Imagine you were a powerful warrior, a sturdy dwarf, a proud elven ranger or a mighty magician, exploring a world of strange creatures and ancient civilizations. Or imagine you were a space pilot, fighting against an evil empire. A Role Playing Game or RPG lets you do all of this! An RPG is kind of like a choose-your-own-adventure book; you know, when you read a book and every bow and then you get to make a decision. In the book you are a knight or a detective or something, anddepending what you choose, you turn to different pages and different things happen to "you". Well, a RPG is like that, only you play it with lots of people, and you can make any decision you want at any time, rather than only those that the book will let you. In a RPG, you play a character, or a person you pretend to be. You might be a knight or a wizard, or a mercenary or a space marine, depending on what sort of game you play, and your friends will be similar things. One other person, called the Game Master, or referee, decides what happens to you. He creates the adventure, and you and your friends have to work your way through it. There are lots of different sorts of adventures. You might be adventuring in a magical world full of knights and dragons. It might be in the far future, set in space. For example, you might be a brave group of warriors and spellcasters. The Game Master might tell you that there's treasure in a cavern under a giant tree in a forest. You will have to tell him how you will find the tree, and what you will do when you get there. You might meet strange creatures on the way, maybe monsters you will have to fight. Or maybe they can help you. Either way, you must tell the Game Master what you will do, and the Game Master will tell you what the monsters do and whether or not you succeed. When you get into a fight, or have to do something difficult, like fly a spaceship through an asteroid field, whether or not you succeed is decided by rolling dice. For example, if you are fighting a goblin, you would role a dice for your character, and the Game Master would role for the Goblin, with the highest number wining. The same to see if a spell worked, if you were a magic user. The great thing about RPGs is that you can be anybody or anything. Most games are set in a mediaeval world full of monsters and magic. Others are set in space, in the far future. But you can also find Wild West RPGs, RPGs set on earth in the future, or just about anything else. You can play your favourite Movie hero, from Luke Skywalker and Indiana Jones to Roger Rabbit! You name it, you can do it. So why not see if theres a Role Playing Game club in your neighborhood?