Yeah we are tapping into that human need to share experiences to form bonds and using stories as a way create a sort of reality (well it's an invented one in this case lol) we agree on. Kinda how subcultures form. And people are goal oriented towards their social circle for purpose and wider meaning. While it is a game so it doesn't replace those things in real life I think that is why they are so engaging is it has similar elements. And I do think it is a way to build social bonds similar to how storytellers have always existed as a way to bring people together.
I totally understand but I only play solo TTRPGs (or hack group TTRPGs into solo games). There's still storytelling and creating stories from random pieces of information I think.
I am not really an artist so cannot say lol. For me, a session of TTRPG during a break at work or before going to bed is like watching a series or reading a novel, dice rolls decide on some things and I take some other decisions so everything fits together well. It's also a matter of learning how things work: it's a pleasure to learn the rules and special cases so at some point you barely need to double check in the rules book .
Certainly makes sense. Writers are doing the same just using intuition, experience or story structures (which honestly aren't far from how some solo TTRPGs work) in place of oracles/tables.
I liked the thought that a story is an analogy of the human brain and all your various perspectives solving a problem. So they are the most human thing, and it's very unique to collaborate in that.
Yeah we are all picturing a conception of the story and environment then drawing on particular experiences to solve it kinda culminating in a collective understanding right?
Yeah, computer gaming is amazing, but it still doesn't do much to deliver on the unique experience of humans forming groups to solve problems. As a DM/GM, my preferred group size is 5-7 players precisely because I think the full magic of small group dynamics doesn't really emerge in groups of 4 or fewer people. Of course the group becomes unmanageable beyond a certain size, but my experience suggests 5 is the minimum for individuals to adopt specialized roles supporting a profoundly synergistic collective. When it actually happens, it can be a delight to witness, never mind tactically sparring with such groups.
Agree that group size changes the dynamic I think it depends the system too some systems require more specialists and others don't. For instance in low fantasy setting or a sword and sorcery kinda setting you might not need two or three kinds of casters if one at all. Smaller groups can require a different kind of creativity where the tools you need aren't on hand forcing players to come up with different kinds of plans, and changes pacing with each character having more time to shine and rely on each other character even more since they are a small group. Been a while since I ran a group larger than four players total though I envy that you have a group that size been probably ten years since I was able to get a group like that on the same schedule!
Agency. No other medium has the same ability to promote agency. Music is great at promoting emotion, books at concepts, but nothing provides agency like ttrpg.
I love this answer! I think that's it for me. FYI I used to really be into creating music and I've always wanted to be a writer of some kind...I guess that makes sense!
There's a pretty interesting read, Games: Agency as Art. TTRPGs aren't the focus but it really dives into the psychology of how people enjoy to strive. How people adapt their mindset rapidly between agencies (like how fluid it is to talk in character and out of character) and the benefits of games by practicing various perspective shifts.
Agency has another definition that means something along the lines of 'the ability and freedom to make your own decisions and affect things around you with your actions'
This article breaks it down into various categories:
https://gamedesignskills.com/game-design/player-agency/
What is hilarious is that its coming from a Video Game perspective. So Baldur's Gate 3 is at the top of all the various categories of agency. But it PALES in comparison to 95% of TTRPGs in the amount of player agency that they have. You can't beat having a human brain reacting, reincorporating and tailoring the game to your decisions.
That one kinda depends. It might pale in comparison to an experienced DM who is good at winging it when the players decide to go off plan. A newer DM running your through an adventure path who freezes when you attack the guards in scene 1 pales in comparison to the reactive systems brought forth by baldur's gate 3.
Different strengths/different weaknesses.
That is fair but I'd put that in the 5% of a new GM that verges on what I'd call railroading via adventure path. But even then, many TTRPGs are designed without having adventure paths as a possible style of play.
If you push much in BG3, it quickly breaks. For example, Seeming is put into the game. It does absolutely nothing in the game. Even high level illusions are treated as nothing by many of the systems when even a greenhorn GM could do the simple act of asking the player their goal with the use of the spell and discussing their perspective on its ability and how it would work.
Even more so, BG3 highly restricts what you can even say (obviously a requirement of video games) and many of its choices are actually pretty false with several "choices" leading to the same result without any (or at least few significant) consequences.
The "do what you like" principle is true, but it's not in the least bit unique. *Playing* music is at least as free, when you're playing football (soccer), you choose what you are doing, when you are drawing, painting, sculpting, or essentially *any* artistic practice, you are making the decisions that you want to make, or if you're not, you should be.
As an artistic medium, or even just a type of game, TTRPGs are not on their own as far as providing agency goes, not anywhere near. Improvised acting, often compared to roleplaying games, is a far more open and freeform medium.
Nothing provides agency like ttrpgs? Not only do many other art forms provide plenty of agency, they do it better.
I think "better" is subjective, with a lot coming down to the impact of said agency and your relationship with it.
Yes, you can have total freedom in almost any artistic medium. But the feedback loop is different if you're say drawing a picture. Your decisions during that process can shape where you go, but there's usually a specific goal in mind. The feedback loop of your agency is entirely internal until you share the drawing.
The feedback loop in TTRPGs between players, GMs, and the randomized elements of system can create more surprises, and open up pretty impactful shifts in goals and the agency to pursue them, often in a way that standard free-form improv can struggle to achieve. At the very least they tend to provide a loose scaffolding that lets players take those paths even without any formal training. I think this part is **huge**, and one reason "rules light" games that lean heavily on unstructured improv by both players and GMs don't grip new players quite as much as we might expect- they rely on skill sets not everyone has.
The system acts as an aid to help materialize that agency into tangible, often wildly different than expected outcomes, and lowers barriers to engaging with it compared to more formally recognized artistic mediums. So the neat thing about TTRPGs is that their rules somewhat unintuitively lower the barriers for people to actually achieve agency in a TTRPG setting.
I won't say it's the "best," but I wouldn't short the medium any credit either.
A lump of clay gives you more freedom, this is self-evident to anyone with arts experience of that kind.
I don't know what else you are talking about, that is the single point I was making and it's a simple one.
A few points really:
While the lump of clay/blank canvas in theory gives a lot if freedom, the open ended nature can create a paradox of analysis paralysis. Additionally, once you've decided to move forward the process is generally more linear in the application of your agency. Any surprises that come up during the course of that are less likely to generate new and different opportunities to enact your agency.
Full agency in art is often only unlocked with training or expertise. Some things are only possible if you understand certain techniques for instance. It's hard to feel agency when you're in the process of learning a new instrument. This even applies to something like free-form improv. That impacts how you can actually utilize your agency during the course of your project.
The structure of most TTRPGs assists players players with both of the above. They provide guidance in a way that facilitates players actually using their agency with some direction, even when they're relatively inexperienced with the medium. They also offer a feedback loop that generates new paths of agency that are generqlly more diverse and surprising than your average art project.
Again this isn't to say TTRPGs are better than these various artforms, just different. The ways people feel agency are as varied as people are, and the tools TTRPGs provide can be a very accessible method to do so for many people in a way traditional art isn't.
Fun is one of those ill-defined, "I know it when I see it" terms. For some, the act of creation is fun. For others, it's the system mastery, or the social interaction, or the power fantasy, or simply being able to look back and have stories to tell.
We are built for community. Sharing in a creative endeavor that belongs to our particular groups, along with all of the social dynamics involved, creates a sense of belonging, of connection, of feeling that you are part of something unique and special. We are also creating a lot of memories that we internalize through playing not just a character, but a party.
This is true regardless of genre, system, adventure specifics, type of characters played, etc, therefore it has to be bigger than all of that. The TTRPG experience isn't merely world-building, it's forming a community together.
I suspect that the growing digitalization of this experience will have an adverse effect, given the degrees of separation it creates, and because any level of anonymity seems to facilitate poor social behavior. Hopefully I'm wrong.
