#RPGaDay: Day 15

15. Which RPG do you enjoy adapting the most?

Answer: Since my recent return to the hobby, I've started exploring some of the new games that have come out in my absence, most of these small, print-on-demand OSR games. In a lot of these cases, these have been strict retro-clones or approximations of some version of D&D with the house rules the creators used to play in their own games back in the day. In a few rare cases, these OSR creators have created something truly new using the spirit of those old games. My pick for day # 15 is Whitehack, a game which I've bought but have yet to play.

Whitehack was built for adaption. It's less a rule set than it is a framework on which to build a fantasy setting of your own design. It's a guidebook on how to build a game of your own. It provides a perfect opportunity to eschew some of the more common tropes and cliches of fantasy role-playing. I could easily imagine myself creating a humans-only Conan/Hyperborea kind of world or something stranger and weirder, maybe some courtly hellscape.

The character creation process involves a custom, GM-designed intersection of class and groups, where the former are vague categorizes (Deft, Strong, and Wise), and the latter are ability-score influencing characteristics (think race, background profession, and affiliations). This allows for multi-dimensional characters that don't fit into the neat boxes of other games. It makes each character very unique and one-of-a-kind. The mechanics themselves are different and it's taking me a while to understand just how things. work.

As I mentioned, I have yet to play this game, but I'm excited to try it out and truly make it into my own. It's the RPG that I hope to enjoy adapting the most. In the end we'll have to wait and see. Have any of you played this?

#RPGaDay: Day 14

14: Which RPG do you prefer for open-ended campaign play?

Answer: In many cases this answer could be "any of them." I suppose I would choose Basic Fantasy because of its generic quality. As a GM I can make the flavor whatever I choose. There isn't a lot of predetermined setting or flavor that I need to remove before making it my own. I've chosen another alternate questions today which I think compliments the standard one nicely.

Alternate Question: What gives an RPG its ‘replay value’?

Answer: Replay value suggests an open-ended campaign. It means being able to take the story wherever you want to go for as long as you want to go there. The last part of the previous statement is key. What makes you want to continually return to a game, again and again? I think there are a few important characteristics which provide this answer.

The first thing that makes a game easy to return to and play again, for me, is the lack of a predefined setting. I'm not talking about genre tropes. I'm talking about a detailed setting that is so well defined and staged that there's hardly any room for the PCs. This happens a lot in games that deal with some well-known IP, think Buffy, Marvel Super Heroes, MERP, or Star Wars. For me, theses types of games are immediately limiting because they are so bound to the story and world that has already been established. To me, it feels less like role-playing and more like playing dress-up. Don't get me wrong, these games can be really fun. I had a lot of fun playing MERP when I first bought it, but the campaign was always set amidst the larger Tolkien narrative making whatever we did feel like a second-rate spin-off.

Part of why I like Basic Fantasy so much and refer to its generic quality as a bonus is because I don't have to strip anything away like I would with Greyhawk, Faerun, or Mystara. BF gives me just what I need and nothing else. The rest is left up to me. As I understand it, Lamentations of the Flame Princess creator, James Edward Raggi IV, was initially a Basic Fantasy guy. LotFP grew out of his BF campaign and the way he played the game. I think his game is really great, but it lends itself to a historical 17th century setting, which again, is bound by the constraint of history. I guess what I'm trying to say is that replay value is directly proportional to how much room gives me as a GM.

Another thing that makes a game replayable for me is a limitless breadth and depth, or at least as limitless as my imagination. This is why I also tend towards fantasy. Science fiction can be fun, but it will always find it beholden to the laws of physics. Science fantasy allows for awesome, unscientific things like light sabers. Part of the reason I think D&D has been so successful for so long is because it is incredibly deep and all-encompassing. True, by this point, D&D has its own history and tropes that box it in, but the different versions throughout the years have shown how the game has remained flexible enough to change throughout the years. The OSR games I love right now are just a continuation of that.

