What have RPGs taught you?

The #hero system is math on meth for RPGs. It’s designed to describe anything you can think of, and it comes very close. Balancing the equation balances the character.

It taught me a lot about math.

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Ratios, cartography, religion, sociology, anthropology, and more have all been used within my game. Frankly gaming has taught me a lot. I don’t really think I could list all of it.

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Hero taught me the metric system (more importantly, how the metric system is superior to imperial)

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RPG’s have taught me to roleplay, the ability to look at things from a point of view other than my own.

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RPGs in general have taught me…

  1. Math
  2. Geometry (aka more math)
  3. Rules Lawyering (or how to look for loopholes).
  4. Physics (even more math when dealing with guns, fast cars/ships, or how to jury-rig and do technobabble for when my character wants to do something dangerous and technical).
    and last, but not least…
  5. When in doubt, try to kill it/murderhoboing.
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Storytelling, particularly scene setting and character development.

Religion and mythology. Not the details of any particular real world one, but rather how and why they function.

Most of the math and science others have mentioned, I was learning from wargames before I started RPGs.

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I would have to agree with that. Also, I run a lot historical games and games that take place around the world so add history and world everything to that. Also, since the rona, I do online games with folks around the globe so in RL, I meet/speak/make friends with folks around the world.

Very thoughtful topic

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Wizards_Warriors_and_Wellness.pdf (5.7 MB)
It’s taught me everything listed in the thread and more. Not sure how many are aware of this. Found it a few years ago, and thougt it was interesting.

I am good at my job now because I designed my own character sheets 25 years ago. The skills required to be an organized DM travel well.

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I forgot graphic design. :grinning:

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Probability distribution, cartography, various words, improv

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How to better bridge the gap between my autistic perception of reality and the weird skewed world with wacked out constantly changeable and incomprehensible social rules that make little sense on a good day that all the seemingly non-neuro diverse people live in.

Words like, NO.

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That it really is alright to let people fail. That sometimes the illusion of choice is good enough. That if we can face the things that terrify fictional characters, we might just be able to face the things that evoke our own anxiety. In its ideal expression, role-playing is rehearsal.

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Oh man, that should go on a plaque.

Thanks! And your comment allowed me to notice an errant apostrophe that should not get engraved. Thus, a wee edit. :laughing:

@HermeticScholar What apostrophe? :wink:

That’s how I used it. Whenever my characters got blasted for some behavior, I made sure not to do that in real life. Lol

How to better read a person and room. Learning how to manage a table has been great for my people skills.

It taught me how to waste a lot of time. Hours and hours of character building that could have been better used for playing.

After Hero System ran it’s course, I never left using lite game systems.