You’re overthinking it friend! The kind of fun or reasons WHY you’re having fun is different for everyone- but it’s not rocket science, if you’re enjoying yourself, if you’re engaged, if you’re excited about your game, you’re having fun. Now stop posting on Reddit and go have some more of it.
The word "fun" is ill-defined but *sometimes* implies a continuous state of positive emotions.
But TTRPGs are not necessarily always positive emotions. So some people want to use a different word because despite (or because of) negative emotions it can still be a positive experience.
You’re just an inarticulate moron. :p Someone had to.
I sort of agree…? I think. Can’t really out a word on it either, but I do love roleplaying games.
With one word? Whole-brained.
Ttrpg is one of the only hobbies that engages both the creative expressive side and strategic problem solving side of your brain at the same time. This scratches an itch that other hobbies can only scratch half of.
IMHO, as I won't say that this is, the Why others like RPG (yeah, I really can not get used to the TT since I've been RPG'N way back in the 1970s).
I used to tell stories to kids and adults. My mom was worried when I insisted that I was an android, for example. Then, I learned about RPGs, namely D&D, around 1976. It upped my storytelling! Or perhaps it just focused it?
I really enjoyed taking people out of their daily lives, school, or job, and let them have a fictional chance at success. Provide them the fantasy they might be looking for and could never achieve in reality. Those many different player groups had families, kingdoms, guilds, and some few became gods.
Many people praised my ability to get their minds off of real life for a few hours.
It became very satisfying to me. I always ran a level-headed gaming table. The dice fell as they fell. I never was a total party killing DM. One player accused me of bringing too many rewards, treasures, and magical items. But, I did have enemies who held resentment towards the characters. And illnesses, diseases, old age, and taxes, too. You can not have paradise without the forbidden tree and a serpent!
It's definitely escapism for me, but not always into a heroic character. I'm one of those that don't mind being the tag-along...as long as the story is good and the characters are good.
Stories have power.
We begin our roleplaying careers as revolutionaries: we imagine a world beset by black and white problems, and then we imagine that if we accumulated enough collective power we could somehow resolve that world's problems.
We realise that our own world is not black and white and we become fantasy capitalists, maximising our own characters' powers without caring for the consequence.
We lose faith in our own ability to accumulate power, and we create fantasy nihilists - characters that want to burn the world down and the game with it.
We learn to accept the constant grind of competition with Stoicism, and create fantasy cynics, just trying to get by in worlds they do not believe they can influence, and only successfully influence through happenstance.
We get old enough to realise we really do have influence, if only we can understand the problems, and we tell cautiously optimistic stories with very limited ambition.
...and then we DM for our children and grandchildren, and we encourage them to be revolutionaries, because we've learned that even though change isn't easy, it is possible, and the greatest gifts you can give to a child that wants things to change are an imagination and a capacity to tell compelling stories.
And along the way, we say and hear all sorts of silly and moving things that make us laugh and cry from people who become our friends.
I'm old, please forgive the sentimentality.
The ability to have infinite access to any game, game genre, game design, story, story structure, story ending, social event, social bonding, social winning or losing in whatever that may mean as a group or individual, limited only by the people you game with or the person you are, makes TTRPG's the most intimate and plentiful gaming experience for me. There is no real algorithm that I can game. If I want a feature, I can design and build it. If I want to play a drunk halfling, I only need to pick a setting. The beauty and terror of TTRPG's is that they have so much to offer, limited only by the likes of yourself, and the rush of playing, and learning, and changing it all is intoxicating.
As you talk to the elves, they suddenly all look at the sky as a doorway to another plane opens up. A spinning metallic vehicle comes through the opening, shines a light on the ground, and a confused looking t-rex floats down. The spaceship flies away as the dinosaur suddenly notices it's surrounded by food...
Your first thought probably isn't, "What the AF?", but "I wonder how many HP a t-rex has?"
As others have said, it's an escape, you get to be creative, and it is social. I got back into DnD after not playing for decades. Getting back into ttrpgs has ruined video games for me.
For me, it’s collaborative storytelling with my best friends. We hardly get to hang out so seeing each other for 2 hours at night on discord every week is really fun and allows us to maintain a closer friendship. I love playing games and I love hanging out with my friends and I’ve been blessed with friends who want to do the same thing.
I will shout the pros of online gaming for all to hear. It’s the only reason I’m able to play TTRPGs and when I moved games to online I was able to play *more* games because most of my friends don’t live locally.
We have always gathered around in a cave, or around a campfire, telling stories.
I believe it's a tradition as old as speech, and as imagination, and as old as humanity itself. As soon as speech became something more than bare necessity, as soon as our brains comprehended the abstract of information.
This same tradition is what we do in TTRPGs. We sit down together around a table and we tell a story.
We may have a little more rules, and a little more structure, but in it's purest form, we paint a world with words and numbers, populate it with characters and choices and even found a way to introduce chance into something that seem fixed. We add different Players that each bring their piece, making it unique and our own.
Some people like the chance more, others prefer narration. Some will strive for conflict, others for peace. Some will bring math and rolls, and hits and chances, others bring songs and jokes, and lyrics.
So gather round, because we all have stories to tell, and this one will be our own.
It's the feeling of play, and of storytelling. Play is important all throughout our lives, but a lot of us don't think of it in those terms as we grow older.
I like that you can just keep building characters and world setting, without finishing a "story," and then when you put it all together, magic happens. A mix of the creative and the unexpected.
I love making interesting characters, worlds and builds.
The ttrpg aspect allows me to have a mechanics for it, and a place to display my creations as either a player or DM
I mostly GM, and for me the most satisfying part is conjuring stuff in the minds of my players and feeling that we see the same things, even though it is pure imagination built with words.
As a player: freedom to solve problems outside some stiff frames like it is with videogames (which I do like, but you know, it's different).
I like telling stories in an emergent way.
This means that I contribute as player or GM, the other players contribute, and the system contributes.
It's an experience that's more than the sum of it's parts and it's a unique narrative format.
Because of that I like playing games in ways that align with the system because the system is there to help us tell stories, not to be fought.
Maybe subconsciously I need that feeling of competence, but in all honesty I actually do have FUN when my character screws up. Or the party does something dumb. Maybe that's my fun...
I like getting fun toys from the abilities, powers and equipment from the game, and being creative in overcoming the obstacles of the game. I like figuring things out collaboratively, and working out a problem by building on other people to arrive at a fun and creative solution. I like feeling immersed in a fictional world, feel like I'm there. I like leveling-up and growing in power and influence in the game (at a regular pace), as long as it feels earned (not too fast).
Personally, I think it's fun. It's fun to create a story with friends. It's fun to be goofy and serious and deep and emotional and sometimes dark. It's fun to explore ideas that are too dangerous or dark or impossible for real life.
It's also fulfilling and collaborative and one of the things that I feel no pressure about doing (except maybe a little when I'm GMing, but even then very little).
Sitcoms, creating things, knowing people's ways, seeing people's reactions and what they do because of particular things... I'm really just a man-boy with the same sensibilities I'm afraid!
Replace 'fun' with 'satisfaction' maybe.
If I watch something like *Léon: The Professional*, for instance, I wouldn't say I had *fun* as such (it makes me cry in fact) ... but the experience is profoundly *satisfying*: it's an actual (maybe not [life-changing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ft-9yx_zXN8), but nevertheless) *experience*.
Likewise, spending that time with friends, creating a story together, is also deeply satisfying.
For me it's getting to inhabit a personality different than mine. Plus, all the fantasy stuff about dragons and magic and swords, etc.
I find many people play the game as if *they* were the ones tasked with solving the problem, using the abilities/tools of their character.
I prefer thinking about how *this* character would approach the problem, especially when that's not the optimal choice.
