#4 - 1st Time Player

Because a role-playing game needs multiple players for a single GM, you will probably spend most of your role-playing career as a player. My experience in the RPG community is that most role-players are interested in being a GM. Only rarely can they garner the interest in their pet projects and adventure ideas to get the show on the road. It is easy to understand that when you are the GM in a RPG, you have great control in what will occur in the shared story. No one else will have the freedom and tools to create the drama like you do. But! In defense of player the players, the actors. Players will have just as much impact, if not more, on what will happen as the GM.

In my for “1st time GMs” essay, I wanted to make it clear that a role-playing game is a shared story. GMs uses their position in the game to create the conflict and to establish what challenges the heroes will face. More importantly GMs will judge whether players are successful. This is all well and good, but the Players have an equal and opposite power in the RPG. While the GM has freedom to say, "The time bomb will go off in 2 minutes!" The Players are the one who make decisions for what happens next!

This is the unique role of the players, something the GM must not do for them! The GM has control over the script, the settings, and the extras in our drama. The Players however, are dynamic have complete freedom over what they choose to do. That doesn't mean they can do whatever they want, there are consequences for actions. Deciding to do something doesn't mean it will work or have a positive result. But, as a player you are the only one with the power and the responsibility to face every challenge the drama throws at your. If you play well, you will overcome them all!

This is important to remember because we often speak in hyperbole as players. As role-players we draw within the lines. We understand that it is a team game, and we sometimes diminish our characters to be just our role in the team. Our job in the game is the healer, not the decision maker. Heck, common tropes of RPGs encourage us to do this, we pick our characters to be: Tanks, Glass cannons, Grease monkeys. Now it is only natural to divide responsibility and create a well rounded team. If were to play a space adventure game, you can certainly be the pilot. But, you are much more than the driver of the bus, just as a soldier is more than a walking machine gun.

Becoming more than a vehicle for action is making those choices. This is your power as a player, and no GM worth their dice will try to take it away from you. A good GM will foster your dynamic power, encourage you to make choices. Choices can be big and small, but while a Hero can persuade an non-player character to see things their way, no one can make you do something. Persuading the players is never a die roll, it is a discussion between the movers and shakers or drama! Players arguing among themselves is a great way for them to all recognize that they have the power to make choices. They each can channel that power to a constructive outlet. Four players could go four different directions, but it would be far more rewarding to hear each other out, and agree on one vector.

This is the best advice I can give a new player. Once you have identified why you want to role-play and what your character's purpose is, all you need to do is make the important choices. There are no mechanics or mathematics for this invisible portion of the game, it is the real magic of RPGs. Once you are comfortable making these choices for yourself, and your character, you are ready for the role-playing world.

#3 - 1st Time GM

Welcome to the ranks of the GM! If you are reading this then you have already made progress into being a Game Master, or a GM. GMs go by other names in different games, and they serve many functions. GMs are are referees and judges. They both interpret and enforce the rules of the game. GMs are also narrators and stage director. Their responsibility is to depict what is happening to the players, to give prompts for player responses. GMs can even take the roles of every other in game character the players, non-player characters.

With all this range of responsibility you may be thinking that the GM is the most important person in the RPG. They appear to have limitless influence and duties! This may be the case, but the paradox of the GM is that while they could do anything to determine the course of the game, the best GMs will do very little.

Therein is my biggest tip for new GMs, Think of your role as a movie director. While the game plays out the players themselves will amplify the drama. Players will find reasons to execute revenge, to seek fame, to save the day, and get a final kiss in the sunset. Players do all that, you as a GM will set it up for them, so they can bask in the spotlight.

In a movie, the actors, starring in their roles who will have the best one-liners, who will look into the camera and wow the audience. Our best memories of movies are often not of what we saw in the footage, but the people in the movies. Gorgeous landscapes and choreography is pleasing, but also impersonal. Our heroes of the screen are the personal touch in a movie. The Players of a RPG are the personal touch. Each player in the RPG is a hero of the story. Your job is to set them up for a close up.

This is easy enough to think of. Even mundane occurrences have an opportunity for Drama, for conflict. If a player suddenly find themselves locked out of their car, they have choices to make. Can they reach through the window to open the door? Do they have a spare key somewhere? Should they call a locksmith? Will they be too late for the interview that they have to call a taxi now?! In this small example, the GM as director offers a single sentence. They then wait for the player to respond with Drama.

