What is roleplaying?
Remember when you played Conan with your brothers and friends, or Han Solo against the forces of the Empire? Well, that is roleplaying: using your imagination to put yourself in a different place and time, or even a different world and reality. But, above all else, it is a game, you are supposed to have fun!
What are the books and dice for?
The main difference between what you did when you played as a kid and modern roleplaying games is that instead of starting a shouting match on who fired first, there are (lots or few) rules to decide who wins. After all, grown-ups are more argumentative and being the one that shouts loudest does not make you win anymore!
Dice are used (with a few exceptions) to introduce probability and tension in the outcomes of your actions. Simulating reality without many complex formulae requires simplifications and randomness.
Where did they originate from?
Modern roleplaying games (RPGs) developed from wargames when in 1974 Gary Gygax and Donald Kaye founded Tactical Studies Rules (TSR) and started publishing Dungeons & Dragons, a game Gygax and Dave Arneson had designed the year before (it descended from another 1969 game called Chainmail). In difference to wargames, Dungeons & Dragons made it possible to play individual warriors in commando-style operations instead of generals controlling masses of men. Together with rules for Medieval combat, the game included magic and other fantastic elements that made it the father of all Fantasy RPG's.
After the great success of D&D, other companies started to publish their own RPGs, reaching a peak in numbers around the late 80's and early 90's. From then on the number of companies has reduced and stabilized as the market matured and consolidated, expanding into Science Fiction and other areas dictated by the fashion of the moment (successful Science Fiction or Fantasy films have been used as foundations for RPGs the same way novels are the basis of many films).
How many types of Roleplaying are there?
In theory, as many as the imagination can dream up. In practice, you can divide them in different formats and themes.
The original format is for several friends to gather around a table with pen and paper playing face to face. In most games there is a referee (called Dungeon Master in AD&D or Game Master in general) that comes up with the adventure and controls the world it is set in. For those with a bit more stamina, there is LARP, Live Action Roleplaying, in which the players act in a suitable environment instead of sitting around a table. Most times props are used, like rubber swords and mock armour (do not confuse with Re-enacment, these guys are not recreating any historical period).
Roleplaying has moved with the times and there are now several ways to play remotely by computer. In MUDs, Multi-User Dungeons, players log on to a remote system and use their keyboards to navigate a purpose-built world, interacting with each other and the critters the creators have put there. A more modern variant is IRC, Internet Relay Chat, in which players use a chat system to communicate their actions with the DM. There is a similar but slower format, PBEM or Play by E-mail, using e-mail to communicate. This last one is played by e-mailing the DM at set times every week and waiting for him to answer back with the results. Last, but not least are Computer RPGs, where the players can play games like Baldur's Gate or Ultima Online against the computer or against other players over the Internet.
As for possible themes for RPGs, the count would fill pages: medieval fantasy, conspiracy theory, futuristic fantasy, science fiction, modern-World fantasy, near-future fantasy, apocaliptic, terror, medieval vampires, modern-day vampires, werewolves, wild west, modern-day magic, ... No matter what you can think of, somebody, somewhere, at some time, has made a RPG for it. Some even cannot be safely classified, they are just their creator's invention.
How many styles are there?
By styles I am refering to the way people view their involvement in the game: how important is it to act like the character in the setting would ("being in character"), do you want combat or social interaction, city politics or wilderness adventure, etc.
One of the more lamentable outcomes of the consolidation of the RPG market is the appearance of style divisions among roleplayers. The fact that people want different things from RPGs and play them in different ways is inevitable and neither good nor bad; what is stupid is the way people do not tolerate each other's styles (if you have heard the word "munchkin" you know what I mean, if not read on).
First of all, roleplaying is a missnomer, RPGs should be called Adventure Games, because that is what ALL RPGs have in common: you will never find an RPG where you roleplay a Medieval peasant farming his fields for thirty or so years before he gets the Plague and dies; RPGs are about people doing something heroic or important, or both; people who have adventures and do challenging things. Some players want their challenge coming from combating monsters (or even other players) using their characters as alter egos, while others prefer to use their characters for social interaction with other players' characters and the non-player characters (NPCs) the DM controls.
As stated above, RPGs evolved from wargames, and most early ones were combat-heavy; non-confrontational forms of adventuring were barely touched. As time passed, some new games started to include more information on social status, interaction with other characters and politics, creating adventures with few combat and lots of talking and politics. This group of roleplayers started calling themselves "real" roleplayers in an attempt to style themselves as an elite among the rest (they have always been in the minority). They also used the term "munchkin" (from those small characters in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum) to refer to those that did not conform to their view of roleplaying.