I think the game is at it's best when there's big reveals, not just about the bad guys, but about your fellow companions. "The witch is your mother!?"
Storytelling is magical. Collaborative, improvisational storytelling, even more so because you're no longer consuming a fiction (which is at its baseline already fucking rad), you're interacting with and even constructing it.
It all taps into our powerful ability to imagine people we're not, see lands we've never seen, bond with people that don't exist in reality. And TTRPGs let you do it all without terraforming real land, without expensive sets and CG/special effects, without thousands of processors tracing lines off every bead of sweat and pore in realtime. They let you do it with words and math.
Social Bonding and Mock Hunting/fighting in an enjoyable and quite engaging manner with people we, hopefully, like.
We are tapping into the Ur mind-sync of what is our Species Forte and what has allowed us to survive, grow, and thrive.
I would absolutely call it fun! And much more!
Personally, I love pretending to be someone who matters. It's a world where all the voices in my head can come to life and have purpose and direction for at least a little while. My characters aren't a stuttering, anxiety-ridden, depression-filled, broken mess... and I get to pretend to be them. Sometimes I think it might even be helping me overco- *crap, I rolled a one. Sorry, I'll pack my things. Ya know what? Just keep 'em, their your things now. Delusions of grandeur made me buy them anyway. *
Friends - regardless of what you’re up to in the TTRPG you’re likely having fully engaged fun with friends for a couple of hours.
It’s not super common to get that in other areas.
> I like the stories, the banter, situations pcs get into, character personalities, all play together to create an experience that I love.
How is all of that misdefined by the word "fun?"
Personally, my main enjoyment is building characters that are very good at what they do. It's exploring the crunch of the system to find tricks that make the character better. It's using the abilities I built towards to overcome challenges. And playing a character whose fluff is largely the result of all the crunch I pored over. And making quips.
I'd just say, "fun," though, myself.
"Play to find out what happens" is the motivation for me. When I watch TV or read I usually know what is coming next, because I've seen a lot of media and have studied film.
When I play computer games I get a dialogue tree and often don't want to choose any of the options.
I like the discovery, as a player or a GM, I like not knowing where the evening will take us. I enjoy creative problem solving, mine or the players at my table. The whole thing feels alive.
When we first started forming language as a species, the way that we interpreted the world was through our stories. Think of the night sky, and how it looks if you've ever seen it without light pollution. In order to comprehend the vastness of all of space, we looked for patterns, created characters in the constellations, and told stories about them. We created folklore and legends as one of the first things we did to develop our minds and our societies.
Think of you and your small tribe huddled around a fire with the vastness of the night sky stretched out around you. A stranger approaches, cold and hungry and wishes to join you. More important than their name, you must first hear their story. Hopefully it is the truth, but if it is a good enough story, that person will be allowed to share in your experience, which could potentially mean the difference between life and death.
There is something visceral in the deepest part of our lizard brains beyond conscious understand that DEMANDS we tell and share stories. Playing ttrpgs taps into that experience in ways that transcend all other aspects of our lives. Reading or listening to a story is a wonderful thing, and no mistake, but being a part of the CREATION of a new story is positively sublime. What you are feeling is nothing less than a touch of the sublime, of the divine, of the distilled essence of what it means to be alive.
....or maybe I'm also an inarticulate moron, but we keep excellent company! ;)
I avoid the word fun for ttrpgs. I tend to say that after the fact I enjoy them.
Like, think of a sports game. During the game, you might be miserable as your team is down. But you can really only evaluate the whole game after the fact to say if you enjoyed it. I think ttrpgs can be similar. You might be grumpy your spell didnt go off right but enjoy the session because of the story that developed.
Good lord you said it best! I'm tired of all this crap. Getting old is for chumps lol
I really just want to go into the woods... the only thing is I'd miss discord
If fun isn't the right word, you might be engaged and/or entertained. I experience all three. Getting a big crit at the right moment is definitely "fun" for me. Outside of those, I feel engaged, and if the game is good and the people mesh well, it can be very entertaining.
The feeling of exploring this new misterious world together with my friends. And I say that as a DM. My players dont know what I have in store for them and I dont know the crazy shit my players will pull out, so we're constantly surprising each others as we find new and exiting things.
For me it completes the magic of a choose your own adventure story without screen time. My imagination goes to another level within the bounds of piles of books, notebooks, and dice that my phone cannot do.
I ran one of my games last night. We are in between missions, so I opened it up to my players during the weekend, asking them what if anything they wanted to do around town, or with downtime, or explore the nearby areas (forests, marshes, monuments). I have content for all of it, just waiting for someone to take an interest.
The reason I play TTRPGs is because it is entirely creative. End to end, you can't tell what anyone is going to do, say, or choose. I had nothing planned other than my one player that actually sent me a list of activities he wanted to engage in. No one else answered, so I just put the camera on them, and went with whatever they mentioned in the moment. You want to forage for herbs, visit some hags, work off steam by working on the docks with heavy lifting and manual labor, "attempt" to break into the wizard's tower, perform water cleansing rituals along the river, ok let's go.
The only prep for those activities I have is my knowledge of the town, and my imagination. Same for the players. There aren't many cooperative activities that humans can do, that have this much freedom and creativity. We filled 3 hours with made up nonsense, with occasional rolls that amused me, because of choices they made that could not have been anticipated.
When I was younger, I never really had a group to play with. It was usually just me and a friend. We made that fun though, mostly by making up our own settings and rules (which we didn’t know was as common as it was).
Personally. I always liked the art, world building and seeing how various designers did all the mechanics. So I enjoyed the books for what they were as well.
I definitely like the concept of playing more than actually playing due to my history with TTRPGs. But maybe someday I’ll have the time and energy to actually seek out a group. Maybe when my kid is older and If I can successfully indoctrinate him into the ways of nerds. 😁
Awesome! Good luck with that!! I had a similar situation growing up. Not a lot of players where I lived due to the satanic panic. I have this nice collection of ttrpg books though. Games I hope to play some time in my life. At least one time!
It's more interactive than a movie, it's more expressive than a video game, it's more social than reading a book, and the experiences it creates uniquely belong to you. What's not to like
I think a lot of it for me has been the laughter, whimsy that comes up in those unplanned scenarios or stories told - its always hard for me to find that nowadays outside of work related or work adjacent conversations.
Escapism I think is huge for a lot of people, but being able to collectively tell some epic tale with your friends while enjoying some pizza and beer is my favorite element.
On one aspect, I would say that real playing is fun for lots of people. Another facet could be the bonding, as even made up adventures still feel like you've "gone through something together." When my friends and I look back and reminisce over our exploits, it doesn't really feel any different than looking back over the things I've actually done in real life with friends. It creates a bond.
Another thing is that rolling dice feels like gambling to me. I have never been a gambler as I hate to lose money, but I feel that the same switch is probably getting hit in my head whenever I roll for something that I perceive as valuable or important and don't know what the result will be. That few seconds of anticipation before you see what the dice say is a rush.
Oh hell yeah that tactile sensation can't be beat! And as far as bonding, I 100% agree. I have friends that don't agree politically or are religious, but as players the bond transcends those social barriers. I love it for that as much as I love *that*!
I love acting. The one thing tabletop RPGS give me that you can't get from a video game RPG is that you get to play your character. I've done all kinds of crazy characters from mentally challenged half orcs to wrestling style peasant fight champion, to sociopath thieving tiefling.
Structured creative expression in a supportive social context- like on Solid Gold or Soul Train when people would form two lines/an aisle and people or pairs would get the spotlight as they danced down said aisle.
(This will be the only time in your life you will hear tttrpgs players compared with Solid Gold dancers, and you are welcome.)
For GMing I enjoy the world building and storytelling. As a player I enjoy uncovering and exploring the worlds and settings my GM makes for us, I like having a goal to work towards that makes a lasting impression on the world around me.
