[ Frequently Asked Questions ]

What is Fantasy?

What is Fantasy? Fantasy is a style that covers everything that represents parallel worlds to this. It is a genre that extensively uses magic and the supernatural for its daily uses. Its biggest audiences housing in books and games, the themes of these lie in the realms of fictuous worlds, where different sorts of intelligent beings exist, like Elves, Dwarves, Haflings etc. 

Typical Fantasy depicts the good and the evil very distinguished. In many medias the struggle for righteousness and all good is the main line of story. Even if Nature's Laws don't fully exist there, the mark of a society that functions are visible.   Short put even shorter, Fantasy is the ultimate choice of theme if you want to escape the clutches of reality and enter a whole new world. No pun intended.

...Then what is Science-Fiction?

Science Fiction (short: Sci-Fi) is not altogether different from Fantasy. The exception is that it builds on fairly advanced technologies like space-travel and other inventions like time travel and warping from place to place. Many times it depicts our existing world in the future, where all these technological advancements might be a fact.   As said before, Fantasy and Sci-Fi draw many similar lines. They are connected in the fact that they are fictuous. and have very strong boundaries between the good and the bad.  

Ok, so what is the difference between those two?

The margins between the two genres are so small that they often cross each other in certain occasions. But there still are boundaries, even though they aren't fixed.   While Fantasy is based fully on fictuous worlds, Sci-Fi refers to the Planet Earth many a time, though not always. Star Wars, for example, is a fully fictuous world. But because of its lack of "magic" in practice (not counting the intuitive feelings of a Jedi and its Force) , it is called a Sci-Fi. Also the technological advancements determine this, like the space-travel and for example the androids and robot that use artificial intelligence.

In Fantasy, magic plays a big part in acknowledging that it is a Fantasy at all. Magics are often fundamental in the many fabled worlds, and are embedded in the everyday-life of the inhabitants there. We say, that Harry Potter is a Fantasy-based novel, even though we all know the story is partially situated in London, the capital of Great Britain. But because of its extensive use of magic and factors like the force between the good and the bad, it is stamped "Fantasy", regardless of the technological advancements we find there like TV, cars and Postal Services.

In order to ease the difficultness of defining the different classes, bookstores often merge the two genres together, into "Fantasy/Sci-Fi". But not always is this done, and many people may be surprised to find esp. books "mislaid" on the shelves. But people, it's not the end of the world.

What is RPG?

RPG is the short form for Role-Playing Game. It's not your average theatre play or performance - it is a game where you get the role of a character. You control the actions and decisions the character has to make.   The term "RPG" is normally used for the games that are written in book-form. The rules and terms that one must familiarize with are different from game to game and book to book, but the basics are the same.
Your character gets a set of attributes and you play as the character.
You've got a Dungeon Master (DM) or a Game Master (GM), who will lead the characters through the plot.
You play with dices which is a central playing equipment in RPG. They are often abbreviated to ex. 2D6 - meaning two dices with six sides each.

In addition to the book-form of RPG, there are also console/PC games that have RPG. An example would be Baldur's Gate, where you make your character and play it in a multiwayed plot. (multiwayed as in a plot with many ways to an end). Although the electronical games aren't as flexible as the books, they provide great potential in visuals. And plus, no need for heavy rule-books to play a game...

The fascinating thing about RPG is that anything can happen through the course of the game. The dies are what chooses the characters fate. It lets you fantasize into unknown worlds and experience things that you never thought you could. It has big potential, in other words.

What is MMORPG?

MMORPG stands for Mass-Multimedia Online Role-playing Game. The concept of a MMORPG is that many players (not the usual 4 or 8, but in hundreds) are gathered on the same world where they interact with each other and have their share of quests and the like. Only the internet could make this true, because of its global-like communication net and "internationality". What good would such a game be if there was no mass-multimedia-common-ground of communication in every home? A thought: what games can one NOT make when developing new ways of communicating?