Roleplaying Games

A roleplaying game is an interactive story where one player, the Game Master (GM), sets the scene and presents challenges, while other players take the roles of player characters (PCs) and attempt to overcome those challenges. Danger comes in the form of monsters, devious traps, and the machinations of adversarial agents, but Stormchaser also provides political schemes, puzzles, interpersonal drama, and much, much more.

The game is typically played in a group of four to seven players, with one of those players serving as the group’s Game Master. The GM prepares, presents, and presides over the game’s world and story, posing challenges and playing adversaries, allies, and bystanders alike. As each scene leads into the next, each player contributes to the story, responding to situations according to the personality and abilities of their character. Dice rolls, combined with preassigned statistics, add an element of chance and determine whether characters succeed or fail at actions that they attempt.

Stormchaser can be mostly action, with battles with vile beasts, escapes from fiendish traps, and the completion of heroic quests. Alternatively, it can include negotiating with a baron for rights to a fort, infiltrating an army of lumbering frost giants, or bargaining with an angel for a strand of hair required for an elixir to revive a slain friend. Ultimately it’s up to you and your group to determine what kind of game you are playing, from dungeon exploration to a nuanced political drama, or anything in between.

Dice

Stormchaser requires a set of polyhedral dice. Each die has a different number of sides, which can four, six, eight, or more. When these dice are mentioned in the text, they’re indicated by a “d” followed by the number of sides on the die. Stormchaser uses 4-sided dice (or d4), 6-sided dice (d6), 8-sided dice (d8), 10-sided dice (d10), 12-sided dice (d12), and 20-sided dice (d20). If you need to roll multiple dice, a number before the “d” tells you how many. For example, “4d6” means you should roll four dice, all 6-sided. If a rule asks for d%, you generate a number from 1 to 100 by rolling two 10-sided dice, treating one as the tens place and the other as the ones place.

The Players

Everyone involved in a Stormchaser game is a player, including the Game Master, but for the sake of simplicity, “player” usually refers to participants other than the GM. Before the game begins, players invent a history and personality for their characters, using the rules to determine their characters’ statistics, abilities, strengths, and weaknesses. The GM might limit the options available during character creation, but the limits are discussed ahead of time so everyone can create interesting heroes. In general, the only limits to character concepts are the players’ imaginations and the GM’s guidelines.

During the game, players describe the actions their characters take and roll dice, using their characters’ abilities. The GM resolves the outcome of these actions. Some players enjoy acting out (or roleplaying) what they do as if they were their characters, while others describe their characters’ actions as if narrating a story. Do whatever feels best!

If this is your first experience with a roleplaying game, it is recommended that you take on the role of a player to familiarize yourself with the rules and the world.

The Game Master

While the other players create and control their characters, the Game Master (or GM) is in charge of the story and world. The GM describes all the situations player characters experience in an adventure, considers how the actions of player characters affect the story, and interprets the rules along the way.

The GM can create a new adventure, crafting a narrative, selecting monsters, and assigning treasure on their own. Alternatively, they can instead rely on a published adventure, using it as a basis for the session and modifying it as needed to accommodate their individual players and the group’s style of play. Some even run games that combine original and published content, mixed together to form a new narrative.

Being the GM is a challenge, requiring you to adjudicate the rules, narrate the story, and juggle other responsibilities. But it can also be very rewarding and worth all the work required to run a good game. If it is your first time running a game, remember that the only thing that matters is that everyone has a good time, and that includes you. Everything else will come naturally with practice and patience.