Role-playing game
A role-playing game (also known as an RPG) is a type of game where players assume the role of a character in a fictional world. Characters gain various abilities based on gameplay and typically involving the use of several statistics (such as strength, dexterity, intelligence, charm, etc.), which may in some game systems be advanced. The term is used for two distinct types of game. One is typically a pen-and-paper game played with dice by several people. The term is also used as a name for a genre of video games featuring similar gameplay concepts. See Role-playing game (video games) for more information.
In pen and paper RPGs, participants play the parts of characters in an imaginary world that usually is organized, adjudicated, and sometimes created by the gamemaster, usually with the support of rules, simple or complex. Some newer RPGs expand the players' powers beyond dictating the actions of their player characters, making them "mini-GMs". At the most radical, an RPG may have rapidly rotating GM duties, or no GM at all. See also role playing.
History
Of course, interactive and impromptu dramas have included elements of play long before the advent of modern wargames -- the children's games of "Playing House" or "Cowboys and Indians" are in essence very simple role-playing games.
Modern RPGs evolved from wargaming roots in the early 1970s. Where a marker or miniature once represented a squad of soldiers, in early RPGs each token represented a single character. Each player controlled the actions of that one character. The first edition rules of Dungeons and Dragons betray these roots in the use of a distance scale of one inch per ten feet (or ten yards, outdoors).
In the early days of RPGs, there were accusations of connections to devil worship. This may have been caused by the ability of some roleplaying characters to cast magical spells.
RPGs were originally played on a tabletop, because they involved paper, dice, and, often, miniatures or tokens of some kind. From these origins, RPGs have evolved in different directions. Some RPG rules systems are complex and attempt to be realistic simulations; other rules systems place a priority on game balance or on personality, character development, and storytelling. Today, there are RPG games for computer and video game systems. Nowadays, there are MMORPGs, or Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games, which are large RPGs played over the Internet.
Types of RPGs
The term "role-playing game" can be applied to a number of distinct genres:
Popular RPGs
- Amber Diceless Roleplaying - based on the works of Roger Zelazny
- Battletech
- Drakar och Demoner - Swedish fantasy RPG
- Call of Cthulhu - based on the works of H. P. Lovecraft
- Car Wars - by Steve Jackson
- Champions
- Cyberpunk 2020 - based on the mirror shades authors
- Dungeons & Dragons - written by Dave Arneson and E. Gary Gygax
- Elfquest - based on the works of Richard Pini and Wendy Pini
- FUDGE - Free, Universal, Do-it-Yourself Gaming Engine by Steffan O'Sullivan
- KULT_RPG - Swedish horror RPG. Translated to English. Tag line is "Death is only the beginning"
- GURPS - Generic Universal Role Playing System by Steve Jackson
- HackMaster
- MERP - based on the fantasy works of J. R. R. Tolkien
- OGRE - by Steve Jackson
- Other suns
- Paranoia
- Pendragon
- Ringworld - based on the science-fiction book by Larry Niven
- Stormbringer - based on the works of Michael Moorcock
- Superworld
- Traveller - by Marc Miller
- Vampire The Masquerade
Notable RPG Developers and Publishers
- Chaosium
- FASA
- Gary Gygax
- Iron Crown Enterprises
- Steve Jackson Games
- TSR (now owned by Wizards of the Coast (now owned by Hasbro))
- White Wolf
See Also
RPG.NET, MUD, MUSH, MUX, false document, storytelling game, WorldForge, letter games, system agnostic