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What Is Role Playing?
What is Role Playing? If you are here, you might not know, or you might have a vague idea. Maybe you've heard the term and are interested to find out more. Maybe you play video games and really enjoy those games labeled as Role Playing games, and now you've heard Role Playing is done online and in Face-to-Face scenarios. Well, I'm not going to use a lot of technical babble to explain Role Playing. Just you, me and the normal English language!
Do you remember playing Cowboys & Indians, Cops & Robbers, Superheroes, House, maybe even Doctor for you adventurous types? How about having an imaginary friend? Well guess what; you were Role Playing!! It seems we've been Role Playing for years, and a few companies decided to cash in on the idea. Role Playing basically is the telling of an interactive story. All the people involved in this story get to decide it's fate. You, as a Player running your Character, decide the fate of the story by the choices you make. You, in part, become that Character and decide your day to day and moment to moment actions for the Character. The storyteller, in this case known as the DM (Dungeon Master) or GM (Game Master), redirects the plot and storyline of the story according to the actions of your Character, and the other Player's Characters that you might be playing with. Don't totally understand it? Well, let's see if this example helps any.
John has a friend, Beth, who has convinced him to try his hand at Role Playing. Beth tells John that she will be the DM, since she already knows how to play, and she'll help him make a Character to play. John decides he likes the idea of playing a Magic-using Elf. Beth helps him make the Character and they are set to play! Beth lays out the details of the story, the descriptions of the land and of where John's Elf lives. Along the way Beth describes that the Elf has been unhappy at home and yearns for adventure and the experiences of the world. John, not sure what to do yet, tells Beth he thinks the Elf should run away from home. Beth smiles that wonderfully evil DM smile and maps out the steps the Elf takes to run away, with a lot of input from John as he gets the hang of it. Now the Elf is far from home, cold, and a bit hungry. It seems John neglected taking any food for his Elf and his blanket is rather thin. Lucky for the Elf, Beth decides he comes across a cozy looking cottage in the middle of the forest. Unluckily, there seems to be two rather unfriendly looking wolves standing guard. It seems our Elf has been studying the Sleep spell rather intensely and feels this might be the perfect time to try it out. The Elf casts the Sleep spell and soon the wolves look like little pups sleeping away. But what waits inside? Will the Elf have needed that spell inside? What if he just skipped going to the cottage? All of these are different choices and different directions the Elf could have taken and it would have changed the story with each choice.
Hopefully that helps a little. As a Role Player, you are co-writing new adventures all the time. By making the choices for your Character to act upon within the storyline. I've left out the dice rolls and other things. That's because every Gaming System does things a little different. Not to mention some of it doesn't apply while playing online.
So, how do you take what I've said above and use it to play online? What differs from what I've said above? Are there advantages to playing online? How about Face-to-Face? Well....I guess you'll have to look for next note!!
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