At its heart, a role-playing game is a Storytelling game. So, begs the question, what is a Storytelling game?

Storytelling is a sophisticated way for adults to play make-believe. Rather than playing soldier or house and running around your backyard or the alley behind your apartment, you and your friends sit around a comfortable room and describe the heroic feats that your characters accomplish. To help make sure that you all share the same vision of what's going on, there's a mediator and narrator (the "Storyteller"), who describes events and keeps the story moving along. In order to prevent arguments of who did what first and if an action is possible, there are rules that describe what your character can and can't do. In order to prevent bitterness over someone beating someone else in a fight, the characters are usually allies against imaginary opposition that the Storyteller tries to portray as even-handedly as possible. In order to prevent jaded adult imaginations from being bored quickly, the setting is much more intricate and complex than most people's childhood fantasies.

Just because Storytelling is like something children do doesn't make it any less serious. Kids build little forts and treehouses, while adults build skyscrapers. If you want, your storytelling can be as serious as improvisational acting. It doesn't have to be terribly serious, but there's nothing wrong with taking it seriously.

To play a Storytelling game, you'll generally need between three and six people. One person assumes the role of the Storyteller. It's her job to describe how things unfold, play the bit characters and the supporting cast and moderate any disputes over the rules. Everyone else makes up a "character" (the game term for the imaginary person you portray) and thrills vicariously to the heroic deeds of their alter egos. It's a lot like acting, only you make up the lines. The reason the game is best with four to six people participating is that there tends to be a lot of awkward silences with less than three people, while a game with more than five players can be very hard for the Storyteller to manage.

A Storytelling game is a continuing game—the basic assumption is that you'll play your character more than once. Most people who play Storytelling games meet between once a week and once every two weeks and play for between four and eight hours a session. Most people seem to enjoy playing the same character for six months or more.

Storytelling allows to understand ourselves by giving us a tool with which to explain our triumphs and defeats. By looking at our culture, our family and ourselves in new contexts, we can understand things we never realized before. It is entertaining because it is so revealing, and exhilarating becasue it is so true. Storytelling plays such an enormous role in our culture that it can't be accidental. Stories are somehow basic to our psychology. Our obsession with them has a purpose to it: of that there is no doubt. Storytelling is integral to our nature, and has an influence which cannot be denied.

So what is a role-playing game? It is a lot of fun...