At 02:24 PM 7/21/2001 -0500, Karen Cravens wrote: >Summarize roleplaying, in a reasonably short paragraph, in such a >manner that a complete newbie, somebody who wanders in >because we turned up on a search for "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" >(<-- because it's in the archives right there now), can understand it. > It has never occurred to this person that their favorite TV show >probably has someone, somewhere (or approximately 473,198 >someones, in the case of Buffy) roleplaying it. > >It will come as a massive revelation, an epiphany, opening a whole >new vista to them... IF you can explain it to them before they >decide "Oops, wrong web page" and hit Back. "Do you remember 'let's pretend' when you were younger? Have you ever watched a TV show or movie, or read a book, and thought 'I would have done that differently'? Roleplaying is a game where you do just that... rather like writing a novel or a movie, where one person creates the world, and the rest play all of the characters within it, like improv theatre without the theatre. There are rules, so no more arguments over whether something did or didn't happen. But most importantly, the idea of roleplaying is to let your imagination fly... play your own 'what if' within any world, any style... solve puzzles, save the world. If you can imagine it, you can play it." Anyway, that's sort of the way I usually explain it to the utter novice who overhears me talking about it at work... D. ---------------------------------------------------------------- GMAST Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gmast/
