I'm trying to update the web pages here, and I'm stuck writing a short summary of roleplaying. So help me out. 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. -- Karen J. Cravens (silver@phoenyx.net) ---------------------------------------------------------------- GMAST Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gmast/
Karen Cravens wrote: > Summarize roleplaying, in a reasonably short paragraph, in such a > manner that a complete newbie [....] can understand it. Roleplaying is an activity where people pretend to be other people (or themselves) in a particular real or ficticious setting. For example, they may pretend to be playing in a setting based on a Science Fiction TV show or 14th Century Spain. Rules are used to determine what the characters can do (how far they can jump, for example). Generally, a 'Game Master' provides details about the setting, portrays the characters in the setting the players of the game encounter, resolves conflicts and interprets the rules. There are many different systems used for roleplaying, each with its own variations on the above generalizations. Some of the most popular game systems are Dungeons & Dragons, Vampire: the Masquerade, and GURPS. Steve -- http://www.stevebarr.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- GMAST Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gmast/
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/
On 21 Jul 2001, at 18:55, Deb Atwood wrote: > There are rules, so no more arguments over whether something > did or didn't happen. This isn't always true, though, since we're including roleplaying outside the conventional niche (i.e., simming, which is the independently-developed, who's-Gary-Gygax version of roleplaying born mostly on AOL)... I'd rather there was no mention of "rules" per se (there'll be other, more detailed how-to's covering games with rules, improv-style games where the only rule is "no blocking", and things like that). Inclusiveness is key here, we're targeting people *way* outside the standard roleplaying demographic. -- Karen J. Cravens (silver@phoenyx.net) ---------------------------------------------------------------- GMAST Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gmast/
When trying to explain it to the uninitiated, I have always described role playing games as "Let's pretend for grownups". If pressed further, I will talk about it as an interactive storytelling experience. One person is the producer/author (GM), who creates the imaginary environment (the sets) and portrays everyone the players meet in the personae of their characters. Instead of following a script, however, the actors (players) are improvising, based upon the parameters set out for their characters. I don't know that this is what you're looking for, but you're welcome to use or adapt it. Jae Walker ---------------------------------------------------------------- GMAST Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gmast/
On 21 Jul 2001, at 22:18, Jae Walker wrote: > When trying to explain it to the uninitiated, I have always described role > playing games as "Let's pretend for grownups". If pressed further, I will > talk about it as an interactive storytelling experience. One person is the > producer/author (GM), who creates the imaginary environment (the sets) and > portrays everyone the players meet in the personae of their characters. Instead > of following a script, however, the actors (players) are improvising, based upon > the parameters set out for their characters. > > I don't know that this is what you're looking for, but you're welcome to > use or adapt it. > > Jae Walker You might also mention that everyone participating needs to be capable of some level of "suspension of disbelief" which depends on the genre and topic of the RP experience. A "Jerry Springer" simm or RP (use the term interchangably, though the 3-fold model defines simulation as a type of RP) requires a different level of SOD than "Buffy: TVS" or "Farscape". "Lexx," however requires a TOTAL suspension of disbelief. ================================================================ -Coyt "The Internet, billions of electrons with nothing better to do." ---------------------------------------------------------------- GMAST Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gmast/
On 21 Jul, 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. I wouldn't. Try to explain it in a short paragraph, that is. You'll end up with something like Schoenberg's anecdote about trying to explain to a blind man what milk looks like [1]. The combined problem of explaining a paradigm shift in a single paragraph, plus making it sound interesting, is probably too much. I'd think that hooking the reader in the introductory paragraph (and then not letting go) is a better strategy. When dealing with a similar problem myself a few weeks ago, I came up with the following introductory paragraph(s): ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Imagine a game of chess, if you will. She moves her bishop, threatening his king. He contemplates the situation. "The pawns are revolting," he notes. "They are refusing to sacrifice their lives for the king any longer." With that, he removes two of his pawns from the board. She simply nods. He thinks for a moment, then picks up one of his knights and points to the bishop. "While you may threaten his king with an interdict, he is still loyal to his liege lord and will thus interpose himself." ---------------------------------------------------------------------- And then I go on to explain why, odd as this may sound, in slightly different circumstances it actually makes sense. Namely, if we make the chess pieces more like real people. Etc. But to begin with, these are the very first paragraphs. No advance warning. Explanations can come later, and getting the reader hooked is more important. Plus, I don't really want to soften the blow. That's because I'm counting on human curiosity to drag the reader along. We can stand a lot of things, but leaving an open question unanswered is really not foremost among them. Further considerations: At least the basics of a chess game should be understood by the majority of people (i.e. how the various pieces are named, and that the objective is to checkmate the king). Furthermore, I can then a couple of paragraphs later follow up with an eerily similar scene, where the chess pieces are replaced by characters. (Invoke sense of wonder, show-don't-tell, etc.) Note: Choice of gender is intentional. The actions that are irrational on the surface are taken by the man. Anyway, this is just food for thought. In my case, it is an introduction to a fantasy game, so it's not necessarily universally applicable. [...] Reimer Behrends [1] http://www.plexus.org/lacink/lacink11/intercepts.html ---------------------------------------------------------------- GMAST Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gmast/
Karen Cravens wrote: > Inclusiveness is key here, we're targeting people *way* outside the > standard roleplaying demographic. Then you might be better off with a few sentence intro paragraph and additional paragraphs which each described a major subtype of RP: Simming, Papers & Pencils, etc. Steve -- http://www.stevebarr.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- GMAST Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gmast/
A role playing game is a social activity in which one person creates and describes an imaginary world in which others can play characters. It can be thought of as a form of interactive story telling. Ciao, Joseph R. Dietrich, yikes@evansville.net ---------------------------------------------------------------- GMAST Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gmast/
