Rpg to rozmowa kontrolowana regułami. Czasami te reguły będą spisane w formie zasad w podręczniku, czasami będą dobrymi praktykami i procedurami opisanymi w formie porad, a czasami będą zależne od grupy. Wszystkie te zasady będą określały, w jaki sposób będzie toczyć się rozmowa i co będzie z niej wynikać. Te zasady mogą wprost określać cele i założenia gry, mogą też je sugerować rozgrywką i interakcjami z nich wynikającymi.
Rpg to też bardzo pojemny worek, w którym mieści mnóstwo, czasami sprzecznych definicji, procedur, celów, dobrych praktyk. Często uczymy się rpg z bardzo losowych źródeł i mamy nieuporządkowane pojęcie na jego temat wynikające z naszych doświadczeń, zależne od osób, które na nas wpłynęły (rpg jest często przekazywane metodą mistrz – uczeń) i gier w które zagraliśmy/zagrałyśmy. Możemy nawet nie wiedzieć, że nasza wiedza jest niepełna.
Dlatego warto się zastanowić nad tą podstawową definicją. Możemy mieć niepisane założenia, ślepe plamki, z których możemy sobie nawet nie zdawać sprawy, a które będą wpływały na nasze podejście do tworzenia gier albo też po prostu grania w kolejne. W przypadku tworzenia i projektowania jest ważne podwójnie – zatrzymajmy się na samym początku i zastanówmy, co w ogóle chcemy osiągnąć:
- o czym chcemy opowiedzieć, jakie historie
- dlaczego
- jak to ma wyglądać przy stole pomiędzy samymi grającymi
- czego możemy użyć do osiągnięcia naszego celu (jakich zasad, mechanik czy procedur)
Ważne jest, żeby grę pisać świadomie, jeśli nie od początku to przynajmniej zastanowić się nad tymi podstawowymi sprawami w trakcie tworzenia.
To wszystko jest niezależne od gatunku czy podgatunku gry – czy to będzie gra tradycyjna, osr, freeform, różnorodne indie, story game czy cokolwiek innego.
Poniżej kilka ciekawych definicji rpg, grania w konkretnych tytułach. Zwróćcie uwagę na opisane w nich cele, procedury i role i zadania osób grających.
Co o nich sądzicie?
Jakie są wasze ulubione i ciekawe definicje? Podajcie je w komentarzach.
Vincent Baker o rpg w Apocalypse World:
Zapewne już to wiesz: rozgrywka w grach fabularnych jest rozmową. Ty i pozostali gracze przerzucacie się kolejnymi wypowiedziami na temat fikcyjnych postaci żyjących w fikcyjnym świecie. Tak jak w przypadku każdej innej rozmowy mówicie na
zmianę, ale nie do końca na zmianę, prawda? Czasami wchodzicie sobie w słowo, przerywacie, budujecie na cudzych pomysłach lub przejmujecie rozmowę. No i w porządku.
Wszystkie zasady w tej książce służą jednemu: ustalają zasady rozmowy. Określone wypowiedzi uruchamiają działanie zasad, które nakładają ograniczenia na to, co można w danej sytuacji odpowiedzieć. Rozsądne, prawda?
Matt Snyder o rpg w Dagger & Shadow:
Role-playing In the City
Dagger & Shadow is a Role-Playing Game, or “RPG.” Chances are you know what that is already. If not, that’s ok. In a role-playing game, players take on imaginary roles, using rules and just talking to one another about what the characters they’re all imagining together do. One player is the game master. Rather than take on one character role, the game master runs all the other supporting characters and the city environment itself, challenging characters at every step and turn.
Role-playing is a collaborative effort, and often produces dramatic or humorous moments as characters get into and out of trouble. Over time, players add things to their characters, and the characters evolve. Unlike most games, the game is ongoing — there isn’t a specific way to end this game (some RPGs do have such endings,
however). Rather, it’s something players return to as often as they like to see what their characters do next.
The Goal of Play
In Dagger & Shadow, each player’s goal is simple: Your character seeks wealth and power. There are many ways you can go about this, but your character advances and improves by acquiring money.
Meanwhile, the game master’s goal is to challenge the players as they drive toward their ambitions. Nothing is easy. That’s the game master’s mantra. The game master isn’t trying to kill characters at every turn (though that sometimes happens), or even trying to “win.” Rather, it’s a more delicate balance of presenting frequent and engaging challenges for the characters to confront.
Emily Care Boss o Under my Skin:
Under my Skin is a game about faith, love and commitment. In the game, you play characters in relationship that become drawn to someone who is not their partner. Th e players explore the fears their characters experience about loss and betrayal, and navigate, in character, the tricky issues of openness, trust and communication that all relationships are challenged by at one time or another.
