The Player's Guide to Roleplaying

[Jonathan Walton]

Goddamn, we need a new introduction to roleplaying...

I've been thinking about this for a while.  There really needs to be a book about roleplaying that talks about what it means to be a player and what it means to actually play.  Most player's guides simply explain the rules and the setting, without much thought on instructing people how to achieve meaningful and enjoyable play.

I'm imagining a book in the format of Grey Ghost's new edition of GM Secrets, with individual essays on specific themes related to roleplaying.  I'm imagining articles that attempt to reach beyond the artificial GM-player divide or the details of specific systems and talk about what it means to be a participant in a roleplaying group.

Honestly, I'd love for this to be something that people could donate articles to, resulting in a freely-distributed compilation that would be a kind of public service to the roleplaying community.  In PDF form, it could even be continually updated if people later wanted to expand their submissions or write new ones.

Obviously, the project would need some sort of editorial oversight, to bring everything together, to provide feedback for revisions of the articles, to do layout work, and solicit submissions.  I'm not quite in the position to take on something like that yet, but once I graduate, that sounds like a very attractive opportunity, assuming I could get some fellow Forgites to help me out.  But that's all stuff for the Connections Forum, eventually...

I'm posting this concept in theory first because I hoped that we might be able to collectively generate what the outline for such a book might look like, so we could then get people to volunteer to write sections of it.

Here's some initial thoughts, which people are welcome to comment on:

Section I: What is Roleplaying?
-- 1. The Ideals of Roleplaying (what is it that we're trying to accomplish? why do people choose roleplaying over other activities? what's unique about it? why do we think roleplaying can accomplish these goals?)
-- 2. The History of Roleplaying (a brief summery of the evolution of the medium, including its dual roots in dramatic improvization and traditional games, and its modern development, up to the present day)
-- 3. The Form of Roleplaying (discussion of traditional, modern, and avant-garde meta-techniques, GM-player split, the "group," PBeM, dice, diceless, Fortune, Drama, Karma, etc.)

Section II: How do you Roleplay?
-- 1. Social Contract
-- 2. Exploration
-- 3. ?

Looking back on that, I don't think it's anywhere close to what I'd actually want.  After all, there could be a whole article on Fortune/Drama/Karma or explaining various types of dice mechanics and why you might want to use them in certain situations.  Then again, is that the most critical knowledge we could impart?  I guess I'd want to shy away from trying to make the book too political in nature (though that's probably impossible), explaining different options instead of advocating or emphasizing specific kinds of play or specific techniques.

In any case, both specific ideas for articles and ideas about a meta-structure for the work would be greatly appreciated.

[Valamir]

Well there's one section I'd like to see...three essays

1) The joys and wonders of Immersion in character
2) Powerful Roleplaying experiences through meta game.
3) Immersion and the Metagame, not as mutually exclusive as you think

[orbsmatt]

I think that would be a great resource, especially for GMs.  We seem to lost focus on how to have fun with roleplaying, because that is the goal in the end.

I'd love to see resources from many different sources on what player's and GMs find fun and how to implement them.  Mechanics are almost always secondary to that IMO.

[Jonathan Walton]

Matthew, your comments actually bring to mind another great chapter (which I might be interested in writing, actually):

In Search of Value
-- 1. Pleasure & Escapism (how we enjoy play because it's fun and exciting)
-- 2. Meaning & Aesthetic Appreciation (how we enjoy play that isn't especially fun, like tragedy or true horror)
-- 3. Knowledge & Experimentation (how we enjoy play that isn't especially successful, since it teaches us things)
-- 4. Creation & Memory (how we enjoy play for its own sake, due to its reflection of ourselves and what we put into it)

[orbsmatt]

Wow, those are chapters I would want to read!  That would be extremely helpful.

[Jack Spencer Jr]

-- 2. Meaning & Aesthetic Appreciation (how we enjoy play that isn't especially fun, like tragedy or true horror)

Minor quibble here, I don't think mean or aesthetics necessarily equal a drop in the amount of fun. In fact, I would go so far to suggest that meaning and aesthetics increases fun. Tragedy and horror are incredibly fun. This brings up the question of what is fun, but that's beyond our scope here.

[Jonathan Walton]

Yeah, Jack.  I've written whole articles (for my RPGnet column) on this very issue.  The point is just that we can enjoy roleplaying in ways that are unrelated to it being "fun," not to say that it can't be fun AND meaningful/aesthetic.

