If you’ve ever been watching a movie or reading a book and thought about how you would do things if you were the character in that story, then you’ve imagined yourself playing the role of a character in a story. This is what Role Playing Games (RPGs) are all about. Without some kind of rules system, Players could spend all day saying things like “I win because I’m big” or “I wind because I’m smart” or “ I can do anything cos I’m the Hero!”…you get the idea.

Every RPG system has created its own way to determine what can and can’t happen, and to what degree things can and can’t happen, settle disputes, and so on. Most game mechanics use dice rolls to simulate the randomness of events in the game. If a Player’s Character (PC) wants to attempt an action in the game they might roll certain dice and compare the result with a target number on a sliding scale based on the difficulty of that action, that PC’s skill, knowledge, luck, climate, etc. his may sound complicated here, but a well designed game system allows players to resolve these issues quickly (and without a lot of math) so they can spend more time on the stories.

Character driven stories are the center of RPGs. The game referee, ofthen called the Game Master (GM) or Storyteller depending upon which game you’re playing, and players will decide what setting they’re going to play in. This might be a standard “swords and sorcery” fantasy setting, a futuristic Sci-fi setting or even a retro-future scene with rayguns and rocket men, gothic horror, cartoon drama, manga, and so on –there’s really no limit to what a creative group can come up with. The GM works on a basic storyline and will describe twhat the PCs see and hear as well as play the NonPlayer Characters in the story. Players create appropriate Player Characters according to the game system being used. Soon the story begins to unfold as shaped by the participation of everyone involved. There’s something truly magical about a group of friends getting together to create a story just for the sake of adventure!

What about the rumors of people going crazy from playing these games? If there’s already something wrong with a person then they’re going to get into trouble sooner or later, that’s just how it is. If you can’t distinguish between the reality of your everyday life, and a game played on a table top than you really do need help, and I’ll venture to guess that if you didn’t have a game to focus your attention on than you’d be exploring psychotic fantasies with something medium. When you walk by a group of people talking about the amazing game they played the night before and you hear something like, “-so then the troll came after me, but I jumped off the building and turned into a bird and flew away!” well, ok, these folks might sound a bit unbalanced, I’ll give you that. It’s important to note that a lot of maladjusted kids benefit in immeasurable ways from RPGs. Many schools have used different RPG techniques in the classroom to help students learn to think about problem solving in different ways. Whatever genre you’re playing in, you have to find ways to solve the problems you’re faced with using only what you’re character knows or has access to. These kids develop critical reasoning skills, learn to communicate and cooperate with others, pick up some practical math, and often become inspired to study real world history and politics to learn how things work and might make for good story elements in their games. Once the creative juices are flowing they often find themselves writing and drawing and creating all kinds of things that were jump-started by playing a game that just said “what if”. Those are two of the most powerful words you’ll ever know, and they are the core of RPGs, “What if?”.

What makes a role playing game a role playing game? The answer is: role playing. Classic RPGs are played with paper and pencils and usually some kind of dice, but what sets them apart form most computer games and Collectible Card Games (CCGs) is the real role playing component.

Many computer games allow players to customize certain details (from a pre-programmed selection) and CCGs encourage you to use strategy as you stack the deck in your favor, but the story of the game won’t be influenced by a character’s odious personal habits, the fact that they collect ceramic figures, or their claustrophobia, or any of the other details that come in really developing a character. A role playing game needs players to role play. PCs special quirks and insights change the story and save the day –or ruin it, which might end up being more fun if it’s played well!

So how did RPGs come to be? RPGs have their heritage in Classic War Gaming, picture a bunch of military strategists pushing armies of lead figures around re-enacting historical battles. In 1974, Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson were sitting around still riding the high of reading Tolkien's work and they thought, "Hey wouldn't it be cool to have a war game with wizards and dragons, and what if you could be the wizard, or warrior, or elf, or whatever?" They started scribbling down VERY detailed, but convoluted rules and pioneered the idea of playing a single character in a fantasy setting. (Ok, so I wasn't there, but that's basically how the RPG genesis is usually described.) The result was “Dungeons & Dragons”

What follows is a brief description of games worth checking out to get a feel for the depth of RPGs.

Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) was the first Role Playing game and is still around today although it's been greatly streamlined since its first publication. They had the biggest budget to get their product out there and this is the one most people think of first when they think of RPGs. The downside of D&D is that it has a long-standing history of publishing material slightly before the bugs are all worked out, with the expectation that players will buy new hardcover books every time a few details are revised.

The great thing about RPGs though is that they encourage people to draw from their own imaginations to create their own adventures. Once you have the basic game system, you really don't need to keep buying every little product because you should be able to make up your own adventures.

Ken St. Andre spent a few hours reading the D&D rules before putting the book down and saying there’s got to be an easier, better way to do this! His answer was “Tunnels & Trolls” (T&T) This is the second oldest RPG system. It pioneered the idea of Attribute based checks that are farily standard today, as well as the “solo adventure” structure which inspired the basic framework of the “Choose Your Own Adventure, and Pick-A-Path books (although these spin-offs lack the role playing element). The T&T solo adventures are still popular today and great when you need your fix of fantasy gaming but don’t have a group to get a game going. T&T has been described as "the buckets of dice" system because you roll a whole lot of dice as you play, but there's something very satisfying about throwing a handful of dice at the things attacking you..

I think the greatest thing about T&T is that players are encouraged to adapt and create their own elements of the game for what they need. The volume of “by players, for players” contributions is amazing, and really exemplifies a living gaming system.

GURPS, The Generic Universal Role Playing System is an amazing game that was play tested for years to work out the bugs before being published. This system allows you to play as simply or as complex as you want, in any genre and with any kind of character. They have many very scholarly books of settings and adventure ideas, but you really only need the basic book to play. I love these guys. It’s also interesting to note that every time D&D makes revisions, their game looks more and more like GURPS. Hmmm…

Call of Cthulu Set in the dark and moody world of H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulu Mythos, this is a great gaming system that is quick to learn and adaptable enough for all kinds of game settings. The mechanics were crafted so that players spend more time immersed in the story and less time crunching numbers, looking up detailed charts, and memorizing obscure rules. The result is that you have more time to actually play the game! This game introduced the means to simulate characters experiencing things that would slowly chip away at their sanity. If a PC’s sanity is reduced far enough they become the kind of gibbering madman so prevalent in Lovecraft’s work. Because the settings are period pieces set in the “real world” there is a great deal of attention to historical details. If you aren’t familiar with the dark and moody writings of H.P. Lovecraft well, you’ve got some reading to do.

TWERPS, The World's Easiest Role Playing System began as a kind of spoof of GURPS, but people actually found that the incredibly simple rules actually made for good role playing. Challenges are resolved quickly and you can get on with the story. This is probably one of the best introductions to RPGs if you want to have a quick taste, especially if you want to bring younger kids into the fold.

RISUS: The Anything Role Playing System is a great game that allows you to create characters in about 30 seconds and is a very serious contender for the "easiest rpg" title. You can download a free copy of the rules and begin the goofiness right away. RISUS’ creator, S. John Ross is also a great guy and runs a website with all kinds of tools for gamers including The Big List of RPG Plots, Font Toys for creating printable maps and stand-up characters, and many other free downloads. Check out his work at Cumberland Games.

Whatever world or setting you’d like to explore, there’s an RPG system for it. If there’s not one that’s exactly to your liking, than make one that suits you!