Tag Archives: D&D

Second Nature: Language, Exclusion, and Gamer Rage

Posted on June 20, 2012 by Edcrab

by Edcrab A little after its release, my dad played Baldur’s Gate. I remember him being amused that hitting livestock with a quarterstaff had shifted his reputation to that of a heinous slayer of innocents. Wanting to know exactly how much harm he was doing to said cows, he checked out his weapon’s stats. “What’s a d6?” In a fit of rage I threw him out the window and then told everyone on Facebook, which existed back then if you knew where to look, what a newb he was and how I’d totally owned him, and then I got all the likes. After my father had dusted himself off and we cleared up all the broken glass, I explained the term’s origins. He seemed quite happy to accept that it was shorthand for a six-sided dice, and therefore designated a value of one to six. And then he cursed the Continue reading →

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Putting the “Role” in Role Playing Games

Posted on May 4, 2012 by Vivienne Chan

By definition, Role Playing Games feature gameplay that involves individuals who are each designated a specific role or function within a group. Whether you’re playing a tabletop RPG like Dungeons & Dragons, a single-player RPG like Baldur’s Gate, or an MMORPG like World of Warcraft, each individual avatar has a specific, contained, defined reason for being included in a party.

Leader, striker, controller. Tank, healer, DPS. These are the “primary” role definitions you find in most RPGs. The latter three are collectively known as the “holy trinity” of RPGs. All avatars may have secondary roles or abilities, such as trap finder, negotiator, tracker, pack mule, etc, but by and large their abilities are linked to their primary role definition. A ranger is better equipped to understand nature and a rogue is better equipped to steal or disarm traps, for example.

I argue that there is a link between the massive popularity of RPGs and the way many of us understand our place in the world. Continue reading →

Posted in Features | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments