I would say it's the ability to build long lasting friendships through a common interest.  There is usually a commitment level to RPGs that usually only develops around people you enjoy spending time with.  It's a game but one where your ability doesn't diminish over time like sports.  That shared experience allows you to connect to others with the same experience.  I never would've thought that RPGs would have taught me what they have or introduced me to the people I know.

Quote from: Gunslinger;755747I would say it's the ability to build long lasting friendships through a common interest.  There is usually a commitment level to RPGs that usually only develops around people you enjoy spending time with.  It's a game but one where your ability doesn't diminish over time like sports.  That shared experience allows you to connect to others with the same experience.  I never would've thought that RPGs would have taught me what they have or introduced me to the people I know.

Other hobbies have this too, though.  I think it's mostly due to our hobby-peers being adults.  As kids we didn't choose our childhood friends, we just happened to go to the same elementary school.

Whatever the reason, you see it all over.  Heck even on this board.

Quote from: Simlasa;755710Most of the stuff mentioned here is shared by the sessions of my friend's 6yr old and me playing dolls... and I don't mean that as a negative at all.

Makes sense given that rpgs are nothing more than pretend play with a few rules splattered on top.

Quote from: jibbajibba;755626But surely you can makeup a character in improv acting, you get continuity reading and episodic story in a comic or watching a TV show, you get to act in large freeform fictionalised universe if you write fan fic, you get to model real world physics using dice etc on a table top war game.

So what is the edge that RPGs have that say you can't get from writing shared fan fic on a Harry Potter forum. Or maybe that is an RPG as well.......

Depends on where you draw the line at what is Role playing. Taken to the Nth degree as some have done. Everything is role-playing. And the term looses any meaning. Monopoly is an RPG. No. Really. Ive had people argue exactly that. Reading a book IS role-playing. Really!

Emergent story.

It's like a play (which I also liked to do as a kid) but nobody knows what the story is until you tell it.

Also, in some RPGs, you can finger-bang your friends and nobody thinks that's weird.

Omega:  my favorite RPG is Peggle

Come to think of it, I did take a crack at trying to explain what is special about the RPG; in the foreword of my b/x homage game referee's guide. Here's a paraphrase.


What sets RPGs apart from other games and collaborative fiction is the referee and his dual roles.

He simulates opposition (and assistance and other stuff).  This is important: he does not oppose the players; he simulates the opposition to the other players, while actually being one of them.  I claim that he is just another player in the sense that the main reward players earn through playing- a sense of camaraderie- is one the referee also earns in the same measure as the other players do.

The referee also has asymmetrical information and final say on the rules; but these charges do not make him more responsible for attaining that table reward that keeps everyone coming back for more. In this way he resembles the director of a play, but also the impartial referee of a football game.

The juxtaposition of these roles played by one person- that of teammate, opponent, and judge- is what sets an RPG apart from other kinds of games as well as other kinds of fiction.

The advantage that RPGs have over other media due to this referee role allows for more satisfying emergent storytelling than in the several related media.

Quote from: Omega;755848Depends on where you draw the line at what is Role playing. Taken to the Nth degree as some have done. Everything is role-playing. And the term looses any meaning. Monopoly is an RPG. No. Really. Ive had people argue exactly that. Reading a book IS role-playing. Really!

Uh, Wat?

Quote from: Scott Anderson;755874Come to think of it, I did take a crack at trying to explain what is special about the RPG; in the foreword of my b/x homage game referee's guide. Here's a paraphrase.


What sets RPGs apart from other games and collaborative fiction is the referee and his dual roles.

He simulates opposition (and assistance and other stuff).  This is important: he does not oppose the players; he simulates the opposition to the other players, while actually being one of them.  I claim that he is just another player in the sense that the main reward players earn through playing- a sense of camaraderie- is one the referee also earns in the same measure as the other players do.

The referee also has asymmetrical information and final say on the rules; but these charges do not make him more responsible for attaining that table reward that keeps everyone coming back for more. In this way he resembles the director of a play, but also the impartial referee of a football game.

The juxtaposition of these roles played by one person- that of teammate, opponent, and judge- is what sets an RPG apart from other kinds of games as well as other kinds of fiction.

The advantage that RPGs have over other media due to this referee role allows for more satisfying emergent storytelling than in the several related media.

You really should put your book in your sig box as a link. Hint, hint.

Quote from: Simlasa;755710Most of the stuff mentioned here is shared by the sessions of my friend's 6yr old and me playing dolls... and I don't mean that as a negative at all.

You think you have problems. All of my daughters toys and puppets have backstories and their own voices and personalities (shit most of them have passports and birth certificates). Last week she decided she was going to become a barrister when she grew up so she decided to run a trial. She gave all the toys a role in the trial (judge, accused, member of the jury, defense laywer etc) and then I had to run a whole trial with witnesses expert testimony and the like.
It's pretty hard to have a Japanese female polar bear cross examine a squirrel pathologist, with an indian mongoose chucking in objections and an upper class british donkey judge determining what can be submitted as evidence and what can't.

the trial took 2 hours !!!!

(sometimes I do wander if I have a daughter at all or if I have imagined the whole thing)

Quote from: jibbajibba;755894You think you have problems. All of my daughters toys and puppets have backstories and their own voices and personalities...(snip)

Oh! That's great stuff.
We've built up all sorts of background and voices for our setting too. This afternoon a bunch of aliens invaded Queen Mannequin's palace... turns out they were friendly but the Queen went a bit nuts and demanded all the shoes in the kingdom be confiscated. The girls from the pie shop and the Royal gymnastics studio were all thrown in the dungeon... but once there they coated everything in glitter and started singing. The girls redubbed it the 'FUNgeon'.

The majority of my roleplaying these days comes from playing with her... vs. formal RPG gaming.

Quote from: jibbajibba;755626But surely you can makeup a character in improv acting, you get continuity reading and episodic story in a comic or watching a TV show, you get to act in large freeform fictionalised universe if you write fan fic, you get to model real world physics using dice etc on a table top war game ...

Yeah.  The number of things people are coming up with that are shared by other games, sports or forms of entertainment makes me want to paraphrase Inigo Montoya: Unique?  You all keep using that word.  I do not think it means what you think it means.

There's nothing all that special about RPGs. They're a weird fringe thing which rely on a melange of shared assumptions which came together in the geek culture of the 1970s and grew somewhat from there. They rise and fall with that particular generation and its younger shoulder.

Quote from: Simlasa;755919Oh! That's great stuff.
We've built up all sorts of background and voices for our setting too. This afternoon a bunch of aliens invaded Queen Mannequin's palace... turns out they were friendly but the Queen went a bit nuts and demanded all the shoes in the kingdom be confiscated. The girls from the pie shop and the Royal gymnastics studio were all thrown in the dungeon... but once there they coated everything in glitter and started singing. The girls redubbed it the 'FUNgeon'.

The majority of my roleplaying these days comes from playing with her... vs. formal RPG gaming.

You should try walking round a souk in Cairo with a bear puppet threatening all the husslers with a voice like Olllie Reed from Oliver Twist. "Ill have your eyes I will. I'm a bear see"

Thanks for the advice about linking my game. But it's not for sale anywhere. It's just for fun.