Roleplaying Game Basics
Since I started playing them myself a few years ago, I've had occasion to introduce a number of folks for the very first time to the world of tabletop roleplaying games. There are already a lot of great introductions to these games out there (I point pretty much everyone I run for to Matt Colville's iconic "Welcome to Dungeons and Dragons!" video). But more than once I've found myself needing to initiate those too busy or skeptical for a twenty minute YouTube orientation. So I developed a 5-point, one-page blitz overview of what I consider to be the bare minimum of roleplaying game basics - namely:
- What is the goal in a roleplaying game?
- How are roleplaying games different from games players might be more familiar with (board games, card games, etc)?
- What is roleplaying, and how do players do it [well]?
- What can players and game masters do to make sure everyone at the table has fun?
- How can players and game masters make the game safe and welcoming for everyone?
Whether you're looking to run a new game for some on-the-fence friends or family, trying to incorporate RPGs into a classroom setting, or just curious about my gaming philosophy, I hope you find this a useful resource.
Roleplaying Game Basics
1. The object of the game. The object of most games is to ‘win,’ for some definition of ‘win.’ In roleplaying games, the object of the game is to tell a good story. Keep in mind that even if your character within the game does not achieve their goal, you as a player may still have succeeded at telling a good story.
2. Collaboration. A lot of games are competitive - only a limited number of players can win, and everyone competes to be one of those players. Roleplaying games are not competitive - they’re collaborative. The players work together to achieve the shared goal of telling a good story.
3. How to roleplay. To ‘roleplay’ is to somehow communicate to other players what your character is doing at a given point in the story. Everyone roleplays differently. Some players refer to their character in third person (“she’s a captain”) and narrate what their character does in broad terms (“they try to hack the terminal”). Other players refer to their characters in first person (“I’m the leader of the resistance”) and narrate what their character does in great detail (“I look down at my stopwatch, counting down the seconds until the rescue operation begins”). Some players may even embody their character, directly reporting their character’s dialogue or using body language to communicate how their character is feeling. Use any combination of these approaches you’re comfortable with. None of them are any better or worse - or more or less ‘roleplaying’ - than the others.
4. The Golden Rule of RPGs. The Golden Rule of RPGs is to always make sure other players are having as much or more fun than you are. For example, if you sense that someone is feeling left out, you might look for a way to bring them back into the game. If everyone does this, the game rocks. If everyone focuses on their own enjoyment, that enjoyment often comes at the expense of others, and the game ends up terrible. One important form the Golden Rule takes the “yes, and” rule of improv - in short, if someone proposes an idea, try to accept it and build on it instead of contradicting them. Another form the Golden Rule takes is...
5. The X Card. When we build a world and tell a story collaboratively, we have to be keenly aware of other players and how they’re feeling about that world and story. To help with this, we’ll be using something known as the X Card. Everyone will get an index card with an X on it. If a piece of worldbuilding or plot is moving into territory you’d rather not engage with in your game, you can hold up your X Card to nonverbally indicate this to other players at the table. When an X Card is raised, the group should work together to either rewrite the scene/detail or move past it as quickly as possible. Avoid asking the player who raised the X Card for clarification unless absolutely necessary, and never ask a player to justify or argue for why a particular element shouldn’t be included. You’re always welcome to step away from the game at any time if that would be more helpful to you, but the hope is that this gives everyone a way to communicate their needs to their group without having to stop play.
Bonus: A Note on Dice. Most RPGs use language like “roll a d20” to talk about dice. A d# is a dice with # of sides. You're probably most familiar with a d6 - a cube-shaped die with six sides.
As a final note: many of the basic points I summarize here are heavily inspired by great commentators and teachers of roleplaying games. Entries 1, 2, and 3 were largely inspired by Matt Colville's aforementioned Running the Game video; the better part of the Golden Rule of Gaming I credit to Seth Skorkowsky's "The RPG Social Contract" video; and while the X card is a widespread RPG safety tool, I particularly appreciate the treatment of it in the RPG Safety Toolkit assembled by Kienna Shaw and Lauren Bryant-Monk.