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well, let's begin with meanings (God bless dictionaries.)

Role n. 1. A character played esp. by an actor.
Playing --> Play v. 1.To occupy oneself in amusement, sport, or other recreation. 2. To take part in (a ame or sport). 6. To act or perform (a role). 10. To pretend to be.
Game n. 1. A way of amusing oneself; pastime; diversion.
(Taken from the Heritage dictionary, printed July 1989)

So, an RPG is a game in which people take roles (of characters, like in theater) and have fun.
An RPG is a collective activity, in which people gather to have fun with make-believe, taking the roles of imaginary characters in imaginary situations. So, if you think yourslef a Werewolf or Cloud, please close the book, resign this guild, and live your real life.

*Hopes at least a bunch of people are still here to continue reading.*

Well, let's face it, playing an RPG need creativity, as imagining the situations and finding out reactions to them requires imagination, common sense (or lack of it), interest, and the magical factor: The whole issue makes you have a good time.

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There are a lot of different RPGs, and every one is played in a different way.

You got table-top, in which you buy books, roll dice, and talk your actions with your pals sitting around a table or on the grass or under a tree, or....
You also have Live Action, in which you DO your character's actions. Of course, you have to be imaginative when your character's flying 30' above ground, invisible and launching Ultimas to the dragon that nobody's playing, but when your character casts his spells, you make the gestures, when he zooms around, you run around to match his potition as much as you can, and when said dragon Mega-Flares him, you accept the wwounds and act as wounded, knocked out, or killed.
Another kind is VRPG (V stands for video). In these the game puts you in a world and encases you into its own rules, which allows you to play alone, but it also restricts your options ("Hey! I want Zidane to jump to that ledge! Yes, I know he can fall to the pit, but he can jump! hey! why don't you pop that exclamation mark? I wanna jump!"). Of course, they make up with vids, music, stories, graphics....
And well, you also have chat/forum games, in which you don't have easily-found access to die rollers, and books are wuite troublesome when you ahve to type. So, they tend to be more free-style. For a good example, walk around the RPG subforums.

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From here, we can make our first attempt to classify games in three basic functional units, in order of importance:

1.- Story
2.- Mechanics
3.- Specifics

But I'll delve on those next post, now I'll leave you to think about what I might mean by those levels of gaming.

Please drop a line if you have an idea or question. smile

=^_^=

Well, it doesn't go that way, but I'll delve into that another day (night).

Though, let's get it straight from the beginning: LARPs have a golden rule: "no contact allowed". If you're playing and it involves hitting someone to a bloody pulp, you don't do it to the player.

=^_^=

Ok, too much wait. Time to work.

(Almost) All games can be separated in three "levels" of play: Story, mechanics, and specifics. Let's begin with understanding what do I eman with it.

whee STORY.
The story-level revolves about just that: the story. There's no playing without story, for it's story what moves people to imagine and spin stories and many other prettyness.
Thinking on FF, you have the sotry presented before you first thing after those Square(-Enix) logos and everything... maybe after hitting "New game". Squall and Seifer scarring themselves, a nice explanation about the War of the Magi with orchestral music by Uematsu-sama, or a group of 4 people being beaten by a cavalry unit, who are later identified as belonging to an army that destroyed the 4's country.
Even while you're out of FF, there is story to revolve around, for without it, we only have sheets, numbres, statistics, dice, controls, and lost time in raising those numbers and statistics just for the fun to watch them grow.
And it's exactly that which takes me to the following:

cool MECHANICS.
It stands for the basic rules.
How much people move, how do you make actions (dice? cards? rock-paper-cissors? digital random numbers?).
It includes those rolls approrpiate for battle, and possibly cognitive and social situations (something that I miss in VRPGs, but I disgress).
It can be detailed to boredoom (I've heard of games that require about 5 rolls to determine if you held the sword right, calculated the blow well, swung acceptably, where did your hit strike, compare to local statistics, roll damage, then go over a chart to see if the blow created secondary effects or something like that), or can be almost eliminated ("I am the Rules Master, and whatever I say happens, fear my might!").
In any way, it covers from the most basic activities (walking, breathing) that usually are resumed as "no problem, get going with your life", to whatever you might to in a sunny or stormy day. (want to jump through that window of the speeding car while blinded, roped, bagged, drugged and wish to fall on your feet without scratching yourself? sure, fo for it.)
One thing that I can't stress enough is the limitations VRPGs (necesarrily) and some GMs (due to their heart's desires) force to their players. Of course, there are impossible actions (like last in previous paragraph), but the best answer will always be a "Try it."
If I had a normal human do that, then I would have it so tough that my chances of suceeding are as slim as a meteorite hitting the car and killing the driver right in that moment.
Of course, the character can be a super-jedi with ultra-awareness to sense every molecule of air that passes through the window, and a particular ability that allows him to jump with the right precission to pass through that window, and time it so well that he falls on a box of pillows that were left there "just by coincidece."
Of course, that takes me to our third level of play:

