What is role playing, you ask? It is a game full of exciting adventure and theatrics, where players carefully (and sometimes not so carefully) maintain their scores and advance themselves to greater skills and better equipment; it is a time when people can pretend to be a different person, ranging from knights and mages to cyborgs and werewolves --- in short it is rather tough to explain because it is so encompassing. Simply, a player makes up a character, which has certain scores determining what they can and cannot do, and runs that character through an adventure that is carefully choreographed by another person. Typically, role playing groups range from three to seven, but they can also be done with only one player and upwards of 80.

The person running the whole game is referred to by many names: the GM, DM, or ST (that is games master, dungeon master, and story teller, resp.), depending on the system. Different game systems and DM styles allow for different types of characters, worlds, and plots. Some games focus on solving the puzzle put forth by the DM, some are rousing adventures of battles and glory, and some allow for much collecting of loot. There are general tones set by the different companies, but each gaming group is different, due to player personalities, in-house rules, and relative punchiness of the group that night (heh).

For my part I enjoy D&D. Mind you, I am usually a player in these games. Once, very briefly, I ran a game in AD&D setting. It will be a long time before I do that again. I have a modest number of characters that I have played successfully. Please understand that I just love to draw my characters, and I am (slightly!) vain about my sketches and wish to show them to others. I am not too good at drawing other people's characters, though, unless I sit down and get a lengthy description. Below are a few of the characters I have already played.

• Nine-ten-two (Floating Vagabond) - a combat robot
• Kareela (D&D, 3.5 ed.) - a wild elf monk, dangerous to herself and others
• Isadora Colasante Graver (D&D, third ed.) - a death cleric who serves Kelemvor
• Sheva Longreach (D&D, third ed.) - a half-orc barbarian with a wicked spear
• Celia Ashni (D&D, third ed.) - a half-dragon sorcerer with an affinity for lightening
• Minhyrdan Gallowglass (D&D, third ed.) - a "human" sneaky archer
• Arielle (D&D, third ed.) - a quiet, air genasi rogue
• Heather (D&D, third ed.) - a slightly ditzy Druid with an owl friend
• Ash (AD&D, second ed.) - a magical, somewhat inept thief
• Tiel (AD&D, second ed.) - an avian high-priestess-in-training
• Darkmoon (AD&D, second/D&D third ed.) - a spunky fighter with a large axe
• Chiara Goft-Galweigh (AD&D, second ed.) - an attractive fire mage
• Rune (AD&D, second ed., alternate magic rules) - a gryphon-obsessed mage
• Kira Andreiovich (Whitewolf) - an immortal Russian bookseller
• Kyra (the Red) (AD&D, second ed.) - an armored wemic paladin
• Jenny Barker (Whitewolf) - a metis werecheetah punk
• Elizabeth Holmes (Whitewolf) - a mage author with a cockatoo
• Silhouette (Whitewolf) - an evil mokolé

Here are a few of the characters that, while not actually created for an RPG, have seen decent use on the web and in chat rooms.

• Riff - what a gryphon would look like it she were very human
• Sideria - a dragon of heaven with a truly stellar name
• Kikei - a spunky, magic-wielding cat girl
• Jillian of Gothos - wandering student, who is a foxy furre
• Grendelle - first of the crew, a winged reptilloid

Want to know more? Go to town!

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