TheBattlehammer

Chances are,if you’re reading this stuff, you’re vaguely familiar with rpging and wargaming. I’d just like to make clear, this is a defence of role-playing. I’m not sure what’s the point of wargaming. But this is an answer to that question family members, spouses, girls etc ask.
Obviously the main point of role-playing is to have fun. But there’s really lots of ways to do that. What makes role-playing special?
The camaradarie, the buzz from being with a group of mates. It’s you lot against the world, and if your GM is a little unkind, it will certainly feel like that. And, as a bonus you get to laugh at your buddies when they stupidly screw things up. This feeling can be enhanced by alcohol, and fine dining such as doughnuts, but these aren’t really neccessary.
It is actually educational. Really. Most people who do this are pretty good at counting and basic maths. You learn chunks of history, as long as you’re not one of these players who never leaves a dungeon. I’ve learnt stuff about, for instance, the First Crusade, the Chechen wars, the Norman Conquest, etc. And most people who play can write and spell reasonably, because they have to keep notes.
You get to do stuff, that sadly you will almost certainly never get to do in real life. This is clearly a main attraction for some people. But as well as wild fantasy, this can be a great idea. For instance, there’s a really big TV series, based on some fantasy books that’s getting loads of people agitated. There is one particular episode, where all sorts of bad things are done to a group of decent people. It’s possible to set that up as a gaming session, and see how your players could change things (they didn’t, they died too, in case you were wondering). Another time, I reran the battle of Hastings after a campaign in which the players were Harold’s inner housecarl circle (they all died too).
Problem-solving. Because you keep getting dumped in trouble by your unkind GM, you have to work the answer out.For instance, hopefully there is someone out there who, the next time he is being shot at from a ground floor window,will hopefully NOT climb in the room. There is a style of gaming where the GM doesn’t know the answers, he just sets problems, sits back and laughs. So you learn all sorts of stuff, most of which hopefully you’ll never need…
How long are these things supposed to be?