The Creation of Narrative in Tabletop Role-Playing Games


Book Description

Despite the rise of computer gaming, millions of adults still play face to face role playing games, which rely in part on social interaction to create stories. This work explores tabletop role playing game (TRPG) as a genre separate from computer role playing games. The relationship of TRPGs to other games is examined, as well as the interaction among the tabletop module, computer game, and novel versions of Dungeons & Dragons. Given particular attention are the narrative and linguistic structures of the gaming session, and the ways that players and gamemasters work together to construct narratives. The text also explores wider cultural influences that surround tabletop gamers.




Roleplaying Games in the Digital Age


Book Description

The Digital Age has created massive technological and disciplinary shifts in tabletop role-playing, increasing the appreciation of games like Dungeons & Dragons. Millions tune in to watch and listen to RPG players on podcasts and streaming platforms, while virtual tabletops connect online players. Such shifts elicit new scholarly perspectives. This collection includes essays on the transmedia ecology that has connected analog with digital and audio spaces. Essays explore the boundaries of virtual tabletops and how users engage with a variety of technology to further role-playing. Authors map the growing diversity of the TRPG fandom and detail how players interact with RPG-related podcasts. Interviewed are content creators like Griffin McElroy of The Adventure Zone podcast, Roll20 co-creator Nolan T. Jones, board game designers Nikki Valens and Isaac Childres and fan artists Tracey Alvarez and Alex Schiltz. These essays and interviews expand the academic perspective to reflect the future of role-playing.




Into the Odd


Book Description

Into the Odd contains everything you need to create a character and explore an industrial world of cosmic meddlers and horrific hazards. This is a fast, simple game, to challenge your wits rather than your understanding of complex rules.You seek Arcana, strange devices hosting unnatural powers beyond technology. They range from the smallest ring to vast machines, with powers from petty to godlike. Beside these unnatural items that they may acquire, your characters remain grounded as mortals in constant danger.The game is 48 pages, containing:Original artwork from Jeremy Duncan, Levi Kornelsen, and others.The fastest character creation out there, getting you playing as soon as possible.Player rules that fit on a single page, keeping a focus on exploration, problem solving, and fast, deadly combat.The complete guide to running the game as Referee. From making the most of the rules to creating your own monsters and Arcana. Sample monsters, arcanum, traps, and hazards.Character advancement from Novice to Master Rules for running your own Company, and taking it to war with an original mass combat system.Complete guide to the Odd World, from the cosmopolitan city of Bastion and its hidden Underground, through to backwards Deep Country, the unexplored Golden Lands.The Iron Coral, sample expedition site to test the players' survival skills.The Fallen Marsh, a deadly wilderness to explore.Hopesend Port, a settlement to regroup and sail on to further adventure.Thirteen bonus pages of tools and random tables from the Oddpendium.




Tabletop RPG Design in Theory and Practice at the Forge, 2001–2012


Book Description

​This book provides an introduction to the Forge, an online discussion site for tabletop role-playing game (TRPG) design, play, and publication that was active during the first years of the twenty-first century and which served as an important locus for experimentation in game design and production during that time. Aimed at game studies scholars, for whom the ideas formulated at or popularized by the Forge are of key interest, the book also attempts to provide an accessible account of the growth and development of the Forge as a site of participatory culture. It situates the Forge within the broader context of TRPG discourse, and connects “Forge theory” to the academic investigation of role-playing.




Starport


Book Description

Blaze likes to freeze things with his wand, Orion likes to sneak around so nobody can find him, and Angel is such a smooth-talker that no Creature in Starport can resist becoming friends with her. What kind of Character will you be? Designed for children aged 5-12, Starport is a one-of-a-kind game of shared imagination and storytelling. Start your epic adventure today!




Role-Playing Game Studies


Book Description

This handbook collects, for the first time, the state of research on role-playing games (RPGs) across disciplines, cultures, and media in a single, accessible volume. Collaboratively authored by more than 50 key scholars, it traces the history of RPGs, from wargaming precursors to tabletop RPGs like Dungeons & Dragons to the rise of live action role-play and contemporary computer RPG and massively multiplayer online RPG franchises, like Fallout and World of Warcraft. Individual chapters survey the perspectives, concepts, and findings on RPGs from key disciplines, like performance studies, sociology, psychology, education, economics, game design, literary studies, and more. Other chapters integrate insights from RPG studies around broadly significant topics, like transmedia worldbuilding, immersion, transgressive play, or player–character relations. Each chapter includes definitions of key terms and recommended readings to help fans, students, and scholars new to RPG studies find their way into this new interdisciplinary field.




Pip System Corebook


Book Description




SCP The Tabletop RPG


Book Description

SCP The Tabletop Roleplaying game lets you take on the role of members of The Foundation to help Secure, Contain, and Protect various anomalies throughout the globe. This book was successfully funded on Kickstarter in early 2021 and made over 1500% of the goal to fund its artwork and was written with an easy explanation of the ruleset first and foremost. Backers of the Kickstarter suggested what SCPs would be included in the book, which contains 20 pages of SCP content with original artwork, descriptions, and game statistics. This is an 8.5x11 full-size book of 292 pages. This book, some dice, and an optional deck of SCP Drama Cards (sold separately) are all that is required to play. SCP The Tabletop RPG offers a unique (optional) Drama Card system that allows players to draw from a deck of 82 unique effects to keep your Director (GM) on their toes. Effects range from rerolling an attribute check to rewriting your character's backstory! Players begin with a Security Level, which not only determines what sensitive data they are allowed access to within the Foundation, but also what weapons they have access to, and what pages in the book they are given free access to read (Director's discretion). Content relating to the SCP Foundation, including the SCP Foundation logo, is licensed under Creative Commons Sharealike 3.0 and all concepts originate from scp-wiki.net and its authors.




Dreamchaser


Book Description

If you could live out any story, any moment¿what would you experience? Dreamchaser is an immersive story building game where players imagine the story they want to experience. They imagine a goal for their game¿their story. They let that goal inspire them, imagining characters to play and experiences to have. Experiences they want to share. They live out that story wherever it takes them¿a story of pursuing their dreams.Just imagine all that we can achieve together...




Champions Complete


Book Description

The ultimate super roleplaying game returns to reclaim its crown in Champions Complete! All the legendary flexibility and power of the renowned HERO System 6th Edition rules engine, plus all the superhero goodness Champions has been famous for over 30 years, now in one pulse-pounding, senses -shattering, heroic handbook of superpowered action! At 240 pages, Champions Complete includes everything superhero gamers need, and nothing they don't. New players will love the unmatched freedom of Champions that allows them to create and play exactly the hero they imagine. Longtime fans will appreciate the tight, concise new approach, presenting the full game system in a fraction of its former length. CREATE and play the hero that you want. AN excellent purchase for first time players and handy companion for long time players. THE Hero System you know and love, in a condensed and easy to use format. INCLUDES everything a gamemaster needs to create anything from a single session to an extended campaign. Note: This product (Champions Complete/HERO2000) is a stand-alone, moderately priced book for playing Champions: arguably the most popular and longest-running superhero game in roleplaying history. It contains all of the rules necessary to play Champions: The Super Roleplaying Game, with no other book required.