Role-playing game

Role -playing game

A role-playing game (RPG, often roleplaying game) is a type of game in which the participants assume the roles of fictional characters and collaboratively create or follow stories. Participants determine the actions of their characters based on their characterization, and the actions succeed or fail according to a formal system of rules and guidelines. Within the rules, players can improvise freely; their choices shape the direction and outcome of the games.

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A role-playing game rarely has winners or losers. That makes role-playing games fundamentally different from board games, card games, sports and most other types of games. Role-playing games are typically more collaborative and social than competitive.[1].A typical role-playing game unifies its participants into a single team, known as a "party", that plays as a group. Like serials or novel sequences, these episodic games are often played in weekly sessions over a period of months or even years, although some gamers prefer playing one session games.
Role-playing games are a form of interactive and collaborative storytelling. Like novels or films, role-playing games appeal because they engage the imagination. Interactivity is the crucial difference between role-playing games and traditional fiction. Whereas a viewer of a television show is a passive observer, a player at a roleplaying game makes choices that propel the action. Such role-playing games extend an older tradition of storytelling games where a small party of friends collaborate to create a story.
While simple forms of roleplaying exist in traditional children's games such as "cops and robbers", "cowboys and Indians" and "playing house", role-playing games add a level of sophistication and persistence to this basic idea. Instead, participants in a roleplaying game will generate specific characters and an ongoing plot. A consistent system of rules and a more or less realistic campaign setting in games aids suspension of disbelief. The level of realism in games ranges from just enough internal consistency to set up a believable story or credibl challenge to full-blown simulations of real-world processes.
Video games incorporating settings and game mechanics found in roleplaying games are referred to as computer role-playing games, or CRPGs. Due to the popularity of CRPGs, the terms "role-playing game" and "RPG" have both to some degree been co-opted by the video gaming industry; as a result, traditional non-digital pastimes of this sort are increasingly being referred to as "pen and paper" or "tabletop" role-playing games, though neither pen and paper nor a table are strictly necessary.

Varieties
Most role-playing games are conducted like radio drama: only the spoken component is acted, and players step out of character to describe action and discuss game mechanics. The genre of role-playing games in which players do perform their characters' physical actions is known as live-action roleplaying games (LARP).

