In my last entry, I gave my definition of role-playing: imagine being in a play without a script, with your mind as the stage. Imagine. That's the all important word when it comes to role-playing games (RPGs). One must be able to use their imagination for so many aspects of playing RPGs that they are effectively impossible to play without it. I say effectively because anyone could play an RPG with little or no imagination. But if you can't imagine what the characters look like, or the smells of a medieval village, of the sight of a dragon the size of your house flying at you breathing fire, then the experience will be lost on you.
A typical Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) game session would be difficult without a lot of imagination. In the two groups I play with, it would be impossible. First, imagination is critical requirement for the Dungeon Master (DM). The DM is in charge of all the action. It is his job to determine what is going on around the characters, both major and minor plotlines. It is the DM's job to take on the roles of every character that the players' characters will encounter in the story, from the friendly tavern wench to the evil arch-villain in every tale he tells. This requires hours of work developing storylines, creating characters for the players' interaction, and determining how difficult to make each challenge. DMing is the hardest job in any RPG.
Players may have an easier time and a lot less work than a DM, but they still need a really good imagination if they're going to enjoy the overall experience. It takes nearly as much time for me to create a good history for my character as it does to build the character. Building a character can take me anywhere between 30 minutes to several hours, depending on the character class and level. Certain classes, like the fighter and the ranger, don't take all that long to build. But spell casters like the sorcerer, wizard, and cleric (priest) can take a considerable amount of time as casters get a certain amount of spells to start with, and choosing wisely takes time.
Higher level characters require more time to build as each level is accompanied by enhancements to the character, such as skills points (to do things like hide in shadows or ride a horse), and spells. Higher level characters also receive a lot more starting money, which can take many hours of digging through books to get spent. The amount of history for a higher level character must also be expanded. A first level character may be a sixteen year old farm boy whose family farm was razed by raiding barbarians and is out for revenge. The same character at level ten might have already found and destroyed not only the barbarians that killed his family, but he might have found the evil priest that sent them in the first place and killed him as well!
Now just imagine how much work it would be for the Dungeon Master, creating higher level characters for the Players' characters to meet. All of the same work that the players are doing for their characters goes into the DM's characters as well. The bad thing for the DM is that most of the characters he's creating are villains for the PCs to kill.
Now, imagine him having to do all that work, without his very active imagination…
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