As in most human activities, most roleplayers fall between the extremes; players even exhibit different styles for different games.
So, why all this explaining to conclude with the obvious? Well, this is just to let you know that if anybody criticizes your style in gaming you can safely ignore him; as long as you are having fun, that is all that matters.
"It all started here..."
As the first, Dungeons & Dragons is the most widely known and played RPG. In it a Dungeon Master creates an adventure based on one of the published settings or one imagined by himself and gathers a group of friends to play it. Under his guidance, they construct the characters they are going to use ("player characters" or "PCs") following rules set up in the Dungeons & Dragons books ("character creation"), then they meet around a table to play.
The Dungeon Master acts as a referee and introduces the scenario and cast of other characters he controls ("non-player characters" or "NPCs"). From then on it is up to the decisions the players make for their characters and their interaction with the NPCs and the adventure the DM has in mind. This can range from a "simple" seek-and-destroy adventure (called a "dungeon bash" due to the most common setting it happens in) to a highly political plot in which the PCs have to make their way through the intrigue of a Renaissance court. If the group of characters (commonly known as "the party") weld well together the DM might set up a series of adventures and link them up into a "campaign".
The very minimum needed to set up a game are the Player's Handbook, the Dungeon Master's Guide, lots of pens and paper and a bagful of dice. These dice can be bought at any gaming store and range from the ubiquous six-sided ("d6") to the much used twenty-sided icosaedron ("d20").
There have been several "versions" of the game. The original was called simply Dungeons & Dragons and is usually refered as the 1st Edition. In 1978 came Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, which held TSR up until 1989, when a very deep revision called Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition was published. Several not very happy years passed until 1997, when TSR was bought up by Wizards of the Coast, only to be bought in turn by Hasbro, the toy giant. In 2000 a new version has been launched, Dungeons & Dungeons 3rd Edition, which reworks most of the rules only leaving the core principles untouched. So far AD&D 2nd Edition remains the most widely played version, but at the rate things are going the 3rd will overtake it in no time.
What is character creation exactly? (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition style)
Apart from his personality (which is up to the player), a character has a set of numbers that describe what he is capable of. You have six main values ("statistics" or simply "stats") that give his natural aptitudes (strength, dexterity, intelligence, constitution, wisdom and charisma). These stats are obtained by rolling dice and assigning the results to one or other of the stats in block.
Depending on the stats, the player has to choose a race and a class for his character. Most settings have the same options for the character's race: dwarf, elf, gnome, half-elf, halfling or human. These races have different advantages and shortcomings and special abilities that can be savers in certain situations. All PCs in D&D belong to one of four classes: warrior, wizard, priest or rogue. A player chooses a class from among the ones available to his character according to stats and race.
Another step is to choose an alignment for the character. Alignment is a general outlook of the character's way of interacting with others and society. There are nine alignments combining values in two axis: lawful/neutral/chaotic and good/neutral/evil. These alignments are general, and in no way should constrict the way characters are run by the players; if the DM believes a character behaves in a way not consistent with his alignment, he is allowed to change it after giving the player a couple of warnings. These changes in alignment can have further repercussions (you cannot be a paladin if you are not lawful good), but should not be a punishment, just a more truthful representation of the way he is being played.
Once stats, race, class and alignment have been determined, the player must check the books for the saving throws and THAC0 (To Hit Armour Class 0) values his character will have. Saving throws are values the player must roll above of on a d20 to save his character from certain types of lethal situations. Also, in combat, all characters have an Armour Class or "AC" that determines how easy it is to injure them (the lower the better); AC is influenced by stats, race and class, and by any armour they might be wearing. Similarly, the opportunities a character has to injure somebody are measured by his THAC0, which again depends on his stats, race and class: the attacking player rolls a d20, and if it is equal or above his THAC0 minus the target's AC, he wounds the other character; then the attacker rolls one or more dice for the damage inflicted (the number and type of dice depend on the weapon used).
Damage is substracted from a character's hit points or "HPs", which are calculated next by rolling dice depending on stats and class. If the HPs fall below 0, the character dies and the player must begin a new one. At this stage the player must also record the base movement of the character from the tables in the books.
The last part of character creation is to kit the PCs. Each of them is given an initial amount of money to spend in equipment and provisions. There are extensive lists of prices in the books for any type of object you can imagine, from knives to whole galleys. Those characters with magical abilities would also have to choose the spells they want to start with.
