Chatroom / Email / Play-by-Mail Role Playing Games
Text -Based Role Playing
Not everyone with a computer can afford to pay the monthly fees of a MMORPG. Sometimes people find that the MMORPG atmosphere takes away from the role playing in favor of "doing things" in the games. Tabletop and LARP players sometimes find themselves without a group to play with. For these people, text-based role playing is a primary option. Text-based games usually follow rules from a Tabletop or LARP rules set, but they conduct their games in online chatrooms, rolling virtual dice, or sometimes in a play-by-email/mail format where no dice are rolled at all, and the Game Master decides which actions happen and which don't.
Benefits of Text-Based RPGs
Text-based games are almost always free, since they tend to provide basic rules for their games on their own websites and forums. Text-based games also have the most flexibility in what they can offer. Since the format is just a chat-room or a series of emails, any setting imagineable can be presented, and any style of mechanics impliemented at the game creator's whim.
Some text-based role playing games are specifically designed for educational purposes, such as Nationstates, which even has ways to be formatted for use in a classroom setting. Most text-based games are set in a sci-fi or fantasy genre, giving players the chance to use their imaginations.
Dangers of Text-Based RPGs
A few text-based role playing games, like the game Kethmar have a staff of dedicated volunteers to make sure that their game world is run properly and that content is appropriate for the ages of its members (18+ for Kethmar), most text-based games are not regulared. The result of this lack of organization is that minors and younger players can easily be exposed to inappropriate content.
Because text-based games operate through chat programs like Internet Relay Chat (IRC), and America Online (AOL), they are just as at-risk as any other chatroom to having internet predators take an interest in these games and players.
