The Nitty Gritty of Role-Playing

First off folks let me apologize for how long it’s taken me to get this post together. I had a very odd thing happen while I was doing a little research for this article. I found out that old dogs do learn new tricks; I’ll get more into detail on that a little further on down the road. Well now that the apology is out of the way, let’s get to business.
Howdy and Welcome folks, today I will be rambling on about what I have called the nitty gritty of Role-Playing. Now I know some of you are sitting there wondering what your old Uncle Ted thinks of as the nitty gritty of RP. Well it’s a good thing I plan on telling you isn’t it. Too me the nitty gritty is the system and mechanics of the game.
Oh now just stop it all of you who were thinking I was going to be giving pointers on how to get in character. The “Role” in Role-Playing is important, in fact it is what makes the whole thing fun, but it is not the Nitty Gritty dirty details. It is not the part that takes a lot of work. As I have said before every little kid can pretend to be someone else for fun, but in RP you have to be able to back up the way you act with actual mechanics or you will find your character is much more work to play than fun.
Okay now you all who are thinking I am going to give you all sorts of tips on how to tweak your characters to be the end all, be all mechanics abusing machine are also wrong. Though, that can be a fun and challenging exercise in its own right. That is not what RP is all about either.
It’s about turning the piece of paper with numbers on it into a Character. It’s about how that sheet of paper changes to match how you are playing the Character and how you have to adjust how you are playing to meet the Sheet as well. It’s a delicate balancing act, a complicated dance, a great work of art when you can get everything working the right way. Just like you can not violate the laws of physics in real life, your character is bound to follow the rules of the system you are playing in.
Some systems are set up to allow massive cinematic action to run rampant, where others are set up to be as realistic as possible. Where, in some systems it is quiet common for a lone character to be able to easily mow through a gang of common thugs without so much as breaking a sweat, in other systems that is just not possible. In fact there are a number of systems where if a lone character were to go after even two common thugs you would end up with a very nearly or completely dead character. This is just a basic (and common) example of how the system in which you play can (and will) affect your RP options. It gets even more complicated if you are going for a long standing campaign where the way your character develops mechanically is heavily influenced by the happening of the game.
Some games are set up to where there is very little change to your character sheet possible through even the longest campaign. One system may have a very structured and organized way in which your character changes over time, where as another has a more organic and fluid way of handling it. All of these things can really make or break a character from the very start. Even worse these things can take a Character that has been great fun to play all of a sudden become boring because it is just the same thing over and over again.
Now this is where your old Uncle Ted ran into the issue that has delayed this for so long. I was planning on comparing and contrasting different game systems to give you all so idea of what I mean. So I was going to take two if the most popular systems and compare them head to head. Talk about each ones strengths and weaknesses, the pros and the cons the ups and the downs and all that fun stuff. The only problem with that is Uncle Ted was being a little bit of a hypocrite when it came to one of the systems. I had broken one of my cardinal rules for life, let alone for Role-Playing. I had closed my mind to something new because I thought I knew what it would be. I was prepared to sit and write something completely tearing a system apart for what I saw as a failing of past versions of the game without looking at the newest version. Shame on me is all I can say. The worst part is thinking back to the opportunities I passed up at having fun because of that closed mindedness.
Since I had seen the error in what I was doing and couldn’t put together anything I felt was worthy of reading about that system I decided to take a look at it. I would say another look at it but I had never so much as glanced at the new rules, just assumed they were a rehashing of the same old stuff, and boy was I wrong. At first glance on the surface it seemed to be that same as it had always been in my mind. It was just too static, too structured, too limiting, just not a good system to my mind. After that first glance I very nearly dropped the idea of giving it a chance. I just saw the same old same old, but luckily for me the Hobby Ferret in me kicked in and I got interested in one of the very few obviously new things. Even then I thought it was only just a cosmetic change, just a little change, a new thing on the surface without any substantive difference; but I decided to look a little deeper.
I am very glad I did. Looking at that simple little change brought the massive changes under the surface into view. It seemed that each new section I read fixed one of the issues I had with the system. In fact the only issues I have with the system now aren’t even with the system at, but with the company that sells it, and to be honest the system very nearly wipes those out as well.
So now that that is all said I know you all are wondering what the systems I will be comparing and contrasting will be. Well those of you who have known me for a few years will have already guessed one, but I will announce both here for all of you. So without further babbling or rambling I announce the title of my next blog……..
Dungeons and Dragons vs. The World of Darkness

See Ya’ll soon.

