The Role of RPGs

A friend asked me what aspects and themes I liked about RPGs, and I responded with a word vomit. It is not clear, concise or even likely representative of my opinions, but it includes some, if not most of them and it is from the perspective of a designers, a GM and a player, so it is worth including here.


For me, from the perspective of a designer, I like creating worlds for other people to play in. When I'm a DM or designing a game, I can (try) to make a compelling environment which acts as a sort of crucible for characters, and those that are worthy and cool can make it through. After completing a campaign or a story, you can take a character, and they can stand on their own. That is to say, that someone who isn't their creator can put them into new situations and have a reasonable idea of how they would act.

In something like D&D or Deathfest, I like being the creator of the character. If I stepped away after a couple of sessions (or after a tier) somebody else, who had been watching me play could pick up my character and make decisions that I would want the character to make.

In WoW or D&D, I also like the numbers. While I'm not so much of a numbers nut to go play Eve, I enjoy min-maxing, even theoretically. I like figuring out what would be ideal and work towards that goal for my character.

Speaking of Eve, I like the level of accuracy that the game holds. I can look at that game and say "This is what space-trade would look like." The flow of the economy, the division of labor, some taking risks to steal from others hard work etc... creates a really cool environment.

In Dragon Age, Elder Scrolls, Fallout and to a lesser extent Mass Effect, I enjoy exploring and seeing what world the writers have created for me to play in. Its a book that I get to have a hand in writing, and I get to have the narrative focus on the parts that I like (sort of like a choose-your-own-adventure book). Mass Effect is a "less-so" because you're more railroaded to the plot than in the other games.

Of course, off-setting the rail-road is the consistency and complexity of the main story line. In Oblivion, I was the leader of the mages guild, fighters guild, thieves guild, assassins guild, crusader-general for the Knights of the Nine, heir to the throne of the Mad God, and grand champion of the arena. But then I went into a city for the main quest line and the NPC that I talked to didn't have a clue who I was. In DA and ME that doesn't happen (as much) because you are more limited in your options of where you can go.

In Fiasco, I really enjoy the element of cooperative story telling. It can be fun to be trying to build towards something and then have it taken in an unexpected direction. When you're telling a story on your own, you very rarely surprise yourself and everything proceeds as expected.

Other important parts to note are achievements (even if the game doesn't have achievements), creating insane stories (ie, dropping on top of an enemy and insta-gibbing them or jumping from a tree as a fire-breathing two-headed dwarft monk), making progress (levels, more damage- even if it is on a hamster wheel), finding breakable systems and exploiting them (even if everything is broken), being badass and doing things I couldn't or wouldn't do in real life (Leap of Faith, hi-jacking a flying chopper).

It is also vital that I mention the social aspect of many of these games. Without them, they become a lot less compelling. WoW, D&D, Deathfest or Fiasco, without other people that I enjoy chilling with become much, much worse. While the gameplay is good, there are single player games with better gameplay, so the social aspect and doing the crazy stuff together and creating shared experiences and stories is important to me.


tl;dr -- I guess it boils down to creating stories or characters that do cool things and I get to have a little bit of say in how things turn out.