A TV series is an exercise in story-telling with a strong visual element. Our favorite TV series can entertain us and engross us. It can also frustrate the bejeesus out of us because it's not interactive. How often have you yelled at the screen, "No, don't open that door!" "Don't go out with that guy, he's bad news!" "You idiot, he's getting away!" How many times have you said to yourself, "If I was playing that character, I'd have handled that differently."?
Imagine if you could play your favorite character in your favorite TV show. Wouldn't that be cool? To a large extent, that's what a role-playing game is. Like a TV show, a role-playing game is an exercise in story-telling, but it's both interactive and collaborative. You get to play a character who has an established personality, but no script. All the lines and actions are ad-libbed. The choices you make for your character can and will influence the direction that the story takes.
The essence of drama is uncertainty in the face of adversity. When we watch a good TV show, we wait desperately until a commercial break to go to the bathroom because we really want to know what's going to happen next. "How will our heroes get out of that jam?" Uncertainty occurs in role-playing games as well. If you decide that your character is going to beat up a bad guy or rescue someone from a burning building, how do we find out if he succeeds? In a TV show, that's decided by the writers. Since a role-playing game is an interactive collaboration among peers, all of the participants are essentially "the writers." Therefore, we turn to an impartial third party to determine if a character can follow through on a stated intention. Specifically, we roll dice. The rules of the game system tell us how to interpret whether a particular die roll is a success or a failure. The rules that we use are from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Role-Playing Game (or "BtVS RPG," just to fend off that nasty carpal tunnel thing).
Role-playing games and TV shows both have two sides to them. There's a real-world side (the actors, the sets, the props) and there's a story side (the characters, the locations that the sets represent, and the items that the props are supposed to be). When we talk about things in the real-world side of a role-playing game, we sometimes call that gamespeak.
We use the word Series (as in "television series") to describe the characters and the overarching story arcs that unfold within our corner of the Buffyverse. A Season is a story arc that's dominated by one particular adversary, whom we often informally call the Big Bad. An Episode is a single story-telling session, which for our crew takes place every other week and usually lasts for about four hours. Not every Episode relates directly to the Big Bad. The Cast Members are characters that are played by the players. Each player has only one Cast Member. All other roles are called Guest Stars and are played by the Director. Sometimes, though, the Director parcels out small Guest Star roles to other players so that the Director doesn't have to spend a scene talking to himself.
I'm the Director, by the way. My name is Todd. My job is to figure out what obstacles the Cast Members will face in each Episode. My goal is not to defeat the Cast Members (although they may lose a battle from time to time); it's to provide adversity so that we can tell an interesting story. The players' job is to try to resolve the obstacles I throw at them by whatever means they feel is appropriate to the situation and to their characters. I know how every Episode will start, but since I don't know how the players will try to handle a situation, I have no idea how the Episode will end.