Okay Uncle Ted, what is a role-playing game??

Well that’s an interesting question, it’s both an easy to answer question and an almost impossible to answer all at the same time. It’s easy to sum up what it is in general, but to say exactly what it is varies from person to person. It’s hanging out with friends and retreating into your-self. It’s one of those few things that people can know nothing about and hit the nail on the head with words, but completely misses the real meaning of it. I guess in a way you can call it an art form.

While it can be called (and I do call it this) an art form, you very rarely come out with anything but memories as a result. You don’t end up with a painting or a sculpture. Sure you will end up with some things written down, but what is written down is just a vague mathematical description of the character you have created. Maybe just maybe there may be some notes on how a character was played, that will give you something more than just a hypothetical list of traits and skills. Some would say well, it’s performance art then, but it’s more than that, in fact I would say forms of performance art are reality Role-Playing. While performance art is also usually done to entertain an audience, Role-Playing is very seldom done for an audience, usually it’s done for the enjoyment of the people doing it.

It also has elements of writing in it. In fact one of the people in the group has to be a writer in a very real way. The Game-Master (or GM or the Story-Teller or the Narrator and so on, different groups call them different things) is the creator and care taker of the setting in which the roles are being played. To be honest you would call them Writer-Directors if they were making movies, and the players are actors. The major difference is that while the GM controls the bit players and the villains and they act to his direction, the players do not fallow his script, in fact they can be said to work against them to achieve their goals. The GM has to rely on his ability to out act the actors and his luck a lot of the time.

Where as in a play the outcome is known from the beginning, the outcome of a Role-Playing game is never quite known. The GM and Players know what their goals are, but they have no set way to get there, or do they even know if it’s even possible to achieve their goals. To figure out the outcome the players use the ability to act as the Characters would and a system of rules for conflict determination. Those pieces of paper with hypothetical lists on them are how the Players know how the rules affect them. They are also how the players can tell what the characters has the possibility of doing.

Only the possibility of doing because within the rules is a system that allows random chance to affect the outcome of all things. Be it with mathematical models that are determined by the roll of the dice or any number of ways of determining a random result. This way there is always the chance that things won’t work out the way they look like they should, much like in the real world don’t you think? This means that even if the script starts out the same way every time no one ever knows how it will end.

It is a “Choose-Your-Own-Adventure-Story” that writes itself as you go. It’s what computer games wish they could be what they are trying to be. Even the open ended MMORPG’s can’t do it. They just fall short; there is just no way for them to match the freedoms of Role-Playing with a group of friends. There you only have the options that someone somewhere allows you in the programming. In a real Role-Playing game your option are never ending because the GM and Players both are dynamic and do not have to fallow an exact path.

Give it a try sometime with an open mind and you just might be surprised at how much you enjoy it. Next time we talk we’ll go over some more of the nitty gritty things about games.

This is the Place for my Role-playing musings.

Hello and Welcome to my Role-Playing Guide Folks.

This is the place where I will be discussing my thoughts and misadventures in the world of role-playing games with you folks. This is where your wacky Uncle Ted gets to share with you the odd stories of pretending to be a werewolf fighting to save the world, or a brave space fighter pilot combating evil in a space opera, and on and on and on.

So sit back an enjoy folks. This is definatly one of my favorite hobbies folks. Oh and if your not sure how much someone could write about this topic you in for quite a surprise.

Next Blog: Okay Uncle Ted, what is a role-playing game??