In Between Good & Evil.
The roots of inspiration for the world's most popular role-playing game are many. A number of the inspirations for the game are listed in Appendix N of the Dungeon Masters Guide. Some of the same sources are listed in Gary Gygax's Foreword to the original edition (White Box) Little Brown Books and include reference to "Burroughs’ Martian adventures where John Carter is groping through black pits... Howard’s Conan saga... the de Camp & Pratt fantasies...[and] Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser". Given the inclusion of so many creatures inspired by his work, it seems a notable absence that there is no mention in the Foreword to Tolkien's Middle-earth.
The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien's great trilogy, is a story about good verses evil. The free peoples struggle against the forces of darkness who would bind and enslave them to an evil will. Did Gary Gygax reject this "good verses evil" premise in favor of a more "grey" tone for his game? The original edition refers to "evil clerics" and include magic spells to counter evil beings. "Protection from Evil" and "Detect Evil" certainly establishes evil as a valid concept in the game, yet, the alignment system included in this edition, the system whereby forces take sides against each other in the struggle for dominance inherent in the game, includes no "evil" axis.
I have recently completed my read-through of all the Conan tales published by Robert E. Howard and have found these stories to contain many terms, creatures and settings which are included in the original role-playing game. Conan is perhaps THE iconic "fighting man", a term Howard uses more than once to describe his protagonist. Though in many ways a noble barbarian fighting his way through a decadent civilization, Conan's conduct is not always what we would generally define as "good". He is first and foremost self serving. In his varied career Conan spends time as a thief, a mercenary, a pirate...all vocations of questionable "goodness".
The duo of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser appear in several stories written by Fritz Leiber, stories in which they pretty much define the grey morals and behavior of the anti-hero archetype. Many of their miss-adventures are accidental, and humorous, but Leiber seems to be exploring the concept of the reluctant hero whose self-serving actions may occasionally serve to further a positive outcome in the world, but seldom does so by intent.
Then there is Elric, the anti-hero creation of author Michael Moorecock. Together with his demon sword, Stormbringer, Elric brings doom upon his kingdom, his beloved, all of his friends and ultimately his world in some of the best fantasy fiction ever written. The Elric character even more than Conan or the Gray Mouser brings the grey morality of the anti-hero archetype into perspective. Elric is a tragic figure in every sense. His "struggle" can be seen as symbolic of the human condition we all find ourselves in. Yes, it is a nihilistic view, but a valid one shared by many. Whether Mr. Gygax personally ascribed to this view, I do not know, but his game included an alignment system which seems to reflect Moorecock's Law verses Chaos dichotomy.
It can be great fun to game an epic struggle to save the world, and many successful campaigns using the world's most popular role-playing game have involved just that. However, it seems Gary Gygax may have had a slightly more humble ambition in mind for the heroes of the original edition game. Wealth, power and fame are certainly motivators in our modern day, real world society and I believe they are reflected in the game's experience and level system. In the games I have personally run as referee, moral ambiguity is a frequent theme. Although I am not a fan of "evil" player characters nor evil campaigns, I have found much gaming enjoyment through friendly role-play which has explored various questions of morality and has frequently dipped into the grey areas to be found between absolute good and evil.
Friday, May 29, 2020
Wednesday, May 27, 2020
Dungeon
The World's Most Popular Role-Playing Game introduced many of us to the underground adventure. The "dungeon" is often situated beneath a castle. Such was the case with Blackmoor and Greyhawk, the original campaign settings of creators Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax respectively. In the original edition of the game there are instructions on how to draw up a dungeon map, populate it with monsters, traps and treasure and it offers suggestions for how to run your players through the dungeon adventure you create. The three Little Brown Books talk about player perspective including mapping, marching order, movement along the corridors and tunnels, opening stuck doors, torches and other sources of light, and various other aspects of underground dungeon delving.