A final reason to what gives an RPG replay value is how much I like the genre and the particular flavor (or lack thereof). This can trump the first two reasons. As confined as MERP was in its parameters, it had more replayability for me than another similar game might because I love LotR so much. In the end, we love what we love.

#RPGaDay: Day 13

13. Describe a game experience that changed how you play?

Answer: I'm a little worried I'm going to run out of alternate questions before this month is up. I've already answered three and this will be my fourth not even half a month in. I've just recently come back to gaming, so any revelatory experience I might have had has been lost in the haze of the past. I stopped playing instead of changing. It will be interesting to me to see if I have a different perspective on gaming so many years later and if I will be challenged to change my play style in this new world. Any who, onto today's alternate.

Alternate question: What do you want out of an RPG experience?

Answer: I'm going to start my answer by referencing this comic book ad for the Moldvay/Cook/Marsh B/X version of D&D. For whatever reason I associated the kids in this ad with the ultimate role-playing experience. I even used to dream about one day have a table and chairs like ones in this picture. Why? Because they look like they're having fun, which is what anyone wants out of an RPG experience. But what then constitutes fun?

For me, role-playing fun means losing yourself in the story, feeling like you're in the midst of the action, on the verge on solving a mystery. As a GM it means watching your players thrill to the world and the adventure you've set before them. As a player it means playing losing yourself in the character and feeling good that you were able to work out the puzzle, make it through the last fight by the skin of your teeth, or find the secret door out of the dungeon. I want to imagine myself in a stranger, more magical world than the one I normally inhabit.

In terms of tone, my perfect RPG experience would have some laughs, but it would also have some weight and gravitas as well. I want to feel the thrill of danger and risk as a player and the excitement as a GM of knowing the PCs are getting to the good part. Any good RPG should be able to give you that thrill of suspense, and wanting to dive forward to see what happens next.

#RPGaDay: Day 12

12. Which RPG has the most inspiring interior art?

Answer: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. I realize this probably sounds like a stock or lazy answer, but if I'm being honest with myself, the interior art for this version of the game was the most inspirational to me. Everything from the core rulebooks, to the supplemental hardbacks, and all of the modules, from 1977 to 1985-ish, set the tone for my imagination in regards to RPGs. The stable of regular artists in these books engraved images in my brain that will be there until the day I die. Trampier, Sutherland, Dee, Rosloff, Williamham, Holloway, Truman, and Otus among others formed the greatest all-star art team of all time, to my mind. Plenty of people have gone on and on about the work done in the PHB, the DMG, and the MM that I don't think I need to go into much detail there. I've also already highlighted Erol Otus's B/X cover during RPGaDay, and although to me Otus was the true genius of the group, I wanted to highlight a different artist that not as many people talk about.

Specifically, I want to highlight Russ Nicholson and his work in Fiend Folio. Russ's style tapped into a malevolence and an evil brutality that I don't remember being equaled until Lamentations of the Flame Princess. While the creatures he drew were nightmarish enough, the look of horror and terror in the eyes of the adventurers he drew told just as much of the story. It wasn't just the gory and sinister content that makes his work so compelling. His style, at least in the Fiend Folio, features a speckled almost grimy look to it. Russ's work inspired me because it drove home for me just how scary it would be to climb into a hole in the earth and then watch your comrade fall in battle to some minions from hell before being disemboweled on a cold, stone dungeon floor.

Here are a few examples of what I'm talking about.

 

 

 

 

#RPGaDay: Day 11

11. Which "dead game" would you like to see reborn?

Answer: My answer for this one involves a game from back in the day that I never played, but that used to be advertised in Dragon magazine all the time, Skyrealms of Jorune. The game was initially released in 1984, followed by a second edition in 1985, and a third in 1992, which is 25 years ago. By all accounts it was a cool setting with some of the clunky mechanics of the time (charts and tables, I guess). The artwork promised a cool mixture of post-apocalyptic space fantasy and dark ages mysticism, like a more magical Gamma World. Or another way to put it, this might be the perfect game to run a Thundarr the Barbarian type of setting. I've read it featured a skill system versus class, which would allow for a lot of flexibility in terms of world building.

