The modern society doesn’t offer the youth any excitement, conflicts, drama or heroic deeds.
This makes the youth seek new forms to broaden their imagination such as books, movies and computer games.
They are all good alternatives but the best is, after all, the role playing game.
Role playing games are divided in to several factions, styles and genres. From a general point of view, you become
a character which you act from, a common description of a role playing game is”a drama without a script”.
There are two main types of the role playing game; the traditional and the live role play.
In a traditional role playing game all participant sit around a table with a character which they reflect in their
ialogue, gestures, emotions and their frame of mind. The game often involves dice and thick rule books which are used
by all participants but especially the game master. The game master’s principal task is to keep the game in civilised
anners and secondly to make sure that any possible rules are followed. An adventure, which is usually used, is a series
of events which are triggered by special events the players do or don’t do. It is the game master’s job to make sure
hat the players don’t get stuck in their adventure. The live role playing game has more similarities with a play;
there are more participants that are dressed in the basis of their characters. There are mostly no rules and the story
akes place in a smaller area, which all players are moving freely in.
The role playing game has no limits, except for the participant’s own minds. Because of that there are many genres.
The three largest are fantasy, science-fiction and horror. The first role playing game was a fantasy game called
“Chainmail” and was released in 1974. Fantasy is the dominating genre in numbers of players and is played by beginners
hat haven’t made up their mind of the other genres. Fantasy contains many figures such as dragons, elves and hobbits
after J.R.R Toliken’s books “The lord of the ring”. Many of Tolkien’s own translations of figures in old folk stories
are now considered as proper characters in the fantasy genre.
The youth of today are looking for new experiences. If they can not receive them in their own life or even in
this world, they have to look for new possibilities find these experiences. This form of escapism is fairly
common in role playing circles. But it isn't only the experiences which attract people to role playing games,
people can also play because they want to get away from problems and therefore they focus heatedly on something
abstract and outside the triviality.
People who play role playing games are often described as persons with a good imagination and a lot of empathy.
Role playing is considered one of the most developing pleasures you can devote your time to. The players get a
chance to see things from a new perspective, both morally and physically. Role playing games become more common
in schools and work places where the participants get a chance to practise their empathy and imagination skills
which are important to understand others and to function well in a group.
The limit which exists in a role playing game is merely the one you have for yourself. The events which take place
during a role play become new experiences and help developing your empathy and imagination skills. So why doesn’t
everyone play role playing games?
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