The GM will say, “As you reach in your pocket your don't find your car keys.” A good player will ask for a few clarifying questions, “what about my purse? What time is it? Where did I last have my key?” The GM should go ahead and give answers, and then wait patiently. The responsibility is now on the player to decide what to do. The other players in the room will watch them, perhaps they will offer suggestions of how other heroes can help, “Geoff can drive you and we can find your keys later... I'll call the office and say you are sick.”

Even if the others players aren't involved in the choice, whether they are not helping, they will wrap themselves in the drama. Other players want to know what the hero will do, the same way we want to see what movie stars do. The game continues as the heroes make choices. Your job can be as easy as asking questions. It might be disappointing to hear the first time, but the game isn't about the GM, it is about the players, the heroes. You may be the referee but you are not the bad guy. You may be the narrator but you cannot make decision for the other players.

Yet, as the GM you have the unique opportunity to set up the challenges they face. The Players will follow your lead in to drama. Your satisfaction will be seeing them bravely charge forth into the obstacles you put there.

#2 - Finding the Purpose

When I was still in school, I took part in a special elective called “Reacting to the Past.” In this unique course we took on the roles of historic figures and recreated past events. We transported ourselves to 1947, to simulate how India a left the British Empire. In the space of a single month, each became an important individual from the Indian partition of 1947 to 1948.

I was given the role “Indian Communist Party Leader.” I selected a new persona, took the fictional name Krishnam Raju, (named after an Indian actor) and I started to pretend. Within the simulation Krishnam Raju was Joined by a potential ally, Jawaharlal Nehru. Krishnam Raju also made new enemies in the British Viceroy and the Nizam of Hyderabad. The Nizam was a relic, a prince who had no place in the modern world. He merely lingered with his prestige and armies. As a student, he was my peer. As a communist, I hated him.

The role-playing proceeded for several days. My speech and behavior changed. Krishnam. Raju accused the British empire of gross incompetence, of amorality for causing the Bengal famine. Krishnam Raju rallied the local farmers and decried the growth of cash crops. We the communists, demanded educational reform from whoever would listen. Raju was passionate and vocal but unable to make friends. Plans for a future Indian Constitution made no mention of economic rights for Indians, only religious tolerance. Progress was slow, and the politicians were unable to support the farmers, who had been eternally oppressed by Gods and Kings.

Opportunities and enemies for the the communists appeared. The viceroy silenced Krishnam Raju numerous times. While The socialists, the poor farmers, and Sikhs wondered how my positions might benefit them. Meanwhile, the Nizam smiled at me. As if to say, “I have all the political clout you wish for.” He didn't even need to do anything to get it. The Nizam sat in Hyderabad, central India. He waited for the Constitutionalists to come find him. To ask for his blessing for a future government.

One day, Krishnam. Raju got tired of waiting. Raju rallied to local farmers into rebellion. We took arms against the Nizam and succeeded in holding partial control of the various principalities within India. The constitutional supporters were shocked. They had never listened before. No progress was being made for the oppressed in India. We took action! We seized the day. The Soviets provided weapons to rebel farmers. We dealt a blow to the Nizam of Hyderabad. Rioting in the streets and battling the royal military.

On the same day, the Muslim league called for a “day of action,” inciting religious protests. The Nizam begged the British army to intervene. Local farms were abandoned as people fled to safety or to the rebellion. India's "untouchable" class rebelled and converted en masse from native Hinduism to Buddhism. India fell into chaos.

Then Gandhi arrived.

Two students portrayed different disciples of Gandhi. Jointly, they informed us, that the most beloved man in India was taking a hunger strike. Gandhi pledged not to eat until all the fighting across India ceased. The distracted and broken India watched. On that day he lived.

Krishnam Raju looked at India's chaos - at what accomplishments could be hoped for. The Nizam could not hold his territory without British support. The Rebels could break it away from the governments. We could form an Indian commune. The Nizam could be deposed and killed. Those poor farmers would no longer be forced to grow cash crops for foreign powers. Tragedies like the Bengal famine, caused by the imperial greed, would end. The Farmers could take control of their destiny, if only Raju had time to see it pass. But, the farmers who supported Krishnam Raju loved Gandhi. The same rebels who pledged to die for communism would never want Gandhi to die for their violent deeds.

What should have been given was an ultimatum. To let another day pass, another die be cast, show the ticking clock of Gandhi's life. Krishnam Raju should have gone to the end to secure promises from the English. Promises that they would leave India forever. Promises from the Muslim league that a religious government would hurt all citizens. We should have told the Indian National conference, that its constitution didn't give the people their own destiny.