The dungeon offers many advantages to the referee in terms of it being a unique environment and one that instantly suggests to the characters that they have entered someplace quite different from the mundane. The underground is seen as someplace magical where the laws we experience on the surface don't necessarily apply - physical laws nor man-made ones. Creatures that dwell beneath may see perfectly well in darkness, doors which readily open for the underworld denizens will often stick closed and must be forced by characters, making a great amount of noise... and perhaps attracting some monster wandering the halls.
The dungeon prepares new players and perhaps more importantly, new referees, for the task of creating great gaming experiences while learning the game under somewhat controlled conditions. The dungeon offers nearly everything available in the game and does so on a manageable level, with walls. It sets limits and keeps the action confined to a manageable space while the novice learns and develops confidence.
Refereeing the dungeon environment is a skill and designing and running a good dungeon will offer your players a flavorful and challenging playground in which to become heroes. This is something to take pride in as a referee. Published dungeons abound, and the better examples have garnered a reputation among players. As much fun as sharing our war-stories about those oft-played published dungeon adventures can be, the real challenge for the referee is to devise their own personal "masterpiece" dungeon - one that can define a campaign.
The dungeon may start out as a map, or even better as a concept or theme, which the referee hopes to bring life to through its expression in the form of the dungeon. Populating the dungeon is a task that can benefit from the application of logic. The best dungeons seem to make sense in terms of how and why the denizens are making it their home. Opportunities for exploration, role-play and of course combat are essential elements of the dungeon, and each of these should challenge the actual players, not just their character sheets.
The referee's adventure may have started with designing a dungeon, but it usually isn't long before other fantastic non-dungeon locations are added to the mix. Places of mystery and imagination set the stage for play perhaps as well as dungeons and certainly add variety to the campaign. Who hasn't thought of a wizard's tower as a place for adventure! They all share many of the same essential elements learned while in the dungeon and they are all locations where magical adventure awaits and referee planning pays off. The wizard's tower, the evil temple, and the ruins of a lost city, these are all iconic locations of fantastic adventure and have more in common than not with the dungeon!
Friday, May 22, 2020
Assumptions
How important are they?
Every rule system I am familiar with contains built-in assumptions including how the "world" works. The world's original role-playing game, the one I actually prefer over all other editions and variations on the role-playing game theme, makes several assumptions based on its sources of inspiration and the preferences of its authors. The underlying assumptions in a game is not something I have always looked at or even been cognizant of, but now that I think about it, should probably be something we gamers pay attention to. The underlying assumptions can greatly influence how we see a system, labeling those games "good" when the games assumptions fit with our preferences and likewise "bad" those games that are based on assumptions we disagree with.
The White Box is good example. Authored by miniatures gamers and aimed at the wargaming hobby, The Little Brown Books assume new players are already familiar with the basics of tabletop wargaming: taking turns, moving figures across a table, rolling dice, inflicting casualties, calculating morale, etc. What the authors include in the Little Brown Books are suggestions for using wargames in a fantasy setting or world - one that assumes magic works, monsters are real, and heroes can advance to super-heroic skill proportions.
Other built-in assumptions in White Box D&D include the cast of player characters - humans are the predominant species reflected by their lack of level limits. Elves, dwarves and hoblings are playable characters, but are limited in how powerful they can become and therefore presumably less attractive to play long-term - a fact which may make them less common in the milieu than human player characters.
White Box assumes all creatures are aligned with either Law, Chaos or Neutrality and therefore have built-in allies, and enemies. This is a useful concept for wargames when choosing up sides is part of the basic preparation for play. It is assumed the game will make use of various maps to control movement and to keep track of location. Time and its passage is considered important in the game session and the campaign or series of connected sessions. Magic comes in two flavors, arcane and divine as reflected in the two spell casting classes, magic users and clerics. The rules for magic, including memorization of spells are very similar for each class and there are overlaps in the spell listings for the two caster classes.
