What Is a Roleplaying Game

WHAT IS A ROLEPLAYING GAME?

A roleplaying game (RPG, sometimes TTRPG for “tabletop RPG”) is a joint storytelling venture where players take on a role - a player’s character or “PC” - by acting out decisions and choices for their character while navigating obstacles. In Legendary, PCs are called Legends because tales of their deeds will become larger than life and last beyond them.

In TTRPGs there is traditionally one special type of player that makes decisions about everything that is not the player characters. In Legendary, this role is called the Monitor, and they control non-player characters (“NPCs”), and the rest of the game world. It’s the Monitor’s job to facilitate the game and make sure everyone is having fun. There is a whole section of these rules meant to be read by the Monitor only - don’t spoil the surprises for yourself by reading this if you are a player.

WHAT MAKES A ROLEPLAYING GAME?

Many roleplaying games use dice and a formal system of rules to overcome obstacles and achieve tasks, testing fate to add suspense to the elements of storytelling. These dice are polyhedral, which means that they have multiple sides beyond the common 6-sided cube dice. Rules for using these dice will be explained in detail later.