The promise of a roleplaying game is to inhabit another life and do things you could never do in the real world. I am a writer and not a magic-user, but for decades I’ve been able to step into such empowered lives, one saturday game at a time.
Picking up the controller and starting up an RPG on a game console or PC is a similar undertaking. You step into another world, whether fantasy or scifi or contemporary, and use this new persona to have fun shaping the world with your actions. With Cyberpunk 2077, you are entering a high-tech future with elements of corporate dystopia. But to understand the issues with beginning your time in that world, we should take a look at the worlds that have come before.
Since it was first published in 1974, Dungeons and Dragons grabbed the imagination of gamers. And every new game starts with the act of character creation. You would roll some stats with dice: strength, dexterity, constitution, intelligence, constitution, and charisma. You then choose your race like human or elf or dwarf, then pick a suitable class, like a skilled fighter or crafty rogue or pious cleric. You would choose, or roll, for things like height and weight, eye and hair color, religion and homeland. You even pick an alignment, where you fall on a morality scale of Good and Evil. Players really into the acting side of things might write a backstory and build a personality that differs from their own.
Read the full article at Medium.