RPG as Cooperative Storytelling

An RPG is a process of cooperative storytelling: the Gamemaster lays out a situation or scenario for the players, such as “you hear an alarm coming from the First National Bank!” The players then choose how their characters react (“We rush to the bank to see what’s going on!”). Things proceed in a back-and-forth manner, with the GM explaining the unfolding story (how a supervillain is robbing the bank and trying to escape with his ill-gotten gains, etc.) and the players deciding what their characters will do (how one hero swoops in and stops the villain’s getaway car and another tears off the car door, and so forth). In the process, the whole group creates an exciting story, just like you find in the comic books.

Like all games, roleplaying games have rules. The rules help determine what happens during the game: is the hero’s attempt to stop the villain’s getaway car successful? Is the hero strong enough to tear a car door off with her bare hands? With the game rules, the players and Gamemaster have a common frame of reference to decide how things go as the story progresses, hopefully helping to avoid the kind of “Did not! Did too!” arguments from childhood games of imagination.

All the rules to play Mutants & Masterminds are found in this book. However, you only need one essential rule: if it makes for a fun and interesting story for your group, then do it! No set of mechanical rules is going to encompass every possible situation, and sometimes the rules will return odd or even nonsense results. When that happens, feel free to overlook the rules and do what is the most fun. That’s one of the advantages of a roleplaying game over a conventional board game or computer-game; you can bend the rules when they get in the way of the fun!

Notes:

Folksonomies: rpg role-playing game

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 Mutants & Masterminds Hero's Handbook
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book:  Kenson, Steve and Leitheusser, Jon (2011), Mutants & Masterminds Hero's Handbook, Green Ronin Pub, Retrieved on 2015-02-25
  • Source Material [books.google.com]
  • Folksonomies: games


    Schemas

    22 FEB 2015

     Role Playing Games

    Comparative notes from various RPGs, including multiple editions of D&D.
    Folksonomies: rpgs role-playing games
    Folksonomies: rpgs role-playing games
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