RPG Playing Tips

At it's highest level, there are two main types of roleplaying games:

Single Player Roleplaying Games
Multiplayer Roleplaying Games

Single Player Roleplaying Games

Single player RPGs are games that are played by no more than 1 person. Usually, single player role playing games allow less creativity on the part of the player as they must conform to the rules that were defined by the game developer. Namely, it is less likely there will be a gamemaster to monitor play and create customized interactions for a single player. More likely instead,the player will be able to choose from a limited set of solutions to various problems through which they are able to play out their role. A few examples of single player games are:

Choose your own adventure books
NPC Based Video Games

In both of these instances the player interacts with predefined characters that are included in the game. In the latter, complex computer software is used to create Non Player Characters (NPCs) who act out roles defined by their programs. For instance, an NPC vendor could allow the player to purchase and sell items for use within the gaming adventure.

Multiplayer Roleplaying Games

Multiplayer RPGs are games that are played by 2 or more people. The complexity of these games tends to increase quite dramatically as the number of players in the games also increase. Multiplayer role playing games often require a gamemaster to monitor the game to insure rules are applied and also to add new fantasy scenarios for the players to work through. In the case of Massively Multiplayer Role Playing Games (MMORPGs), the fantasy worlds are often persistent 24/7 and require multiple gamemasters to insure the game runs smoothly. Multiplayer RPGs can be further broken down into the categories shown below.

Multiplayer RPG categories

	Live	Not Live
Same Place	Same Place & Live (i.e. Acting Game)	Same Place & Not Live (i.e. D&D)
Different Place	Different Place & Live i.e. (MMORPG)	Different Place & Not Live (i.e. Forum Role playing)

Same Place: We define same place gaming where players are interact with each other on a face to face basis. While LAN gaming can take place in the same area, we wouldn't consider this same place gaming as the players are connected with each other not directly but through a local area network. More than one person using the same computer together to play an RPG would be an instance of same place RPGing.
Different Place: Occurs when gaming occurs between players that are not interacting face to face.
Live (real time): We have defined a roleplaying game as being live if a game continues to progress in Real-Time regardless of whether all players are present or not. The game can be stopped and continued at a later date if players agree, the important point is that while engaged, the game will progress regardless of player interaction.
Not Live (turn based): A game is considered not to be live when it can continue forward with starts and stops. That is, there is no fluid real-time progression from one point to another. Another way to think of this type of game is as turned-based, such as Dungeons and Dragons.