Roll For Initiative (An Informative Essay)

Roll for Initiative 

The kitchen table was always cozy, made more so by the crowd of people huddled around it. Fizzy drinks and greasy snacks abound. Well loved and crumpled papers strewn as four people pour over a battle map; a knight in shining armor, bold and strong, stands up against the might of the red dragon bearing down on him, fangs, dripping with saliva inches from the knight's face. Dice are thrown across the kitchen as raucous laughter echoes off the pale tile– a grand wizard stands stalwart on a cliff side, arms raised in triumph towards the tempestuous sky and the magic in the air is palpable. The people at the table are bickering now, a disagreement over a rule. Smiles are still on faces as fingers race over keyboards to be the first to pull up the official wording of the decree; a party of wanderers stands outside a tavern, the road stretching out in front of them. Potential thick in the air, they look to each other and smile. Adventure awaits. If you have ever been captivated by the works of JRR Tolkien, Terry Pratchett, or HP Lovecraft– If you have ever imagined yourself as an edge runner, living on the fringes of society or a bold knight serving the good of humanity, or a great detective running the streets of London to catch a murderer; if you have ever had your imagination titillated by the works of Star Wars, Harry Potter, or Avatar the Last Airbender, then maybe tabletop gaming is for you. Tabletop Role-Playing Games (or TTRPGs) are narrative driven games meant to engage the imagination and tell stories as a collective. From the outside, tabletop role-playing can be a deep and terrifying ocean of choices and judgment, but I am here to be your scuba instructor and help you dive into the basics of TTRPGs.

Let’s kick things off with a history lesson. After all, what are role-playing games (also known as RPGs)? What makes TTRPGs different? Where do RPGs come from? Role-playing games are a genre of game where you take on the identity of a character to play– much like acting– and play through stories that you build with other players, either through back and forth story creation, being led through a story by a games master (GM) or randomly generated events from a predetermined list or table. There are many examples of this in video games–  Disco Elysium where you play an amnesia riddled detective and have to solve a murder,  The Legend of Zelda where you play as Link, the hero of Hyrule to gather the pieces of the triforce, or the Red Dead trilogy where you play as various cowboys in a gang running from their past. In all of these games the characters and story have been lain out before you, already a complete concept for you to discover through the gameplay, in TTRPGs you are making that character yourself, building it up from an idea and giving them a history and personhood. 

TTRPGs actually begin a lot earlier than you might expect– with chess– for as long as we have had games to play, people have sat down together to play and act out great battles and wars. In the 1780s in Prussia, these games of battle (or ‘war-games’ as they would come to be known) were formalized, used as a game of good sport and detailed enough to be used by Prussian officers as training exercises for troop movement and tactical planning. These games continued, not to be popular, but to live in a quiet corner of respectability for the right kind of person to obsess over. Until the 1970s, picture this, a sweaty stifling convention hall in Wisconsin, dozens of history buffs who have come from all over the country to play their war-games. Miniature figures of soldiers, tanks, horses, barricades, and trenches set up on amateur yet lovingly crafted terrains to play out mock battles of history. This is the history of TTRPGs. One of these war game aficionados was Gary Gygax. Gygax took his love of fantasy and adventure and his love of wargames and created something entirely new, he of course, did not do this on his own, and it was not a fast process (I fully and highly recommend the book Of Dice and Men: the Story of Dungeons and Dragons and the People Who Play it by David M Ewalt if you're interested in a more full account of the history). What you need to know is in 1974, Gygax and his company Tactical Studies Rules (TSR) released the first commercially available tabletop role-playing game: Dungeons and Dragons. 

TTRPGs have been approaching the mainstream recently and as such there are several popular franchises you may have heard of before, Dungeons and Dragons being the titular TTRPG, recently had a movie made in one of its settings: Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. There are many more however– Pathfinder is an open source game very strongly based on the 3.5 edition of Dungeons and Dragons and easily accessible online through its free website PFSRD20.com, Call of Cuthulu is a siren song to any HP Lovecraft fan, and Warhammer is one of the closest to the original wargaming format dealing with large armies and complex battles mapped out with mini figures (though its well known in the genre I do not recommend it to beginners as its can be pricey to get into and very complex in the rules department), Monster of the Week is a play on the traditional monster mystery television show format (and much easier to dive into playing).

As such with anything, for every game you’ve heard of or has pushed its way into the cultural zeitgeist are hundreds that stay under the radar. If you're looking for some more obscure titles you should check out Itch.io one of the largest collections of indie TTRPGs, however be warned, it’s a great collection but can be quite cumbersome to browse aimlessly. If you're looking for something with a slightly more streamlined interface, Indie Press Revolution is not as large a collection but is far more user-friendly. As far as Indie TTRPGs go I suggest The Quiet Year where you play as the people of dilapidated civilization rebuilding after a great catastrophe, as well as Apollo 47, where you play as the astronauts on the 47th apollo mission going through the now-routine rigamarole of visiting the moon. 

