Role-playing?

It is first necessary to define exactly what is a role-playing game (RPG). This is not as easy task as you might think. Here is my working definition: a role-playing game must consist of quantified interactive storytelling.

Player decision-making drives the story forward and the outcome varies depending on what the players do. This is a way in which RPGs differ from drama. In a play, the actors interact the lines written; in a role-playing game, the actors make up the story as they go.

In a RPG, the players take the roles of fictional characters and participate in a story.

What Roles are there in Roleplay?

There are two types of active participants in most RPGs: the players and the game master, or GM. The players act the roles of the heroes of the story; their characters, the player characters (PCs), work together to achieve the goal of a story line, or scenario.

The game master is the director and referee of the game. He or she has a number of jobs: describing the environment in which the story takes place; controlling all of the secondary (or non-player) characters the player characters meet and interact with. The game master has complete power over the fictional lives of the PCs but must remain completely impartial toward the players or even lean slightly in their favor in order to retain their trust.

What is the Purpose Behind Roleplay?

Notice that, unlike most games, none of the participants are playing against each other. The players and their character's work together. RPGs are a superior form of entertainment. Most forms of entertainment involve watching other people do things, engaging little of a person's mind and imagination. If all your entertainments are passive, you learn passivity. You don't learn nearly as much from watching other people as you do from doing it yourself. Playing a RPG engages all your faculties, because exciting things are happening to you through your character, and if there's a problem, its up to you to solve it. The story goes nowhere unless you drive it along. When your player character succeeds, it's your victory and not the second-hand achievement of some hero on the TV screen.

Furthermore, when it's your character at stake, there's a real incentive to learn what you need to know to succeed. Serious interest in a RPG stimulates further reading and study. RPGs encourage thought and stimulate imagination. They explore worlds very different from our own and expose realities and possibilities that might never occur to you otherwise. They inspire innovation and creativity.