You can tell a lot about people by how they respond in different roleplaying situations. Analyze gaming behavior and you get a good idea of how your friends will behave in real life. The important factor to always consider is what RPG system you are using. For example, let's say you are hanging out with five other people in your party. There is a mighty storm raging and suddenly a cloud blots out the sun, there is a galaxy-wide electrical blackout, everything grows cold, and you are all generally left in the dark. What your party will do will depend largely on the system you are using:
Dungeons & Dragons: Fighters of all stripes, not just paladins, should draw their weapons and face outward, forming a protective circle around the other party members. Magic users should try to cast light spells while clerics pray.
Paranoia: Two of your pals should start demolishing all objects in the vicinity and making up lies about how the other party members were responsible for all this terrible damage to valuable computer property. Two other party members should start torturing a third to death. The torturee should use his mutant ability to heal himself by sucking off all your hit points. You should fire your experimental plasma gun in close quarters. Everybody gets a new clone. Die again in six minutes without coming any closer to realizing your goals.
Vampire: The six of you should continue politicking, scheming, plotting and blood-sucking as per usual. How inconvenienced are you really going to be by the dark?
Little Red Riding Hood & the Horny Construction Worker: Men should lose their erections immediately in the absence of visual stimuli. Women should grow up and accept that it is inappropriate to contemplate the sex lives of underage boys.
Werewolf: All players should philosophize about how the dark is probably the fault of man for desecrating Gaia.
Cthulu: You die. The girl dies. Everybody dies. It really makes no difference what you do.
Real Life: Four of your five cohorts will grope you and later both deny it and claim
that you started it anyway. Except for the paladin you are going out with. He will
wander off and fuck some married chick. Oops, sorry, I know whereof I speak, but I
guess that is a kind of negative analysis. Really, you might enjoy the fact that none
of your friends really like you; they just want to fuck you. Anyway, everybody dies;
it really makes no difference what you do. The whole process just takes longer in Real
Life than in Call of Cthulu.