I'd love to see this game reborn with the same quality of artwork and design, but perhaps with more modern mechanics. I've always been more drawn to space fantasy than science fiction and this would seem to be a weirder, stranger alternative to say, Edge of the Empire, which I should probably try at some point (yeah, yeah, I live in the Twin Cities, I have no excuse). If someone knows of a source for Jorune on PDF I'd be interested, but it would really be great to see it get a full rebirth.

#RPGaDay: Day 10

10. Where do you go for RPG Reviews?

Answer: Between my answer for day # 3 (How do you find out about new RPGs?) and my answer for the alternate question on day # 8 (What do you look for in a review of an RPG?), I feel I've covered this one pretty well. Well enough to pick another alternate question.

Alternate question: How long does it take to learn to get the most out of a game?

Answer: I don't know if there's a good answer for this other than, it depends. It depends on the game. It depends on the people you're playing with. And it depends on what your idea of "the most" is. A good, standard answer might be: it would take me a dozen sessions with a regular group to learn to get the most out of a game. That might sound like a lot, but here's how I figure it. Twelve sessions works out to be one bi-weekly session over almost six months, or a full year of playing once a month. That could work out to two smaller campaigns, or one more epic one.

In the first six games you'll likely still be settling into the rules, players figuring out how and when to use their abilities, GMs trying to determine the best way to adjudicate the mechanics without bogging down play, etc. By the next half-dozen sessions everyone should be comfortable with gears of the game, at least enough not to think of them most of the time. By that point, with the rules under their belts, GMs can make better world building decisions based on their experience with what works and what doesn't.

To me, getting the most out of the game is being comfortable enough with the rules where they feel invisible so you can concentrate on the unique experience of playing that specific game. I think it takes time to develop that facility, and I don't know if people have that kind of time anymore. Certainly not if they're playing in several other games at the same time.

Part of me wonders if players (and GMs) today get a chance to spend the time with games that it takes to truly master them. We have so many more entertainment outlets vying for our time that it's hard to find a group equally dedicated to a game. Maybe it's just me.

#RPGaDay: Day 9

9. What is a good RPG to play for about 10 sessions?

Answer: I'm going to pass on this question because I don't have a good answer other than, "it depends." So I'm going to pull another alternate question.

Alternate question: Campaigns: do you prefer set-length or open-ended play?

Answer: I feel this is an appropriate alternate for Day 9's question. For me, open-ended play is the be-all and end-all of role-playing. I understand the appeal of set-length partly because it promises a limited commitment of time from the players. It's easier to say yes to a new game or an unfamiliar group if you know going in that there is a predetermined end-point. That said, I want the latitude as GM to take the time for the campaign world to enfold. As a player, I want that same freedom to dig in and develop my character to the best of my ability. Arbitrary end dates don't allow for stretching out and exploring the game the same way.

My favorite supplements are the kind of campaign setting sandboxes that provide a million jumping off points for adventures, rather than a linear narrative which has a definite ending. A classic example of this kind of open-ended module would be B2 The Keep on the Borderlands; a more modern one would be A Red and Pleasant Land. The current adventure I'm preparing for my next game is Basic Fantasy's Morgansfort. This module is a standard low-level setting with a base of operations, and three separate adventures located in the nearby area. These adventures can all be stand-alone and don't require the PCs to do anything in a specific narrative order. There's enough detail to provide a good time if you run it completely stock, but there's also plenty of room to add your own touches, NPC motivations, and story hooks (all of which I'm doing).

The more a game leans towards a set length, the more prescriptive and railroad-y it's likely to be. That can be fun if you want to keep the game confined to a limited number of sessions or arena of play. Personally though, I think the best expression of role-playing is found in the constant surprises and never knowing quite where the game will go.