SO, WHAT THE HECK IS A ROLE-PLAYING GAME?

It ought to be an easy question.

Then somebody asks it, and you find yourself attempting to explain imaginary characters, shared storytelling, dice, rules, Games Masters and the crucial distinction between role-playing games and dressing as a wizard in the woods.

Five minutes later, their eyes have glazed over and you have somehow started discussing probability curves.

There must be a better way.

Top Table RPG Comix: What the Heck is a Role-Playing Game? is a comic book created to answer that apparently simple but surprisingly awkward question.

Rather than confronting newcomers with a thick rulebook, an intimidating glossary or a forty-minute lecture delivered by somebody who has been waiting years for this opportunity, it uses the approachable visual language of comics to introduce the idea of tabletop role-playing.

It is intended for two sorts of people:

• Those who are curious about role-playing games but do not know where to begin

• Those who already play and have repeatedly failed to explain the hobby to their friends, partners, parents or bewildered co-workers

At last, you can hand them a comic instead.

EXPLAIN THE HOBBY WITHOUT FRIGHTENING ANYONE

Role-playing games are not inherently difficult to understand.

People tell stories, pretend to be characters and play games all the time. Tabletop role-playing merely brings those familiar activities together, adds some rules and allows a group of people to discover what happens next.

Unfortunately, the hobby often explains itself through enormous books filled with specialised language, statistics and enough tables to furnish a conference centre.

That can make an extremely accessible pastime appear far more forbidding than it really is.

What the Heck is a Role-Playing Game? approaches the subject through comics, making the introduction more visual, informal and approachable.

It offers an alternative to beginning with:

• Several hundred pages of rules

• An argument about which edition is best

• A list of unfamiliar gaming terminology

• A three-hour actual-play recording

• A detailed history of the hobby beginning in the American Midwest

• An explanation from your most enthusiastic friend, who has brought diagrams

The aim is simple: make role-playing games feel like something ordinary people can understand and enjoy.

Because they can.

FOR THE COMPLETELY CURIOUS

Perhaps you have heard people talking about campaigns, characters and critical hits but have only the vaguest idea what any of those things mean.

Perhaps you have watched a television programme, film or online stream featuring role-playing games and wondered what everyone was actually doing.

Perhaps somebody has invited you to play, but the invitation came with three rulebooks, four character sheets and the alarming suggestion that you should “just build whatever you like”.

This comic is intended to make that first step less intimidating.

You do not need to memorise a complicated system.

You do not need to know the history of fantasy literature.

You do not need to own peculiar dice—though somebody will undoubtedly give you some eventually.

You only need enough curiosity to ask:

What the heck is a role-playing game?

This comic sets out to answer.

FOR GAMERS WHO HAVE TRIED TO EXPLAIN IT

Experienced players know how enjoyable role-playing can be.

Explaining why it is enjoyable is another matter.

“It’s like a board game, except there isn’t necessarily a board.”

“It’s like improvisational theatre, except you don’t need to be an actor.”

“It’s like telling a story, except nobody knows the ending.”

“It’s like a computer role-playing game, except another human being is running the world.”

“It’s like playing make-believe, except there are rules governing whether you successfully stab the imaginary goblin.”

Every explanation is partly correct.

Every explanation creates at least two additional questions.

What the Heck is a Role-Playing Game? gives established gamers something they can share with the people around them.

It may be useful for:

• Introducing a friend to the hobby

• Explaining gaming to a partner or family member

• Giving a curious new player some context before their first session

• Helping parents understand what their children are playing

• Introducing role-playing to a club or social group

• Answering the questions of somebody who has seen dice all over your table

• Replacing the increasingly desperate explanation you have been refining since 1987

Hand them the comic.

Allow it to do the difficult part.

Then invite them to play.

A FRIENDLIER FIRST STEP

Many introductions to role-playing begin with a particular game.

That immediately raises questions about genre, system, setting, rules and whether the newcomer has accidentally agreed to spend the next eighteen months travelling across an imaginary continent to throw a ring into something.

This comic begins with the broader idea.

Before choosing a game, it helps to understand what tabletop role-playing actually is and why millions of people have spent so much time pretending to be warriors, detectives, starship captains, vampires, investigators, superheroes and heavily armed rodents.

Once the central idea makes sense, the enormous variety of games becomes an advantage rather than another source of confusion.

There are role-playing games about:

• Fantasy adventurers

• Science-fiction explorers

• Supernatural investigators

• Spies and secret agents

• Historical characters

• Horror-film victims

• Political intrigue

• Romance and relationships

• Crime and mystery

• Almost anything else people can imagine

The rules, settings and styles may change.

The central pleasure remains the same: people gathering together to create an experience that belongs to their particular group and could never unfold in quite the same way again.

COMICS MAKE EVERYTHING EASIER

Some subjects benefit from pictures.

Facial expressions, imagined situations and the interaction between people can often communicate an idea more clearly than another wall of explanatory prose.

The comic-book format makes this an easy thing to browse, share and return to without treating an introduction to gaming like preparation for an examination.

It is designed to feel less intimidating and more approachable than a conventional explanation of the hobby.

That makes it suitable for readers who might never willingly pick up a traditional role-playing rulebook but remain curious about what their friends are doing around that table.

It is a doorway rather than a complete course.

A first step rather than a rulebook.

An answer to the question that must come before all the others.

GIVE IT TO THE NON-GAMER IN YOUR LIFE

You know the one.

They have listened politely while you discussed your campaign.

They have asked whether role-playing games are “like that thing on television”.

They have wondered why you need so many dice when six-sided ones appear to work perfectly well.

They may be curious.

They may be suspicious.

They may simply want to understand what you have been doing every Thursday evening for the last nine years.

Give them What the Heck is a Role-Playing Game?

Best case: they understand the appeal and decide to join you.

Worst case: they finally understand what you have been talking about.

Either represents progress.

YOUR NEXT ADVENTURE STARTS HERE

Top Table RPG Comix: What the Heck is a Role-Playing Game? is an accessible comic-book introduction to the tabletop role-playing hobby.

It is for newcomers wondering whether they might enjoy gaming and veterans searching for a better way to explain why they already do.

No previous experience is required.

No rules mastery is expected.

No twenty-sided dice will be tested at the door.

Once you have answered the first question, you can explore the Postmortem Studios range of role-playing games and begin looking for the game that suits you.

What is a role-playing game?

Read the comic.

Gather some friends.

Then find out by playing one.