Tabletop RPGs turn make-believe into persistent story rules
Role-playing games cast players as characters in a fictional world, deciding actions through talk, live play, or screens. Tabletop RPGs run on discussion; LARPs add physical acting; MUDs and MMORPGs move the stage online. Publishers call them collaborative storytelling with lasting characters and rule systems beyond children’s pretend.
Many games settle whether actions succeed through a formal system of rules and guidelines. Players invent characters and an ongoing plot, and a consistent rulebook and campaign setting help sustain belief in the fiction. Publishers describe the tabletop form as collaborative storytelling, and interactivity is what separates it from television or novels. Each player usually runs a player character who acts as a protagonist, while the game master runs the non-player characters who serve as villains, bystanders and allies.
Dungeons & Dragons, the first commercial RPG, came out in 1974, drawing on fantasy fiction and wargaming, and launched an industry. That same year students built unlicensed computer versions such as dnd and Dungeon on university mainframes, seeding the role-playing video game genre. Tabletop play slumped in the late 1990s against online games, video RPGs and collectible card games, then revived from the mid-2010s through actual-play web series and videoconference sessions during COVID-19 lockdowns.
Live-action role-play resembles improvised theatre: costumed players act rather than describe, using props and decorated venues, and some settle conflicts with rock paper scissors. Groups range from a handful of people to several thousand, and sessions last from a couple of hours to several days. Titles that favour plot and interaction over combat rules sometimes call themselves storytelling games.
Online, real-time text worlds include MUDs and MUSHes, while play-by-mail and play-by-post games are turn-based. MMORPGs pair a persistent world with graphics, yet most of their players never role-play in character. Computers can also assist tabletop groups by tracking records and resolving fights.
Source: Role-playing game
