RPG Rewards Rehash

A months ago I asked the question, "Why do people play these Role-Playing Games? What reward to they get from them?" I was hard pressed to get an answer. However, I think the main reason we play a game is to have fun. But fun is different things to different people. Some people like cooperating with other people to achieve a common goal. Others like to disrupt play and cause utter chaos. Some like to hog the spotlight and make themselves seem like gods. Some simply want the connection with other people that such games provide in a safe way without social consequence to themselves.

Curiously, there are some people who simply like things to occur in a pre-planned fashion and they spend more time planning the event than actually doing it. However, there is no 100% guarantee of success in a game that relies on dice for resolution. All the planning in the world cannot predict a roll of a 1 or 20 on an attack. Some people feel the need to cheat probability by substituting their own value for the actual roll. These people are sad and may need more therapy than a game can provide. Those of us who humbly accept failure in an RPG probably were good losers at boardgames and good sports when our team was defeated on the baseball diamond or football field. Sadly, most of the standard gamers that exist are or were "loners" or "exiles" from mainstream society, either by choice or due to lack of social coping mechanisms. Therefore the social interactions needed for mature RPG gaming were never established.

I've often wondered why people play RPGs. There is no real tangible reward. There is no real "winner" or "loser." In fact, the person running the game is essentially providing others with entertainment without really getting anything in return. I've seen many games crumble because one person was stuck with being the DM all the time and eventually real life crept in causing the DM to re-prioritize his or her time. As we have aged this has occurred numerous times due to lack of a job, birth of a child, death of a friend, a player falling to serious illness, etc.

RPGs are hobbies. They are not really games. One can play one-shot adventures on occasion, but these have a decided beginning and end and sometimes occur as infrequently as once a year. Games simply waste time and produce nothing. They are a measure of one's luck or skill. Hobbies are something that people enjoy doing as a means of passing time or releasing stress and usually result in a collection or some crafted item. A character can be seen as a collection of magic items lovingly crafted and developed with a persona all its own, with a story of his adventures being the crafted material. The loss of a collection for a hobbyist is a sad event - so too the death of a beloved character. Such sadness and feeling of loss cannot truly be felt in regular games that exist as mere abstractions. In fact, most games use pawns or markers to represent people participating in the game, thus further disassociating the player from the game. In an RPG the player develops the visual aspect of his or her character and develops a long history and backstory to bring his or her creation to life. Some people are better at this than others. Some need poking and prodding and some are naturals. Still, this piece of paper containing numbers and stats becomes a loved character with their own reactions and wants/needs that may be radically different from the players.

So why do people play these games? I still don't have an answer. They take a lot of time to prepare, take a long time to develop, and demand commitment from all involved to make it work. Yet, I've seen genius emerge in players with the social skills of a gnat, I've seen great role-playing ability grow into a sort of acting skill, and the glint in someone's eyes when they come to a sudden realization in game is just magic to behold. I've been a DM now for many years and I never get tired of the randomness and fun inherent in plumbing the depths of a dungeon and seeing how people react to new situations, situations that I wrote for them to experience. As a player I love solving seemingly daunting puzzles, exploring areas thought to be lost forever to time, and defeating encounter that I had no right surviving. Being a sedentary middle-aged man I live vicariously through my characters and the players that enjoy my games. For most I think it's merely enjoying a shared experience that makes the game most rewarding. Those that work towards this goal have more fun than those that cause problems at the table. And it's the perfection of a well-played game that I've been chasing all these years on both sides of the DM screen.