Introduction to Table Top RPGs

A TTRPG (table top role playing game) is a genre of games that is a sort of mix between traditional board games and story telling. One player is the designated Game Master (abbreviated GM, different games will use different titles for this) and the rest are normal players. The players role play a certain in-game character, describing their actions, and the GM determines the outcome with the help of any rules provided by the game system. Although rules very greatly from system to system, play is usually broken up into two parts:

• Normal Play: When not in turn based play, rules are generally relaxed. Players may do things in whatever order they want.
• Turn Based Play: This is usually reserved for combat, but some games may extend it to other areas as well. In turn based play some set of rules determines in what order players turns go, and they are usually limited in how much they can do in a turn. When used for combat, enemies usually are inserted into the turn order just like players.

Usually the game system will provide some generic rules to determine whether or not a player succeeds at a given action, and this is often done by giving players attributes/stats putting a number value to how good they are at different types of tasks and using that along with dice rolls to determine the outcome (see Mechaneer Stats). Typically a game system has at a minimum some strict rules for these generic rolls and for combat (see Combat), though not all systems will place such an emphasis on combat.

Typically a TTRPG is involved enough (with each player taking time to create their in-game characters, the GM taking time to create the stories, etc.) that it is not meant to be confined to a single occasion. Instead, TTRPGs are usually played out over many such "sessions" (though systems meant for a single session, called a "one-shot" certainly exist). Thus typically a recurring time is selected to play the game. A session generally takes over 2 hours in addition to any out-of-game preperation, and thus can be a significant time investment, especially for the Game Master.