Exchange of Realities

Welcome to the Exchange of Realities!

You might be a bit confused by some of the technical terms I fling around, particularly if you’re here looking for writing advice rather than roleplaying tips. Here’s what you need to know for this blog to make sense; if you have any questions, either ask them in the comments or email me.

For gamers: The advice on this blog usually assumes that the reader is either playing or running a roleplaying game in a story-oriented style, prioritizing internal consistency, an eye to detail in worldbuilding and characterization and cooperation between the players and the GM and among the players. If you’re looking for advice on a specific system, or if you’re trying to improve your game-mechanic skills, you might want to focus somewhere else.

For writers:  As you’ve probably noticed, many of my writing articles treat the character as a living entity in her own right. This is partly because they’re meant to apply to games in which the character is actually being played by someone else, and partly because I find characters that can and choose to function on their own to be vital to a good story. I also place high importance on the concept of show, don’t tell. (One major impetus of this blog, in fact, is the idea that running a role-playing game is one of the best ways to learn how to adapt to living characters, practice showing and not telling, and test strategies for creating characters the audience will find engaging.)

And now, the glossary:

Role-playing game (RPG): A game in which a number of players take on the roles of one or more characters in a world created and personified either by a specialized player (the GM) or collaboratively through the efforts of the group, and the feasibility and the success of actions are determined through an agreed-upon system, usually involving the rolling of dice.

GM: Abbreviation of Game Master, the generic term for the specialized player in charge of creating and running the world. (Also one of the likeliest people in the group to benefit from the worldbuilding articles.) There exist other, system-specific terms for this player, such as Dungeon Master (D&D) or Storyteller (most White-Wolf games).

Players: Everyone in the game who isn’t the GM.

PC: Player character, a character whose actions are controlled by one of the players. Known for their talent in disrupting the plot; many GMs talk about “herding PCs” in the same way that normal people talk about “herding cats”.

NPC: Character controlled by the GM. These characters will often outnumber the PCs, but are generally considered less important.

Mechanics: The rules about what a character can and can’t do. They’re sort of like laws of physics, only harder to explain in character.

Need additional terms clarified, or other concepts explained?  Leave a comment.  Don’t be afraid; there are probably at least ten other people who want the answer to the same question and haven’t gotten the nerve to ask yet, and nobody’s ever going to know until someone takes the first step.

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