In this game, the players work together to create the group of friends and acquaintances whose lives are changed by new love and attraction. They then act out what those characters do in a series of scenes, much like an improvised play. One player may take the role of Director by not playing a main character, but rather helping the others act out their stories.
This game asks the players to address serious emotional issues within the game. Please play advisedly, and have some dangerous fun.
Mathijs Holter o Archipelago:
Archipelago is a story/role-playing game where each player controls a major character. Player take turns directing and playing out a part of their character’s story, leading them towards their selected point of destiny, while other players interact with and influence that story.
Definicja z Blueholme:
In BLUEHOLME™, the players take on the roles of characters in a fantasy universe where magic really works, where monsters lurk deep in underground lairs, and adventurers risk life and limb in the quest for fame and fortune. As the game unfolds, characters grow in experience, wealth and authority by overcoming perils, liberating treasure hoards and making powerful friends (or enemies). The adventure can be as long or as short as suits the participants, an evening or a year (or more).
James Ward o Metamomorphosis Alpha (1st ed.):
THE GAME
Age Level: Adults 12 years and up.
Number of Participants: 1 referee and 2 to 24 players.
Much of the material herein is presented in order to give participants the proper “feel” for play. This may cause some readers to hesitate to become involved in a game which has, seemingly, so many rules, but actually the system is quite simple; and it provides a nearly endless, multi-levelled, and completely absorbing science fiction game which will offer a challenge to the most imaginative intellect.
The referee is the participant who decides he would enjoy running the game and is willing to accept the burden of drawing the starship levels and locating the life forms on each level as well as noting where various technological items and/or information is to be found.
These posts give complete instructions to guide the new referee in this activity. The referee will find that imagination and creativity are most helpful in his role as Supreme Arbiter (or Starship Master) of the course of the game. He must carefully balance risk and reward. His starship must not be so laden with deadly hazards as to make survival of player characters impossible – or even nearly so. On the other hand he must not be so kindly as to make the game too easy and the rewards too great, for that will remove all of the challenge, and play will quickly become boring routine. At the beginning of the game the referee must plan to present his players with problems which are not too difficult to overcome and rewards which are correspondingly low in value. As players become more adept, he can then increase the difficulty of the problems they will face, and at the same time increase the value of the items they find if they solve the problems – animal, vegetable, mechanical or something else entirely.
The players cannot begin the game (called a campaign because each episode of play will be connected to the next with results going forward from game to game) until the referee has prepared one to three levels. Once the referee has made the necessary preparations, the players create game personas, called characters herein. The players then assume the various roles that they have selected for their characters – pure human, mutated human, humanoid, intelligent animal, or whatever. Each player keeps careful records of his character and his character’s possessions as well as of what areas his character has explored and mapped.
Dragonquest 3ed:
Tunnels and Trolls 7 ed:
In order to play Tunnels and Trolls it is necessary to do the following things first:
1) Someone must create and stock a dungeon with monsters, magic, and treasure. The person who does this has godlike powers over his or her own dungeons, but is expected to be fair to the other players and abide by the rules of T&T.
2) Create and name the fantasy characters (heroes all—at least potentially) who will explore the dungeon.
3) Arm and provision those characters so that they have a chance of getting down into the dungeon and back out alive. Instructions for these operations,
and for combating monsters and compiling experience (in points), follow. Tunnels and Trolls is a game of limited information. Individual players cannot see the whole
board (or dungeon map). Only the Game Master (also known as the GM) knows what is on map. He tells the players what they can see or observe around them. They, in turn, tell the GM what actions they take, what special search procedures they use, and anything else that may be relevant to the situation.
Your GM may use the included character and creature tokens, placing them upon a gridded map to help you visualized the situation, but if not, make sure you keep a good visual idea of your surroundings in mind. Draw your own maps if you must, or feel free to ask the GM to draw you a rough map of the immediate environment.
Players should, as much as is easily possible, role-play their characters. Try not to think of yourself as an Olympian god moving little chessmen around a mapboard, but instead be Snargblat the Goblin Thief who joined these adventurers at the last moment. Likewise, the GM should get into character for his puppet minions. Instead of
merely saying, “an ugly troll comes around the corner singing an unpleasant ditty,” try
stomping your feet and then singing in your deepest voice, “Fee Fie Fo Fug, smash the delver like a bug!”
The game progresses in a series of give-and-take actions with both Game Master and players trying to make this an interesting tale of adventure and derring-do. From time to time dice will be rolled. The players will find themselves in fear for their imaginary lives. The GM will find himself coping with player reactions that he had no way of forecasting. Riddles will be solved; monsters will be defeated; treasure will be won.
At least that’s the ideal outcome of a session of T&T play. You might just all prove too dumb to live and wind up dead…
Sieciowe warsztaty gamedesignu 