[John Kim]

For book form, I would say that "The Fantasy Role-Playing Gamer's Bible" comes very close to what you are talking about Jonathan.  It includes a lot of basic, introductory material on role-playing plus an overview of many games.  The 2nd edition was published in 2000 by Obsidian Studios.  (ISBN: 0967442907)  I think they're gone now and it's out of print, but it should be possible to find a copy.  

On the other hand, it's certainly not the be-all end-all, and a new and better book would be great.  You can look at it for pointers, though.

[Jonathan Walton]

Thanks for the suggestion, John.  I'll definitely check it out.

Still, I was hoping for something a bit different.  Not necessarily just an introduction to roleplaying, but something that went deeper into how to be a good player.  I'm imagining something that would be just as useful to people who are already familiar with roleplaying, encouraging them to improve their play.  

Many roleplayers aren't necessarily interested in becoming better roleplayers.  They're fine roleplaying the way they always have.  But I'd like for the book to lay all sorts of options and ideas out, so that people are at least aware that the way they choose to roleplay isn't the only thing that people are doing.

[John Kim]

Thanks for the suggestion, John.  I'll definitely check it out.

Still, I was hoping for something a bit different.  Not necessarily just an introduction to roleplaying, but something that went deeper into how to be a good player.  I'm imagining something that would be just as useful to people who are already familiar with roleplaying, encouraging them to improve their play.

Well, to be fair, the FRPG Bible also intends to be much more than an introduction.  It is a hefty 258 pages.  Roughly, the first half is overview of role-playing including a lot of advice both for GMs and for players.  The second half has a history of role-playing and an overview of several dozen RPG systems.  However, like most RPG advice books, it presents mainly a single view about the way to be a "good" player or GM (though with a few options).  There is room for a lot more to be done.  Although on the other hand, I think going too far into different views would be too confusing to work as an introduction.

[clehrich]

A section on theory would be nice:
1. The Threefold Model
2. GNS and the Big Model
3. Alternative Theoretical Directions
4. What's the Value of Theory?
5. Theory and Practical Design
6. Theory and Play
7. Analytical or Abstract Theories
and so forth.

John and Ron are hereby nominated to write #1 and #2, if'n you ask my opinion.  'Course, they already have, so perhaps just a distillation, revision, or reprint?

There's a series currently being edited by a large academic conference that has volumes on teaching different broad subjects.  I'm contributing to one right now, and should see a sample volume soon.  From what I hear, it may be a good model for this, since the object is to talk about theory and history and whatnot while at the same time applying it to a practical situation, with practical and theoretical advice intertwined.

Chris Lehrich

[pete_darby]

Then you're nominated for sections 3 & 7, Chris!

I'd also like to see a section here about the limits of applicability of non-role playing theory to RP theory*: but I'm also wondering if this "introduction to RP theory" is a separate work.

*Subtitle; "You lay off the jazz, I'll lay off the Star Trek"

[Rob Carriere]

How about:

How to build a character and enjoy what you built?

I don't mean what feats to select or which disad is more fun, but various ways of finding concepts and then enjoying them.

Expressing a concept in the system-du-jour (but then phrased politely :-)

I'm thinking of both some general pointers and couple of examples worked in several systems. Basically show `how to think about this' by example.

SR
PS: If this goes anywhere, I'm willing to contribute the raw text to PDF conversion. Anybody wants art, they'd have to supply it :-)

[sirogit]

Assuming you'd want this book to have semi-universal merit, I'd stress a value system that prioritizes:

Recognizing the participants and factors of the game(Yourself, your other players, GM(If it applies), The Books.)

Recogonizing what the particpants want and set out to do, including, what you yourself are expecting from the game and plan on doing, what the game's intentions are and what it is designed to do well.

If this is a cooperative game, emhpasize how to mesh your desires for the game with your other particpants and how to deal with irregularlity between shared vision.

If this is a competetion-oriented game, emphasize what limits the competetion has, and what cooperative measures must be taken to insure that everyone still has a good time.

[Ben Lehman]

-- 1. Pleasure & Escapism (how we enjoy play because it's fun and exciting)
-- 2. Meaning & Aesthetic Appreciation (how we enjoy play that isn't especially fun, like tragedy or true horror)
-- 3. Knowledge & Experimentation (how we enjoy play that isn't especially successful, since it teaches us things)
-- 4. Creation & Memory (how we enjoy play for its own sake, due to its reflection of ourselves and what we put into it)

BL>  5.  Confrontation and Challenge.  Which might fit under the heading aesthetics and thus be 2b, but I think you're talking about something different there.

yrs--
--Ben