RPG Lexica:PQR

P

pixelbitching

(coined by SteveD on RPG.net) A style of GMing--specifically, a form of railroading--in which the players need to find one specific clue in order to advance on the one plotline determined by the GM, cannot proceed without it, and do not get any help from the GM in finding it. If said clue is particularly hard to find (or if the GM requires a very specific action to locate it), the GM may be said to be "pixelbitching".

Origin: Computer games, specifically point-and-click games in which you need to click a specific place--sometimes only a few pixels on the screen (hence the name)--in order to get some magic clue you need to advance in the programmed-in plotline.

R

railroading

A style of GMing in which the GM has only one specific plot line in mind, and forces the players to follow that plot regardless of whether they want to do so. From an analogy to a railroad, which constrains the train to one specific route.

role-playing game

An amazingly hard-to-describe activity, and the reason we're all here.

In a typical role-playing game, there is one Game Master (hereafter GM) and some players. The players are playing the roles of characters in an imaginary game-world which the GM describes and controls. The game goes through cycles where:

1. The GM describes the situation the characters are in;
2. The players describe how their characters react to the situation; and
3. The GM and players decide what happened as a result of those actions.

Step 3 often is determined by rolling dice, especially in complex or stressful situations such as combat.

RPG

1. Common abbreviation for role-playing game.

2. Not-as-common abbreviation for "Rocket-Propelled Grenade"

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