ninja SPECIFICS.
I can be playing in the SW universe, and jedies would be possible. I can also be playing in PE universe, and then I can die due to a crazy witch activating all my mitochondries at once just for fun. And of course I could be playing in FF multiverse, where magic is real and there are things called Phantom Beasts, and there are heroes and villians, and everything.
To be more specific still, I could be playing FF 6 and be collecting dead PB to learn magic. Or 7, and walk around, collecting Magicite. Or 8, and look for GFs and Drawing points and enemies to steal their magics. Or......
Well, you get my point.
What the "specifics" revolves around is all the tiny (or great) details that amke the setting special and the "chosen" far from normal.
So, what if I find a game in which the characters are all dead? Well, they aren't "normal" living humans, are they? they have died and are different from our "baseline" character (living in this case) and have benefits and hindrances due to their particular situation. I can then buy that book about them reanimating their corpses, and then they would be different for being dead, and different for being zombies and shambling through the living's lands in stead of mourning in the dead's ones.

twisted RESUMING.
The three levels aren't mandatory. Usually, we've got all three in play, but you can vary the relative presence of every one of them, as well as the depth to which they are used in your specific game.
You can have a primarily-story game and leave mechanics and specifics as downplayed as possible. They could be normal humans with enough will or foolishness to do thingsother people don't, but remain as human (and mortal) as any other.
You can also have a rules-intensive game, leaving story and specifics behind. Maybe you have aircraft-junky people who wish to roleplay pilots in commercial flights that go wrong, and possibly set up well-researched historical situations, and they make decisions and rolls to avoid the plane from crashing.
You can also have the specifics outweight story and mechanics completely. And then, Poseidon (your character) sends a tidal wave towards those vikings out of boredom, but then Odin comes out and stops the wave, a deadly battle ensuing as a mesoamerican feathered-serpent and an indian rakshasa watch over the conflict, waiting the moment to join.

Of course, you can see the mess that ensues when one of those elements outweights the other two.
But as long as two of these elements are present, you can play. Of course, if the element skipped is the Story, then you'll have a good time making maths for nothing (of joy).
A game without mechanics is called "Free style", and a game without specifics revolves around common people making common (or not so common) stuff.

Of course, Forum-RPing is the closest to must-be free-form, as there is no reliable way to have a neutral randomizing medium. (I've seen Mirc add-ons [and twinked one], as well as php-engineered ones. Also heard about one for MSN messenger, and any IM service that includes video can be used as a way to catch dice rolling on their own).

Well, drop me a line.

=^_^=

Ok, finished it. *dries soappy hand*

Good, Story-level....

we already have a brief description of what this means, but let's look at all the implications.

A story is a tale. There is a "hero journey" over there, that is force-fed to people and is followed, step-by-step in most cases, including all of Hollywood's movies.

I hate that scheme, but if anyone wishes to look for it and base stories in that scheme, go for it...... and be prepared to be surprised.

All stories have a beginning and an end. That's all one can say about stories. that's all one can say from anything, really.

Good stories also have conflict and tension, which leads us to changes in mood and tension. There are times that flow like water, and there are moments in which every minute of game-time is important enough to deserve about 5 minutes of real-time work.

So, there we got the next element: time. Now, our story has a beginning, an end, tension (direct translation from spanish terminolofy: knots), and time. It's usually in those knots that passions run higher, action becomes frenetic, and the story reaches its highest levels of interest and attention.

Of course, we can't have a story without characters.

Strictly, we can apply the terminology "character" to people, animals, objects, and even places in standard stories or tales, but we'll divide them in two: Characters (animated beings) and environment (places, things).

Characters range from heroes and vilians to environment-fillers. When that Dragon swoops down and snatches, carries away, and eats people, it's quite useful to have those people around beforehand.

For example, we can compare FF7 to AC.....
In the videogame, you've got some filler characters walking around Midgard.... they stay in their houses, they walk around the streets, they sell stuff at the stores, they are transported away in the train, they work at Shinra's tower....
In AC, you can see really how many people would be living in such a great capital. they drive, they walk... they crowd the streets even as monsters appear and body counts begin increasing.

Now, if you didn't have those people at the slums, then it wouldn't be important when the plate fell over District 7..... If no one crowded the streets, then it wouldn't make sense to have beasts scaring, eating, and plainly killing them to leave the real fighters shine.

