Roleplaying
Gameplay where players take on the goals and behaviors of fictional agents.
Games require players to adopt goals but some games make players adopt the role of fictive people and the roles they have goals. This can require the players not only to strive for those goals but to behave as agents which have those goals, including having the emotional attachment to them that the agents would have having to plan how to strive for those goals and choose between them.
For a detailed analysis of early roleplaying games, see the book Shared Fantasy[1].
Examples
Many of the best known tabletop roleplaying game, Dungeons & Dragons, GURPS, and Basic Roleplaying, are actually game systems that can use different game worlds. These game worlds can be totally player-created, but there are also commercial game worlds available. Other games, e.g. Ars Magica, Call of Cthulhu, Fallen Reich, Mutant, Paranoia, and the various games in the Storytelling System, are instead created to specifically support on particular game world. The gameplay is based on the group of players that roleplay members of a party going adventuring in sometimes exquisitely detailed fantasy settings with elaborate plot structures. In these games, most often only one of the players is the Game Master (Dungeon Master for Dungeons & Dragons but Game Master is the more generic term) who acts as the game facilitator presenting and resolving the imaginary situations to the players. The gameplay is usually almost wholly based on verbal communication between the players and the Game Master. Rules, resolution tables, and dice are used to resolve the conflict situations, which usually involve combat between players and monsters.
Computer-based Roleplaying Games replaced the need for game masters by having code. This let players engage in Roleplaying alone, e.g. in the Fallout series, and The Elder Scrolls series, and The Witcher. When computers became networked, this gave rise first to Multiuser Dungeons such as DragonMud and Kingdoms (and re-introduced human Game Masters), and later Massively Multiplayer Online Games such as Entropia Universe, Disney's ToonTown Online, Ultima Online, and World of Warcraft. Sleep is Death is noteworthy in this context since it is a computer-based roleplaying game intended for one game master and one single player, as is the Sims series since it lets one player roleplay many characters or Sims.
In Live Action Roleplaying Games (LARPs) such as 1942 – Noen å stole på and Prosopopeia, players act out their characters in real life. The real world is used as the basis for the setting of the game although it may be modified by for example constructing buildings, and players often put many hours into make the appropriate props and equipment as good as possible. LARPs, of course depending on the play style, are usually more oriented on acting out the roles of the characters than tabletop roleplaying games, and some play styles are closer to improvisational theater than playing games.
Some games introduce Roleplaying in the form that players need to pretend they are another form of players than they are. Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game does this through having some players as traitors that try to sabotage the efforts of the other players, while in the Team Fortress series spies in disguise need to move as part of the other team in order to avoid detection. The latter example 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).
For more examples, see the categories Roleplaying Games, Tabletop Roleplaying Games, Computer-based Roleplaying Games, Live Action Roleplaying Games, and Massively Multiplayer Online Games.
Using the pattern
Roleplaying is based on Identification between players and game components that could be Agents in their own right (at least on a diegetic level), so a primary need for the pattern is to create such suitable game components. This is typically Avatars or Characters (making them Player Characters) since they can have goals and intentions associated with them which players can adopt, but arguably Abstract Player Constructs such as countries in the Europa Universalis series or civilizations in the Civilization series can work.
The Agents needs goals and intentions, and some are more common that others since they inherently have more complexity and thereby let players have more Freedom of Choice in how to perform them (having no Freedom of Choice would make the Agents stop being agents). Internal Conflicts is a common solution and can exist as Incompatible Goals within the Agent or within groups of Characters through Internal Rivalry. A special case of Internal Conflicts for Roleplaying is that players can have it between him- or herself and the Agents played.
Another solution, intended to make Emotional Engrossment easier for players, is to let players choose the goals and intentions for the Agents through Player-Created Characters and Player-Planned Development of them. This can be extended to choosing their appearance as well (Tabletop Roleplaying Games easily does this while later instances of computer-based games such as the Fallout series have numerous options), up to the level of support Player Created Game Elements.
Many games focusing on Roleplaying often wish to provide a large amount of Freedom of Choice and Creative Control for players on how to portray the Agents they are Roleplaying. Sandbox Gameplay can provide players with this freedom while Game Masters can not only roleplay Non-Player Characters but can also improvise ways of allows players to do what they want. However, too much freedom can also be a problem, e.g. in regards to maintaining Thematic Consistency or unfolding a certain Narration Structure, and in these cases Enforced Agent Behavior may be necessary - but too much control may make Roleplaying limited, impossible, or reduced to pure Enactment.
Games with Roleplaying typically require some kind of Dedicated Game Facilitators to support the environment and possible Non-Player Characters. Using human Game Masters allow for improvisation and Evolving Rule Sets while Dedicated Game Facilitators can support the large numbers of players needed simultaneously to create Massively Multiplayer Online Games.
An alternative way of achieving Roleplaying in games is to introduce Betrayal. This since a player is Roleplaying when pretending to have other intentions than he or she in fact has, as for example playing a Cylon in Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game requires. By combining Anonymous Actions, Unmediated Social Interaction and the risk of Penalties, Betrayal occur while going undetected if the betraying player succeeds in Roleplaying.
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.
