The Forge Archives

Hey folks,

I'm thinking of writing a new column for PRGnet called "What is Roleplaying?" that examines what we do from a variety of viewpoints (social, aesthetic, philosophical, historical, etc).  For the first column, I was thinking of gathering a collection of quotes from roleplaying manuals.  You know, the inevitable "What is Roleplaying?" section (which is often horribly written or incredible vague).

However, since most of my collection is in another state right now, I need some assistance.  Would people be willing to help me out, browsing through their collections and picking out one or two choice versions?  I'm especially looking for recent versions, as the modern idea of roleplaying is quite different from the ideas put forward in the original D&D (and I can find a bunch of historical quotes in some of Ron's material).

Thanks!

Quote from: Jonathan WaltonWould people be willing to help me out, browsing through their collections and picking out one or two choice versions?  I'm especially looking for recent versions, as the modern idea of roleplaying is quite different from the ideas put forward in the original D&D (and I can find a bunch of historical quotes in some of Ron's material).

Already done that...

On my RPG Theory web pages, I have a http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/theory/gametext/">collection of quotes from AD&D (1st ed), D&D (3rd ed), GURPS, HarnMaster, Hero System, and Vampire: The Masquerade.

Thanks, John.  That's a great start.

John,

I'm at work, but I can contribute a bunch once I get home.  Any in particular that you are hankering for, or just a general survey?

This is a translation (original in Norwegian) of the first paragraph explaining what a roleplaying game is, in my game...

The Sniffers Gospel:

You already master what you need to use this game:
- You can pretend to be someone else
- You can improvise with your "talking apparatus"
- You can make decisions in difficult situations
- You can tell what you do
- You can play
This game makes it easy for you and your friends to create a drama by using these abilities.[/list:u]

Quote from: AnyaTheBlueI'm at work, but I can contribute a bunch once I get home.  Any in particular that you are hankering for, or just a general survey?

Diversity is what I'm looking for, mainly.  One that mentions "improvizational theater" maybe, and one that talks about "storytelling," one that describes it as a "game," and one that talks about how you can "pretend to be other people."  These things are all over the place and that's kinda what I'm trying to show.

Just so we don't get repeats, in my limited take-to-college collection I've got Nobilis, Mutants & Masterminds, Unknown Armies, Engel, Continuum, Little Fears, My Life With Master, and Once Upon a Time.

I'd be especially interested in Exalted (for a new take on D&Dism), or foreign games like Mechanical Dream, Agone, and the like (thanks Tomas for the Norwegian one), since they may offer diverser views.  If anyone has any LARP books that would be great also.  Or Baron Munchausen or the other New Style stuff.  Diversity, diversity, diversity.

Whatever you've got will be greatly appreciated.

you caught me a time when i was preparing to waste time one way or another. Your column idea sound interesting, so here are some quotes I noted down before I wore out.



The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen: [no definition of role playing in general, the Baron refers to his publication as:]  "a game for the telling of extraordinary tales and unlikely anecdotes."

De Profundis: "Have you ever wrung your hands in helplessness as you tried to explain role-playing to a lay-person and kept running into a wall of incomprehension? There are some blocks in imagination: 'What do you mean? You sit round a table, and at the same time you roam labyrinths, forests and cities? Without a board, without a computer? Can you see these things or what? It is very hard to explain the essence of role-playing to someone who is totally unfamiliar with it or anything comparable with it." [switches gears to describe field psychodrama instead.]

Pantheon and Other Role Playing Games: "Because you're in a sense adopting the viewpoint of your player character during play, we call each NCM [narrative cage match] session a roleplaying game... Some people get all tangled up in definitions of what is and ins't a roleplaying game. We also call the five games in this book roleplaying games in order to annoy those people. If you see anyone getting hot and bothered over this issue on the internet, be sure to mock them for us."

Power Kill: "Power Kill is a roleplaying metagame. It is not a game unto itself- it is instead a layer of "game" that you add to whatever Normal Roleplaying Game (NRG) you are currently playing."