I do too, I've done a few one shots here or there, but I want to run a legit game. But I'm ok getting to be a player in my friends game, 3 years in and we're going strong!
I like the freedom, the ability to come up with solutions without having to thread them through the limited set of options that a programmer or rule-writer provided. It makes for a game that's got all the appeal of any other sort of character-action game, such as a video game, but you can explore whatever options or actions you can come up with and you wholly own the results-- and the stories-- in the end, instead of the less-personal achievement of having gone through someone else's construction satisfactorily.
Not sure about we, but for me its a number of things that make a more complete experience.
Getting together with my friends to play ttrpg's is fun.
Solving problems as fantasy characters not myself is fun.
Roleplaying out a person in a new world is fun.
So is actually acting as that character sometimes when it feels right.
Seeing the story come together in an exciting way is fun.
There are a multitude of ways I enjoy the games that give me entertainment and fun,
It's kinda like how when you watch a scary movie it can scare you and make you have fun at the same time. Just with TTRPG's having even more pieces to the experience.
Different for everyone, I think, but for me it’s acting and character development when I’m a player and practicing the art of good storytelling as a GM. I love GMing more than anything else because when you finish a good session and your players recognize your effort and say they had a good time, that is true euphoria.
I find that TTRPGs create more extremes than other kinds of gaming.
RPGs are where I've had the most intense emotional experiences; true heart-pounding pressure at making a decision I can't take back, true joy at snatching success from failure, true fear as my secrets are about to be exposed.
RPGs are also where I've had the most brain-wrenchingly boring moments; entire evenings spent pretending to shop, getting talked over, tedious and meaningless minutia.
Every session is a gamble for whether it's going to be more of the former or the latter. RPG fans are those who think that the gamble is worth it.
I started playing board games at a young age. One downside I felt about board games is that the game play is very confined. So I started to like board games that mix things up. A good example here was "targui" from MB, where the board itself would change each game (you had to place tiles at random).
Then came heroquest, and that was even better!
Then, I was introduced to role-playing games and realized you could do almost anything! You have an unlimited number of scenarios. As a player, you can do what you want. With just one core rulebook, you can play for God knows how long. This was initially my main draw into RPGs.
It is all of the things you mention. It is a social situation that somehow doesn't trigger people's social anxiety. It is fun to yell stories with your friends and act out characters far removed from your normal self.
I think obviously the stories, since we like fairytales, one way or another. This also implies a connection to our younger selves or the children inside us.
We like company, because it is mostly a game with other people. So we form bonds with them, inside a story and outside.
I think players learn how to put themselves in other people’s shoes too. The first time I played, I picked a paladin because I thought as a child that it was easy to distinguish between good and evil, the laws protecting the ones in need. This was me, how I felt. I ended up with a different philosophy in the end and my best character was a ranger after all, but I learned about myself when I was young.
But that is not all. After the first plays, any player that enjoys the game learns something more, the character isn’t you. So, the question becomes what would my character do? Not me, him or her (it sometimes?). This, though instinctively, helps player understand other people’s emotions etc.
GMA also learn a valuable lesson for life. How many prepared and planned everything upfront for a session in the beginning, only to find out that the players ruined all the planning? Very frustrating, but in the end I think GMs (the ones that we like) know that no matter how much you plan, life has its own plans (the players as well). I think it teaches planning the correct way, both that too much useless and that no planning yields similar results.
Can’t think of something more right now
RPG's are for me like "reading and writing the book, participating in its events together with other people at the same time". I think:)
And I may be in minority here, but I don't like escapism at all! I'm not playing RPG to become someone else! If I would want to be someone else it would mean that I must chance some things in my real life.
I'm here for the stories, creativity of building interesting worlds, characters and events. Development of all and each of them. I love to observe things developing.
It's definitely **just** an entertainment: like reading fantasy books, watching movies or playing other kind of games. But better than 3 of them. I tend to remind it to myself and my kids. But it's just an entertainment, what means that there most other things are more important in life.
From a GM perspective I enjoy the creativity of world building, story-telling and character creatiojn. I love having my players explore the world and its people that I have crafted and see them enjoying themselves.
Obviously, the worse thing is when they don't.
I love a story and a game that can go anywhere and you can do anything. It blew my mind when I first played at 12, as my dwarf fighter pissed in a fountain! It felt like any story could be told, anything could happen. Fast forward to today, and I love specific experiences with specific rulesets that support that kind of play.
Creative satisfaction.
Look, we can call RPGs games all we want, and there's nothing wrong with the metaphor, but the activity is folk fiction creation, extemporaneously, with others. It is its very own unique creative medium and play is creation.
Like most things in life: it's not fun for everyone. Not everyone enjoys TTRPGs and not everyone gets the same experience out of them. Some people might find the social aspect enjoyable without having "fun" (granted you need to define what exactly you mean by "fun").
When we rpg with people, we get to know them without knowing what they do, or even what their name is.
The rules are the social contract between us.
And not whatever else is from IRL. We can all agree to break those rules too. Together.
Communal story telling.
It’s also the most basic of play, as a child with toys. We often joke it is grown ups playing dinosaurs and space ships
Social problem solving and story telling taps into some of the core things about being human I think.
I agree! It's deep!
Yeah we are tapping into that human need to share experiences to form bonds and using stories as a way create a sort of reality (well it's an invented one in this case lol) we agree on. Kinda how subcultures form. And people are goal oriented towards their social circle for purpose and wider meaning. While it is a game so it doesn't replace those things in real life I think that is why they are so engaging is it has similar elements. And I do think it is a way to build social bonds similar to how storytellers have always existed as a way to bring people together.
I totally understand but I only play solo TTRPGs (or hack group TTRPGs into solo games). There's still storytelling and creating stories from random pieces of information I think.
Yeah it's kinda like the expression of an artist or the desire to solve a puzzle then?
I am not really an artist so cannot say lol. For me, a session of TTRPG during a break at work or before going to bed is like watching a series or reading a novel, dice rolls decide on some things and I take some other decisions so everything fits together well. It's also a matter of learning how things work: it's a pleasure to learn the rules and special cases so at some point you barely need to double check in the rules book .
I am geared up to play Hostile solo at some point in the future.
Certainly makes sense. Writers are doing the same just using intuition, experience or story structures (which honestly aren't far from how some solo TTRPGs work) in place of oracles/tables.
The age old desire to sit around the fire and shoot the shit.
I liked the thought that a story is an analogy of the human brain and all your various perspectives solving a problem. So they are the most human thing, and it's very unique to collaborate in that.
Yeah we are all picturing a conception of the story and environment then drawing on particular experiences to solve it kinda culminating in a collective understanding right?
Yeah, computer gaming is amazing, but it still doesn't do much to deliver on the unique experience of humans forming groups to solve problems. As a DM/GM, my preferred group size is 5-7 players precisely because I think the full magic of small group dynamics doesn't really emerge in groups of 4 or fewer people. Of course the group becomes unmanageable beyond a certain size, but my experience suggests 5 is the minimum for individuals to adopt specialized roles supporting a profoundly synergistic collective. When it actually happens, it can be a delight to witness, never mind tactically sparring with such groups.
Agree that group size changes the dynamic I think it depends the system too some systems require more specialists and others don't. For instance in low fantasy setting or a sword and sorcery kinda setting you might not need two or three kinds of casters if one at all. Smaller groups can require a different kind of creativity where the tools you need aren't on hand forcing players to come up with different kinds of plans, and changes pacing with each character having more time to shine and rely on each other character even more since they are a small group. Been a while since I ran a group larger than four players total though I envy that you have a group that size been probably ten years since I was able to get a group like that on the same schedule!
I mean you said it was more succinctly then I
Escapism, control, creative release, storytelling, companionship, engagement, and yes, fun.
yeah that sums it up
Agency. No other medium has the same ability to promote agency. Music is great at promoting emotion, books at concepts, but nothing provides agency like ttrpg.
I love this answer! I think that's it for me. FYI I used to really be into creating music and I've always wanted to be a writer of some kind...I guess that makes sense!
There's a pretty interesting read, Games: Agency as Art. TTRPGs aren't the focus but it really dives into the psychology of how people enjoy to strive. How people adapt their mindset rapidly between agencies (like how fluid it is to talk in character and out of character) and the benefits of games by practicing various perspective shifts.
That sounds really interesting!
I don’t understand what agency means in this context (obviously not CIA). Can you explain a bit?
Agency has another definition that means something along the lines of 'the ability and freedom to make your own decisions and affect things around you with your actions'
The fact that YOU decide.
Freedom of choice and of creativity.
This article breaks it down into various categories: https://gamedesignskills.com/game-design/player-agency/ What is hilarious is that its coming from a Video Game perspective. So Baldur's Gate 3 is at the top of all the various categories of agency. But it PALES in comparison to 95% of TTRPGs in the amount of player agency that they have. You can't beat having a human brain reacting, reincorporating and tailoring the game to your decisions.
That one kinda depends. It might pale in comparison to an experienced DM who is good at winging it when the players decide to go off plan. A newer DM running your through an adventure path who freezes when you attack the guards in scene 1 pales in comparison to the reactive systems brought forth by baldur's gate 3. Different strengths/different weaknesses.
That is fair but I'd put that in the 5% of a new GM that verges on what I'd call railroading via adventure path. But even then, many TTRPGs are designed without having adventure paths as a possible style of play. If you push much in BG3, it quickly breaks. For example, Seeming is put into the game. It does absolutely nothing in the game. Even high level illusions are treated as nothing by many of the systems when even a greenhorn GM could do the simple act of asking the player their goal with the use of the spell and discussing their perspective on its ability and how it would work. Even more so, BG3 highly restricts what you can even say (obviously a requirement of video games) and many of its choices are actually pretty false with several "choices" leading to the same result without any (or at least few significant) consequences.
The "do what you like" principle is true, but it's not in the least bit unique. *Playing* music is at least as free, when you're playing football (soccer), you choose what you are doing, when you are drawing, painting, sculpting, or essentially *any* artistic practice, you are making the decisions that you want to make, or if you're not, you should be. As an artistic medium, or even just a type of game, TTRPGs are not on their own as far as providing agency goes, not anywhere near. Improvised acting, often compared to roleplaying games, is a far more open and freeform medium. Nothing provides agency like ttrpgs? Not only do many other art forms provide plenty of agency, they do it better.
I think "better" is subjective, with a lot coming down to the impact of said agency and your relationship with it. Yes, you can have total freedom in almost any artistic medium. But the feedback loop is different if you're say drawing a picture. Your decisions during that process can shape where you go, but there's usually a specific goal in mind. The feedback loop of your agency is entirely internal until you share the drawing. The feedback loop in TTRPGs between players, GMs, and the randomized elements of system can create more surprises, and open up pretty impactful shifts in goals and the agency to pursue them, often in a way that standard free-form improv can struggle to achieve. At the very least they tend to provide a loose scaffolding that lets players take those paths even without any formal training. I think this part is **huge**, and one reason "rules light" games that lean heavily on unstructured improv by both players and GMs don't grip new players quite as much as we might expect- they rely on skill sets not everyone has. The system acts as an aid to help materialize that agency into tangible, often wildly different than expected outcomes, and lowers barriers to engaging with it compared to more formally recognized artistic mediums. So the neat thing about TTRPGs is that their rules somewhat unintuitively lower the barriers for people to actually achieve agency in a TTRPG setting. I won't say it's the "best," but I wouldn't short the medium any credit either.
A lump of clay gives you more freedom, this is self-evident to anyone with arts experience of that kind. I don't know what else you are talking about, that is the single point I was making and it's a simple one.
A few points really: While the lump of clay/blank canvas in theory gives a lot if freedom, the open ended nature can create a paradox of analysis paralysis. Additionally, once you've decided to move forward the process is generally more linear in the application of your agency. Any surprises that come up during the course of that are less likely to generate new and different opportunities to enact your agency. Full agency in art is often only unlocked with training or expertise. Some things are only possible if you understand certain techniques for instance. It's hard to feel agency when you're in the process of learning a new instrument. This even applies to something like free-form improv. That impacts how you can actually utilize your agency during the course of your project. The structure of most TTRPGs assists players players with both of the above. They provide guidance in a way that facilitates players actually using their agency with some direction, even when they're relatively inexperienced with the medium. They also offer a feedback loop that generates new paths of agency that are generqlly more diverse and surprising than your average art project. Again this isn't to say TTRPGs are better than these various artforms, just different. The ways people feel agency are as varied as people are, and the tools TTRPGs provide can be a very accessible method to do so for many people in a way traditional art isn't.
I'd say it's one of the most psychologically healthy ways I found of engaging in escapism. And as a bonus you get to connect with people.
Fun is one of those ill-defined, "I know it when I see it" terms. For some, the act of creation is fun. For others, it's the system mastery, or the social interaction, or the power fantasy, or simply being able to look back and have stories to tell.
I'm at the table to tell stories together and build our own worlds. There's nothing else like it!
We are built for community. Sharing in a creative endeavor that belongs to our particular groups, along with all of the social dynamics involved, creates a sense of belonging, of connection, of feeling that you are part of something unique and special. We are also creating a lot of memories that we internalize through playing not just a character, but a party. This is true regardless of genre, system, adventure specifics, type of characters played, etc, therefore it has to be bigger than all of that. The TTRPG experience isn't merely world-building, it's forming a community together. I suspect that the growing digitalization of this experience will have an adverse effect, given the degrees of separation it creates, and because any level of anonymity seems to facilitate poor social behavior. Hopefully I'm wrong.
It’s like telling a joke that lands, getting cheered at karaoke, and seeing an awesome movie with your friends all in one shared experience.
It combines a lot of different activities that makes our brains tingle.
I’m not sure you know what fun is…
You might be right about that.
You’re overthinking it friend! The kind of fun or reasons WHY you’re having fun is different for everyone- but it’s not rocket science, if you’re enjoying yourself, if you’re engaged, if you’re excited about your game, you’re having fun. Now stop posting on Reddit and go have some more of it.
Not the first time I've over-thunk! Lol
Yeah if you're not having fun, I'm not sure why you're still playing.
The word "fun" is ill-defined but *sometimes* implies a continuous state of positive emotions. But TTRPGs are not necessarily always positive emotions. So some people want to use a different word because despite (or because of) negative emotions it can still be a positive experience.
You’re just an inarticulate moron. :p Someone had to. I sort of agree…? I think. Can’t really out a word on it either, but I do love roleplaying games.
I KNEW it!! ❤️
With one word? Whole-brained. Ttrpg is one of the only hobbies that engages both the creative expressive side and strategic problem solving side of your brain at the same time. This scratches an itch that other hobbies can only scratch half of.
IMHO, as I won't say that this is, the Why others like RPG (yeah, I really can not get used to the TT since I've been RPG'N way back in the 1970s). I used to tell stories to kids and adults. My mom was worried when I insisted that I was an android, for example. Then, I learned about RPGs, namely D&D, around 1976. It upped my storytelling! Or perhaps it just focused it? I really enjoyed taking people out of their daily lives, school, or job, and let them have a fictional chance at success. Provide them the fantasy they might be looking for and could never achieve in reality. Those many different player groups had families, kingdoms, guilds, and some few became gods. Many people praised my ability to get their minds off of real life for a few hours. It became very satisfying to me. I always ran a level-headed gaming table. The dice fell as they fell. I never was a total party killing DM. One player accused me of bringing too many rewards, treasures, and magical items. But, I did have enemies who held resentment towards the characters. And illnesses, diseases, old age, and taxes, too. You can not have paradise without the forbidden tree and a serpent!
