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Role Playing Game Terms: Difference between revisions
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Media complement one another: Movies, TV series, video games, etc. often convert into one another. As they do so, tropes in one genre often become tropes in another. One of these is the Role Playing Game or RPG, a popular form of video games. RPGs themselves are conversions from table-top paper gaming, which often involved acting. (Hence the "Role Playing" part of the name.) As this has increased, we see more and more RPG aspects in series, especially [[Anime]]. See also [[Role Playing Game Verse]].
RPGs often emphasize numerical statistics. Common characteristics can include:
* Stats: Your Strength score determines how much you can bench-press, your Intelligence score determines how well you can think, your Charisma score determines how successful you are with the ladies, et cetera. Some games have dozens of Stats for each character, while a few, such as D.U.D.E., have only one. Generally, each Stat is a numeric score on the same scale as every other Stat; if 10 Strength is how strong an average person is, then 10 Intelligence is how smart an average person is. In some game systems, gaining experience points (c.f. below) can increase your Stats. In most systems, Stats will be broken down into Attributes (innate measures of a character's aptitude) and Skills (reflecting training, learning, and study).
* [[Random Number God|Dice]]: Usually signified by "dX", where X is the number of sides on the die you roll. A traditional die is a d6. Multiple dice are handled by YdX, Y being the number of dice rolled- 4d6 means you roll four traditional dice, or one traditional die four times, and add the results. Added to this is the occasional static number, or extra dice- this is usually written out as follows: 4d8 + 2d6 + 3, which means you roll four eight-sided dice, then two six-sided dice, and then add those all up and then add three. Even when there are no actual dice involved, a spell that does 2d12 damage will deal between 2 and 24 damage, tending toward 13.
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** ''Rolemaster'' uses two ten-sided dice as d100, with rolls representing the percentage of success. (Usually, modifiers like skill and difficulty are used.)
* [[Splat|Character Classes]]: Your place in the Order of Things is strictly defined, usually in terms of [[Fighter, Mage, Thief|Fighter, Thief, Magic User]], Cleric, or [[Red Shirt|Background Character]]. Along with these roles usually comes standard physical/mental
* [[Hit Points]] (aka Life Points or HP): How healthy are you? Physical damage can be boiled down to a simple number out of a maximum. Sometimes parts of the body no longer functioning may be included in the loss of HP (such as bones being broken or limbs severed) but often one just glows a bit and grimaces. Full HP or 1 HP is the same in terms of what you can do. [[Critical Existence Failure|Once you get to zero, though...]] ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]!'' and ''[[Code Lyoko]]'' have life points.
** A few games, such as ''[[Champions]]'', use this number to represent how much physical injury you can sustain directly before being killed. However, most games (building on the concept as presented in ''D&D'') use a kind of "abstracted hit points." These hit points represent not only your physical well-being, but also your ability to turn what would have otherwise been a grievous injury into "just a scratch" through combat experience, and a degree of luck and magical protection that also supposedly comes from experience. In these systems, it's not uncommon for very high level characters to be able to survive damage that would kill a triceratops.
*** And, as ''[[Murphys Rules]]'' pointed out, this can include a terminal-velocity fall from any height. A high-level fighter will not only survive such a fall but would still be able to ''fight'' a triceratops afterwards. Fixed, to an extent, after 1st Edition.
* [[Mana Meter|Magic Points]] (aka mana, furyoku, chi, Force strength, "power levels" etc. often abbreviated as MP in RPG games ): Spiritual strength can also be quantified. The spirit is like a container of liquid, with "magic" filling it up. The act of casting a spell or equivalent cleanly depletes a percentage of this total. What brings it back up again varies. Examples of this can be seen in ''[[Dragon Ball]]'', ''[[Shaman King]]'', and ''[[Naruto]]''.
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* [[Character Level]]: what you get for a specific number of experience points, this is a general impression of the relative power of the character. The higher the number, the better. Often comes with an increase in [[Hit Points]] and [[Mana Meter]]. In most systems, characters of equal level should be of relatively equal power, but due to player [[Min-Maxing]] or [[Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards]], this is not always true.
* [[Character Alignment]]: Law vs. Chaos. Good vs. Evil. Neutrality in the middle. Possibly a different system, though the ''[[
* [[Roaming Enemy|Wandering Monsters]]: Walking through the countryside, one is likely to be attacked by a weird-looking beast. This creature is unlikely to be part of the natural ecosystem, and may not leave a body after its hit points are driven to 0. Seen in ''[[Berserk]]'' and ''[[Magic Knight Rayearth]]'', which are both [[Role Playing Game Verse]].
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