Despite TTRPGs beginnings of strictly fantasy settings these days tabletop role playing games come in genres as wide and varied as any other form of media. You can use your prior experience with other media to determine what you might be looking for in the case of game genre. Are you a fan of the slow suspense of a mystery novel? A classic mystery game. Want to fight kaiju and giant robots in the remnants of a destroyed city? Look for a Sci-Fi Adventure. There are many online lists and subreddits dedicated to game recommendations based on genre, and many many helpful people in those subreddits eager to introduce you to their hobby! If you are a more tactile person, look for a local game shop! If you are based in Kansas City we have many great choices for brick and mortar game shops, staffed with helpful and knowledgeable folks: Level One Game Shop on Grand Blvd downtown, Mission Board Games on Johnson Dr and their second location on Prairie View Rd and Druid Dice Tabletop Gaming on Mainstreet. 

One of the things you will want to take into consideration other than genre is the game system you want to play. TTRPGs run on different systems like video games running on different types of consoles. In the same way that you would want to research a Playstation or an Xbox to see which is right for you, it is a good idea to familiarize yourself with the basics of many different types of systems– partly so you know what you do and do not like in a system– partly so you can have a wider variety of games available for you to play! It's important to keep in mind, while most games can be adapted to and played in any system, many games are made with specific systems in mind and do not port over well. As David Ewalt, author of Of Dice and Men put it, “If Clue was played like D&D, you could grab the lead pipe, beat a confession out of Colonel Mustard, and have sex with Miss scarlet on the desk in the conservatory.” There is as much variation in system rules and setups as there are fish in the sea, however they can fall into a couple of very general categories: very crunchy rules heavy systems, fast and loose single page rule systems, and collaborative storytelling systems. There will be systems that you are led through the story by a Games Master (or GM) and there are GM-less games. The most common system you will encounter is a D20 system, this system uses rolling a 20 sided die to determine the outcome of character actions, along with a bonus or penalty depending on the situation or how the character is built. These tend to be your rule heavy and complex systems such as Dungeons and Dragons 3.5, Pathfinder, and Starfinder. There are also D100 systems, which use two ten-sided dice, one representing tens and one representing ones to determine a percentile, and rolling for high or low percentile to pass or fail actions. Both of these are typically– but not exclusively– GM led games. A GM led game is a game set-up where you have a single person who is in control of the world and extant characters and creatures therein, the person who writes the story and guides the players down the path, presenting them with encounters and situations they can react to. GM-less games are collaborative storytelling experiences where as a group you bounce ideas off each other to create a cohesive narrative, they often have a pre generated list of prompts or encounters dictated by the roll of a die or sometimes the draw of a card.

If any of these seem too long or too difficult to get into there are hundreds of single page games available to play online. For easy to find and easy to play single page games I recommend looking to Grant Howitt (gshowitt on Itch.io), the author of Sexy Battle Wizards, Bird Crimes, or Giant Goddamn Robots.

Role-playing and subsequently role-playing games are often enjoyed as a group activity, with groups ranging from two to however many you think you can reasonably manage. However if you are taking the dive into this wonderful new game form by yourself, fret not, for there are plentiful options for you to peruse. There are many online forums where people post looking for others to play or lead in games, as well as many games that can be played on your own. Thousand Year Old Vampire requires nothing more than the game book, a blank notebook, a handful of dice, and your imagination as you play through the life of a vampire, writing their history and deciding what they remember and what they forget. 

Now that you’ve picked out a couple games to try, Here are some things you might need for any TTRPG you might have chosen: Pens, pencils, and paper, for note taking, sketching, doodling, or throwing at you friends; snacks and drinks of your choice, protip: if you are playing a game with a GM find out what kind of snacks they like and bring them as bribes; fidgets to keep your hands busy during long sessions; a blanket to stay snuggly and warm while playing; and an open and creative mind is absolutely key.

Tabletop role-play is a fun, engaging, challenging hobby. There are a lot of options, and a lot of things to take into consideration when you start to play for the first time. There is no wrong path, play whatever you like, however you like, with the people you like most, rules are only worthwhile so long as everyone is having fun with them so don’t be afraid to throw any aside that don't fit. Games come in all of the shapes and sizes under the sun, you can always find one that fits, if the first game you try isn’t your cup of tea, please, don’t let that discourage you. Always remember, have fun!