{"id":1548,"date":"2012-01-25T08:00:48","date_gmt":"2012-01-25T13:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rpggm.com\/blog\/?p=1548"},"modified":"2012-01-22T17:25:57","modified_gmt":"2012-01-22T22:25:57","slug":"so-how-do-you-win-explaining-roleplaying-to-non-gamers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rpggm.com\/blog\/2012\/01\/25\/so-how-do-you-win-explaining-roleplaying-to-non-gamers\/","title":{"rendered":"So How Do You Win? Explaining Roleplaying to Non-Gamers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/pasukaru76\/4924253725\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1551 alignright\" title=\"vader-and-daleks\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rpggm.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/vader-and-daleks.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"234\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a>Explaining roleplaying to a non-gamer is one of the hardest things we&#8217;re asked to do. We want to share this hobby we love so much, but we often find ourselves in a catch-22 situation: it&#8217;s extremely difficult to explain roleplaying to someone who&#8217;s never done it, but once someone&#8217;s done it, they no longer need the explanation.<\/p>\n<p>Below are several posts that could help when you&#8217;re called on to do the impossible:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.geocities.com\/blackhatmatt\/firsttimers.htm\">Advice for a First-Time Player<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/forums.xkcd.com\/viewtopic.php?t=36253&amp;p=1451459\">Explaining Gaming to Non-Gamers (Roleplaying, that is)<\/a>: from <a href=\"http:\/\/forums.xkcd.com\/\">xkcd forums<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/forum.rpg.net\/showthread.php?152240-explaining-roleplaying\">Explaining Roleplaying<\/a>: from <a href=\"http:\/\/forum.rpg.net\/forum.php\">rpg.net<\/a> forums<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.helium.com\/items\/1712509-explaining-the-concept-of-a-fantasy-role-playing-game\">Explaining the concept of a fantasy role-playing game<\/a>: from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.helium.com\/\">Helium.com<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/journeymangm.com\/2011\/08\/28\/explaining-what-role-playing-games-are\/\">Explaining What Role-Playing Games Are<\/a>: from <a href=\"http:\/\/journeymangm.com\/\">The Journeyman GM<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/forums.station.sony.com\/swg\/posts\/list.m?topic_id=288771\">Newbie&#8217;s Guide to Roleplaying<\/a>: from<a href=\"http:\/\/forums.station.sony.com\/swg\/forums\/list.m\"> Star Wars Galaxies forums<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/pleasantfluff.wordpress.com\/2009\/06\/30\/pen-and-paper-roleplaying-games-the-hardest-thing-to-explain-ever\/\">Pen and Paper Roleplaying Games: the hardest thing to explain\u00a0ever<\/a>: from <a href=\"http:\/\/pleasantfluff.wordpress.com\/\">Wonderbread<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/boards.straightdope.com\/sdmb\/showthread.php?t=621960\">Please explain the appeal of roleplaying games such as D&amp;D to me<\/a>: from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.straightdope.com\/\">The Straight Dope<\/a> forums<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Role-playing\">Role-playing<\/a>: from <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Main_Page\">Wikipedia<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.arsimagica.net\/~eccles\/roleplaying\/what.html\">What is roleplaying?<\/a>: from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.arsimagica.net\/\">Ars Imagica<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hoboes.com\/RPG\/Roleplaying\/\">What is role-playing?<\/a>: from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hoboes.com\/\">Negative Space<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/noddsoc.union.shef.ac.uk\/article\/what-is-roleplaying\">What is Roleplaying (and why on earth would I want to do it?)<\/a>: from <a href=\"http:\/\/noddsoc.union.shef.ac.uk\/\">NoDDSoc<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>[Image courtesy of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/pasukaru76\/4924253725\/\">pasukaru76<\/a> via <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/creativecommons\/\">Flickr Creative Commons<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Explaining roleplaying to a non-gamer is one of the hardest things we&#8217;re asked to do. We want to share this hobby we love so much, but we often find ourselves in a catch-22 situation: it&#8217;s extremely difficult to explain roleplaying &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rpggm.com\/blog\/2012\/01\/25\/so-how-do-you-win-explaining-roleplaying-to-non-gamers\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[176,173,174,175],"class_list":["post-1548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musings","tag-explain-rpg","tag-explaining-roleplaying","tag-new-gamers","tag-non-gamers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rpggm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rpggm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rpggm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpggm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpggm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1548"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpggm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1550,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpggm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1548\/revisions\/1550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rpggm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpggm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpggm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}