs), and everything in-between, be it living, dead, animate, inanimate, infernal or divine.

Although there is no one specific “GM character”, the GM’s special “role” extends both in and out of game. Contrary to what this adversarial setup suggests, the GM’s “job” is not to “kill the characters” (though there are a few games that do lean this direction), but to provide a solid and interesting challenge for the PCs during a game session, even-handedly moderating and mediating all in-game interactions between the PCs and the world.

The GM describes situations, people, things, events and everything else to help set the mood and atmosphere and give the Players the information that their PCs need to make decisions and take action. The GM strives to conduct the game fairly and allow the PCs the opportunities to be heroic and carry out appropriate actions with a reasonable chance of success in a reasonable timeframe, while at the same time making sure that there is a game going on, with opposition and challenge, triumph, reward, loss and consequences.

Next: Characters

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This entry was posted by J P on Sunday, March 2nd, 2008 at 1:46 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.