All role-playing games make assumptions. The ones I am familiar with draw certain details from the real world, from history and from fictional sources. Even the mechanics which aim to simulate certain physical realities consistent with the real world make assumptions about how physics, chemistry, psychology, and other dynamics work. Assumptions, and certain abstractions based on those assumptions, are present in all simulations, games and otherwise, for without them there are simply too many variables to be accounted for.
In a fantasy game there is the question of magic? How does it work in the game? How common is it in the setting? How is magic viewed in society? Most games have either an implied setting (White Box is one of these) or a specific default setting (for example classic RuneQuest is set in Glorantha) which is connected to the assumptions the game makes. Even so-called "generic" systems such as GURPS is based on a number of assumptions. GURPS claims to use how things work in the real world as the basis for much of its mechanics, but at the root of how we view reality are many assumptions which game designers then make more assumptions about when they decide how much data to include in their real world model. Ultimately, how well our personal preferences match up with a game's assumptions seems to help determine how much we will like and enjoy that game.
Every rule system I am familiar with contains built-in assumptions including how the "world" works. The world's original role-playing game, the one I actually prefer over all other editions and variations on the role-playing game theme, makes several assumptions based on its sources of inspiration and the preferences of its authors. The underlying assumptions in a game is not something I have always looked at or even been cognizant of, but now that I think about it, should probably be something we gamers pay attention to. The underlying assumptions can greatly influence how we see a system, labeling those games "good" when the games assumptions fit with our preferences and likewise "bad" those games that are based on assumptions we disagree with.
The White Box is good example. Authored by miniatures gamers and aimed at the wargaming hobby, The Little Brown Books assume new players are already familiar with the basics of tabletop wargaming: taking turns, moving figures across a table, rolling dice, inflicting casualties, calculating morale, etc. What the authors include in the Little Brown Books are suggestions for using wargames in a fantasy setting or world - one that assumes magic works, monsters are real, and heroes can advance to super-heroic skill proportions.
Other built-in assumptions in White Box D&D include the cast of player characters - humans are the predominant species reflected by their lack of level limits. Elves, dwarves and hoblings are playable characters, but are limited in how powerful they can become and therefore presumably less attractive to play long-term - a fact which may make them less common in the milieu than human player characters.
White Box assumes all creatures are aligned with either Law, Chaos or Neutrality and therefore have built-in allies, and enemies. This is a useful concept for wargames when choosing up sides is part of the basic preparation for play. It is assumed the game will make use of various maps to control movement and to keep track of location. Time and its passage is considered important in the game session and the campaign or series of connected sessions. Magic comes in two flavors, arcane and divine as reflected in the two spell casting classes, magic users and clerics. The rules for magic, including memorization of spells are very similar for each class and there are overlaps in the spell listings for the two caster classes.
All role-playing games make assumptions. The ones I am familiar with draw certain details from the real world, from history and from fictional sources. Even the mechanics which aim to simulate certain physical realities consistent with the real world make assumptions about how physics, chemistry, psychology, and other dynamics work. Assumptions, and certain abstractions based on those assumptions, are present in all simulations, games and otherwise, for without them there are simply too many variables to be accounted for.
In a fantasy game there is the question of magic? How does it work in the game? How common is it in the setting? How is magic viewed in society? Most games have either an implied setting (White Box is one of these) or a specific default setting (for example classic RuneQuest is set in Glorantha) which is connected to the assumptions the game makes. Even so-called "generic" systems such as GURPS is based on a number of assumptions. GURPS claims to use how things work in the real world as the basis for much of its mechanics, but at the root of how we view reality are many assumptions which game designers then make more assumptions about when they decide how much data to include in their real world model. Ultimately, how well our personal preferences match up with a game's assumptions seems to help determine how much we will like and enjoy that game.
Wednesday, May 20, 2020
Make It Your Own
...and get the most out of your games.
