Ogres. Hulking Trolls. Tree-sized Giants. Mountain-sized Jotun. If they're defined by a size bigger than us, then for this article, they're all Giants. Because whatever the specifics, they all have one thing in common: "TARG SMASH PUNY HUMAN!"

I'm liberating the Big Games notes on gaming Giants from my old GULLIVER rules for GURPS, to give them a proper new home within the Diner (with a little freshening-up too, including a pinch or two of content from other sections).

Although I've got some GURPS 4e-specific notes at the end, the general overview is useful with any game system. Yet it's all pretty brief; sorry, I haven't witten The Complete Guide to Gaming Giants. I'd love to add your notes and ideas here, if you too have played oversized PCs, NPCs, or even just "monsters".

Up the beanstalk we go, then:

"What's a role-playing game?"

Who among us hasn't responded to that question by the uninitiated, or enjoyed a good reply put forth by other gamers?

Actually, I don't know how many versions of the latter I've heard or read. "An RPG is a form of collaborative storytelling... " "It's a kind of play-acting..." "Remember back when you played Cowboys and Indians..."

And so on – a hundred ways to start out explaining. RPGing is nothing overly complex, as we know, but it is one of those things that's easy to demonstrate in person, hard to describe otherwise. (My gaming group started its RPG career playing D&D profoundly wrong, as the text's "how to RPG" instructions just didn't work for us.)

I forget what spurred this topic – it was probably some comment on a gaming forum – but I'll add my take here on what a role-playing game is, simply because I don't think I've ever written it down. It's nothing special in the least, and for all I know, has been used almost verbatim by someone(s) long before me. But anyway, just for fun: