What is a Roleplaying Game?
What is a roleplaying game?
A roleplaying game by Vincent Baker
answering What is a Roleplaying Game? by Epidiah Ravachol
A roleplaying game is when you pretend to be an elf.
Look around. Pretend you're in an elven wood and you're an elf.
A roleplaying game has a GM.
Find a friend to be the GM for this game. The GM's job is to tell you interesting things about the elven wood, things you wouldn't have thought to imagine yourself. Ask your friend the GM what you see, and pass these rules over to them. From now on, follow their lead.
A roleplaying game has a GM, and that's you.
Your job is to suggest details for the other player to imagine. Trouble, challenges, rewards, and other elves and creatures. Take a second to think of some kind of trouble or danger that might be in an elven wood, then tell the other player what it would look like to them, if they were an elf there looking at it. Ask the player what they do (meaning, of course, what the elf they're pretending to be would do).
In a roleplaying game, you roll dice when you don't know what would happen next.
Do you know what would happen next? If you do, awesome. Say what it is, and what it's like, and what comes of it, and ask what the other player's elf does next.
Do you NOT know what would happen next? Awesome. Roll dice.
Is the result good? Then think of something good that can happen, and say that. If the elf happens to be in a fight with a monster, the good thing should be that the elf hits the monster.
Is the result bad? Then think of something bad that can happen, and say that. If the elf happens to be in a fight with a monster, the bad thing should be that the monster hits the elf.
Now say what it's like, and what comes of it, and ask what the other player's elf does next, same as always. Keep going back and forth, rolling dice whenever you don't know what will happen, until the game ends (see below).
If one straight die roll doesn't seem like enough, you can make opposed rolls. You roll a die for your monster, for instance, while the player rolls for their elf. You can add even more drama by using dice with different numbers of sides, like a 6-sided die for the elf and a 10-sided die for the monster.
A roleplaying game has hit points.
If it comes to a fight, use "hit points" to keep track of who's hit whom how many times. An elf has 3 hit points. This means that when the elf gets hit the third time, it's killed and goes to elfheaven. An antielf also has 3 hit points. A human person has 4. A giant monster might have 5 or 6 hit points, and a dragon might have 10. You, the GM, get to decide.
A roleplaying game has experience points.
Whenever the elf kills an enemy, the elf gets 1 experience point. Each time the elf's experience points double - 1, 2, 4, 8, etc. - the elf gets one more hit point.
In a roleplaying game, the GM's style matters a lot.
Your main jobs are to say what it's like and to call for the player to roll dice. Take both jobs as an opportunity to develop your own style and skills as a GM. Set the tone and the pace. Describe things in detail or leave them sketchy. Plan ahead or improvise. Keep practicing and experimenting until you're really good at it.
A roleplaying game ends when the elf dies.
The player might be sad, because now they can't pretend to be an elf anymore. You should play again.
The Challenge
Epidiah Ravachol wrote his game What is a Roleplaying Game? back in 2013. The license he released it under included this statement:
Now here's the most important part. If you disagree with me about any of my answers to the question posed in the title, or if you have any sort of quibble with the game design itself, you must express this by making non-superficial changes to the game and text until it satisfies your concerns and then distribute that new game under your name. All other forms of criticism will, at best, be ignored.
I wrote my version almost at once, but didn't fulfill the terms of the license by distributing it under my name. Now I'm making good.
I'm releasing my game under the same license Eppy used, and passing the same requirement on to you.
Disclosure
I consider this game to be complete and, while obviously very simple, well-designed. If you don't, then you and I disagree about something!
Eppy says of his game, "it's a quick game meant to give people an honest taste of the hobby minus the giant, intimidating rulebooks." I think that I could say the same of mine with a straight face, probably.
Anyhow I've played this game a ton, especially back when I was first getting into roleplaying. It's not to my taste now, but I think that this is probably because I've turned into a bitter and joyless old crank who requires overmediation to find creativity fun. I don't wish the same for you.
The License
I like Epidiah Ravachol's summary of the license, so I'm just going to quote him in full. My edits in brackets:
What is a Roleplaying Game? is a tiny, but complete roleplaying game designed for the uninitiated. It's a quick game meant to give people an honest taste of the hobby minus the giant, intimidating rulebooks.
And it is free for you to use and distribute. [...] The Creative Common license on it says that you must attribute me when you do so and you are not allowed to sell the game, but let me tell you how you can ignore even these two little restrictions.
You cannot sell the game as is. Even if you [do] layout, graphic design and illustrations, you may not sell the game. You may distribute it for free, but you cannot make money off of it.
However, you may include the game as part of a larger work that you have for sale, including, but not limited to: anthologies, magazines, zines, CD-ROMs accompanying game books sold in DVD cases, in the introduction of your own roleplaying game, that sort of thing. In all these cases, you still must attribute the game to me, but you can make money off the larger work.
If you make a non-superficial change to the text - such as [changing it to be about a badass cyborg in the cyberpunk future, or doubling the number of hit points] - including non-superficial changes to the answers to the question "what is a role-playing game" - such as [saying that a roleplaying game doesn't need a GM, or that it doesn't end with the character's death, or that it can be for more than 2 players] - then you must change the attribution and may therefore distribute the game however you please, including selling it, since it is now something of your own creation. [...]
Now here's the most important part. If you disagree with me about any of my answers to the question posed in the title, or if you have any sort of quibble with the game design itself, you must express this by making non-superficial changes to the game and text until it satisfies your concerns and then distribute that new game under your name. All other forms of criticism will, at best, be ignored.
Thanks for reading! Questions and observations welcome, but remember, if you disagree with me, you gotta say so by changing my game until you agree with it.