I was sitting around in a pub recently, giving my standard spiel for explaining what role-playing is to someone who has never done it before. By now it's pretty well rehearsed, as I've had plenty of practice explaining it to pretty much every member of my family at some point, not to mention my fair share of complete strangers. If I was a bit more eloquent, or looking at Wikipedia at the time, it might go something like this:
"The players assume the roles of different characters and collectively create a story, deciding what their characters do based on their characterization. The actions succeed or fail according to a formal system of rules and guidelines which often include the use of dice to add an element of unpredictability to the outcome."
So anyway, I run through my little speech, explaining how we get together and we each have a character that we play in the game and so on, and he turns to me and asks, with the raised eyebrow of someone who thinks they're talking to someone completely mad and asks, "so why do you do it?"
And that was when I realised what was wrong with my little speech, where I'd been going wrong for years. Every time I'd been asked "what is role-playing?", I'd just explained it like someone might explain football or cricket, but it doesn't work that way. Role-playing games cover such a wide spectrum and vary so wildly that trying to explain what "role-playing" is will result in either a mish-mash of unrelated information, or something simplified so much that it contains no information whatsoever. No, the way to explain role-playing isn't to explain what it is that we do, but why we do it.
Fortunately the reason is very simple, and something that anyone can understand, because it's something humankind has been dealing with since the birth of language. It's because of stories. Stories are the reason people role-play in exactly the same way that stories are the reason people read books or watch films. People intrinsically have a fascination with stories. Even in writing this article I started it with a story. That wasn't done intentionally to prove my point; it's just what came out when I started writing.
But role-playing goes beyond stories as they exist in books and films. When you role-play you're not just reading a book; you're writing it as well, you're not just watching a film; you're directing it too, and that's what makes role-playing special.
So What is NoDDSoc?
Okay, so I probably should still give a brief description of what it is we actually do at NoDDSoc, so that those of you who are joining us this year know what to expect. The first week of NoDDSoc is set aside for one-off sessions. These are stand-alone games which play exactly the same as the role-playing games we do normally, but only last for one session. This year we'll be running these on the Wednesday (3rd October) and the Sunday (7th October), both in The Gallery in the Student's Union (there'll be signs up on the night) starting at 6pm.
If you're still not sure role-playing is for you, it's well worth coming along to one of these sessions, and giving it a try! Even if it turns out that role-playing doesn't interest you, it's just a few hours out of your life, and it could easily turn out to be something that you really enjoy.
It's actually well worth coming to both of these sessions if you can manage it, so that you get a change to try more than one different game and see a bit more about role-playing is about.
The way these sessions work is that each of the GMs stands up and gives a brief description of what their game is going to be like and then you go and join the one which most interests you. GM, incidentally, stands for Game Master (also known as the Dungeon Master, Narrator, Storyteller, etc depending on the game - they're all the same thing). The GM is the person in charge of the game, and it's their job to play the parts of everyone in the game who isn't being played by another player.
After each GM has had their say, you go and join the game that interests you most, and the GM will explain how to play and what to do. If you ever feel like you don't understand what's going on or what you're doing, just ask the GM. Everyone's very nice and there's no "penalties" or "fouls" in role-playing, so don't be afraid to try things and see what happens.
Okay, so hopefully after your first one-off session you'll by hyped and ready to start a campaign. These start on the second Wednesday of the semester (10th October) and are organised in much the same way as the one-off sessions - the GMs stand up, describe their games and you join the one that interests you most.
After that, just turn up every Wednesday and keep playing in your campaign.
And of course, have fun!