I read game play aids of many types from adventure modules to core rules and I generally enjoy most of what I read, both old and new, those written for the older systems and their clones and those written for newer systems. I enjoy reading adventure paths written for modern systems and sand-box or hex-crawl materials in the old school style. I enjoy reading setting books, advice books, and rule system books. I use only a fraction of what I read in my personal games and use almost none of it “as written”. If what I am reading strikes me as a good idea, I make a mental or written note to help me remember it and often bring a version of it to the game table at some future date, but even more often, what I am reading will inspire me to make-up something similar in my own style for use in my own way in a game I am either refereeing or playing in.
Of all the game related material that I consume, it is the system rules that I am most likely to use “as written”. I believe in giving a game a chance to prove itself as the author intends it to be played, at least for a time. As with many role-players who have “tinkered” with various home-brewed versions of more than one system, I have lots of ideas about what I like to see in a game - and what I don’t. It is hard at times for me to ignore my preferences.
This post is not about the peculiarities of my personal preferences. I doubt anyone would care to read about that topic half as much as I might enjoy the exercise in pontificating. Each of us likely has our own set of preferences which we think are best. I am sure enough of that sort of thing unintentionally comes through in the course of my posts despite my efforts to just state facts. So what I do want to say is this, "Whatever you run, make it your own."
As referee, I encourage you to add some things, remove other things, change this, alter that - make it uniquely your version, especially when it comes to play aids like modules and adventures. It will invariably happen whether you intend to run it "as written" or not, for it has been my experience that no two tables ever run the same module exactly the same and little changes will frequently creep into a rule system the longer we play it.
Also as a player, I encourage you to bring something unique to each character you role-play. Let the character's personality emerge as you play the game. Sketch their portrait on the character sheet. Paint a miniature to represent your character. Jot a few personality traits down as bullet points in the margin if there is no space specifically devoted to such details. Ask yourself, “What does this character want out of their fictional life?” And make note of the answer that reveals itself to you. Each character can be more than a stat block. Discovering who the character seems to be can be a fun part of role-playing. If you give the characters some "personality" through role-play, everyone is likely to enjoy the game more.
By making the game “your game”, you will be adding to the richness of the overall experience for everyone for it is very likely that your enthusiasm for sharing what you have created will enhance the fun for everyone at your table. Role-playing is a creative form of entertainment. When you look for ways to add your own creations into the game, the chances are good that everyone wins!
I read game play aids of many types from adventure modules to core rules and I generally enjoy most of what I read, both old and new, those written for the older systems and their clones and those written for newer systems. I enjoy reading adventure paths written for modern systems and sand-box or hex-crawl materials in the old school style. I enjoy reading setting books, advice books, and rule system books. I use only a fraction of what I read in my personal games and use almost none of it “as written”. If what I am reading strikes me as a good idea, I make a mental or written note to help me remember it and often bring a version of it to the game table at some future date, but even more often, what I am reading will inspire me to make-up something similar in my own style for use in my own way in a game I am either refereeing or playing in.
Of all the game related material that I consume, it is the system rules that I am most likely to use “as written”. I believe in giving a game a chance to prove itself as the author intends it to be played, at least for a time. As with many role-players who have “tinkered” with various home-brewed versions of more than one system, I have lots of ideas about what I like to see in a game - and what I don’t. It is hard at times for me to ignore my preferences.
This post is not about the peculiarities of my personal preferences. I doubt anyone would care to read about that topic half as much as I might enjoy the exercise in pontificating. Each of us likely has our own set of preferences which we think are best. I am sure enough of that sort of thing unintentionally comes through in the course of my posts despite my efforts to just state facts. So what I do want to say is this, "Whatever you run, make it your own."
As referee, I encourage you to add some things, remove other things, change this, alter that - make it uniquely your version, especially when it comes to play aids like modules and adventures. It will invariably happen whether you intend to run it "as written" or not, for it has been my experience that no two tables ever run the same module exactly the same and little changes will frequently creep into a rule system the longer we play it.
