Roolihahmoilla

Roolihahmoilla is a Finnish term used in discussions of role-playing, storytelling and game design to refer to the characters that participate in a narrative in the context of playing roles. The expression commonly appears in analyses of both tabletop role-playing games and narrative media, where characters serve as vehicles for action, motivation and plot development. In everyday Finnish, the plural form roolihahmot is often used for the characters themselves, while roolihahmoilla denotes the set of characters in a given context, typically translated as “on/with the role characters.”

Etymology and form: The word is a compound of rooli (role) and hahmo (character). The suffix -illa marks the adessive plural in Finnish, signaling “on/with the characters (in question)” or, more loosely, the group of characters involved in a scene or game. The term is primarily used in plural, with roolihahmo (singular) describing a single role character and roolihahmoilla referring to the group.

Usage: In Finnish RPG communities, roolihahmoilla is used to discuss character creation, backstory, motivation and how characters interact within a narrative. It can refer to both player-created protagonists and non-player characters controlled by the game master. The concept supports analyses of character agency, alignment with genre conventions, and how a party’s dynamics affect storytelling.

See also: Roolipelit, Hahmo, NPC, Pelinjohtaja.

Notes: The term is firmly rooted in Finnish-language discussions of games and fiction and may appear in guides, forum posts and scholarly writing on narrative play.