I was raised in a religious household in the 90s so of course things like D&D were haram. I even went to an evangelical college (that's a whole post there), so I was never exposed to TTRPGs.

And it sucks, because from the little I know about them, I know I would have loved to play them.

But... how do they actually work? I think I have a very basic framework. I know you have one character you control/play as. You roll to... make things happen? Or they determine things that happen? I know there's a game master who doesn't just read a story out loud... they actually influence things?

I'm gonna eventually get into Disco Elysium and I feel like actually understanding TTRPGs would help. And there's a game store near me that hosts games, I'd like to show and not be a total noob.

  • invo_rt [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    TTRPGs are at their core, communal storytelling. People come together to weave together a fantasy for their collective enjoyment.

    There are hundreds of variations on systems, setting, etc, but what you'll see most often is the D&D-style configuration. This entails one person being the Dungeon Master (DM) who creates and describes the story content to the other people, players, who interact with that content. Players have the freedom to do as they will and their actions are resolved using some sort of random result generator, typically dice. Success of those actions is moderated by their character's statistics which are an analogue for how good their fantasy character is at doing everything from swinging a sword to smooth-talking a city guard.

    Off the top of my head, play would go something like this.

    DM: After about a day's journey, you encounter the mouth of a cave just as the sun begins to set. Based on the directions you were given, this is most likely the place. What do you do?

    Player 1: I pull out a torch, light it, and peer inside.

    DM: The soft crackling of the flame of your torch echoes off the dense stone walls of the cave as you peer inside. The darkness of the cave seems to swallow the light of your torch as you peer inside amplified only by the setting sun outside. The smell of damp, stagnant air fills your nose. You see a path leading deeper inside. What do you do?

    Player 2: Well, we didn't come all this way just to turn around, right? I pull out my torch and shield and make my way into the path within.

    Player 1: I'm following behind, watching our back for any surprise attacks.

    DM: Very well. You walk deeper into the darkness on a claustrophobic, winding tunnel into the mountain. After a few minutes time, the tunnel opens into a large chamber, the walls of which extend beyond the light of your torches. The smell in here is different... pungent, rotten. Before you have time to get your bearings, you hear the sound of scratching on the stone floors. It's faint at first, but soon it grows into a cacophony. The glimmer of eyes begin to peer back at you from the darkness just on the edge of the light of your torches. Everybody roll for initiative.

    And so on :zizek:

    There's a lot more interaction than I care to type out, but that's a general idea of how most games flow. If you're genuinely curious, I'd take a few minutes and look for a D&D session on YouTube or Twitch and watch them there. Hell, there are TTRPG episodes of Chapo that are pretty hilarious of your politically brain poisoned like me.

    • RNAi [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      For real the lovecraftian adventure of the wet bois in Washington is amazing