Also as a player, I encourage you to bring something unique to each character you role-play. Let the character's personality emerge as you play the game. Sketch their portrait on the character sheet. Paint a miniature to represent your character. Jot a few personality traits down as bullet points in the margin if there is no space specifically devoted to such details. Ask yourself, “What does this character want out of their fictional life?” And make note of the answer that reveals itself to you. Each character can be more than a stat block. Discovering who the character seems to be can be a fun part of role-playing. If you give the characters some "personality" through role-play, everyone is likely to enjoy the game more.
By making the game “your game”, you will be adding to the richness of the overall experience for everyone for it is very likely that your enthusiasm for sharing what you have created will enhance the fun for everyone at your table. Role-playing is a creative form of entertainment. When you look for ways to add your own creations into the game, the chances are good that everyone wins!
Friday, May 15, 2020
Inspiration, Not Imitation
Make It Your Own
Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson created the world’s first published role-playing game and inspired a new hobby which has arguably changed popular culture. Mr. Gygax and Mr. Arneson drew inspiration from their interests in wargaming, history and fantasy fiction. The games they played, the books they read and the movies they watched all influenced what they created. They borrowed from many sources, combined those elements, added some genius of their own and created something new, exciting and fun that has lasted for decades and brought joy to many, many people.
There are recognizable bits and pieces in the game Mr. Gygax and Mr. Arneson co-created. It is easy to identify this monster as something drawn from classical mythology, or that monster as similar to one found in a certain work of fantasy fiction. Elves, dwarves and hobbits, which are included in the very first printings of the Little Brown Books have their counterparts in the fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien. The archetypes of the game’s iconic character classes are inspired by various characters drawn from myth, legend and lore. The game’s widespread appeal owes much to its flexibility and adaptability and to its inclusion of so many tropes drawn from varied sources.
The game created by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson may have been the first to introduce players to the new way to game, but other creative game designers soon borrowed the concept of “role-playing” and more closely associated their specific game features with a particular world or setting. Hence we have Middle Earth Role Playing, Star Wars d6, Ghost Busters, King Arthur Pendragon, Buffy The Vampire Slayer and the list of games aimed at play in a specific setting, often incorporating a licensed property in the title, becomes quite long. Yet the original game remains more popular than ever.
So what does the world’s most popular role-playing game imitate? Everything and nothing.
It is inspiration, not imitation that has been key to the success of D&D. Like a set of child’s building blocks, the game provides tools, and inspiration, for each person to create something uniquely their own. The creation may indeed draw inspiration from other sources, but it isn’t limited by what has already been. It is open-ended in possibilities, with just enough familiarity to feel comfortable. Why play someone else’s stories when you can create your own?
Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson created the world’s first published role-playing game and inspired a new hobby which has arguably changed popular culture. Mr. Gygax and Mr. Arneson drew inspiration from their interests in wargaming, history and fantasy fiction. The games they played, the books they read and the movies they watched all influenced what they created. They borrowed from many sources, combined those elements, added some genius of their own and created something new, exciting and fun that has lasted for decades and brought joy to many, many people.
There are recognizable bits and pieces in the game Mr. Gygax and Mr. Arneson co-created. It is easy to identify this monster as something drawn from classical mythology, or that monster as similar to one found in a certain work of fantasy fiction. Elves, dwarves and hobbits, which are included in the very first printings of the Little Brown Books have their counterparts in the fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien. The archetypes of the game’s iconic character classes are inspired by various characters drawn from myth, legend and lore. The game’s widespread appeal owes much to its flexibility and adaptability and to its inclusion of so many tropes drawn from varied sources.
The game created by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson may have been the first to introduce players to the new way to game, but other creative game designers soon borrowed the concept of “role-playing” and more closely associated their specific game features with a particular world or setting. Hence we have Middle Earth Role Playing, Star Wars d6, Ghost Busters, King Arthur Pendragon, Buffy The Vampire Slayer and the list of games aimed at play in a specific setting, often incorporating a licensed property in the title, becomes quite long. Yet the original game remains more popular than ever.
