Introduction
"I do not value any view of the universe into which man and the institutions of man enter very largely and absorb much of the attention. Man is but the place where I stand, and the prospect hence is infinite." - Henry David Thoreau "Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who only dream by night." - Edgar Alan Poe "There are so many strange places I'd like to be, but none of them permanently." - I Don't Want To Live |
Using This Book
Dice
Cast and Crew
Time and Time Again
Everyone needs a hero, even an imaginary one. Heroes inspire us. They teach us to challenge the status quo, to find the moral higher ground and most of all, to do what we dream. A hero isn't just a name and a collection of deeds, it's an attitude, a spirit, and most importantly an ideal. While the ideal is unattainable, if we strive for it, who knows how far we might reach?
In earlier times, people respected and feared the ancient gods, such as Zeus, Aphrodite, and Aries of Greek mythology, Odin, Thor and Loki of Norse, Ra, Horus and Osiris from Egypt, the Great Horned God of Celtic myth, and many more. Through the years, tales of their exploits passed from one generation to the next through the art of story telling. As each generation added its own twists and new tales to the collective daydream of myth, the heroes became more human and more accessible with such legends as Hercules, Achilles, King Arthur and Hiawatha. We gave our heroes real human faces (Socrates, Saint Joan of Arc, and William Wallace of Scotland), and our villains (Genghis Khan, Adolf Hitler and Charles Manson). Still the surreal wonder of the fantastic remains with literature such as the novels of H.G. Wells and pulp fiction such as the Shadow. Years of evolution transformed once brutal "fairy tales" into lighthearted stories to tell our children and our grandchildren. Dime novels in the early years of American history transformed ruthless killers such as William Bonnie into great heroes like Billy the Kid and Doc Holiday. Most people have little need of the truth of these tales, content to be entertained by modern myth. And why not? We have enough grim reality around us, must it invade our very imaginations?
This is the world of roleplaying games. Sometimes known as adventure games or rpg's, roleplaying games combine the best elements of fiction, tactical games and improvisational theater. The playing of the game is fairly simple, you get a few friends together, gather up some paper and pencils, and each of you creates a hero. At least one player must Narrate the story and play all the villains and extras involved. The next chapter will explain the process of playing a roleplaying game, specifically In Media Res in much greater detail. The following few sections describe how to use this book, along with a brief lexicon.
Using This Book
This book has been formatted with the intent to make it as easy to read and reference as possible. To this end, we've included page references, a multitude of examples and marked optional rules.
EXAMPLES: This book is littered with examples of the various rules. Throughout most of these examples, we will be following Joe Gamer as he creates and plays his hero, the all-American Captain Acme, who fights for truth, justice and a fat wallet, against the tyranny of villains like the great slimy terror from planet Evil, and blood-sucking lawyers.
Page References: The paper version of In Media Res includes a multitude of page references within the text, and where possible, information is also reprinted in the sidebar to reduce the amount of page-flipping necessary to read and play the game. This html version of In Media Res has merely replaced all the page references with hypertext links. The end result should make this html version easier to reference if not particularly portable.
Dice
The rules for In Media Res use only ten sided dice. If you are not familiar with these dice, they may be purchased at many fine hobby stores. If you're using these rules to play with your friends over the internet, in chat-rooms or via email, there are many "dice" programs available for free on the world-wide web. Any one of them should work well with these rules. The end of chapter two, How To Play, also gives some suggestions for playing In Media Res without dice.
Extras: Characters who are not powerful enough to be heroes or villains, may be allied with either or neither, and are played by the Narrator.
Genre or Milieu: The setting of a game. Fantasy, espionage, science fiction, horror, etc., etc...
Heroes: Characters played by players.
Narrator: A player who decides upon the setting of the game, the identities and abilities of the extras and villains, and the direction and plot of the story. The narrator also portrays the extras and villains during the game. Most games refer to this player as a Game Master (GM) though many more recent games stray from this standard.
Player: Someone who participates in a roleplaying game. Players often refer to themselves as "gamers".
Villains: Characters who both oppose the heroes and are played by the Narrator.
Time and Time Again
There are two types of time when discussing a roleplaying game. Real time and "game time". While real time is constant and doesn't change (unless you have a time machine in your garage!), it is possible for seconds of game time to pass during minutes of real time, or for days, weeks even to pass in a game within a few seconds of real time.
This happens in much the same way that a film cuts from one scene to the next. Scenes may be separated by only distance, minutes, hours, days, months, even years, while all you see on the movie screen is a few seconds of black.
Cut: A period of game time which is excluded from play, rather than played out fully. The time between scenes.
Fight Scene: Fight scenes often require minutes of real time to roleplay seconds of game time.
Game Time: Time within the fictional setting of a game, which often does not correlate to real time.
One-Shot: A single, stand-alone story which is not connected to any other story or series.
Real Time: Time in the real world.
Scene: A period of game time which is played, rather than cut. Scenes are often referred to as being fight scenes, or roleplaying scenes. The difference is mainly one of timing. Roleplaying scenes are leisurely played out while fight scenes are rigidly timed.
Series: A series of correlated stories usually involving the same heroes in multiple stories and sometimes involving the same villains in more than one story.
Story: A single story played out within the game. Every story must have heroes, villains, a plot and beginning and an end.