In traditional roleplaying games, participants usually sit around a table and conduct the game as a small social gathering. One participant, the "gamemaster", describes the setting and the actions of the inhabitants, while the others describe their characters' actions and responses. The game system typically requires players to roll dice to determine the outcome of some of their actions, most typically in combat or other stressful situations. Games that emphasize plot and character interaction over game mechanics and combat sometimes prefer the name storytelling game.
Live-action
A Live action roleplaying game (LARP), is played more like improvisational theatre. Instead of describing their characters' actions, participants act out their characters' actions, often in costume. Further, the players' environment is used to represent the imaginary environment of the game world.
LARPs de-emphasize die rolls and rulebook references. Theatre-style live action roleplaying games often use rock-paper-scissors or direct comparison of attributes to resolve conflicts, while "boffer" games use padded weaponry to simulate real combat. LARPs vary in size from a handful of players to several thousands, and in duration from a couple of hours to whole weeks.
Electronic media
The challenge of producing a video game with which players can interact through roleplaying, rather than simply a framework within they can interact with each other, is yet to be answered. Computer imitations of role-playing games instead incorporate role-playing game elements into a man-to-man wargame. It has so far proved impossible to recreate the depth, flexibility, teamwork, and characterisation of traditional gaming.
Nonetheless, computers and other electronic media are not unknown in role-playing. Computer-assisted role-playing games blend elements of traditional roleplaying with computer gaming. Computers are used for recordkeeping and sometimes to resolve combat, while the participants generally make decisions concerning character interaction. This may include tools used to facilitate traditional pen & paper games to be played over the internet. Such tools may be nothing more than an IRC program, but there is also specialised software which includes built-in functions for dice, character sheets, mapping, and such (e.g., OpenRPG).
Some role-playing games use the internet as their medium. Online text-based role-playin games, in which players interact through a text-based medium rather than face-to-face, are popular on the internet. Some games are played in a turn-based fashion, whether play-by-mail games using email, or play-by-post games on internet forums. Others are played in a more real-time way, similar to offline games, over TELNET or IRC; these are known as MUDs. Finally, some people use internet chat clients or dedicated virtual tabletop software to play what would otherwise be a traditional RPG.
Freeform
Freeform roleplaying games are played with minimal or no formal rules and a greater focus on character or plot development, with the organisers as referees. Most freeform games are also live-action games, though they exist in both traditional and computer-assisted forms. Freeform games are most often seen at gaming conventions, though they are also sometimes run by gaming clubs or a dedicated team of independent GMs.
Game systems
The set of rules of a role-playing game is known as its game system; the rules themselves are known as game mechanics. Although there are game systems which are shared by many games, for example the d20 system, many games have their own, custom rules system.
Almost all roleplaying games require the participation of a gamemaster (GM), who creates a setting for the game session, portrays most of its inhabitants and acts as the moderator and rules arbitrator for the players. The rest of the participants create and play inhabitants of the game setting, known as player characters (PCs). The player characters collectively are known as a "party".
During a typical game session, the gamemaster will introduce a story goal for the players to achieve through the actions of their characters. Frequently, this involves interacting with non-player characters, other denizens of the game world, which are played by the gamemaster. Many game sessions contain moments of puzzle solving, negotiation, chases, and combat. The goal may be made clear to the players at the outset, or may become clear to them during the course of a game.
Games rules determine the success or failure of a character's actions. Many game systems use weighted statistics and dice rolls or other random elements. In most systems, the gamemaster uses the rules to determine a target number. The player rolls dice, trying to get a result either more than or less than the target number, depending on the game system. Not all games determine successes randomly, however; an early and popular game without random elements is Amber Diceless Roleplaying Game by Erick Wujcik (1990).
Most systems are tied to the setting of the game they feature in. However, some universal role-playing game systems can be adapted to any genre. The first game to feature such a system, GURPS, is accompanied by a number of sourcebooks which allow games to be created in different genres. The d20 system, based on the older role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, is used in many modern games such as Spycraft and the Star Wars Roleplaying Game.
In practice, even universal systems are often biased toward a specific style or genre and adaptable to others. For example, although the d20 system has sourcebooks for modern and futuristic settings, most published d20 system material stays within Dungeons & Dragons' combat-focused fantasy milieu.
Statistics
Characters in roleplaying games are usually represented by a number of statistics. Statistics are an abstract measure of how successful a character is likely to be at a class of tasks. Many game systems make distinctions between two key types of statistic: attributes and skills. These names are not at all consistently across different games, however.
Attributes are statistics all characters possess: strength, agility, and intelligence are common examples. These are ranked, often on a numeric scale, so that a player can gauge the character's capabilities. For example, a character's strength rating could be used to determine the likelihood that the character can lift a certain weight.
