What Are Tabletop Games And How Do They Work?

In order to talk about tabletop gaming, I first need to explain what they are. And the simplest definition is that they're games that are played on a tabletop. In general, though, they refer to roleplaying games. These are games where the players create characters that all live in a fictional world, which a Game Master (GM) crafts and rules over.

Tabletop games have a narrative. The GM creates a story that the players will interactively experience through their characters. Like any good narrative, there will be twists and turns and obstacles that the players must overcome to progress.

Different games have different rules, but in general, the most important quality is autonomy. Whatever the players may come across, they can interact with it however they want. As such, there must be procedure for how to do that.

Like in real life, not everything we try to do succeeds, not is every success equally good. There is a lot of randomness in life, and the way most games use to express that randomness is with dice rolls. The most popular is the 20-sided die, also called a d20. This provides a significant amount of randomness without being excessive.

So typically, any activity players try to do is accompanied by a die roll. This random result is then modified by certain factors that will increase or decrease the result.

Roleplaying games are beautiful to me because they seek a certain level of reality, no matter how crazy things get. There are always consistent rules within a universe, set up by the rule book beforehand. And yet, despite the reality of a system, it is still a means of storytelling. It's one where the audience takes part in it and can make it go wherever they choose.

There is far more to it, and it shall come in future installments. Next time, we shall discuss alignment - arguably the most critical character attribute ever.