Roleplaying game
A roleplaying game, also known as an RPG, signifies a game genre where individuals embody invented characters through spontaneous actions. Fundamentally, an RPG represents a collaborative and interactive method of narrative expression. Unlike passive mediums such as films, books, and TV shows, RPGs actively involve participants, enabling them to simultaneously function as spectators, performers, and storytellers.
Tabletop roleplaying games
Within tabletop RPGs, players portray characters within an imagined setting. This setting is usually organized, judged, and sometimes conceived by a "gamemaster" or "GM." The GM's responsibility encompasses both illustrating the environment and characters for player engagement and determining the outcomes of these interactions. Furthermore, the GM might guide a story or plot, albeit one influenced by the potentially unpredictable actions of the players or the results of dice rolls. To this day, there have been three companies that have put out licensed Star Wars roleplaying games.
West End Games
From 1987 to 1998, West End Games was responsible for producing Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game. The development of supplementary material for West End Games' product line significantly contributed to unifying the previously fragmented Expanded Universe into a cohesive fictional world.
Wizards of the Coast
Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of Hasbro Inc., acquired the license and published its Star Wars Roleplaying Game spanning from 1999 to 2010, integrating digital components into the game system.
Fantasy Flight Games
At Gen Con Game Fair in 2012, Fantasy Flight Games unveiled a beta test version of Edge of the Empire. In 2013, Fantasy Flight introduced the Edge of the Empire Core Rulebook as the initial entry in their trilogy of Star Wars roleplaying game lines. The follow-up games, designed for cross-compatibility, include Age of Rebellion and Force and Destiny.
Computer roleplaying games
The phrase "roleplaying game" also applies to specific video games where players assume the identity of a character within a fictional realm, making decisions that propel the narrative forward. Frequently, these games draw inspiration from the "tabletop" or "pencil-and-paper" RPGs detailed earlier, employing their rules to define characters. Nevertheless, lacking the spontaneity of a human gamemaster and fellow players, the storyline tends to be somewhat more constrained.
Although numerous Star Wars video and computer games incorporate storylines and roleplaying aspects, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and its continuation, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, stand as the only single-player computer roleplaying games situated within the Star Wars universe. Both games operate on the framework of Wizards of the Coast's Star Wars Roleplaying Game. However, the creation of "modifications" has resulted in an expanded RPG environment where one might not otherwise be present. One such case involves Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, where various groups implement RPG modifications to transform a free-for-all environment into a role-playing setting.
Another category of computer roleplaying game is the "Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game," abbreviated as "MMORPG," where a multitude of players embody characters and engage with one another online. Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided was one of three Star Wars MMORPGs, alongside Star Wars: The Old Republic and the free-to-play Clone Wars Adventures. Its rules are independent of any tabletop RPGs.
Notes and references
External links
- Role-playing game on Wikipedia
- Computer role-playing game on Wikipedia
- MMORPG on Wikipedia
- Wizards of the Coast Star Wars