Perhaps Krishnam Raju would have succeeded in bringing communism to India, or at least socialism, if Gandhi lived, if the Nizam were killed. If I had been a communist. But, I was not Krishnam Raju, not a communist. I was a Jacob a student. I could never be the man who killed Gandhi – I could never betray the faith of the people who loved him and fought with me. I demanded justice for the poor, and I wanted life for the most beloved man in India. I could not take that risk, and sacrifice Gandhi, although Krishnam Raju would.

I capitulated and let the glorious uprising fall. The Nizam brushed me aside easily when I ordered the rebels to lay down their arms and protest peacefully. Those who sacrificed everything for me did so for nothing. The chaos ended, the violence ceased, and Gandhi lived. For the rest of the game, I was an outcast. Nothing I said mattered anymore, and I shamefully retired from politics. It was a failure of the simulation of events. It failed because I stopped role-playing. The decision to drop my violent rebellion was Jacob's decision, not the decision of my communist character.

If this were a movie, my mistake would have be a do over, because the actor and not the character was caught on film. The director shouts, “Cut! – take two.” Real life and role-playing does not allow take backs. The role of Kirshnam Raju, (the communist not the actor) was more real than a movie. I was a poor representative, because I had lost Krishnam's purpose. As a role-player we each adopt a purpose. Often it is something unfamiliar to us; not our ever day experience. I would have liked to have kept that purpose and see my goals, Kirshnam's goals, materialize by our will. But I will have to wait until the next game where I can try again.

My name is Jacob Borgmann. Role-playing is an exercise in finding another person's purpose. In your games I implore you to find and hold onto not your purpose, but that that of your character. This is the essence of role-playing. Lets go make that happen.

#1 - Why Role-play?

When I tell non-players that I role-play, they have a hard time understanding what it is I do. Even if they have heard of it they sometimes ask, “Why is that enjoyable?” This is a big little question. I always have trouble answering it, the joy of Role-playing seems so obvious to me and the novelty of this is common. We are all role-players already. I see its practice and its usefulness appear everyday. Allow me to demonstrate. Scenario #1: Imagine you are at home cooking dinner. You hear a knock at the door. As you open the door you are surprised to find a plumber with a tool box. He says that he was celled in for a municipal emergency, and asks to enter your basement to make a inspection. What do you say? What else do you want to know?

Scenario #2: Imagine you are driving to your grandmothers for the holidays. As you are going across a bridge you feel a tire flatten. You pull off to the side of the road and replace the flat tire with your spare. You know you are not supposed to drive so far on spare tire the are stores are probably closed for the holidays. What do you do? How can you proceed to your destination? Scenario #3: Tell me about your million dollar idea! Surely, you must have had a bright idea to open your own small business. To create something beautiful and creative in your life. What is that thing? How would you do it? How do you wish create it and make it real?!

These scenarios are not that far fetched. Perhaps, you have been in them before. Even if you have not, you can certainly think of what you might do. This is basic role-playing. It is adopting an imaginary situation and responding to it. However, the real trick is not to imagine what you might do in a tough situation but to imagine what decision someone else would make. To adopt the role of another.

You already know what to do, if your car breaks down, but how would your brother react? How about your neighbor? Or your coworker? How about a stranger? How would fugitive Dr. Richard Kimble behave? Can you rationalize and empathize with another person? Follow their steps and thoughts? Can you imagine their purpose - what motivates them to behave the way they do?

In a role-playing game you will become an actor and a writer in an unfinished story. You will write your lines as it progresses, and you will assume their purpose. Adopting another's thoughts, feelings, and beliefs to respond to all to familiar Drama.

Finding another's purpose (and keeping it) is the magic of Role-playing. It is what allows us to assume another's role and contemplate their inner life. Whether you are a player or a narrator you will need this understanding and empathy. Please do not feel that I am giving you an onerous task. As I wanted to point out above, considering how you would react in a difficult situation is common. How uncommon can it be to imagine the life of someone else? Do we not value considerate people? If we want to hold others in esteem and understanding, role-playing is natural.

We all do this every day, whether we think about it or not. We go through our lives already with purpose, our purpose. The same skills we employ to be sociable and conciliatory allow us to adopt another's thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. We hold onto those wishes and for a moment we become them, we adopt a role. It is no different in a game, we still adopt new mindsets. We do so with new found purpose: to create fresh fiction. A role playing game is a response to whatever situation you want it to be, however fantastic. I've played game centered around politics, surviving winter, manhunts, and slowly going insane. How unique a chance to explore our own humanity. With the humanity of those around us.