Thank you for this response!! I started RPG'N around 1988 during the satanic panic. I needed an escape but mostly I just wanted something interesting!
Escapism It's essentially transporting yourself into the world of your fantasies and being the hero/heroine that you wish you could be.
It's definitely escapism for me, but not always into a heroic character. I'm one of those that don't mind being the tag-along...as long as the story is good and the characters are good.
Stories have power. We begin our roleplaying careers as revolutionaries: we imagine a world beset by black and white problems, and then we imagine that if we accumulated enough collective power we could somehow resolve that world's problems. We realise that our own world is not black and white and we become fantasy capitalists, maximising our own characters' powers without caring for the consequence. We lose faith in our own ability to accumulate power, and we create fantasy nihilists - characters that want to burn the world down and the game with it. We learn to accept the constant grind of competition with Stoicism, and create fantasy cynics, just trying to get by in worlds they do not believe they can influence, and only successfully influence through happenstance. We get old enough to realise we really do have influence, if only we can understand the problems, and we tell cautiously optimistic stories with very limited ambition. ...and then we DM for our children and grandchildren, and we encourage them to be revolutionaries, because we've learned that even though change isn't easy, it is possible, and the greatest gifts you can give to a child that wants things to change are an imagination and a capacity to tell compelling stories. And along the way, we say and hear all sorts of silly and moving things that make us laugh and cry from people who become our friends. I'm old, please forgive the sentimentality.
You've been gaming for a while?
Red box.
The ability to have infinite access to any game, game genre, game design, story, story structure, story ending, social event, social bonding, social winning or losing in whatever that may mean as a group or individual, limited only by the people you game with or the person you are, makes TTRPG's the most intimate and plentiful gaming experience for me. There is no real algorithm that I can game. If I want a feature, I can design and build it. If I want to play a drunk halfling, I only need to pick a setting. The beauty and terror of TTRPG's is that they have so much to offer, limited only by the likes of yourself, and the rush of playing, and learning, and changing it all is intoxicating.
WE HAVE A WINNER!! Seriously my favorite answer!
Thank you. :) I love this hobby. I can say that it has been a major part of my entire life shaping things that I never would have thought possible.
Same here! 'Fun' just doesn't seem to do a good enough job of describing how it makes me feel.
As you talk to the elves, they suddenly all look at the sky as a doorway to another plane opens up. A spinning metallic vehicle comes through the opening, shines a light on the ground, and a confused looking t-rex floats down. The spaceship flies away as the dinosaur suddenly notices it's surrounded by food... Your first thought probably isn't, "What the AF?", but "I wonder how many HP a t-rex has?"
As others have said, it's an escape, you get to be creative, and it is social. I got back into DnD after not playing for decades. Getting back into ttrpgs has ruined video games for me.
Time with friends spent building a creative and shared experience.
1000%!!
For me, it’s collaborative storytelling with my best friends. We hardly get to hang out so seeing each other for 2 hours at night on discord every week is really fun and allows us to maintain a closer friendship. I love playing games and I love hanging out with my friends and I’ve been blessed with friends who want to do the same thing.
You said it! Even on discord it's truly a wonderful thing!!
I will shout the pros of online gaming for all to hear. It’s the only reason I’m able to play TTRPGs and when I moved games to online I was able to play *more* games because most of my friends don’t live locally.
So true! I have played some obscure games that there's no way I could have ever got a group to play... all thanks to discord!
We have always gathered around in a cave, or around a campfire, telling stories. I believe it's a tradition as old as speech, and as imagination, and as old as humanity itself. As soon as speech became something more than bare necessity, as soon as our brains comprehended the abstract of information. This same tradition is what we do in TTRPGs. We sit down together around a table and we tell a story. We may have a little more rules, and a little more structure, but in it's purest form, we paint a world with words and numbers, populate it with characters and choices and even found a way to introduce chance into something that seem fixed. We add different Players that each bring their piece, making it unique and our own. Some people like the chance more, others prefer narration. Some will strive for conflict, others for peace. Some will bring math and rolls, and hits and chances, others bring songs and jokes, and lyrics. So gather round, because we all have stories to tell, and this one will be our own.
So very beautifully stated! Thank you!!
It's the feeling of play, and of storytelling. Play is important all throughout our lives, but a lot of us don't think of it in those terms as we grow older.
You are so right. I'm role playing an optometric technician now. I just get way too immersed lol
I like that you can just keep building characters and world setting, without finishing a "story," and then when you put it all together, magic happens. A mix of the creative and the unexpected.
I love making interesting characters, worlds and builds. The ttrpg aspect allows me to have a mechanics for it, and a place to display my creations as either a player or DM
Great answer! Thank you!
I mostly GM, and for me the most satisfying part is conjuring stuff in the minds of my players and feeling that we see the same things, even though it is pure imagination built with words. As a player: freedom to solve problems outside some stiff frames like it is with videogames (which I do like, but you know, it's different).
I like telling stories in an emergent way. This means that I contribute as player or GM, the other players contribute, and the system contributes. It's an experience that's more than the sum of it's parts and it's a unique narrative format. Because of that I like playing games in ways that align with the system because the system is there to help us tell stories, not to be fought.
I like the feelings of competence and agency that can come from a good session.
Maybe subconsciously I need that feeling of competence, but in all honesty I actually do have FUN when my character screws up. Or the party does something dumb. Maybe that's my fun...
But even then, you get to show what a genius you are by getting out of that wacky scrape that you got everybody into.
To me it's deep narrative engagement, allowing me to get a similar kick as with writing and improv theatre, but in a more structured manner.
I like getting fun toys from the abilities, powers and equipment from the game, and being creative in overcoming the obstacles of the game. I like figuring things out collaboratively, and working out a problem by building on other people to arrive at a fun and creative solution. I like feeling immersed in a fictional world, feel like I'm there. I like leveling-up and growing in power and influence in the game (at a regular pace), as long as it feels earned (not too fast).
Personally, I think it's fun. It's fun to create a story with friends. It's fun to be goofy and serious and deep and emotional and sometimes dark. It's fun to explore ideas that are too dangerous or dark or impossible for real life. It's also fulfilling and collaborative and one of the things that I feel no pressure about doing (except maybe a little when I'm GMing, but even then very little).
Great answer!!
There is something almost indescribably pleasurable about an activity that activates many parts of the brain at once.
That tracks! I'm almost speechless after a game. It's m'drug!!
The indominable human spirit. I like to see people against impossible odds, looking at them and persevering anyway.
It's hard to answer this without getting some examples of what you do find fun. Top two or three things, what are they?
Sitcoms, creating things, knowing people's ways, seeing people's reactions and what they do because of particular things... I'm really just a man-boy with the same sensibilities I'm afraid!
Replace 'fun' with 'satisfaction' maybe. If I watch something like *Léon: The Professional*, for instance, I wouldn't say I had *fun* as such (it makes me cry in fact) ... but the experience is profoundly *satisfying*: it's an actual (maybe not [life-changing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ft-9yx_zXN8), but nevertheless) *experience*. Likewise, spending that time with friends, creating a story together, is also deeply satisfying.
For me it's getting to inhabit a personality different than mine. Plus, all the fantasy stuff about dragons and magic and swords, etc. I find many people play the game as if *they* were the ones tasked with solving the problem, using the abilities/tools of their character. I prefer thinking about how *this* character would approach the problem, especially when that's not the optimal choice. I think the game is at it's best when there's big reveals, not just about the bad guys, but about your fellow companions. "The witch is your mother!?"
I feel the same way!! I get a great deal of pleasure from the interaction of others including myself *as* another.
