h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

1) "role-playing is about ... kicking serious monster-butt"

No it isn't. Role-playing is a term used by psychiatrists and method actors. It's all about becoming your character. The fact that the first published RPGs (role-playing game) were about a fantasyland where monsters existed causes some people confusion. There does not need to be any monsters for you to play an RPG, it could be a player vs. player conflict. Note that this conflict could be mental or social instead of physical.

If there is no conflict at all, people get board and do something else, so some type of conflict must be present.

2) A serious omission of this article is the lack of a reference to diceless role-playing, such as "Amber the Diceless Role Playing Game." In such a game the character usually have characteristics to represent relative strengths. When your character attempts to act the GM declares if you succeed or fail based on relative scores or based on what makes a good story.

3) One last omission, LARPs. There are 2 major camps of LARPers (people that play LARPs). The exact term to describe these camps can be hotly debated. The first group tends to hit each other with padded swords ("boffer" weapons) or non-lethal projectiles. The second group tends to claim their characters have hit each other with swords or guns but the players simulate it by throwing dice or a nice game of rock-paper-scissors.

Perhaps you'd consider writing a more detailed entry on, say, LARPs, that this one could link too? The whole topic of roleplaying games is huge - so it's natural that a single entry doesn't cover all the fine detail itself - but with a few more related entries, this topic could end up being pretty definitive!

I have written something about Live roleplay and could do with some help... all comments welcome. Am a relative newbie so pointers on how to get involved welcomed also. I run a live roleplay webring (40+ sites) and a roleplayers website - so come along and talk to me. I'd like to link to this entry but I'm not sure how you do it

Like in A737831 ? But you already link to this entry from there, in the first paragraph...

-myre

I just figured that out. Apologies!

I'm a relative newbie - here to confuse all! Haven't posted much until very recently

Well its a good entry - nice to see someone starting out on the right foot