Roleplaying

Roleplay

What is Roleplay Gaming? | How We Play? | The Games We Play | My Roleplay Buddies | My Characters

Now don't get that look in your eyes. Roleplay is a fantastic form of entertainment. I've met some great friends and had some great fun at the same time.

How To GM

What Is Roleplay Gaming?

Well roleplay gaming, often shortened to RPG, is often referred to as 'acting without a script.' No, it doesn't involve dressing up. Basically, there's a set environment: space, the future, the past, modern day, and a story that's created by the game master or GM. The GM helps the players to understand the universe they are in. Game play is moderated by the GM, who knows (or should know) the rules of the game.
As the game progresses, the GM will reward good actions and clever behaviour with rewards or just XP (experience points, used to buy new skills), and punish bad behaviour.
The GM will have written a basic story (although the really good GMs can ad-lib the whole thing), and the characters (played by the people attending) play through the scenario. In my experience, there's nothing that can screw up a perfectly good story like the players. They will often wander off the 'script' and mess up the whole thing. The mark of a good GM is the ability to either pull the players back to the story in a subtle manner, or make on the fly corrections to the story to accomodate what the players are actually doing.

In Dungeons and Dragons (DnD), the GM is known as the DM (Dungeon Master). DnD is often held up as the original roleplay game. This is incorrect, but it is probably the most popular.

How We Play

We've found that the ideal number of players for roleplay is between 4 and 7. Any fewer and game play advances too quickly and it's no fun, and any more players and it's impossible to get anything done.

We also found that is was best to alternate between sci-fi style games and fantasy (elves, wizards, etc) style games. We adopted a rule, fantasy cannot follow a fantasy game, and sci-fi can't follow sci-fi. We play each game for six weeks, then switch to a new game with a different GM.

My Guide to How To GM

The Games We Play:


Star Wars RPG	Dungeons & Dragons	Vampire: The Requim	Star Trek RPG

Stargate SG-1 RPG	d20 Modern RPG	Warhammer 40000 Fantasy Roleplay	Discworld RPG

My Roleplay Buddies


Carol	Frazer	Grant	John	Kirsty	Mark	Paul
Carol is one of our Vampire GMs who writes highly complex charcter interaction games. She once played a highly camp stormtrooper.	Frazer has been in the group since the beginning. He normally opts for tech or mage characters, depending on the game.	Grant is president of the Sci-Fi Club. He GMs Warhammer 40K, Star Wars and occasional DnD	John is one of our Vampire GMs and an avid gamer. He's close to being a power gamer (he plays strictly in character) and described himself as 'a cuddly tedy bear'. He recently married his long term partner Caroline.	Kirsty is Frazer's wife and joined our group later on. She always bring home baking. Yum!	Mark is our resident Dungeons & Dragons DM. He runs a great fantasy based game. He's also an avid cartoonist. Check out some of his roleplay cartoons, or visit his homepage.	Paul has been in the group since the start. He usually plays the group's leader or the tank.

My Characters

Name	Game	Info
Geth (Human Monk)	Dungeons & Dragons	'They call me Geth', that was the first words that helped my favourite character spring to life. He doesn't actually have a name. It's harder for Death to find him (not impossible, sort of like when you lose someone's postcode).

Dak Orn (Jedi Guardian)	Star Wars	This was my first ever roleplay character, a young Jedi Guardian. I still remember the look on our GM Grant's face when he had us face off against some dark troopers. Everyone else had a few shots at the enemy, and either missed or did little damage. Then I went and cleaved right through the thing in one go.

Jeremiah Jones	Vampire	Jeremiah's appearance was based on Peter Davison's Doctor Who. Jeremiah is a 200 year old vampire who's been without a master for most of that time. As such he has trouble adapting to human society and his clothing is always slightly out of date. Jeremiah is an antiques expert with a side line in burglary. He runs a small shop in Edinburgh and has an apartment in New York.

Ty'rill (Eldar Ranger)	Warhammer 40000	Ty'rill is an Eldar ranger (think Elves from Lord of the Rings, but in space). He works mostly with ranged weapons like the shuriken rifle and pulse rifle. I chose to make him a ranged character, because I'd never really played one before. My other characters are all melee based.

Malok Sunard	d20 Modern	Malok was a small character created for a one off murder mystery game. He's an egyptian consulting detective, with a background in academia, particularly ancient history. He's fluent in many ancient languages, can read sand script without sounding out the words and speaks three languages. He is, to date, my only attempt at an intelligent character. I think I just insulted myself...

Captain Sethur (El-Aurian)	Star Trek	This was an NPC, or non-playable character for the Star Trek game I ran. Captain Sethur turned up once in an adventure I ran for the players. He's very old and has been in Starfleet for over 80 years. I wrote a lot of background for this character to get into his mindset and understand his motives. I've included that background here.