Going up the importance scale, we have minor characters. People that might stand out, even if just for being useful to the player's characters. Sellers, drivers, innkeepers, etc.
They can be given as much uniqueness as you wish, but they aren't usually, as giving them a great ammount of importance makes them greater.... and even while all people are unique. Who cares what the waitress' name is? I mean, really! how many of you stop to call the store's clerk by his/her name? the guars at the bank or mall?
Yep, this is exactly that level of character. Those who wrap your discs in Tower Records and the ones who cook and spit on your McDonnald's burgers.
A problem with making all minor characters equal can be seen at Pokemon's anime.... how many Joy's and Jennie's are there?

Then, you got secondary characters.
If that little boy who worked as a stablehand decided to join your group and become the official groom, then he would come up to this level.
These are outstanding characters. They should be unique, have a name, aspirations, motives to do what they do (maybe that Tim groom wishes to be the Fighter's student as they travel along).
Of course, you'll want to have their information written somewhere, or you risk contradicting yourself, or having a hard time coming up with an explanation. Did that nobleman have that eyepatch on his right or left eye? Did that nemesis' aide lose his arm or just his hand? Was the guard at that road guard house male or female?

Of course, at the top you have the main characters.
You should have only a bunch of these, from which, the most important are the ones the players play with.
Yes, these are the detailed characters that run countries, shape destinies, and help, hinder, or are really neutral to the Player's Characters (PCs), but are great and important to the world's future and story's outcome nonetheless.

Ok, I've extended enough, so I might (maybe) talk more at lenght about those main characters next time (after weekend, probably).

=^_^=

well well well.... skipping days from writing tends to make things sluggish as I warm up again.....

Anyway, I spoke about Main characters.

In any role playing adventure, the most important of Main Characters are the Player's ones.

Let's face it, if players feel their time in the spotlight is being robbed due to a NPC (non-player character), they tend to feel that the GM (the one who has the reins of the story) is cheating them and having all the fun for him/her-self.

A wise GM employs powerful NPCs just like Zero was used in Mega Man X3.... he tells X to go and smash the bad guys while he takes on hordes.... he is prepared for that! X isn't! and even then, X does all the really great parts: beating the Mavericks, defeating Doctor Doppler, and destroying Zigma one more time.

Of course, we should talk about the Antagonists!

In anatomy, an agonist is the muscle that moves. His counterpart is the antagonist. THE OPPOSING ONE.

We take this into story-weaving with conflicts. Ultimecia wants to fuse times and rule the world, so her antagonists (Squall and co.) ruin her plans.

Of course, we then have to switch places, as we note the next point in story-interpretation: "Who is the main character?" Squall....

following cannon, we have....
Main character: the one to whom things happen (he is tripped, target of assassination or focus of the camera)
Antagonist: it's the one that makes things happen (extends leg to trip, plans the assassination and hires the assassins, moves the cameras, so that all point to the main character.

Now, the cannon's passed, so let's forget about it.

We're talking about RPGs and not Harry Potter or any Hollywood movie, so we are breaking molds..... if we don't, we risk having players angry due to only one of them having the spotlight, and everyone else working only as seconds in his/her glory.

But.... what makes a main character a main character?

well, that isn't clearly defined nor rigid..... Take FF6..... Who is the main character? Terra, who is half-esper? Celes, who has the hardest emotional shifts during the mid-game? Locke, who has his fingers in all pies and hs bee everything at one time or another? Edgar, the King or his runaway brother, Sabin?

And I'm taking appart only those who have greater roles in leading and/or changing the story's course. That particlar game was 25 characters, all strong and well developed. (that's why I love it!)

So. What would be needed to balance spotlight time between players? I'll give some advice from pros....... not me, of course sweatdrop

1.- Have the characters be fully developed.
2.- Use motivations and goals for every character.
3.- Tailor stories for every character. Give each one a place in every story.
4.- Chat away with players out of game (not all day, though).
5.- Have small scenes with characters while you wait for the others, or arrange some to delve into an underdeveloped character.

Expanding on them....

1.- Have characters fully developed.
Characters that are limited to a sheet and ask "why the hell am I here killing innocent orcs" aren't developed. At all.
What you're looking for are stories. Family, loved ones, hatreds.... reasons to be out of home, growing food or singing, or whatever the character used to do.
Yes, you can have the occassional berserker who has nothing to care for and knows nothing, and can die and nobody would notice before he stank. But if you have that character around, I suggest you to go and watch (or read) "Berserk". It deals with exactly that kind of "only thing I know is how to fight, so I fight regardless of what heppens and not caring if I don't know what to do with mi life" character..... and him recognizing his lack of motives to fight, and his travel to find it..... and how he looses that motive in the most gruesome way.
Just note, that anime isn't fit for underage guys and gals.... you now have the faintest of ideas what happens.....
Now, just for the record. The character shouldn't have a 15-generation family wrtie-up and charts on what s/he'll become with time, and what will be his/her objectives, and.....
You just need enough to take, twist, and make the character get up and do something.

