RPGs or Role Playing Games, are a chance for you to act, you take over a character that you may or may not have had a chance to create, and you play that character. You are an Actor, you choose what this character does and you play out what happens.
Most good RPers (role players) put a piece of themselves into their characters. Why? Because it makes it easier to play, because you use your own personality as a template, and you magnify parts of it. You may be a fairly heroic type of person in real life, but imagine if you will that you are now that Knight in Shinning Armor.
For fun is usually my answer. Partially I play because it is fun, partially it is social. The groups I play in are all friends of mine, but some of them I do not get to see often other than at gaming.
I find it kind of fun to play another person who is able to do things that normal people can't do, or don't have the opportunity to do. Imagine if you will that you are able to life large trucks with one hand, with a wave of your hand create ice sculptures that are as beautiful as you could ever imagine, that with a touch you can heal minor wounds, and with some herbs you are able to cure a fever. Or imagine that you are a James Bond, and get to live that type of life. Or that you are in a group that is like James Bond, or some other movie type of plot.
It is fun as long as you remember it is a game, it can even be fun to talk about, but always remember it is a game. Games do not and can not make your life better. But they can be another way to have fun.
RPGs are what you make them. Most people think of them as a game, like Monopoly, or chess, but with out the board. RPGs in and of themselves are not evil, the people that play in them are not evil usually. There are those people that are way too close to that thin line between reality and Fantasy, and they have to be very careful when playing, they may slip and stop being able to tell the difference. I have quit groups because of people like that.
But RPGs are Satan's tool to get you to worship him! Bull. How can a game be a way to worship Satan? In some games you have characters called Paladins, these are people who are Warrior-Priests, they worship God, and fight in his name. These are the very ideal of Law, Order, and Faithfulness to God. Again it is a game, you can not get anymore out of the game than you put into it. There is a very good web site out there put up by Tracy Hickman and it explains thing much better than I ever could (the part I am talking about is down near the bottom of the page). He should be able to, he is a writer...I'm a Computer Tech, I can bearly spell.
Well there are quite a number of them out there, from things like GURPS (my personal Favorite), Fuzion, Hero, Mekton Zeta, Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, Dungeons and Dragons, WarHammer, BattleTech, Rifts, White Wolf's Vampire and more.
No, they all play differently, and some are more geared to a certain time frame. Like AD&D is more for fantasy/medieval times, where as Rifts is for the Future, as is Mekton Zeta and BattleTech. Some like Fuzion, and GURPS are generic so you can put them in any time frame with the right motivation and rule books. Plus there are CCGs and Live Action RPGs or LARPS.
CCG stands for Collectable Card Games, things like Magic, INWO, Highlander, and a number of others. With a CCG you collect cards, trade them with others, and try to build a deck to play against others with. CCGs can be a lot of fun, and very expensive too.
This are where instead of having a pencil, paper, dice and sitting around a table or living room, you actually go somewhere, and interact with others moving around a "city". Usually this is a building with several rooms and the rooms represent different buildings. At least as I understand it. The whole time you are there you have to remain in character. I've not played a lot of LARPS, but this is the way I've understood it.
I've been playing for a while, since I was around 11 or so. I've played most of the games I have mentioned in this Web page, plus some others I have not mentioned. I was a regular in a Sunday Night Group, I was a regular in a Friday Night group, both of these met every week. Plus I played in Lynette's Tenyson game that met once a month. In Lyn's game I play a 1/4 Elf Knight/Mage, named Forest, in a previous game that Lyn also ran I played Forest's father Silverwood. Forest is an interesting character, he is the son of a healer, his uncle is fairly high up in the White Sash (a powerful order of elite Knights), his cousin is the Baroness of the Morgan barony in the kingdom of Hoojier. The Baron Morgan is the nephew of the King of Hoojier. Forest is currently on assignment in Tenyson, as one of the Queen's Knights Protectors. He has assumed the role of the leader of the Knights.
We are now working on an Epic Campaign. I might post more about that at some later date.