Where is the roleplay?

[SidianMSJones]

New user here. I'm just curious...Darebee seems to put a lot of effort into talking about how roleplay is so useful in workouts, but then the workouts themselves seem very barebones in terms of actual roleplaying. For instance, The Witcher workout, sure it has the cool title, themed exercises, and a very short description, but real roleplay is so much more than that. I don't see (besides the programs) any story, story prompts, choices, etc.

Am I missing something or are we supposed to make up our own story?

 

[Sólveig]

Not going to lie, I have the same gripe too, but... the roleplay unfolds in your mind's eye. DAREBEE RPG workouts are pretty much a theatre of the mind kind of thing, and you can actually see that happening with stuff such as the Zero Hero program, so it is best to take them more with the Choose Your Own Adventure approach or a storytelling approach rather than a fully blown RPG. Age of Pandora, Pathfinder, and Spellbound are neat exception, especially Spellbound since it relies upon your choices of spells and a 2D6 roll. Remember the words of Gary Gygax himself; the grandfather of modern RPGs: "The secret we should never let the game masters know is that they don't need any rules." This means that you don't need fancy engines and things to roleplay, but your imagination, and the purpose of the workouts is to trigger that imagination and immerse yourself into a new world.

You can always improve your experience if you need it. In my opinion Age of Pandora is the most engaging program in here, yet it feels quite barren and it doesn't have much things in mind (long distance travel can be quite boring at high levels, especially when you consider that there are no random encounters, and NPCs that join your party pretty much do nothing, unlike in Pathfinder in which you get to choose who lives and who dies), but here's the kicker: you have to put the Master on the Game Master. DAREBEE pretty much expects you not to be just a player, but also be your own GM. This could mean adding or modifying the workouts, relying on random tables, using an oracle like Mythic GM, making your own plotlines... the workouts are more like campaign modules, adventure paths, and one-shot adventures you can purchase online; you just need to set them up and play them. Besides, you don't need to be alone. If you are training with other people, you can always incorporate them in your "game," or you can rely on online communities too. The Hive is a good place to start.

tl;dr, the roleplay is more about shifting your mindset and gamify fitness to make you feel motivated. If you want an actual RPG from DAREBEE, you must be your own GM and provide yourself with the tools from it.

And then there's the DAREdice.

 

[SidianMSJones]

Really thoughtful and helpful reply Sólveig, thank you.

I was mostly concerned whether I was missing something and therefor doing it wrong, but knowing now what the expectations are, I can acclimate. One idea I think could turn out really cool in this circumstance is some kind of incorporation of AI. AI has been known to be very good at roleplaying, except for the lack of long term memory. However with Darebee RP I really think it's a much less serious task that AI could fill in the gaps with. Might be something for the Darebee creator to look into.