Skills are abilities that only some characters possess, such as negotiation, horseback riding, and marksmanship. Game systems often define skills that are genre-appropriate. For example, Asian adventures commonly emphasize martial arts. Fantasy settings include magic. Science-fiction settings may contain psionics. However, some skills are found in several genres: a medieval rogue and a Wild West outlaw may both be very proficient at throwing knives.
Character creation
Before play begins, players develop a concept of the role they would like to play in the game. They then use the game system's character creation rules to form a representation of their characters, in terms of game mechanics. The character's statistics are recorded on a special-purpose form called a character sheet. Some systems, such as that of Feng Shui, require characters to choose from a set of prebuilt template characters with only a small amount of customisation allowed. Others, like the d20 System, use character classes to define most character concepts, but allow some freedom with the statistics within those classes. Still others, such as GURPS, allow the player to create their own character concepts by freely assigning statistics.
Game statistics are not a substitute for a character concept. For example, one Wild West gunfighter may become a quick drawing revolver marksman, whereas another with similar game statistics could be a mounted rifle expert.
Template-based systems have the advantage of easy and quick character creation. It also gives means the gamemaster spends less time approving each character for play. The sacrifice is in flexibility and concept. Templates are essentially pre-built characters that are balanced against each other and pre-approved by the game companies.
Class-based systems give slightly more freedom but still require a player to choose from a set number of roles for their character. The character's powers are generally set by the character class, but the specific statistics are assigned by the player.
Character point-based systems allow complete freedom of concept. The downside is that character creation is, in many cases, much more complex and the GMs have to spend a lot more time examining and approving each character concept.
A few games allow freeform character creation. Characteristics are simply assigned as a player sees fit, and the final result is submitted to the GM or group for approval. Freeform character creation can be implemented in any game system, but is only rarely the prescribed or assumed method.
Campaign settings
Each game is set in a fictional world in which adventures and campaigns can take place. Usually a campaign setting is designed for a specific game (such as the Forgotten Realms setting for Dungeons & Dragons) or a specific genre of game (such as Medieval fantasy, or outer space/science fiction adventure). There are numerous campaign settings available both in print and online. In addition to published campaign settings available for purchase, many game masters create their own.
Campaign settings exist for almost all genres of fiction; however, because the world's most popular roleplaying game, Dungeons & Dragons, is part of the fantasy genre, fantasy is also the most played roleplaying genre. RPGs of the fantasy genre are sometimes collectivelly called "Fantasy roleplaying games" ("FRP").
The use of the term "world" in describing a campaign setting is loose, at best. Campaign worlds such as the World of Greyhawk detail entire cosmologies and timelines of thousands of years, while the setting of a game such as Deadlands might only describe one nation within a brief segment of alternate history.
There are three primary types of campaign setting. The first exists in genre- and setting-specific role-playing games such as Warhammer or World of Darkness which exist specifically within one setting. The second type of setting is for games that have multiple settings such as modern Dungeons & Dragons or those that were developed specifically to be independent of setting such as GURPS. The final type of setting is developed without being tied to a particular game system. Typically this last sort are developed first as stand-alone works of fiction, which are later adapted to one or more role playing systems such as the Star Wars universe or Middle-earth.
The range of genres represented by published settings is vast, and includes nearly all genres of fiction. While role-playing's roots began in fantasy, science fiction has been used in settings such as Traveller, horror formed the baseline of the World of Darkness and Call of Cthulhu and Spycraft was based in modern-day spy thriller-oriented settings.
A small number of campaign settings fuse multiple genres into a single game. In GURPS Infinite Worlds, for example, the characters play "Infinity Patrol" agents who travel to alternate worlds.
Publishers
The largest publisher of tabletop role-playing games is Wizards of the Coast, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hasbro and publisher of Dungeons & Dragons, the D20 Star Wars RPG, and a number of smaller D20 titles. Most analysts give White Wolf the second largest industry marketshare, with the company itself claiming an average marketshare of 22% since 1991 Most roleplaying game publishers are privately held companies and do not release sales figures, making precise estimates difficult. There has been no publically available, systematic examination of point of sale data, limiting further estimates to a rough consensus between industry analysts whose conclusions are often controversial.
Market research conducted at Wizards of the Coast in 1999-2000 indicated that more than 1.5 million people played D&D on a monthly basis, and about 2 million people played all tabletop RPGs combined on a monthly basis. The success of the 3rd Edition of Dungeons & Dragons likely resulted in an increase in those totals. These figures for play are substantially larger than the figures for sales. In 2006, non-Dungeons & Dragons tabletop RPGs in the upper echelons of sales typically generated between five and ten thousand unit sales. Most commercially published RPGs are small press products, having less than a thousand units sold. The technology of print on demand is strongly used in RPGs, since it reduces run costs for the typical small print runs.

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