2.- Use motivations and goals for every character.
Linked with the previous one.
A fighter whose goal is to kill anything on sight should be like Black Mage...... but successful.
A fighter whose goal is to defend his family will remain around if possible, and will write frequently home to know what has happened since his last visit. One whose goal is to exterminate a group or race (kill all mogs!) will seek his/her targets and be focused in fighting them. Another who wishes to be renowned will brag and leave witnesses alive, so that people can speak about his fearsome skills at battle. all while a fourth one will be looking for revenge or peace after a misdeed, or illumination, or the perfection of a fighting style, or a far a way sensei so that his mighty school can help his village from dying, or........
Well, you get my point.
Of course, character's goals shift through time (happened to me in my current out-of-Gaia character.... around 7 times these last two months). And it's all fine! that's what happens in the real world. Coincidentally, I've re-planned my future life some 5 times these same last two months.

3.- Tailor stories for every character. Give each one a place in every story.
It's divided in two.....
Tailoring stories for every character shouldtake into account jobs, equipment, magic, skills, items, and (ideally) knowledge of in-story stuff that the character may have held in private.
Giving a place to every one in every story is slightly harder.... yes, you know that you have a fighter, a white mage, a black mage, and a thief..... throw some combat, a good enemy that needs spells to beat, others who might be better taken care by this white mage's spells of abilities, and some traps and/or locked doors to the thief to fiddle with.

4.- Chat away with players out of game (not all day, though).
I should emphasize the part of "not all day".... people work, study, eat, bathe.... we can't be thinking all day about gaming...... and even tough some manage to, they tend to switch from game to game, changing focus and avoiding overload or burning in a specific game.
Now, once that is taken care of, chatting with the players is the best way to help them with their characters (note: it doesn't work with me, but I'm one of the exceptions). Knowing what the player wants can lead to good character insight, including player-interest-based story hooks, and some twists to the character's life after player's feedback. (those players who love torturing their characters.... *looks at some guild-mates.*)

5.- Have small scenes with characters while you wait for the others, or arrange some to delve into an underdeveloped character.
Comes with the previous point. Once you know what the player wants, put it into action.... out of regular schedule if needed.
If you have one player who has an hour before scheduled game and can meet, go for it and run flashback or dream-time or side-adventures, or something else that might give the player's desires better shape in-game.

Well, that's all for today.... our next transmission will delve in one of two topics:
a) problem players and how to deal with them
b) time-management for games

Read you later!

=^_^=

*blinks* wow, whoever knew there was so much involved.

Three: yeah, well some people think about what they're posting.

Hey!

PL

Hehe.... I'll use my last 5--mins at the rent-internet to write something.....

We are beginning with the mechanics theme about RPGs, and the first thing we should disscuss about it is probability.

Now, please, all the probability experts, entropy theorics, and people with any mathematics degree, step out of the thread and let me look like the enlightened one. twisted

First of all, we need to recognize the necessity of randomization.

I mean, we all can walk across a street, throw a rock and notice the wall behind the Pc's monitor.... but can you cross a road with trucks and cars coursing at 180 km/h without getting hurt and in less than 1 minute? I'm sure I won't try (and please, don't).

To tie both loose ends above; anyone can throw a rock, not anyone can hit a window 10 yards away and break it; everyone can look at a nearby wall, not everyone will notice the dirt that gets stuck to it slowlyt but surely every day, specially if far.

It is in those strange situations that our little frind Randomizer comes in handy.

It gets even more important when people of roughly the same ability compete for something..... A pitcher throws, trying to make the one with the bat miss while making the ball pass through a designated area AND reach the catcher's glove. The guy with the bat (ok, I forgot my ph ed classes, thank you) tries to swing at the ball, hit it, and send it forward, and out of bounds if possible, WHILE trying to no be hit, not to be fooled by a missed ball, and not sending the ball back or too far to the sides.

Who shall win above the other? should the pitcher score a strike? should the other guy get a hit or home-run?

That's exactly the moment randomization becomes a necessity.

Next time I'll deal with different kinds of randomization, and from there we might be able to go deeper into systems of play (you know, D&D, WOD, FF's statistics...)

read you later!

=^_^=