Writing and Role Playing Games - Part 1

I enjoy making characters. I like imagining how they look, how they dress. I like to think of how they would act in different scenarios. And I love to ponder their back stories, where they've been and what has happened to them. So, with that being said, I would now like to introduce you to one of my characters: Corporal Barret Black of the US Flotilla.

Barret is the most detailed character I have ever created. I have pages of plain back story and haven't even started recording what he has actuality done. This is because Barret isn't a character from one of my stories. He is my character in a RPG. It should be noted that when I talk about a Role Playing Game that I mean the table top variety, and not video games. For those of you who are unfamialier to table top gaming it works like this.

First you have two kinds of people: Players and the Game Master. The players control the PCs or Player Characters, and go on quests, gain loot, set things on fire, and generally give the GM a headache. The GM plans the adventures that the PCs go on; build the world (or use someone-else's if they're lazy); control the monsters, NPCs or Non-Player Character, and other bad- and good-guys; and yell at the players for ruining the entire plot within the first five minutes of game-play. Table top gaming includes the famous/infamous Dungeons and Dragons, and other game systems. The one that we are using for the game is called d20 Modern.

Now you are now, no doubt wondering if this post has a point. The answer is that it does, but you have to dig deep to find it.

Barret is, in gamey lingo, is a 7th level Fast (4)/Soldier (3), has a to-hit of +11 with his normal attack, and a range of 225ft with his rifle before he starts taking penalties. He is a Marine sniper capable of striking from the shadows thousands of feet away. Not only that but he has enough weaponry to take on a small army, and has. Granted, he did have help.

Now the world Barret lives in is an alternate of ours meaning that much of it is the same. In this most of history up to around the 2000's remains the same. Around 2012 countries started trowing nukes around. Fast forward to about 2069 and Barret enters the picture. Unfortunately he was just born and not all that exciting from a story perspective. So we skip forward again to 2087 also known as the present. (You are taking notes aren't you? You mean I didn't tell you about the surprise quiz at the end?) Barret has just fled a large city along with roughly 20 other Marines and Navy personal. He had to do this because his brother wasn't playing fair. And even before that he and the rest of his squad held the courthouse of before mentioned city against hundreds of locals, who happened to be mutants. Those are just some of the high points of Barret's recent journey to what use to be the United States of America.

You see what use to be the US is now close to what you might find in one of the Fallout games. Trashed ecosystems, mutants, high- and low-tech peoples, communities, wanderers, traders, and raiders. This is the world that our GM created, and into this world I stuck Barret. Here is where we get into the point of this post. Are you ready for the pointyness?

When a writer works on a story he has to work out what each character does and how they react. RPGing is much the same, only you tend to work only one side of the story. The writer has to play both the world and the main characters. In a game the players play the main characters and the GM plays the world. While I haven't shown much of Barret's personality yet, he does have one. When we play I slip into a rebellious, paranoid, protective, and gun-crazy Marine and go through the adventure he has.

I don't think I've done this justice so I intend to come back to it when it isn't tomorrow. I mean after midnight. The next post will be coming soon and will be a good deal larger because of some of it already being written.

Zombie Killing Technique #97: A 15 foot pit with spikes at the bottom.