When I just started playing role-playing games I was trying to learn as much as possible, picking up everything I would happen to overhear and do as much research as I could. Still, I was unable to answer the simplest of questions regarding RPGs: What’s the difference between tabletop RPGs and pen and paper RPGs?
Tabletop RPGs and Pen and Paper RPGs are the same thing in the world of role-playing. Both “Tabletop RPG” and “Pen and Paper RPG” indicate that the game can be played without the assistance of electronics. Instead, the player only needs a pen and a paper to start his or her adventures.
These days the use of electronics has become more common in the role-playing community. The development of virtual tabletop-software allows the user to play their tabletop games online with the help of features such as simulated dice, battle maps and communication software like Discord.
The meaning might broaden quite a bit if you use the term “Tabletop gaming” instead of “Tabletop RPG” as it doesn’t indicate that the game is a role-playing game.
Non-role-playing tabletop games include card games, board games, and miniature games.
These days people use both terms to describe the same thing but back in the day Pen and Paper would always refer to Roleplaying while Tabletop was Strategy Wargaming.
In addition to that, the use of the term tabletop in the world of RPGs has become more frequent.
Finally, the term tabletop was most likely a collective term for games that are played on a table while pen and paper referred to role-playing games where the characters and the gameplay is written on paper, with a pen (Well, pencil…)
Total beginner when it comes to tabletop RPGs? Here’s a 3000-word guide for the newcomer who wants to stop at preparation-station before the first session of tabletop roleplaying.
I think I’ve understood the use of the terms but some things still confuse me…That’s LARPs.
Live-action roleplaying is a different branch of roleplaying games (Think of it as make-believe war for adults) but often demand the player to spend quite a while developing a character with help of textbooks. The attributes of said character are written on a character sheet and some people have therefore referred to LARP as a Pen and Paper RPG. I’m not entirely sure if I agree with the use of that term to describe LARPs.
Well, that’s an entirely different discussion that shouldn’t shadow the main objective of this article.