What is?
RPG is an acronym in English that can be translated as "Role Roleplaying Game" or "Character Roleplaying Game". In it, a group of friends get together to build a story, as if it were an improvised theater. There is a director, called “narrator” or “master”, who explains the unfolding of the plot; and there are the players, who modify the story as they play their characters.
During the game the characters live adventures that recall the great epics of our literature and cinema: they face monsters, rescue princesses, challenge galactic empires... Or not, as it is also possible to play villains and anti-heroes. There are RPGs of all kinds: from medieval fantasy to horror, from space travel to historical settings. And that without needing to unglue the chair and put down the soda, because everything happens in the imagination.
There are different ways to play RPG and also other games that derived from it, but in this article we will only deal with the “table” RPG, the more traditional one, where players only say what your characters will do, playing them through dialogues.
How it works?
The DM prepares a story with some challenge to be overcome and the players create the characters that will be involved in this plot. These stories are often called “adventures” and a set of adventures played with the same characters form a “campaign”.
Every game has rules and in roleplaying they usually come written in books that contain instructions and ideas for creating exciting campaigns, characters and antagonists. Many of these books also describe the scenarios where adventures can take place and the type of characters players can and cannot create. It makes sense to play with a cowboy in the Old West, but not in a King Arthur story.
Each player has a form – the “character sheet” – where everything their character knows how to do is noted. Usually these abilities are associated with a number (“Swim: 10, “Fight: 8”, etc.) and dice are rolled against these values to know whether or not the character was successful in his action. Hence the nickname “table-top” RPG, as it is common to play around this support for books, dice, etc.
The entire game is based on the choices made by the characters that, played by the players, modify the plot, affecting the world of narration. Then the DM describes the consequences of the characters' actions, and this generates new situations for them to choose new actions. Thus, history is being built collectively.
Give an example?
Medieval fantasy is considered a classic theme in roleplaying games. In a typical adventure, four heroes try to rescue the daughter of just King Albert, kidnapped by an evil sorcerer:
NARRATOR – You follow through the dark and damp corridors of the fortress's underground. Your torchlight shows a fork ahead. As you approach, you notice a glow on the right side, as if someone is holding a torch too, around the corner. What are you going to do?
PEDRO – I stop and say softly to the group: “What's up, guys?”.
HUGO – I say: “Extinguish that torch, otherwise they can see us too!”.
PETER – Good idea! I douse the torch and make my knight take the shield.
JORGE – I'll prepare myself too! There may be some monster up ahead. I draw my axe!
NARRATOR – Okay. You turn off the lights and draw your weapons, preparing for the worst. And you, Bianca?
BIANCA – I'll wait for them to stop with this noise and make my character try to hear something, to find out if there is danger or not.
NARRATOR – Okay, Bianca! Let's roll the dice! If you pass the test I'll tell you what your character heard...
Where did the game come from?
RPG emerged in the US in 1971, with the creation of The Fantasy Game, renamed in 1974 of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) – something like “Dungeons and Dragons”. O D&D exists to this day and is a medieval fantasy game heavily influenced by novels. The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.
Its creators, Gary Gigax and Dave Anerson, were avid gamers of “war games” (wargames, a common pastime in the US) that simulate battles using miniature vehicles and armies. The initial idea they had was to play with characters instead of troops, and that each player would only control one of them. Today the "tabletop" RPG has many fans around the world, but it is still little known by the general public.
In Brazil, he arrived in the 80s, with university students who managed to import a book and photocopy it for friends – which made them known as the “Xerox Generation”. In 1991 the first national appeared – Tagmar, of medieval fantasy – and the first RPG translated into Portuguese – the GURPS, which proposed to enable games in any type of scenario. In the 90's the one that would become a favorite around here emerged: Vampire the Masquerade, a horror game with more focus on the characters' interpretation and personal drama. Around the year 2000 the Brazilian RPG came with everything, consolidating itself with Storm (also from medieval fantasy) and 3D&T (based on Japanese comics and video games), being successful until today.
In recent years, thanks to the internet, it has become much easier to access books and find people to play with. There are several blogs and websites with articles and ideas for RPGs made by fans, independent and renowned authors, and even publishers that sell digital versions of their books. Brazil has been a successful pioneer on this path.
Does it have anything to do with that drawing?
Yea!
The famous dragon cave, shown on TV to this day, was created by the same company that created the D&D. In the original, the drawing is also called Dungeons & Dragons and there you find all the elements of a typical RPG adventure: the heroes (knight, mage...), fantastic creatures, magic weapons, evil sorcerers, dragons (of course!) and even the master of the game – the Master of Mages, who in each episode brought new challenges to the heroes.
educational applications
Since the late 1990s, RPG has been the subject of research by several Brazilian university students. Some books on the subject have also been published.
Many of these works suggest RPG as a complementary educational tool, facilitating the acquisition of school content, as it is an engaging activity that encourages research and cooperativity. In addition, it is common for your players to develop a lot of love for reading and writing, become more expressive and establish strong friendships with other players. There are also reports of uses of RPG as a psychotherapeutic tool and for business training.
Unfortunately, accessing this type of material is more complicated. It is necessary to mine the Internet to access the theses and dissertations, and the books are almost all out of print. However, they are essential materials for those who want to go deeper into the subject.
To know more
This text is just a sketchy flyover, but we hope we've given you a taste of what the Role-Playing Games have to offer.
We have organized the list below with several references for study and also with some websites where you can buy books to learn the game. Some publishers make their entire books available to download free. Feel free, too, to get in touch with us!
What's up? Let's play RPG?
Books:
- MARCATTO, Alphaeus. leaving the frame. São Paulo: A. Marcatto, 1996.
- PEACOCK, Andrea. THEadventureof reading andwritingbetween RPG masters. Rio de Janeiro: EntreLugar, 1999.
- RIYIS, Marcos Tanaka. SIMPLE: initial system for master-teachers to teach through a motivating strategy. São Paulo: Author's Ed., 2004.
- RODRIGUES, Sonia. Roleplaying game and the pedagogy of the imagination in Brazil: first doctoral thesis in Brazil on roleplaying game. Rio de Janeiro: Bertrando Brasil, 2004.
- ZANINI, M (Org). Proceedings of the 1st RPG and Education symposium. São Paulo: Becoming, 2004.
Links:
- Article by researcher Connie Veugen that tells a little about the history of RPGs - Here Be Dragons: Adventure and Prehistory of the Adventure Games
- Blog Academic RPG: a true bank of Brazilian theses and dissertations on RPG
- Publisher Becoming
- Jambô Publisher
- Online store of Redbox Publisher
About the author
Matheus Sales he is a Clinical and School Psychologist, specializing in Psychology in Education and Master's Student in Cognitive Psychology with a CNPq scholarship – all from UFPE. He has been playing and narrating RPG for 15 years and is currently researching RPG as a pedagogical tool.