Negative Space: what is role-playing?
- Cinematic roleplaying is an oxymoron
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Cinematic roleplaying always seems to be about reducing player choice. This is a direct result of trying to emulate an entertainment style that by necessity must elevate the director’s choice above character development. Even the best movies require the director to curtail the world in which the action and dialogue takes place.
- Is role-playing about telling a story?
- Role-playing is less about creating a story than about finding a story. And it isn’t even that. Like most things we do with other people, it is a shared experience that we (hopefully) enjoy.
- Plot is the opposite of roleplaying
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If you hunt for plot in a sandbox, you’re going to be disappointed. Plot must be created, not found.
More Information
- Playing at the World• (paperback)
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“Explore the conceptual origins of wargames and role-playing games in this unprecedented history of simulating the real and the impossible. From a vast survey of primary sources ranging from eighteenth-century strategists to modern hobbyists, Playing at the World distills the story of how gamers first decided fictional battles with boards and dice, and how they moved from simulating wars to simulating people. The invention of role-playing games serves as a touchstone for exploring the ways that the literary concept of character, the lure of fantastic adventure and the principles of gaming combined into the signature cultural…•” (Jon Peterson)