Suzerain: "What is a role-playing game? A role-playing game is a game in which a group of people take on the parts of characters in a situation, and play the situation through. Think of it as improvised acting – no set script, just a group of characters and a make-believe setting to act in." [+ another 2 pages on getting away from real world, with comparisons to murder mystery dinner parties and playing cops and robbers]

Nephilim: "This Game Is Not Real... You Are" [first words in book]
"What is a Roleplaying Game? In a roleplaying game the players act the parts of characters who are going to live and move within an imaginary world. One of the players is the gamemaster. She conceives and develop adventures in the imaginary universe which serves as a backdrop for the characters. Thus the gamemaster is a primary mover and creator in the world. The gamemaster is also a refereee, being an arbitrary rules-arbiter between the player characters and the universe which she has created."

Lost Souls: "Role playing games are unique. Instead of moving tokens around a board, play takes place solely within the imaginations of the participants... The players are impromptu actors within the scenes created by the referee."

Kult 1st edition: "What is a Role-Playing Game? As the name indicates, role-playing means that the participants play roles. Kult is a game where players control fictional characters in a frightful world of shadows, secrets, cults, and madmen...The players act like actors in a radio theatre. But role-playing is not theatre. The participants tell a story together. They don't actually walk around and do the things that happen in the game, but they tell the Gamemaster what their characters do, and they say the things their characters do."

It Came from the Late, Late, late Show: ' A Role-playing game (RPG) is a type of game where the Players assume the Roles of various characters that operate within the context of a "world" devised by the creators of the particular game."

Conspiracy X: "...Unlike most other games, however, there are no fancy shaped figures, no colorful play money, and no fold-out cardboard gameboards. The game takes place on an endless playing surface: your imagination. The ultimate goal of the game is to create an on-going interactive story in collaboration with the other players...In a roleplaying game, players become characters acting in [sic] world run by the Game Master. Players decide the actions of the main characters in the story, the story's protagonists. They will develop their characters continuously, bringing fresh elements to the overall story line as the game progresses."

Chill Introductory Insert: "What is a Role-Playing Game? Remember when you used to play "make believe" as a child? In the world of your imagination, you became other people—doing what they did, feeling what they felt. When other kids joined in, problems sometimes came up. There were no rules, and there was no refereee to make sure that everyone had a good time. Role playing is a more adult way to play "make believe." In your imagination you act and feel just like the character you pretend to be. The rules of the game, some dice, and a referee help decide whether your character succeeds in what he is trying to do."

Call of Cthulhu 5.5: "The Game is an evolving interaction between players (in the guise of characters unraveling a mystery) and the keeper, who presents the world in which the mystery occurs." [from section: The Roots of Play]
"Gaming is social. Roleplaying brings together a number of people in order to form a communal fantasy often more verdant and imaginative than one person could ever create." [section on Cooperation]

All Flesh Must Be Eaten: ""So what is a roleplaying game? Simply put, it is a combination of board game, strategy game, and improvisation theatre. It is a more mature version of the games of "let's pretend" that we all played as children... Roleplaying games have been around for more than two decades. They run the gamut from mindless combat scenarios to nearly ruleless, story-driven exercises."

The Whispering Vault:  "An Assumption. Most of the people who will buy this game are experienced gamers, so no effort will be made to explain the concept of roleplaying."

Feng Shui: "In a roleplaying game, you direct the actions of a fictional character of your own devising through a series of adventures run by a player who takes the role of Game Moderator, or GM. The game sessions you participate in are like episodes in a series of action movie sequels or adventure TV shows." [The Game]
"On first inspection, this game appears to fly in the face of most roleplayers' assumptions  about what a good roleplaying game consists of. Feng Shui emphasizes combat as a major story element, does not provide rules for detailed character generations, encourages players and GMs to make use of cliché-ridden character concepts and background elements, glorifies violence and death as a form of entertainment, and generally appears to say that the last few years' worth of advancement in rolwplaying rules and storytelling are a bunch of hooey. Well, no. Not really." [Hey RPG Fans!]

FVLMINATA: 'What is a Role-Playing Game? If you're reading this book, you probably already know. On the off chance that you don't, think of a role-playing game as improvisational theatre crossed with a board game. As in improvisational theatre, you and your fellow players will be creating a story without a script...Like a board game, you'll be sitting down and imagining the action of the story rather than acting it out."

TORG: "Consider roleplaying as Let's Pretend with rules."

The Dying Earth: "You and your friends have gathered to play your first session of The Dying Earth roleplaying game. The others gathered with you tonight have played roleplaying games before, but this is your first time. You vaguely know that a roleplaying game is a strange hybrid of strategy game and interactive storytelling, but aren't clear on the details. You'll soon learn more."