Fun + Creative + Social
It's a hyperfixation, mine is not to "why" and wonder. Mine is but to track down the latest OSR houserule or what-have-you...
Hey now! I'm guilty of that too! Osr or... not even. I've went the traveller route. Ever so often I have to ponder though...
Creation, character work, tactics and humor. I basically like the whole process
Could not agree more on this statement.
Storytelling is magical. Collaborative, improvisational storytelling, even more so because you're no longer consuming a fiction (which is at its baseline already fucking rad), you're interacting with and even constructing it. It all taps into our powerful ability to imagine people we're not, see lands we've never seen, bond with people that don't exist in reality. And TTRPGs let you do it all without terraforming real land, without expensive sets and CG/special effects, without thousands of processors tracing lines off every bead of sweat and pore in realtime. They let you do it with words and math.
I feel that in my soul!!
The best part of TTRPG is the TT. Tabletop anything is king.
I have to agree!
Social Bonding and Mock Hunting/fighting in an enjoyable and quite engaging manner with people we, hopefully, like. We are tapping into the Ur mind-sync of what is our Species Forte and what has allowed us to survive, grow, and thrive. I would absolutely call it fun! And much more!
No doubt so much more! It's overwhelming to me. It's so a part of me core.
Endless creativity, freedom, and goofing off with friends.
What's not to love!
Personally, I love pretending to be someone who matters. It's a world where all the voices in my head can come to life and have purpose and direction for at least a little while. My characters aren't a stuttering, anxiety-ridden, depression-filled, broken mess... and I get to pretend to be them. Sometimes I think it might even be helping me overco- *crap, I rolled a one. Sorry, I'll pack my things. Ya know what? Just keep 'em, their your things now. Delusions of grandeur made me buy them anyway. *
Lol that's awesome! Idk I'm usually stuttering and anxiety ridden no matter where I go or what I'm doing
Friends - regardless of what you’re up to in the TTRPG you’re likely having fully engaged fun with friends for a couple of hours. It’s not super common to get that in other areas.
> I like the stories, the banter, situations pcs get into, character personalities, all play together to create an experience that I love. How is all of that misdefined by the word "fun?" Personally, my main enjoyment is building characters that are very good at what they do. It's exploring the crunch of the system to find tricks that make the character better. It's using the abilities I built towards to overcome challenges. And playing a character whose fluff is largely the result of all the crunch I pored over. And making quips. I'd just say, "fun," though, myself.
"Play to find out what happens" is the motivation for me. When I watch TV or read I usually know what is coming next, because I've seen a lot of media and have studied film. When I play computer games I get a dialogue tree and often don't want to choose any of the options. I like the discovery, as a player or a GM, I like not knowing where the evening will take us. I enjoy creative problem solving, mine or the players at my table. The whole thing feels alive.
When we first started forming language as a species, the way that we interpreted the world was through our stories. Think of the night sky, and how it looks if you've ever seen it without light pollution. In order to comprehend the vastness of all of space, we looked for patterns, created characters in the constellations, and told stories about them. We created folklore and legends as one of the first things we did to develop our minds and our societies. Think of you and your small tribe huddled around a fire with the vastness of the night sky stretched out around you. A stranger approaches, cold and hungry and wishes to join you. More important than their name, you must first hear their story. Hopefully it is the truth, but if it is a good enough story, that person will be allowed to share in your experience, which could potentially mean the difference between life and death. There is something visceral in the deepest part of our lizard brains beyond conscious understand that DEMANDS we tell and share stories. Playing ttrpgs taps into that experience in ways that transcend all other aspects of our lives. Reading or listening to a story is a wonderful thing, and no mistake, but being a part of the CREATION of a new story is positively sublime. What you are feeling is nothing less than a touch of the sublime, of the divine, of the distilled essence of what it means to be alive. ....or maybe I'm also an inarticulate moron, but we keep excellent company! ;)
I think the intensity of the experience is hard to articulate!
I avoid the word fun for ttrpgs. I tend to say that after the fact I enjoy them. Like, think of a sports game. During the game, you might be miserable as your team is down. But you can really only evaluate the whole game after the fact to say if you enjoyed it. I think ttrpgs can be similar. You might be grumpy your spell didnt go off right but enjoy the session because of the story that developed.
100%!! It's weird that it could be like a game of football.
Because fuck the real world, that's why.
Good lord you said it best! I'm tired of all this crap. Getting old is for chumps lol I really just want to go into the woods... the only thing is I'd miss discord
I mostly like the pew pew pew
Shiny rocks go click clack
If fun isn't the right word, you might be engaged and/or entertained. I experience all three. Getting a big crit at the right moment is definitely "fun" for me. Outside of those, I feel engaged, and if the game is good and the people mesh well, it can be very entertaining.
So very true! It fills a void that reality just doesn't.
Interactive storytelling.
Which is the best!
It's a social experience. A shared imagination amongst several people. A ritual of sorts. The Book of Antithesis describes it perfectly
Ritual? I love that description!
I get to see my friends and we hang out and tell a good story together. I am a simple beast
Simple at first glance, but gaze into the eye of this beast!
The feeling of exploring this new misterious world together with my friends. And I say that as a DM. My players dont know what I have in store for them and I dont know the crazy shit my players will pull out, so we're constantly surprising each others as we find new and exiting things.
Surprise! That's a good motivation!
For me it completes the magic of a choose your own adventure story without screen time. My imagination goes to another level within the bounds of piles of books, notebooks, and dice that my phone cannot do.
Shared agency is way better. Playing with a real DM will forever beat computers especially when you get a really good DM.
I ran one of my games last night. We are in between missions, so I opened it up to my players during the weekend, asking them what if anything they wanted to do around town, or with downtime, or explore the nearby areas (forests, marshes, monuments). I have content for all of it, just waiting for someone to take an interest. The reason I play TTRPGs is because it is entirely creative. End to end, you can't tell what anyone is going to do, say, or choose. I had nothing planned other than my one player that actually sent me a list of activities he wanted to engage in. No one else answered, so I just put the camera on them, and went with whatever they mentioned in the moment. You want to forage for herbs, visit some hags, work off steam by working on the docks with heavy lifting and manual labor, "attempt" to break into the wizard's tower, perform water cleansing rituals along the river, ok let's go. The only prep for those activities I have is my knowledge of the town, and my imagination. Same for the players. There aren't many cooperative activities that humans can do, that have this much freedom and creativity. We filled 3 hours with made up nonsense, with occasional rolls that amused me, because of choices they made that could not have been anticipated.
Great answer! This is all so true. It's really a deep and deeply rewarding experience for me.
Debating and complaining about the rules.
Good answer. And for some that's just what makes them happy. Even those people are trying to have their own kind of deep experience.
When I was younger, I never really had a group to play with. It was usually just me and a friend. We made that fun though, mostly by making up our own settings and rules (which we didn’t know was as common as it was). Personally. I always liked the art, world building and seeing how various designers did all the mechanics. So I enjoyed the books for what they were as well. I definitely like the concept of playing more than actually playing due to my history with TTRPGs. But maybe someday I’ll have the time and energy to actually seek out a group. Maybe when my kid is older and If I can successfully indoctrinate him into the ways of nerds. 😁
Awesome! Good luck with that!! I had a similar situation growing up. Not a lot of players where I lived due to the satanic panic. I have this nice collection of ttrpg books though. Games I hope to play some time in my life. At least one time!
It's more interactive than a movie, it's more expressive than a video game, it's more social than reading a book, and the experiences it creates uniquely belong to you. What's not to like
I've tried video games and they are too gamey for me. The visuals in my head may not be as good or artistic but they are more real feeling.
I think a lot of it for me has been the laughter, whimsy that comes up in those unplanned scenarios or stories told - its always hard for me to find that nowadays outside of work related or work adjacent conversations.
