Pen and Paper RPG's. Video games can't touch them.
Posted: Thu May 10, 2007 3:07 am
I've recently taken up playing pen and paper RPG's. Like Dungeons and Dragons, Shadowrun, and World Of Darkness.
Its played like a video game, where your character is tracked on a sheet with skills, levels, and other such things. (Changes depending upon the game.)
The game plays out with one player describing situations and players take turns reacting. For example: "You walk into a dark room...", where players will respond "I check for a light switch." Then the game master who is explaining the scenario will ask the player to roll dice for the skill that needs to be used, in this example, you might roll something like vision. The amount of dice, or type of dice changes based on the difficulty of the task, and the players skill level. For example, if you were a huge brawny man, lifting a wooden crate would be much easier, so you'd roll more dice, with an easier target then a little scrawny man. To determine if a player is sucessful changes based upon the game, but normally you have a target number, and failures and sucesses are based on how far off you are from the target.
In simple terms, this type of game play might seem just plain stupid. Problem is, thats completely wrong. The game play is so open ended that the experiences that come up are just insane. For example, in a game I played with my friends, they came up with an elaborate plan to bail out of a moving car before it jumps off an over pass. Unfortently, they were not very dexterous players, and ended up caught in the car, nearly killing them all.
Please don't count these out. Get some friends together, and give it a try. I'll try to supply some good links to get you playing.
Here are some links, but the best way to get started is buying some books. I really enjoy World Of Darkness, but Dungeons and Dragons is defenently the most popular.
An Introduction to RPGs. (Better then my description!)
Wikipedia Entry
Wizards Of The Coast Site (Awesome Flash Game demos!
White Wolf (World of Darkness, My fav, simple game.)
Enjoy, and please share your stories with us!
Its played like a video game, where your character is tracked on a sheet with skills, levels, and other such things. (Changes depending upon the game.)
The game plays out with one player describing situations and players take turns reacting. For example: "You walk into a dark room...", where players will respond "I check for a light switch." Then the game master who is explaining the scenario will ask the player to roll dice for the skill that needs to be used, in this example, you might roll something like vision. The amount of dice, or type of dice changes based on the difficulty of the task, and the players skill level. For example, if you were a huge brawny man, lifting a wooden crate would be much easier, so you'd roll more dice, with an easier target then a little scrawny man. To determine if a player is sucessful changes based upon the game, but normally you have a target number, and failures and sucesses are based on how far off you are from the target.
In simple terms, this type of game play might seem just plain stupid. Problem is, thats completely wrong. The game play is so open ended that the experiences that come up are just insane. For example, in a game I played with my friends, they came up with an elaborate plan to bail out of a moving car before it jumps off an over pass. Unfortently, they were not very dexterous players, and ended up caught in the car, nearly killing them all.
Please don't count these out. Get some friends together, and give it a try. I'll try to supply some good links to get you playing.
Here are some links, but the best way to get started is buying some books. I really enjoy World Of Darkness, but Dungeons and Dragons is defenently the most popular.
An Introduction to RPGs. (Better then my description!)
Wikipedia Entry
Wizards Of The Coast Site (Awesome Flash Game demos!
White Wolf (World of Darkness, My fav, simple game.)
Enjoy, and please share your stories with us!