Hackmaster 4th:  "Now there are other game designers out there who would have you believe that role-playing games are not competitive. That there are no real winners or loser. What a load of crock! No winners or losers? If THAT'S your attitude you might as well put this game down and walk away...[few paragrpahs later:] ...The player (you) is placed in the midst of an imaginary unknown or dangerous situation created by the referee (Game Master) and must work his way through it – surviving the process. This is the heart of role playing. The player adopts the role of a character and then guides that character through an adventure."

<Get Smart>Missed it by that much!</Get Smart>

Be kind, I haven't proof-read.

Exalted: (What is a Storytelling Game?)"Storytelling is a sophisticated way for adults to play make-believe.  Rather than paying soldier or house and running around in your backyard or the alley behind your apartment, you and your friends sit around a comfortable room and describe the heroic feats your characters accomplish.  To help make sure you all share the same vision of what's going on, there's a mediator and narrator (the "Storyteller"), who describes events and keeps the story moving along.  In order to prevent arguments of who did what first and if an action is possible, there are rules that describe what your character can and can't do.  In order to prevent bitterness over someone beating someone else in a fight, the characters are usually allies against imaginary opposition that the Storyteller tries to portray as even-handedly as possible.  In order to prevent jaded adult imaginations from being bored quickly, the setting is much more intricate and complex than most people's childhood fantasies.
[Snip]
    To play Exalted, you'll need between three and six people.  One person assumes the role of the Storyteller.  It's her job to describe how things unfold, play the bit characters and the supporting cast and moderate any disputes over the rules.  Everyone else makes up a "character" (the game term for the imaginary person you portray) and thrills vicariously to the heroic deeds of their alter egos.  The reason the game is best with four to six people participating is that there tend to be a lot of awkward silences with less than three players, while a game with more than five players can be very hard for the Storyteller to manage."

Mechanical Dream:  Couldn't find it :/

Agone (US version): "The basic assumption of a role-playing game is that th eplayers actively participate in an imaginary adventure, each individual adopting a character to "act out".  In general, from two to six or more players sit around a table.  presiding at the table is a rather special player usually called the gamemaster, who already knows the story that the other players are about to discover.  Or rather, he knows the starting point, the main thread, and its principal elements of the story[sic].  For it is the players, through their decisions and their actions, who will be the main actors -- carrying the story forward, and doubtless causing changes.
[snip]
The story told by the gamemaster is a pretext, allowing you to enjoy extraordinary adventures with your friends, without even walking out your front door.
[snip]
"What do you do?" is role-playing's magic phrase.  It is the gamemaster's invitation to the players to decide their own paths in the story.  The players describe whta they would like to do.  The gamemaster may then ask the players to roll dice to help evaluate the quality of their actions with regards to their character's abilities.  Using the rules, he will then judge the success or failure of their actions."

The Dark Eye (US version): "At fierst glance, role-playing looks similar to a board game, with a group of friends sitting around the table.  The visible difference is that no game board is used, just an assortment of rulebooks, papers, pencils, and dice.  Additionally, you won't be playing against each other, but with each other -- role-playing is cooperative gaming.  Each player takes a certain role, and each role has unique strengths and abilities.  All players need to work together for the adventure to reach a successful conclusion.
[snip]
One player takes the job of Highlord, a special task.  She is the only player without a specific single role.  Instead, she is the director, cameraman, referee , and actor of all minor parts in the story.  She alone knows all the details of the entire adventure on which the players are about to embark.  For instance, if the adventure is a whodunnit, the Highlord already knows who the criminal is and which clues will enable the heroes to find the culprit.
[snip]
Of course, this does not mean that the Highlord is out to get the players.  While she might be playing the role of the sinister wizard hermit at one point, she might soon play the helpful bystander, providing the heroes with important hints and clues.  This makes a Highlord's task demanding as well as versatile -- and so much fun."

Interesting.  Lots of focus on the *process*, less on the *purpose*.  I just checked Godlike, and it's similar.  Still a rather loose use of 'Story', though (of which I am equally guilty of).

Appendix 1: What is an RPG? from Multiverser has been available online since 1997; currently it's at http://www.mjyoung.net/rpg/Multiverse.html for your convenience. It describes role playing as interactive fiction creation and as childhood make believe, with rules elements.

--M. J. Young

You guys rock the casbah.  Exactly what I needed.

I'll let you know if anything comes of it.