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= The 'role' in 'roleplaying' =
If you are familiar with roleplaying, these concepts should already be familiar to you, but if not, the gist of it is this: you play as your character the characters you control would, speaking the words they would say, doing the actions they would do. GMs must be familiar with this concept in order to run a game of MazeWorld, but they can ease people who are new or unskilled at roleplaying with simple interactions, like a discussion or a short scene between a NPC (controlled by the GM) and a newbie player's PC, to gauge these players' abilities and teach them how to play.
The role of the game's rules and mechanics is to help with conflict resolution and problem resolutionsolving, to introduce elements of chance, randomness and uncertainty, and to determine the outcome of the story, action by action. Will your character aim her [[MP5A3]] at the chest of the bad guy, knowing he has body armor, or will she risk a shot to the head in an attempt to bring him down faster, knowing she might miss? Will this rag work on your wound or will you need to scrape by for a real bandage? Do you have enough supplies to last you until the next town, or is death around the corner?
= The GM and you =
As is customary for a tabletop RPG, the Game Master is the person who leads a game of MazeWorld. They are the one who sets up and advance the story. The GM oversees the actions of every player character, and is in control of every NPC (non-player character) of the game. But most importantly, they are in control of the dice and the rules of the game; not the other way around.
A GM may, and has full rights, to exercise 'GM fiat' and determine the outcome of any action, and may override any check, any roll of the dice, whether openly or secretlyin doing so, if they believe it would be more fun or more fair than to follow the rules or the results of a roll literallydo so. Therefore, when you roll to swing a knife at the bear that's attacking you, if the dice say you missed, but the GM says you hit, then you hit, and the bear is going to take damage.
Roleplaying is co-operative, not competitive. In order for a game to be good and for everyone to have fun, GM and players should work together. In most games, the story should be about the player characters, and if it's not necessarily about them, players must at least feel part of an important story, as people who are responsible for advancing, shaping, changing, or even derailing the story. Fun should be the number one priority.
Specifics on how to be a Game Master and how to run a game of MazeWorld can be found in all of the pages listed in [[Main Page#For Game Masters|the ''For Game Masters'' section]].
= Making things happen Your character =
'''Player Characters (PCs)''' are thinking, living, feeling people just like you.
In particular, the '''2d6''' is important in MazeWorld, as it is the most commonly used dice for resolving attacks. For example, in a gunfight, ''every shot'' is tied to a 2d6, the result of each is checked against various circumstances in order to determine which bullets hit, and which miss. (the shooter's personal accuracy level, skill level, point of aim, and other modifiers - all of which will be explained later, so don't feel intimidated!)
Every time the dice are rolled, the results are checked against thresholds in order to determine success or failure. In MazeWorld, unless the conditions for success or failure of a specific action are clearly detailed otherwise, '''rolling higher is better''', and you must roll '''higher''' than a certain '''threshold for failure''' in order to succeed. For example, the '''Failure Threshold (FT) ''' is a statistic governing combat accuracy; it is a number that must be beaten by a dice roll in order for an attack to to be successful and turn into a hit landing onto a target. It essentially determines accuracy and chance to hit a target. The lower you your FT is, the more chances you have to hit the target.
* Example: John's Failure Threshold is 7, meaning that all other factors being equal, he must roll 8 or higher in order for his punch to land into the stomach of his opponent.
Plenty of things can modify these thresholds (and in turn, one's chances of success), but they are generally grouped into three categories: '''Permanent effects''', which fully and completely lower a particular character's thresholds for certain actions, '''Temporary Secondary effects''', which are usually limited in time or tied to a specific condition, but is otherwise not permanent, and '''Situational effects''', which are dependent on specific actions.
* Example of a permanent effect: John has '''Master skill level''' in Automatic Rifles, allowing him to shoot burst- and full-auto capable rifles with such ease that he is more accurate than most. He therefore benefits from a permanent '''FT-1''' effect when shooting this kind of weapon.
* Example of a temporary secondary effect: When John is under the influence of a specific substance, such as [[Diazepam]], he benefits from a temporary boost to his Failure Threshold, making him more accurate with every single type of weapon or attack, until the effects of the substance dissipate.
* Example of a situational effect: When John is fighting an armed henchman who happens to be wearing body armor, he can choose whether to hit him in the torso, and risk having to waste more bullets than usual to put him down, or to try and go for the head, which would impart a malus ('''FT+1'''); the head is smaller and harder to hit. But a successful hit could eliminate the henchman more quickly.
Sometimes, the dice produce outstanding results that are known as '''criticals'''. There are two kinds: '''critical successes''' and '''critical failures'''. Whether or not criticals are possible, and the conditions for triggering them, depend on the circumstances, but most of the time, you will see criticals occur during combat. As stated earlier, the 2d6 is the roll to make to resolve an attack. A critical failure happens on the lowest possible result, a '''2''', and a critical success occurs on the highest possible result, a '''12'''. As a result, veteran MzW players learned to fear the two and bless the twelve, so to speak.
[[Category:Getting started]]