So what does the world’s most popular role-playing game imitate? Everything and nothing.
It is inspiration, not imitation that has been key to the success of D&D. Like a set of child’s building blocks, the game provides tools, and inspiration, for each person to create something uniquely their own. The creation may indeed draw inspiration from other sources, but it isn’t limited by what has already been. It is open-ended in possibilities, with just enough familiarity to feel comfortable. Why play someone else’s stories when you can create your own?
Thursday, May 14, 2020
Know What It Smells Like
”Listening at the door, you hear a faint shuffling sound from the other side. Opening the door, your candle flickers dimly revealing what appears to be an empty room. You sense the air is cool, almost frosty on your skin, and there may be the faintest odor of decay. What happens next?”
The referee in a role-playing game acts as the senses for the player characters in that what they see, hear, feel, smell and even taste is described by the referee. In order to bring the setting alive for the players it is necessary for the referee to have a good sense of what their world is like. Whether the action is set in a dark underground or a rugged wilderness, the ability of the players to imagine, and to engage with, the setting depends heavily on the language clues they receive from their referee. Too much information can be worse than not enough for it may matter little whether the grain of the wooden planks making up the iron-bound door suggests they were milled from old growth timber. Paragraphs of text read aloud by the referee seldom enhance the game experience for players, unless the object is to lull them into inattention.
In order to describe what the players see, hear, smell, etc. it helps to imagine these things yourself. I like to spend some time thinking about the location, drawing from memories and making a few notes to myself about those imaginings. Just a few well chosen descriptive words can usually do the job of suggesting a mental image. I try to avoid comparisons such as “It’s just like in the movie...” Rather I spend just a few moments thinking about the most salient aspects of the image I am going for and using those words to convey the idea I am going for. It’s okay if everyone at the table imagines a slightly different thing. The important thing is that they all draw a mental image which helps bring the game to life for them.
Enthusiasm for the game, mastery of the rules and an intimate familiarity with the setting are the traits I look for most in a referee. It is easy to answer questions about a setting we can imagine in detail. It is easy to improvise when we are comfortable with our understanding of the world. By doing this, we allow our players the freedom to try new things and to even explore beyond where the maps end, which can be as much fun for us as referees as it is for our players.
It has been my experience that most people who play role-playing games have a pretty active imagination. They readily imagine their character, the companions alongside their character and the situations, creatures and environments suggested by the referee’s narrative. By knowing our world well, by giving some advance thought to our choice of words and by keeping our referee descriptions brief, we can let those player imaginations do their share of the work in bringing our game world to life.
Monday, May 11, 2020
How To Role Play
A Retrospective
At this point in the history of our hobby, the concept of role playing may not require much explanation. Role-playing games have become a common item and have entered popular culture as tabletop activities, computer and consul games and online entertainment, sometimes featuring professional actors. At the time the Original Game was published, however, role-playing was not much understood. The Original Game does not even use the term “role-playing”.
To “play a role” is perhaps a concept borrowed from theater where actors portray the part of a character by following a script. The ”role” is a combination of the lines written by the author and various amounts of interpretation by the director and by the person actually playing the part. Anyone familiar with tabletop role-playing today can probably appreciate this comparison, at least on some level. This has not always been the case.
At its most basic, the role-playing game involves a dialog between one or more players who control the actions of one or more player characters and the referee who describes the environment as seen by the player characters and who controls all the rest of the game’s imaginary setting including all the non-player characters. The dialog is frequently characterized by the referee describing things from the player character’s perspective, in effect acting as the player character’s senses, and asking the player, “What would you like to do now?”
