first contact with fantasy role-playing games was in school. I immediately got deeply involved in them and started to buy books and materials for playing them. I started off by playing around a table, with one person acting as a storyteller, and the others playing characters in the story. They are really in the story, in that they can change the outcome of the story by their actions, which they explain to the storyteller, who in turn tells them what happens, as well as describing to them what they can see and experience in the game’s world. So, all the players interact within the story, with each other and other characters in the story who the storyteller describes. Usually, the players act the part of the “good guys”, but not always. All the players need is a piece of paper with a description of their character on it, how strong he or she is, how intelligent, how wise, how fast at running, and things like that.
A year later, I heard about the existence of similar games which are played outside, in the woods, in old castles, and in other similarly atmospheric places. No papers are used, but instead the participants play the part of their characters, wearing costumes and carrying pieces of equipment and weapons – not real ones! – that they might need. You stay in your role for a period of time, anything between a few hours and a few days, and for all of that time you act out your character. It’s like living in another age or another world.
The type of characters you can play depends on the setting and the story, but generally, within that, it’s nice to be a character with a different personality and different attributes to those you have in real life. You might be a knight, a thief, a magician, an elf, even a monster, in a typical fantasy world. Or if the scenario is a children’s story, you might play one of the characters from Alice in Wonderland. We use many themes, such as space, stories from Tolkien’s world, or various periods in history.
Last year we used as a setting a very nice castle in Wales, and the story was from the Renaissance times in Italy, so we all had to learn a bit about that period of history in order to prepare for the game. Some people played members of the military or politicians from that time, and we set up the same situation as was at a particular historical date, but, of course, the outcome was not fixed. We just played out history from that point on, but the ending, the conclusion, was completely different to how things happened in real life. I remember I played an Arabian Doctor of Medicine, with a nice historical costume which was borrowed from a theatre. Most of the game was played by talking – there wasn’t so much fighting in that game. I think there was only one fighting person, who played a warrior from Switzerland. Most people played aristocrats, Dukes or royalty, or politicians. The storyteller of that game brought a little magic into the story, to spice it up a bit, and make it more dramatic. So, we had a seance in the game – it was actually quite fashionable to have seances in those times. That game was great fun, and it was really interesting to try to make every aspect of the game as authentic as possible, including what we ate and the way we talked.
In some games I played the part of the storyteller, often in conjunction with one or two others. So, we made up the story, decided on the setting and the plot. We would introduce the story to some players, who helped us to make the setting, playing monsters or characters with a fixed role according to the storyline, whereas the other players wouldn’t know the story, and had to find out what was happening, by interacting with the other characters.
In one adventure we created, the characters were all magicians and sorcerers, and their objective was to build up a tower, a tower of power. The setting was an imaginary country with a kind of Arabian atmosphere, and the participants were all dressed in Arabian costumes, with loose clothes, masks, turbans, and things like that.
Many of our stories are set in different countries of one fantasy world, which is a conglomerate of many different environments. So, we have one country which is like Germany in the Middle Ages, a country like Iceland, some hot, desert countries, and things like that. This story was involved with making the building and fighting against dark powers who wanted to destroy the tower. When I write adventures, I like to put a moral into the story, and this time it was that the source of the magic is a dark source. Not all the magicians recognized this at first, and went on building and gaining power, but in the end, they had to recognize that their power was only a part of a dark power, to recognize that to make magic of this kind is too dangerous and uncontrollable. One sorcerer knew that the source of the magic wasn’t good, and that there was a dark power underneath the tower which would wake up when there was too much magic in it, but the others didn’t believe him, and went on regardless, because they were too lost in the money and politics which was motivating their magic, so they couldn’t stop it. After about two days, the dark power became more visible, so we sent people playing monsters and evil creatures creeping around, and in the end the story didn’t end well, because the power beneath the tower awoke, and all of the characters had to try to escape, and some died. In such a story it is possible for your character to die. Some people’s characters learnt from the events that were taking place around them, but it wasn’t like learning from a book, they just started to feel the moral. When you’re playing a character, you really become him or her, and you feel the consequences of your actions. It’s your adventure.
Fantasy Games
1. When did Nick get involved in fantasy games?
2. What did he start buying?
3. What can characters do in a fantasy game around a table?
4. What does the storyteller do there?
5. What do players need to act their characters?
6. When did Nick hear of the outside games?
7. Where are they played?
8. What do participants need to act their characters?
9. How long can such a game last?
10. What is it like playing such a game?
11. What kind of characters can you play in a typical fantasy world?
12. What kind of themes do they use?
13. What did they use as a setting last year?
14. What was the story like?
15. What did the participants have to do to prepare for the game?
16. Who did they play?
17. What was different from the historical situation?
18. Who did Nick play?
19. What did the storyteller bring into the story?
20. Why was that game such great fun?
21. What did Nick have to do when he played the storyteller?
22. What was one adventure he created about?
23. What was the setting for that story?
24. What was the moral of that adventure?
25. What is the difference between learning from a book and learning from a fantasy game?
Fantasy Games
Training 1
Nick’s first contact with fantasy role-playing games was in school. He immediately got deeply involved in them. He started off by playing around a table, with one person acting as a storyteller, and the others playing characters in the story. They can change the outcome of the story by their actions. So, all the players interact within the story.
Training 2
Then Nick heard about similar games which are played in some atmospheric
