Roleplaying

Gameplay where players take on the goals and behaviors of fictional agents.

For a detailed analysis of early roleplaying habits, see the book Shared Fantasy.

Examples

Dungeons & Dragons GURPS Basic Roleplaying Storytelling System Mutant Europa Universalis

While in disguise, spies in Team Fortress Classic need to move as part of the other team in order to avoid detection. This forces the players to enact a type of roleplaying using only movement and facing (since they cannot shoot or talk to members in the enemy team).

Using the pattern

Enforced Agent Behavior

Character Defining Actions

An alternative way of achieving Roleplaying in games with Team Play is through the use of Betrayal. This since a player is Roleplaying when pretending to have other intentions than he or she in fact has. The same effect can be achieved through having Infiltrate goals (and can be said to work for Single-Player Games), as for example through the spy class in Team Fortress Classic.

Secret Goals in any Multiplayer Game can serve a similar purpose but does not have to be as easily noticeable by other since players are not force to pretend to have any specific goals.

In Roleplaying games, Internal Conflict exists on many levels: within a player, within the player group, and between Game Masters and the players.

A special case of the Internal Conflict that a player can have is that between him or her and the Character being played.

Relations

Can Be Instantiated By

Betrayal

History

A rewrite of a pattern that was part of the original collection in the book Patterns in Game Design.