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Character Building Role Player Games

Table-top role-playing games served as the precursor to modern online role-playing games, emphasizing improvisational acting and problem-solving skills to create an interactive story. The players in such games each created an individual character--fleshing out his personality, describing his background, and using numbers or die rolls to gauge specific traits such as strength or intellect--then take on the role of that character during a narrative created and controlled by another player, the game master. The process of character building becomes part of the fun with role-playing games.

Dungeons & Dragons
- Dungeons & Dragons--or "D&D" as its fans refer to it--was the creation of Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson in the mid-1970s. They based it on high fantasy novels such as Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy and Michael Moorcock's "Elric of Melnibone" saga. Players create characters in a medieval fairy tale setting--knights, wizards, barbarians, elves and so on--then join forces with the other players in epic quests to save the world. Dungeons & Dragons stemmed from older war game rules, and early versions emphasized a mechanistic approach similar to many video games: characters simply killed various monsters and claimed their gold to gain experience and become more powerful . Later versions shifted emphasis towards a narrative structure, encouraging players to infuse their character with personality and tell real stories rather than just pillage and loot. It remains the quintessential role-playing game in many people's minds.
Vampire: the Masquerade
- Vampire first appeared in 1991, the product of White Wolf Studios. It signaled a move towards more fundamental adult-oriented stories, with a heavy emphasis on character and an exploration of internal psychological conditions. The designers based it heavily on the works of Anne Rice; players take on the role of immortal vampires, who must kill to survive while hiding themselves from the mortal world. An elaborate community of fellow vampires colludes with them, playing Machiavellian games with each other and members of the mortal world who serve as pawns.
Legend of the Five Rings
- Legend of the Five Rings ("L5R") began as a collectible card game, produced by Alderac Entertainment in the mid-1990s. Its success soon spawned a table-top role-playing game which is still in production today. It posits a fantasy variation of feudal Japan--called "Rokugan"--populated by samurai, monks and various creatures of Asian legend. Players take on the role of proud warriors, mystic shugenja or wily courtiers belonging to one of the Empire's many clans. From there, they fight to protect Rokugan from countless threats̷0; or pursue their own ambitions in an effort to gain power. L5R's character generation system emphasizes Eastern concepts of honor--lifted from the likes of "The Book of Five Rings" and "The Art of War"--which players often emulate while engaged in the game.

Role Playing Games