From Sutekh
Roleplaying games are a staple of SUTEKH.
What is it?
A roleplaying game (RPG) is a type of game in which players assume the roles of characters, and with a GM or Gamesmaster. collaboratively create narratives.
Gameplay progresses within a predetermined system of rules and guidelines, within which players may improvise freely. Player choices and GM responses shape the direction and outcome of roleplaying games.
Roleplaying games are typically more collaborative and social than competitive. A typical roleplaying game unites its participants into a single team that adventures as a group. A roleplaying game rarely has winners or losers. This makes roleplaying games fundamentally different from board games, card games, sports and most other types of games. Like novels or films, roleplaying games appeal because they engage the imagination.
In short, traditionally, you kill things and take their stuff.
Roleplaying Systems
- Dungeons & Dragons is by far the most popular game system. Published by Wizards of the Coast.
- Mutants & Masterminds, a superhero game produced under the Open Gaming License but very different from D&D. Published by Green Ronin.
- GURPS is the Generic Universal Role-Playing System. Published by Steve Jackson Games.
- World of Darkness and its expansions Vampire: The Requiem, Werewolf: The Forsaken, Mage: The Awakening, and Promethean: The Created. Published by White Wolf.
- Exalted, an extremely high-fantasy game visually inspired by anime but textually inspired also by classical myth, modern high fantasy, sword & sorcery, et cetera. Published by White Wolf.
- HERO, a very technical, toolkitty sort of game. The main rulebook for HERO Fifth Edition is thick enough to stop a bullet. Published by Hero Games.
- RIFTS, Palladium Fantasy, et cetera, a series of games purportedly set within one "Palladium Megaverse". Though a minority system, it is extremely popular with its fans, despite the publisher's insistence that his system does not need to be updated from its 1980s version because he got the design perfect back then, a patently false statement. Published by Palladium Books, which recently came close to going under through a combination of long-term mismanagement and large-scale theft by a trusted employee.
- Serenity, a licensed property based on Joss Whedon's Firefly television series and Serenity film. Published by Margaret Weis Productions.
- Unisystem, a generic system that has been used to produce several licensed and cult games: Buffy, Angel, All Flesh Must Be Eaten, and C.J. Carella's WitchCraft.
- SilCore, or Silhouette, a system used by Gear Krieg, Heavy Gear, Jovian Chronicles and Tribe 8. Published by Dream Pod 9.
- Many more to be added by people who care.
Types of Roleplaying Game
Beyond the rules system that the game uses, there are several forms of roleplaying.
