| Games | |
| So what are Role-Playing Games? | |
| Watch children play "Let's pretend".
In a role-playing game each player interprets the personality of a real or imaginary character in an environment presented by one or more Game-Masters. The environment can be entirely imagined and presented in words or it can be represented by images, figurines, models, props, costumes, make-up, special effects, sound tracks and prepared locations; whatever is appropriate to the subject and the taste of the participants.
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| Table-top RPG's | |
| The classic original game which created a
widespread audience beginning in 1975 is Dungeon's & Dragons. A
development of table-top skirmish wargames to include fantastic monsters
and fairy-tale magic. The game is often played with miniature figurines
(toy soldiers) representing the protagonist characters and their
opponents with scale maps or dioramas representing the immediate world
around the characters. Like many wargames, the outcome of characters
actions is decided by the throw of dice.
In the long run we found the rules annoying, mechanistic and inconsitent and the provided material inclined to very shallow and simplistic play. Over time (and we are talking decades here :-) we found that we enjoyed games with more storytelling, emotional character involvement and less dice rolling. But D&D set many feet on the path and it deserves an honourable mention for that alone.
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| EPT | |
 Long before Professor M.A.Barker became a
famous oriental linguist, he started playing with toy soldiers and
creating stories about a fantastic planet in the far future, inhabited
by post-technological humans and strange alien races with remnants of
technology having apparently magical powers. These stories have
blossomed into an intricate and original setting for intrigue and
heroism.
We obtained a copy of the rules in about 1977 but, despite being fascinated, found the background a little too alien and the rules a little too primitive for comfort. Many years later we were very fortunate to be introduced to an intensely realised long-running 'campaign' which has permenently scarred..er.. I mean has made a deep and lasting impression on us. We shall always treasure our membership of the Clan of the Hall of Stone and the friendship of Ian Marsh, Simone Cooper, Patrick Brady and Fraser Hotchkiss..
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| An effort to re-create a more 'realistic'
feel for the world of feudal lords and mediaeval mages. This was the
absorbing campaign of our latter days at university. Many thanks to our
GM Keith Upton.
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now
sadly defunct