An optional but much used step in character creation is the choosing of proficiencies. Each character is given a set of weapon and non-weapon proficiency slots the player must fill from lists in the books. These proficiencies range from swordcraft to blacksmithing, and allow a character to be able to do certain actions better than the average man (after a successful d20 roll, that is). The cost in slots of the proficiencies depends on the class of the character.
This is in general the character creation process; there are many more rules and options that allow you to have the character of your dreams, keeping the balance between the PCs, but you will have to buy the books for a full list.
So I decide what my character does, but what happens when there is a conflict?
That is when the books and the dice come into play: most of the conflicts and situations a character might end up in are detailed in the books. If the situation is covered by a proficiency, the player must roll a dice to check against it (rolling below the proficiency value); if not the DM makes the player roll against one of his stats. Usually, a critical miss (a result of 1) always fails, and a critical success (a 20 in a d20) always succeeds.
Does my character get better with time/training/experience?
Yes, at the end of an adventure or session the DM calculates the amount of experience points or "XPs" each character has earned due to combat, successes, good roleplaying, etc. These XPs are added to the character's total, and when they pass certain thresholds the character goes up a level in his class. With those levels he gains further proficiency slots, better AC, THAC0 and HPs and other bonuses. As he goes up in levels the character becomes more skilled and generally tougher.
What did the 3rd Edition change?
For starters, consistency. No more "was it roll above or roll below?" There is only one resolution mechanic which is adhered to throughout the whole rules: you roll a d20, add your bonuses, penalties and modifiers, and if your result is equal or above the Dificulty Class of the situation (determined by the DM) you succeed; if not, you fail.
The six ability scores are still there, but now they are used to calculate the ability modifiers for the resolution checks. We have the addition of half-orcs to the races, and barbarians (tougher than fighters, but less well trained), monks (cross between DragonBall Z and Kung Fu martial artists) and sorcerers (intuitive instead of learned magic users) to the classes.
The player has two further mechanisms to customize his character: skills and feats. Skills are similar to the proficiencies of 2nd Edition AD&D, but now they are not optional. As the character advances in levels (they are still there) he gets extra ranks in the skills the player chooses; these skill ranks are added to the ability modifier associated with the skill to obtain the skill modifier. Feats are special abilities that do not normally need rolling checks for; though their scope is much more limited than skills, they can add a lot in the right circumstances, and their variety assures that no two characters need to be the same even if the belong to the same race and class. Feats are gained much more slowly than skills upon reaching certain character levels.
Saving throws also use the standard resolution mechanism, with each throw associated to an ability whose modifier is added to a base save (class and level dependent) to obtain the total that is added to the d20 roll. The Difficulty Class of the different saves is specified in the books.
Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition is still the same flavour of heroic fantasy, but the mechanics and rules are better written and put together. If you liked AD&D, you will also like this edition; otherwise you will not find anything revolutionary different.
Is that all?
For starters, yes! Those were the basics of Dungeons & Dragons; you only need that, your imagination and some friends. If you want to play settings, adventures and campaigns designed by others you can buy some of the innumerable books and magazines that give extra rules and options for them.
Dark Sun is one of the settings you can play in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition. It was introduced in 1991 and the world it lives on is called Athas, a barren desertic planet baked by a red sun and circled by two moons. Though the basic mechanics are unchanged, this is one of the most different and challenging settings: lots of new proficiencies and spells, full use of psionics (mental powers), strange magics, savage beasts that would make Conan have nightmares, NPCs with the power of gods and an environment that is more deadly than a walk through Hell itself makes Athas a world apart (in more than one sense!).
Dark Sun is so lethal that special rules have to be used to make it endurable: characters do not start at 1st level like in other settings, but at 3rd, otherwise they would not last more than an encounter with the local plant life; players are encouraged to create character trees, so that when (not if!) their PCs get killed they have others to replace them fast; stats go up to 24 instead of 18 like anywhere else; even the posibility of characters travelling to other settings is curtailed to avoid the appearance of unstoppable killing machines in more "mild" climates!
Is it Hell or someone's nightmare?
A bit of both, actually. Athas started as a temperate world under a blue sun which was transformed into a yellow one when the original halfling inhabitants, the Nature Masters, used their control of Life to solve a problem they had. This destroyed the primordial oceans that covered the planet and made new creatures and races appear. Thus started the Green Age following the Blue.
