The only role-playing games I've ever played have been with people in the same room, and in those cases it's fun to "act" the parts out, trying to "become" the person (or whatever) you are role-playing. It's kinda fun, but I am not very good at the acting part, unlike some of the people I've played with. In some cases, I continued playing simply to watch them, because they are so good at the acting.Philistine said:I just don't understand why role playing games are so fascinating to people
Sometimes it can be fun to play a person or thing or creature that you could never be in "real life", either because it's physically impossible, or because you havent' had the chance (and probably never will) to do the things you can do as that person. If you have the imagination for it, role-playing games in groups in person can be really interesting, entertaining, and fun, as well as sometimes educational.
The ones I have played were plain old Dungeons & Dragons, but it sucked because our DM was way too literal and tight-assed about the rules, preferring to keep exact adherence to rolls and rules and events rather than making it fun for the players. Usually if something is going to kill a major player or make it impossible for them to continue the "quest" or game, a DM or GM is practically obliged to work out some way to get around that, simply so things can continue, even if it's with a major change. This guy would rather end the game and kill off all the players' characters than have fun or continue things.
The one I had the most fun playing was Hero system, both in regular alternate-universe "America" and in the Fantasy Hero game setup. In both of these I played various characters that were totally different from anything the GMs had expected or even had anyone attempt, and it made things fairly interesting. Whenever I had a choice between doing something the "normal" way and some other way that would get everyone looking at me funny, and usually that would cause a totally unexpected turn in the game, I would choose the latter, and in all cases the GMs just rolled with it and altered the game scenario to work with it (same when other players did similar things). Those were the right kind of GMs and players, as they made things fun and interesting.