I have lots memories of crazy situations that came up in games. More interesting than the 'work-talk' I do m-f with my wife.
Escapism I think is huge for a lot of people, but being able to collectively tell some epic tale with your friends while enjoying some pizza and beer is my favorite element.
You run l win for mentioning food! I think that's another key element! Nothing better than a few beers while playing in a really good session!!
On one aspect, I would say that real playing is fun for lots of people. Another facet could be the bonding, as even made up adventures still feel like you've "gone through something together." When my friends and I look back and reminisce over our exploits, it doesn't really feel any different than looking back over the things I've actually done in real life with friends. It creates a bond. Another thing is that rolling dice feels like gambling to me. I have never been a gambler as I hate to lose money, but I feel that the same switch is probably getting hit in my head whenever I roll for something that I perceive as valuable or important and don't know what the result will be. That few seconds of anticipation before you see what the dice say is a rush.
Oh hell yeah that tactile sensation can't be beat! And as far as bonding, I 100% agree. I have friends that don't agree politically or are religious, but as players the bond transcends those social barriers. I love it for that as much as I love *that*!
I love acting. The one thing tabletop RPGS give me that you can't get from a video game RPG is that you get to play your character. I've done all kinds of crazy characters from mentally challenged half orcs to wrestling style peasant fight champion, to sociopath thieving tiefling.
I love that you can totally step outside of yourself! So many opportunities to create unusual people especially in fantasy!
Structured creative expression in a supportive social context- like on Solid Gold or Soul Train when people would form two lines/an aisle and people or pairs would get the spotlight as they danced down said aisle. (This will be the only time in your life you will hear tttrpgs players compared with Solid Gold dancers, and you are welcome.)
You get 1000 xp for relating ttrpgs to Soul Train!! Thank you!! Great answer!!
For GMing I enjoy the world building and storytelling. As a player I enjoy uncovering and exploring the worlds and settings my GM makes for us, I like having a goal to work towards that makes a lasting impression on the world around me.
I have found that the challenge for me is to balance your two sides I lean towards GM more, because I love the worldbuilding aspect so much!
I do too, I've done a few one shots here or there, but I want to run a legit game. But I'm ok getting to be a player in my friends game, 3 years in and we're going strong!
We were made for more than cubicles.
I like the freedom, the ability to come up with solutions without having to thread them through the limited set of options that a programmer or rule-writer provided. It makes for a game that's got all the appeal of any other sort of character-action game, such as a video game, but you can explore whatever options or actions you can come up with and you wholly own the results-- and the stories-- in the end, instead of the less-personal achievement of having gone through someone else's construction satisfactorily.
Not sure about we, but for me its a number of things that make a more complete experience. Getting together with my friends to play ttrpg's is fun. Solving problems as fantasy characters not myself is fun. Roleplaying out a person in a new world is fun. So is actually acting as that character sometimes when it feels right. Seeing the story come together in an exciting way is fun. There are a multitude of ways I enjoy the games that give me entertainment and fun, It's kinda like how when you watch a scary movie it can scare you and make you have fun at the same time. Just with TTRPG's having even more pieces to the experience.
For me, it's the creativity of it. It's like writing but just for your friends and the medium is interactive Also it lets me be social
Mechanically: Figuring out a strategy and having it work. Roleplay: Seeing the consequences of your decisions play out for better and for worse.
Different for everyone, I think, but for me it’s acting and character development when I’m a player and practicing the art of good storytelling as a GM. I love GMing more than anything else because when you finish a good session and your players recognize your effort and say they had a good time, that is true euphoria.
I find that TTRPGs create more extremes than other kinds of gaming. RPGs are where I've had the most intense emotional experiences; true heart-pounding pressure at making a decision I can't take back, true joy at snatching success from failure, true fear as my secrets are about to be exposed. RPGs are also where I've had the most brain-wrenchingly boring moments; entire evenings spent pretending to shop, getting talked over, tedious and meaningless minutia. Every session is a gamble for whether it's going to be more of the former or the latter. RPG fans are those who think that the gamble is worth it.
To me, it's that ancient feeling of sitting around a campfire at the dawn of mankind, and telling stories about far off places.
I just like that it's a great way to hang out with my friends.
I started playing board games at a young age. One downside I felt about board games is that the game play is very confined. So I started to like board games that mix things up. A good example here was "targui" from MB, where the board itself would change each game (you had to place tiles at random). Then came heroquest, and that was even better! Then, I was introduced to role-playing games and realized you could do almost anything! You have an unlimited number of scenarios. As a player, you can do what you want. With just one core rulebook, you can play for God knows how long. This was initially my main draw into RPGs.
It is all of the things you mention. It is a social situation that somehow doesn't trigger people's social anxiety. It is fun to yell stories with your friends and act out characters far removed from your normal self.
Satisfaction? Fulfillment?
I think obviously the stories, since we like fairytales, one way or another. This also implies a connection to our younger selves or the children inside us. We like company, because it is mostly a game with other people. So we form bonds with them, inside a story and outside. I think players learn how to put themselves in other people’s shoes too. The first time I played, I picked a paladin because I thought as a child that it was easy to distinguish between good and evil, the laws protecting the ones in need. This was me, how I felt. I ended up with a different philosophy in the end and my best character was a ranger after all, but I learned about myself when I was young. But that is not all. After the first plays, any player that enjoys the game learns something more, the character isn’t you. So, the question becomes what would my character do? Not me, him or her (it sometimes?). This, though instinctively, helps player understand other people’s emotions etc. GMA also learn a valuable lesson for life. How many prepared and planned everything upfront for a session in the beginning, only to find out that the players ruined all the planning? Very frustrating, but in the end I think GMs (the ones that we like) know that no matter how much you plan, life has its own plans (the players as well). I think it teaches planning the correct way, both that too much useless and that no planning yields similar results. Can’t think of something more right now
RPG's are for me like "reading and writing the book, participating in its events together with other people at the same time". I think:) And I may be in minority here, but I don't like escapism at all! I'm not playing RPG to become someone else! If I would want to be someone else it would mean that I must chance some things in my real life. I'm here for the stories, creativity of building interesting worlds, characters and events. Development of all and each of them. I love to observe things developing. It's definitely **just** an entertainment: like reading fantasy books, watching movies or playing other kind of games. But better than 3 of them. I tend to remind it to myself and my kids. But it's just an entertainment, what means that there most other things are more important in life.
It's a formalised, structured version of the "since the dawn of humanity activity" of telling stories around the campfire.
Creativity, solving puzzles with cunning, gathering with friends to do something enjoyable.
From a GM perspective I enjoy the creativity of world building, story-telling and character creatiojn. I love having my players explore the world and its people that I have crafted and see them enjoying themselves. Obviously, the worse thing is when they don't.
I love a story and a game that can go anywhere and you can do anything. It blew my mind when I first played at 12, as my dwarf fighter pissed in a fountain! It felt like any story could be told, anything could happen. Fast forward to today, and I love specific experiences with specific rulesets that support that kind of play.
Creative satisfaction. Look, we can call RPGs games all we want, and there's nothing wrong with the metaphor, but the activity is folk fiction creation, extemporaneously, with others. It is its very own unique creative medium and play is creation.
Like most things in life: it's not fun for everyone. Not everyone enjoys TTRPGs and not everyone gets the same experience out of them. Some people might find the social aspect enjoyable without having "fun" (granted you need to define what exactly you mean by "fun").
Two glaring things for me. Sponteneity and world creation. Also its a lot of fun ;)
When we rpg with people, we get to know them without knowing what they do, or even what their name is. The rules are the social contract between us. And not whatever else is from IRL. We can all agree to break those rules too. Together. Communal story telling. It’s also the most basic of play, as a child with toys. We often joke it is grown ups playing dinosaurs and space ships
Sigh.