Rajaat, a member of one of the new races, the Pyreen, discovered magic. But this magic is different from that which works in other settings: in Dark Sun the power to fuel magic cannot come from other planes or the spirits, but from the surrounding environment, plant life in particular. Magic users are universally hated (this is a desert, remember) and actively hunted by everyone (even other mages!). To play a wizard in Athas you have to be either paranoid or VERY lucky.
Rajaat had a problem, though: he was ugly and deformed unlike the rest of his race. In time he became unstable and hatched a plan to destroy all other races to return Athas to its original owners, the halflings. For this he needed help, so he started teaching magic until he found a group of humans that would combine skill in magic with great psionics. He channelled the power of the sun into them; this turned the sun crimson (see a pattern here?) and heralded the beginning of the Cleansing Wars.
Rajaat's Champions came forth and started a wholescale extermination of all the new races. As the Champions used their magic entire forests died and the land became a desert, but in time they realized that Rajaat was mad: he wanted to give the land to the halflings, not to them! Combining their powers they transformed one of their number into The Dragon, who defeated his former master and banished him out of Athas. The remaining Champions took abode in the cities that had survived the Wars and became as gods to their subjects: the Age of the Sorcerer-Kings had started.
The savage treatment they have been subjected to has changed the races of Athas: elves are no longer short and fair, but 7' tall, tough and vicious nomadic tribesmen; there are human-dwarf hybrids called muls bred by the Sorcerer-Kings for the gladiatorial games; halflings are cannibal jungle dwellers feared by everyone (how do you think the jungle has survived that long); there are huge mantis-like insects called thri-kreen roaming the land that think elves (and any animal, for that matter) are a delicacy; half-giants and reptilian pterran are available as PCs; and not surprisingly no gnomes have survived (something good had to come out of all that destruction: Rajaat was not completely wrong there!).
Worldbuilding is the creation of settings for roleplaying games. It includes everything from planet mechanics to politics and customs for the cultures of your world and it requires knowledge on a wide amount of subjects: astrophysics, geology, biology, anthropology, history, ...
Once you have roleplayed for some months you will have ideas about new rules for your games and customs for your settings; you will probably try them on the campaigns you play, but they will unbalance other parts of the worlds: then is when you start worldbuilding.
Where do I start from?
Though if done properly worldbuilding takes time and effort, you do not really need to construct a whole world for just an adventure; you can always build the most immediate area where the adventure is played and leave the rest until your players decide to move. This is what is called bottom-to-top worldbuiling: the DM creates very detailed and complete information on the area where the adventure is going to start and fills in the information on the further away lands in ever decreasing detail. If the adventure turns into a campaign, you then expand the information on other areas as they get explored, filling in more and more detail as the characters approach it. This requires the DM to do a lot of work in between sessions, but most of the work will get used quite immediately and it allows for input from the players.
The other worldbuilding method is the top-to-bottom approach. This one requires a lot of work put into before the campaign starts, and it lacks some flexibility, but it avoids the danger of the players deciding to move to a new area by surprise leaving the DM stranded in the vacuum. Here the whole world is created and planned from the beggining; it usually starts with the planet and gets more and more detailed as the different continents, races, cultures, kingdoms, cities, villages and their interactions are developed. The details of the whole world are already present when the DM starts the campaign, avoiding any inconsistencies.
Do I need a degree or something?
Not really, just a bit of common sense and time to look things up. Most worlds people want to play have something that makes them different from the real world: magic, futuristic technology, mental powers, demons, etc. Things are supposed to work a little different from the way they work here and now, and one of the most interesting things about worldbuilding is to come up with new ideas about the way worlds work. Besides, if you feel you are out of your depth you can always make it work with some kind of "magic", most players will have no problem with it as long as you are consistent and rational about it.
On the other hand, you would be surprised on the amount of information that is out there: just go to your favourite Internet search engine and run a search on "medieval". You will get links to websites on weapons, art, culture, history, religion, just anything you might need. Apart from the Internet you also have libraries, universities, TV documentaries and books.
Nevertheless, if you feel you need a degree, there is a course run at Los Angeles by California State University called World Builders which provides an introduction to the theme; the supporting website is among the worldbuilding links.
Is it worth it?
If you are happy playing the published settings then you do not need to worry about creating your own, but if you get the feeling you can do better or want to try something different, then this is the next step in your roleplaying experience. The best way to start will be to introduce "house rules" to your campaign and playtest your ideas before you take the plunge and adapt an existing scenario or introduce a new one.