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| What is an RPG? |
Although, depending on what RPG you're playing, there will be many different types of rules for many different types of RPG's. There are many different types of dice necessary for different RPG's so, unless you're actually planning on making yourself a dice collection like me, I would recommend that you first learn what dice are necessary for the particular game that you are playing or planning on playing. That way you won't smack yourself silly after you discover that you've bought a bunch of different dice that you don't even need. For instance, games made by the company White Wolf, such as Vampires, Werewolf, etc. tend to require the use of only 10 sided dice, however, Earthdawn, requires a wider arrangement of dice going from 4 sided up to 20 sided. Also here's another important thing for any new gamer, for future reference, most often times, when you hear a true gamer refer to dice, they'll almost always refer to it by the letter "d" followed by the number of sides the die has, for instance, a 20 sided die would be called a d-20 or a 10 sided die would be called a d-10. Some of the more common dice that you'll probably have the pleasure of rolling some time or another are: d-4, d-6, d-8, d-10, d-12, d-20. Some of the less common dice that you may or may not come across are: d-7, d-30, crystal d-6, crystal d-10, crystal d-20, and finally, the biggest die that I have ever seen to date, a d-100, otherwise known as a zochahedron, (zo' ka' he drun) which simply refers to any 100 sided object. D-100's are actually about the size of a golf ball, however, they weigh alot less.
Now, as I already stated, different RPG's have different rules. Regardless of the differences, most RPG's have a few things in common in these rules that are well worth mentioning. For instance, most games have Dice tests. A dice test is simply any time you have to roll a dice in order for you to be able to tell whether or not your character is able to perform a particular action in a particular situation. For example, you might roll a die to see if you can jump over a pit, or to avoid a trap, etc. Often times, as your character progresses, the dice you roll will change in some type of a way so your chances of success with a particular action are greater. Which brings us to the next point.
Often times, in many RPG's, there will be some way for your character to progress. This occurs in many different ways. The most common way is the one I just mentioned which is your chances of success in a particular action are raised by changing what dice you roll as your character increases in power. However, there are other ways that I have seen as well, however, at least to me, none of them make as much sense. For instance, I've seen a setup where you got more powerful simply by gaining better powers. This makes little sense because it isn't very practical. As you get more powerful, you still retain the powers you had when you were weaker, which is all good and fine for when your weak, but now that your strong you have very little use for those weak powers. However, I have seen a similar system which was done in such a fashion that it made plenty of sense, you still gained different powers as you rose in power, however, the powers you gained as you got more powerful were set up in such a way, that although some of your powers may be more effective than others in certain situations, none of them ever became completely useless. Each one had its proper place and proper time in which it was effective.
As far as I can tell, this should be enough information to get you started into the world of RPGing. So, good bye and good luck!