An Introduction and Tips For Tabletop Role-playing
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In a tabletop pen and paper RPG, you have to create everything inside your own mind. Your imagination, which is usually only called into play when trying to squeeze some tiny drops of pleasure out of fucking your spouse*, is suddenly given the job of creating a living, breathing universe. Everything you want to do in the game, you can try to do. If the Gamesmaster tells you you've just wandered into the lair of a Dragon, you can choose to fight it, or fondle it, or sing to it, or cook for it, or challenge it to a game of horseshoes, or do a hundred squats in front of it, or teach it how to use the Sky+ remote control. If the Gamesmaster is happy to let you try to do any of these things, you will have the chance to do it. No PC game will allow this to happen. Ever. Unless it's the next PC game by Peter Molyneux, and the person who is telling you that Peter Molyneux's game will be able to do this is Peter Molyneux.
Almost all pen and paper RPGs are fundamentally the same, which is why we like to call them (pen and paper RPGs) despite many of them not needing pens or paper anymore. They have a Gamesmaster, and some players, and some created characters. They have a setting of some kind the future, the past, a fantasy world, a sci-fi world, a zombie apocalypse. They have a ruleset that allows you to work out the success or failure of certain tasks. Usually you'll use dice to communicate with the unruly spirits of Fate, but other methods exist (even the use of Jenga blocks).
Each player will be responsible for the upkeep of his character. They will have to keep track of abilities, knowledge, possessions, motivations, and will often be responsible for fleshing out a backstory. A bad Gamesmaster is in charge of everything else. The universe, the non-player characters, the encounters, the storyline, the goals, the friends, the enemies -