A special case of Roleplaying exists when players pretend to be other players than they themselves are. This may not be to impersonate other, but rather to be able to have a Possibility of Anonymity in games with Social Interaction.
Diegetic Aspects
Games that are to support Roleplaying need at least implicit Game Worlds since the Agents that are to be roleplayed need an environment to offer possibilities and challenges. The use of Persistent Game Worlds (as done for example in World of Warcraft but also most Tabletop Roleplaying Games) can change how Roleplaying is done - for example having to consider long-term effects of actions - but it player actions can change the Persistent Game Worlds then Roleplaying also effect it in return, up to becoming Player Constructed Worlds.
As part of providing sufficiently detailed Game Worlds, games support Roleplaying often need to provide players not only with the possibility to interact with other players but also to interact with diegetic entities such as Non-Player Characters. For the Roleplaying to become a interactive exchange and have flexibility, Game Masters may need to roleplay the Non-Player Characters rather than having them be their own Agents.
Given that players quite easily may break Thematic Consistency or even Diegetic Consistency when not Roleplaying properly, e.g. by engaging in Out Of Character Conversation, Player Enforced Actions may be worth considering if these are deemed important.
Interface Aspects
While Unmediated Social Interaction makes Live Action Roleplaying as well as vocal Enactment possible, enforced Communication Channels can compartmentalize In and Out of Character Conversations to help support Narrative Engrossment.
Narrative Aspects
Roleplaying games naturally tend to have strong Narration Structures to motivate the goals and desires of Characters, as well as increasing the possibilities for Identification, Emotional Engrossment, and Narrative Engrossment. However, they may need to be Never Ending Stories if they are to be function together with Creative Control in the power of players.
Consequences
Roleplaying typically leads to Enactment in various forms but not always - while Roleplaying in Tabletop Roleplaying Games can consist of moving Miniatures on maps and speaking as one's Character would, it can also just consist of stating what actions one is doing without any Enactment whatsoever. When it does happen though, this Enactmentcan help support Thematic Consistency. Regardless, adopting the goals of Agents can lead to Narrative Engrossment, and choosing how to reach their goals and enact their interactions is a form of Creative Control. All Roleplaying games happen in Game Worlds since the Agents need an environment, but the Roleplaying can define the smaller (and sometimes bigger) details of these Game Worlds and with sufficient Creative Control they can become Player Constructed Worlds.
Given that Roleplaying can lead to the closure of the goals and intentions of Agents, it can also lead to Character Development, and some of the actions players chose are likely to be Character Defining Actions.
While Roleplaying is most common in Multiplayer Games, and there creates a particular form of Social Interaction, it is not necessary and can therefore Multiplayer Games can be seen as a way to modulate Roleplaying. This Social Interaction can give rise to quite a number of different types of activities, e.g. Gossip, and that they have additional limitations, e.g. that Actions Have Diegetically Social Consequences. Examples of situations where Roleplaying can occur even when no other player are present, and thereby modulate Single-Player Games, include when making a country behave as it did historically while playing one of the games in the Europa Universalis series or when playing a Character in Fallout: New Vegas as one decided it should behave during its creation.
When done in Multiplayer Games, Roleplaying are often structured so that the players belongs to Teams and this quite naturally demands Cooperation. However, they require Cooperation on another level - that of upholding Alternative Realities and the possibility of Narrative Engrossment. One common issue regarding this Cooperation, and which can require Negotiation, is that Roleplaying may give rise to both In Character Conversations and Out of Character Conversations and that different players may have different opinions on their appropriateness and how much it disturbs Narrative Engrossment. Roleplaying games with human Game Masters typically contain large amounts of Storytelling, being not only what Game Masters can use to drive the game forward but also being how players can describe their actions and how Game Masters provide Effect Descriptions of those actions.
Relations
Can Instantiate
Actions Have Diegetically Social Consequences, Character Defining Actions, Character Development, Creative Control, Enactment, Emotional Engrossment, Game Worlds, Gossip, In Character Conversations, Narrative Engrossment, Out of Character Conversations, Storytelling, Teams, Thematic Consistency
with Characters
with Creative Control
with Multiplayer Games
Cooperation, Social Interaction
with Unmediated Social Interaction
Can Modulate
Single-Player Games, Persistent Game Worlds
Can Be Instantiated By
Abstract Player Constructs, Agents, Avatars, Betrayal, Characters, Game Masters, Game Worlds, Identification, Infiltrate, Non-Player Characters, Player Characters, Sandbox Gameplay, Secret Goals
Possibility of Anonymity together with Social Interaction
Anonymous Actions together with Penalties and Unmediated Social Interaction
Can Be Modulated By
Communication Channels, Dedicated Game Facilitators, Enforced Agent Behavior, Incompatible Goals, Internal Conflicts, Internal Rivalry, Multiplayer Games, Narration Structures, Never Ending Stories, Persistent Game Worlds, Player Created Game Elements, Player-Created Characters, Player-Planned Development, Self-Facilitated Games, Unmediated Social Interaction
Possible Closure Effects
-
Potentially Conflicting With
Diegetic Consistency, Enforced Agent Behavior, Thematic Consistency
History
A rewrite of the pattern Roleplaying that was part of the original collection in the book Patterns in Game Design[2].
