Thursday, March 22, 2012

Let The Games Begin

What is a Tabletop Roleplaying Game?  If you're looking for the technical definition, here's a link to the Wikipedia site.  It'll define the basic ins and outs that'll have you sighing "Oh God, that's dorky" and wondering if anyone ever sat next to me in the lunch room.  Now, here's MY definition.

Remember those old pictures of Native Americans as they sat around a bonfire telling stories?  Or how about when you were a kid at summer camp, telling tales and urban legends around a camp fire.  You embellish the story as you see fit to play to your audience and to give it that personal flare of imagination that captures every eye and ear around you.  It's a pretty awesome feeling to know your story has hooked someone, made even better when you can see it happening.  Well, a Tabletop RPG is something much more akin to that experience rather than a typical board game, if you let it.  Once a week, I get to invent a story.  I don't give myself much in the way of preparation beyond a basic synopsis of what I'd like to do, and a rule book in my lap for all that technical stuff that's mandatory for a fair game.  Then I let the ideas fly.  It's like Tai Bo training for the brain.  You gotta be quick because you never quite know what your players are going to do next, and your story has to be flexible enough to accommodate their choices and actions, all the while inventing and re-inventing a plot that will keep everyone's interest alive.

Meanwhile, my players - my friends - get to invent characters of their own and bring them to life within the context of my story.  Here I get to watch as they create entire personalities.  It's fun to see what they'll come up with, how they'll play it, what choices they'll make throughout the story.  I like to emphasize character development, just as any good novel or movie would have.

Sure there's also the joy of having friends over.  We laugh, drink beer, eat my wife's homemade cookies, and spend a portion of the night showing each other various YouTube clips we've discovered over the week that we haven't posted to Facebook.  But we're here to game, damnit.  And game, we shall.  ...most of the time.

Our next game session is tomorrow.  We're towards the end of a story arc in GURPS "Superheroes Through the Ages" - a game my friend Courtney is running that takes a band of superheroes through decades of character development, starting in the pulp era of the 1920's.  At that point, this blog can officially kick off.  In the meantime, let the dice fall where they may.