Games for your mind

I would like to start this new column, to explain and enlighten anyone interested to that particular form of gaming called role game.

Role games are now very popular all over the world. More than 1000 games were published after the first launch in 1974 of “Dungeons & Dragons”, the father of all modern role games; But, especially between non players, a lot of people don’t know what a role game is exactly, so I’ll try give a simple definition for it. A role game is a particularly form of gaming in which players pretend to be the characters of a story invented move after move by themselves, under the supervision of a Master (Narrator).

The Master expose a situation to the partakers and each one of them tells  what he would do to solve the dilemma and overcome the difficulties of the adventure; for example how to liberate a princes locked up in a remote fortress from an evil magician or how to prevent the outlaws from making robberies in the wild west.
Normally a role game is played around a table and if a player wants to do an action with uncertain results (like jump from a running train to fight against a dragon), throws the dices and the story change in a way or in another according to the dices’ score.

Who wins the role game?

Nobody wins, because role game is not about wining, is about narration and cooperation, the aim of every role game is to have fun and invent an all-involving story together.
And the Master? The Master doesn’t play, he only describes the game’s situations and coordinate players’ actions during the development of the story; he’s the supervisor and also leads all the others character of the story that interact with players’ characters (like the evil magician who locked up the princess in my example). The Master is the arbiter, the caretaker and the director of the role game.

How long does the group of players take to finish the role game?

A single story or an adventure can last for two hours to few months, but role game’s characters are like the protagonists of a literary saga or a television series : ended one story, they can be used for other adventures, improving their powers and shaping their temper with more accuracy.

The most amazing thing of the role game is that it has not boundaries, the only limit is your fantasy! This is the reason why Role Games are often called “the gym of  human creativity”.