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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. |
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.
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
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. |
Name |
Game |
Info |
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Geth |
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). |
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Dak Orn |
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. |
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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. |
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Ty'rill |
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. |
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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. |
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Captain Sethur |
Star Trek |
This was an NPC, or non-playable character for the Star Trek game I ran. I wrote a lot of background for this character to get into his mindset and understand his motives. I've included that background here. |