You Need More Role-play in Your Life!

I’m addicted to role play…No, nothing kinky. I’m talking about table-top role-playing games (RPGs).

A group of friends around a table, usually with one Game Master (GM), rolling dice, playing characters and cooperatively building a narrative on the fly. You don’t need to wear a costume. Beer and snack food is also welcome but not necessary.

RPGs pre-date video games, so they don’t rely on a computer and they don’t emphasise spatial simulation the way that video games do either (making sure to time that jump, lining up your shot perfectly, etc). This kind of ‘skill’ is moved into the hands of the character that is being played. You control what your character chooses to attempt, but success is ultimately determined by that character’s aptitudes. That’s where the dice come in…

Everyone can recognise that if someone were to always succeed, it would be a story devoid of all character development and unexpected events. Iker Maidagan discusses what makes the Indiana Jones movies compelling: Indy is constantly messing up and having to find a new solution. Like Indy, the characters in RPGS have strengths in certain skills and weaknesses elsewhere. This stuff has been a part of these games since their creation, and typically the games have been geared towards playing the same game regularly as you episodically build the story and the strengths of your character.

Have you ever played a table-top role-playing game? 🎲🦄🤺 #rpg #DnD

— OpinionPanel (@OpinionPanelC) November 22, 2018

Whereas in the likes of Skyrim you have a purely skin-deep impact on the game world (whether the guards wear Stormcloak or Imperial outfits), player choice in tabletop games fundamentally defines the experience. In RPGs, the decisions made by the players fundamentally impact the game world. But worlds can shift and change even when the players don’t interact with them. The world is never a freeze frame, and that makes it tangible and immersive enough to keep players wanting more.

Inevitably, not everyone has the time to spend three or four hours each week playing a board game. In response, a lot of Indie RPG publishers have been making games geared towards playing once and completely resolving a story. One such example is Fiasco, which has around five players enacting their very own Coen Brothers-style plot complete with ambitious characters, adultery and murder. You can play it in an afternoon, and it only requires that you buy the rulebook and a large pack of six-sided dice.

You wouldn’t have thought it, just as you wouldn’t have expected the massive success of eSports in recent years, but people love watching other people play these. I’m regularly watching a game of Stars Without Number called Swan Song. It’s a great sci-fi game with a fantastic cast of YouTube gaming personalities. Each YouTube release, which is a recording of their Twitch.tv livestream, reaches hundreds of thousands of views. Each week is around 4 hours of play. I’m on week 17 with no regrets.

A big part in the recent surge in popularity of RPGs is due to online tabletop systems like Roll20. You make an account, you create a game, invite your friends and play virtually any game that can be played on a table, but you don’t have to be in the same place, or even the same country. It even has microphone and webcam support to make it feel more personal.

My sole regret is that I only discovered the hobby recently. There’s something about the suspense, not being able to load saves and the inherently social nature of it all that makes it the most captivating activity.

While there is the stereotype of the D&D player who immerses himself only in the game world and not the bathtub, those people aren’t most RP Gamers. Most of them are just regular people looking to create stories and keep in touch with their friends.

Which is exactly what my friends and I have been doing with a game called The Dead. It’s a zombie-apocalypse simulator about ‘death and relationships’. I even got to hand over my usual mantle of Game Master to a friend of mine. Now I get to make his life difficult.

Roleplaying games accept that in most places, story doesn’t exist. There are only events, which are actions taken by characters.

Character is everything, so why not bring yours to the table?