In response, most players think to themselves, “What would I do in this situation?”. This seems logical. In fact, “What would you do?” is a question many games were asking players prior to the introduction of role-playing games. Like many of the first generation of role-play gamers, I was introduced to the Original Edition game through wargames - and in fact thought of D&D as a new wargame involving fantasy tropes rather than historical ones. Many historical wargames at the time were asking the question, “What would you do?” when faced with fighting the battle of Waterloo, or the D-Day Invasion? Part of the fun in such wargames based on simulation is to see if you might do better than the generals in history.
But in a role-playing game we are not usually playing as ourselves. In a fantasy RPG we may take on the role of a magic user, an elf or other fantastic “ make believe” entity. In a space RPG we may play as a space traveler, an alien or even as a robot with artificial intelligence. Even while playing as an investigator of the supernatural in a fictional version of the 1920s, we are doing so as a character much different from our Twenty-first Century selves.
Tabletop role-playing is a socially interactive game. As players we declare our intent for the characters. Then together with the referee rules are applied, dice are rolled and a result is determined. The outcome is interpreted with respect to the in-game fiction and events move forward. The success or failure of the characters will provide entertainment for the players. In this way the “role-play” game is played. Mentally challenging ourselves to think like the game’s characters is part of learning to “role-play”. By asking ourselves, “What would they do?” rather than, “What would I do?” the mental jump into playing the role is made. Our game characters can be, should be, very different from us. In retrospect it seems so obvious, but I can recall how difficult this transition in thinking was at first and what a ”discovery” I thought I had made when it first started to all make sense.
At this point in the history of our hobby, the concept of role playing may not require much explanation. Role-playing games have become a common item and have entered popular culture as tabletop activities, computer and consul games and online entertainment, sometimes featuring professional actors. At the time the Original Game was published, however, role-playing was not much understood. The Original Game does not even use the term “role-playing”.
To “play a role” is perhaps a concept borrowed from theater where actors portray the part of a character by following a script. The ”role” is a combination of the lines written by the author and various amounts of interpretation by the director and by the person actually playing the part. Anyone familiar with tabletop role-playing today can probably appreciate this comparison, at least on some level. This has not always been the case.
At its most basic, the role-playing game involves a dialog between one or more players who control the actions of one or more player characters and the referee who describes the environment as seen by the player characters and who controls all the rest of the game’s imaginary setting including all the non-player characters. The dialog is frequently characterized by the referee describing things from the player character’s perspective, in effect acting as the player character’s senses, and asking the player, “What would you like to do now?”
In response, most players think to themselves, “What would I do in this situation?”. This seems logical. In fact, “What would you do?” is a question many games were asking players prior to the introduction of role-playing games. Like many of the first generation of role-play gamers, I was introduced to the Original Edition game through wargames - and in fact thought of D&D as a new wargame involving fantasy tropes rather than historical ones. Many historical wargames at the time were asking the question, “What would you do?” when faced with fighting the battle of Waterloo, or the D-Day Invasion? Part of the fun in such wargames based on simulation is to see if you might do better than the generals in history.
But in a role-playing game we are not usually playing as ourselves. In a fantasy RPG we may take on the role of a magic user, an elf or other fantastic “ make believe” entity. In a space RPG we may play as a space traveler, an alien or even as a robot with artificial intelligence. Even while playing as an investigator of the supernatural in a fictional version of the 1920s, we are doing so as a character much different from our Twenty-first Century selves.
Tabletop role-playing is a socially interactive game. As players we declare our intent for the characters. Then together with the referee rules are applied, dice are rolled and a result is determined. The outcome is interpreted with respect to the in-game fiction and events move forward. The success or failure of the characters will provide entertainment for the players. In this way the “role-play” game is played. Mentally challenging ourselves to think like the game’s characters is part of learning to “role-play”. By asking ourselves, “What would they do?” rather than, “What would I do?” the mental jump into playing the role is made. Our game characters can be, should be, very different from us. In retrospect it seems so obvious, but I can recall how difficult this transition in thinking was at first and what a ”discovery” I thought I had made when it first started to all make sense.
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