Role Play Basics
There are several different types of Role Play and none are better than the others. They are simply different from each other. I will present the five most commonly encountered types here. Keep in mind however that there will be others that are not mentioned here, and there will be cases where there are subgroups or overlaps between the groups I do mention.
Common for all of them however is that they involve characters that are controlled by the players, who are reacting to made up situations.
Common for all of them however is that they involve characters that are controlled by the players, who are reacting to made up situations.
Business Role Play
Role Play in this context is used as a tool to train employees, and sometimes leaders too. The Role Play will present different scanarios that might arise within that job and prepare the participants for how to deal with a situation like that if it happens. It's a great way to allow people to test out different approaches and be able to discuss the benefits and drawbacks of certain actions afterwards without the pressure of a real work-situation. Role Play is used more and more for this purpose. In these cases the characters are less important than the situation they're placed in, so we might say that the Role Play is situation or plot driven.
Video Games
Many video games are some kind of Role Play. In these games the player chooses a character or avatar to control in the game - sometimes there's only one option, such as in the Zelda games where you have to play as Link. Because the game is coded there are usually limited variations possible, since the player is usually not presented with unlimited options for how to react. The degree of openness does of course vary from the very linear to the almost completely open. The Sims is an example of the very open type, also often referred to as a sandbox game. In the other end there are progression-style games where the storyline is alreadt laid out and the player has to complete certain missions. A good example of this is Twilight Princess (A Legend of Zelda game).
Live Action Role Play (LARP)
In this type of Role Play, the player dresses up as the character they wish to portray and physically act out every action the character undertakes. This type of Role Play is also known as Live Action Role Play or LARP for short. It often involves many people since every person your character encounters must be played by another person. A character’s skills are generally limited by the player’s actual abilities, since every action is played out. They are, however, often augmented by rules concerning certain abilities such as magic and similar things. Fighting is also usually heavily ruled, since no one wants to have an actual fistfight to see who would win, so this is instead decided by "fighting" with foam and latex weapons, or show-fighting and comparing certain stats the characters were given when they were created and which determines their fighting skills. The rule sets for these plays can be more or less elaborate, sometimes ranging into several hundred pages and sometimes being as short as a single sheet of paper. There are also LARPs where there are barely any rules and characters' abilities are determined by a system of "You can do what you can make it appear you can do" where you can do anything you can convincingly portray. So if you have a lockpicking set and move it around inside a lock, you can most likely pick it, or if you want to do magic and have powders that make smoke and different coloured sand that flares up when you throw it into water: well, you look like a convincing wizard and you can likely achieve the effect you're going for.
Tabletop Role Play
Tabletop Role Play is classically done by a group of players and a Game Master who meet up to play. They do not dress up however or act out what their characters do. Each of the players have a character that they have created and made up a description for as well as given certain skills. The Game Master plays all NPCs (Non Player Characters). NPCs are all the other people inhabiting the world the players' characters are in. The Game Master also knows the rules and the plot of the current play. Sometimes Game Masters make these up themselves. At other times, they take either the rule system or both system and plot from a book. A system that is often used here is Dungeons and Dragons, but there are many many others. This type of playing also often includes rolling dice to determine the outcome of actions the characters attempt.
These days these types of plays also sometimes take place online where the players meet and have a chat conference to play and use online dice instead of real dice.
These days these types of plays also sometimes take place online where the players meet and have a chat conference to play and use online dice instead of real dice.
Forum Role Play
The last type of Role Play we will look at here is the type this class will focus mostly on; the forum Role Play. It is similar to the tabletop Role Play in many ways, but still has some key differences.
In forum Role Play each player usually controls a single character, though there are cases where some or all players have more. There are also cases where one of the players takes on a role similar to the one of a tabletop Game Master to make sure that there is a continuous plot and the play does not stagnate. The way forum Role Plays function is that someone starts a thread with an opening; this must contain at least some information about the setting so other people can join. It also has to state who is already there - the character of the player who started to thread - and what they're doing. Then someone else will reply with a post saying what their character does and then the players can keep reacting to each other. Sometimes this is enough to keep a play going, but usually it is necessary to have more of a plot than that. How to do that is something we will look at in lesson three.
In forum Role Play each player usually controls a single character, though there are cases where some or all players have more. There are also cases where one of the players takes on a role similar to the one of a tabletop Game Master to make sure that there is a continuous plot and the play does not stagnate. The way forum Role Plays function is that someone starts a thread with an opening; this must contain at least some information about the setting so other people can join. It also has to state who is already there - the character of the player who started to thread - and what they're doing. Then someone else will reply with a post saying what their character does and then the players can keep reacting to each other. Sometimes this is enough to keep a play going, but usually it is necessary to have more of a plot than that. How to do that is something we will look at in lesson three.