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Pen & Paper RPG 101 - part 1
I'm pretty sure hardly anyone on my flist has already had experience with pen and paper rpg and the poll I did a while ago showed that there are at least a few people interested in a little 101. :)
I'm going to start out with a little bit of facts and history, because a) I think it's interesting and b) because I've had this part written out for quite a while. I'll get to the actual gameplay later, but as I don't have much time lately, I figured I should at least post what I already have. These are only a few words on RPG and by no means very complete, so if you're interested to learn more about this, feel free to ask sites like Wikipedia and the likes. (Or me, I'll try to answer the best way I can.^^)
A Definition
Pen and paper RPG. Called like that because all you really need is a pen and some sheets of paper. Also referred to as tabletop RPG. Called like that because you play it on a table. (D'uh.) RPG stands for roleplaying game. As far as I know, both terms are equally accurate, but I've seen tabletop rpg being used more often on American sites whereas pen and paper is definitely the term used here in Germany.
A little bit of history
In 1974 Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax published the first commercially available pen & paper RPG books in history: Dungeons & Dragons (D&D).
D&D – and that you have to understand – is the RPG. It was the first of its kind and is still the most famous and popular one around the globe. There were several movies produced and it gets constantly referenced in pop culture, e.g. in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Futurama, The Simpons, Scrubs ...
Another thing you should know: Dungeons & Dragons was the Violent Killing Game That Corrupts Our Children of its time. No, seriously. I didn't even know myself, but there is a very interesting article on Spiegel.de:
Wie ein Fantasy-Spaß zum "Killerspiel" gemacht wurde (unfortunately only in German)
Suicides were said to be a direct result of playing RPG. People were told that teenagers became delusional and „unable to differ in-play from reality“ because of it. Especially Christian groups went rabid about the supposedly „Satanic aspects of the game“, referring to witchcraft and the demons the players killed in the game.
There was even a TV-movie called Mazes & Monsters (I SEE WHAT U DID THERE) in which Tom Hanks plays a psychotic roleplayer who runs amok after he loses track of reality.
(Somehow, I am really curious to watch this, but something tells me I might either die from laughing at the ridiculousness or fall into a rage.)
The hype faded away by the end of the eighties, but the publishers still gave in. They changed cover-arts and put warnings in the books that went along the line of „THIS IS NOT REAL AND WE ARE NOT SATANISTS, THANKYOUVERYMUCH.“
I wanted you to know this little aspect, because I find it crazy what a witchhunt went on in the eighties, just because of some ignorant people who proclaimed bullshit about something they didn't even know. (Especially if you think of the image roleplayers have today: goofy, albeit harmless nerds.) Then again, this is exactly what people still do nowadays with Marilyn Manson, Counter Strike or (*LMAO*) Final Fantasy. Puts some things into another perspective, doesn't it? ^^
TBC
Coming up next: character creation.
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