ROLE PLAYING GAMES by Jo

Playing games is a natural part of human development. They create, among other things, a platform within which to explore our imagination.
Role Playing Games (RPG) give people the opportunity to escape reality, into a world without disease, violence, oppression, poverty and suffering (if one chooses) and the possibility to role play situations one could not assume, or wish to play out, in real life. These games are a form of interactive & collaborative storytelling, deriving from children’s games such as ‘cops and robbers’, ‘families’, ‘doctors and nurses’ etc.
‘Adult’ RPG are based on this idea, but are more sophisticated through the development of character, plot and narrative.

COMPUTER ROLE PLAYING GAMES
Early beginnings in computer generated role playing games brought the creation of such games as ‘Adventure’ by Atari. By popular demand, the development of more complex games evolved into a massive gaming industry, which today encompasses over 50 virtual worlds and millions of users/players.
Players pay a subscription fee, per month, to the game company of their choice withsome users skilled enough to create their own income. For example; in Korea, games have been televised on cable tv, and the players have received prize money and sponsorship deals.

MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER ONLINE GAMES (MMOG)
MMOG or Massively multiplayer online Role Playing Games (MMORPG) can be played in a variety of settings and users can play alone, or in LAN parties (local area network parties). The most popular, or biggest MMOG, is World of Warcraft (check out www.worldofwarcraft.com) with over 4 million players worldwide, with almost the same amount playing LINEAGE 2 in South Korean alone.
Online text based role playing games are accessed through internet forums and sometimes email or chat programs. These are games where characters are created and weaved into a story and are proving popular amongst the writing community. They can also lead to a form of ‘fan fiction’ where users can role play characters from books, tv and film.

EXAMPLE:
Searching through google site, I eventually came across this game which I logged into and am now a ‘punter’. It is called CANTR 11 (www.cantr.net) It was pretty easy to log into and it is free. It’s a game where one can play whatever character one chooses, as part of a society. Here is a quick introduction of the game (which I copied and pasted) It will help to give you an idea of how the game works.

There is a lot of reading involved to get to the first steps, and as noted in the above text, it is a slow-paced game and many players ‘only play for a few minutes per character each day’.
I named my first character Pa Honkey, a male. It takes some time to build characters, and as part of this, you can add some history (inventory) to the characters’ ‘file’. Here’s what I started with:

Pa also introduced himself to the other players and now awaits a reply.
The first few days of playing the game, so the information says, is a little slow, so it will take some time for ‘Pa’ to get on his feet, so to speak. I am looking forward to his progress.
To be continued………http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Voiceworks: No 64 Autumn 2006
Wikipedia.or/wiki/history_of_role-playing_games – 11/04/06
www.cantr.net
wikipedia.org/wiki/role-playing_game – 11/04/06
www.lordoflords.com