New-Old world

Recently Eshi has been running a D&D campaign that I have been playing in. I have had mixed feelings about tabletop RPGs in the past. The play-acting is awkward, at least for me. I have problems with confidence in the first place, but needing to talk everything through in a realistic manner while pretending to be someone else feels off to me. You also need to interact with other people, and that's always awkward for me. Something that I think scares away more people is that there are often way to many established rules to make the experience an easy one to just jump into.

In the past I have tried to get into games like this, but either they fall apart quickly because people loose interest or the GM is a dick who uses the game as a power fantasy (all the players shall fall before MY MIGHT!). This time though the game has been going well. Eshi is a good GM and getting to play around more than I have in the past has made me appreciate the games mechanics more.

The biggest difference from, say, video game RPGs is that you can do anything you want. Don't like a rule because it is a little unfair to players? Change it. Want to be a class that doesn't exist?  Make it. Want to be able to solve problems in ways that aren't preprogrammed into a scenario? Do it. It is also way easier to identify with your character because you get to make decisions about how that character acts. If you didn't want to only choose dialog that was pre-written for you, you can. That level of customization is hard to get in a video game (mods in PC games get close), and makes tabletops way better in my opinion.

Don't get me wrong, I still like video games and play them often, but tabletop scratches an itch that I didn't know I had. If you are on the fence about trying tabletop RPGs, or if you want more out of a game in terms of customization or just stuff to do, get some people together and try some D&D or Whitewolf, you might have a good time.

Dragons are Great and All, But Dungeons?

I've talked a bit about pen and paper gaming in previous posts, how ridiculously awesome it is, how disappointed I tend to be with newer systems. I think its about time to actually discuss how I run a game.

I've been told I'm a strange creature as far as GM's go; I'll let my players do damn near anything that doesn't kill immersion or outright violate the laws of common sense, I tend to build my worlds from whole cloth instead of utilizing existing settings, and I don't give my players a storyline. That last one seems to be the most unusual from what I've heard. I run my games open world, there are things happening, monsters to slay, maidens to rescue, machinations of the foulest sorts guiding forces of various descriptions, but I leave it largely to my players to explore the world I've created. Its not that I don't want to tell a story, its that there is more to a world, and therefore a game, than any one series of loosely connected quest lines. I run my games open because that's how the world is, your growth is determined by your conviction, your path is shaped by your interests. Sure, another story about a sinister lich/cleric/warlord/ruler trying to conquer/destroy/enslave the world can be a lot of fun, but there's more going on than that. What happens if you misjudge where your party is at mentally? What happens if the story you set up doesn't have the punch you thought it would?

By setting up a world, with individual characters, with factions interacting and forces influencing events on various scales, some of which directly effect the party, some of which will have effects later, some who'll never directly influence the party at all, I can create a world where something will always be happening. I can run a game that isn't done until we want to be done. And by letting players flex their creative muscles and bend rules that don't make sense or justify actions that fall beyond the normal scope of the game, they can shape the world in new and interesting ways, creating their own story lines and dealing with unforeseen consequences.

I love to run a living world because it forces me to be creative and active on a much higher level and it lets my players decide not only what stories they want to tell, but how far they want to pursue them. It's hard, admittedly; you either have to be able to work with a shit-ton of world level events simultaneously or improvise at blinding speed, but its incredibly rewarding if you can pull it off.

Gygax is My Spirit Animal

I'm late, I know. I'm bad at things and my heart is made of smelly cheese. Rather than self-flagellate over my established failings in punctuality I'm going to ramble about gaming some more.

I've written about my possibly unhealthy obsession with pen and paper gaming before, and none of that has changed. I fucking love tabletop gaming, rolling dice might as well be an aphrodisiac. That said some aspects do run afoul of my pickier sensibilities from time to time. As I've mentioned before, I game for the high degree of customization and adaptability available in a pen and paper situation. I dig the complexity of options and versatility of interactions; which makes it troublesome to me how many systems are trying so hard to become video games. When a system goes from versatile feats based on the development of skills and abilities to a series of powers or maneuvers dependent on level I see a problem. I will admit that its largely an issue of nuance but its a little difference that matters. One option encourages the growth and development of an interesting and at least relatively unique character and the other rewards you for your numbers going up by making your numbers go up.

I'm probably being a bit of a fuddy-duddy about this but I don't really care. I understand that there are perceived market factors in play, the new generations of gamers like a simplified system or whatever. I understand the desire to streamline what can be kind of ridiculously convoluted systems. Seriously, just the licensed books for D&D 3.5 numbers in the high sixties. But the effort to streamline also seems to act as a restrictive measure on the flexibility of the system. While I understand that nobody, especially me, wants to pay a thousand bucks to get a nice, relatively complete set of books; the methods used to clarify the system also demand a higher degree of specificity in the use of power. Classes that once stood as starting points in the development of a character and bases for roleplay options have started shifting into the MMO vernacular. You don't talk about the paladin in terms of her dedication and righteousness, you talk about her capacity as a tank and the control value of her powers. We don't talk about the sorcerer in terms of what his innate connection to magic does to his mind or what his draconic heritage means for his future, we talk about his DPS. I'm not saying the trend in the new systems makes this kind of roleplay impossible, but it is so much easier to ignore the story-potential of a character when more and more the only thing we're given rules for is how that character is equipped to kill shit. I know I'm picking on D&D pretty hard, and they are by no means the only perpetrators, but I feel like they lead the way, I mean D&D has been The Big Name in tabletop for a lot of years.

I feel like an old man yelling at these damn kids for their newfangled power cards and skilltrees, why back in my day you had to pass a tumble check just to get your armor on or whatever. I'm not saying that there aren't any good things to be had from the new breed (13th age has some interesting showings in the mechanics department) but I'm always left wanting more, and not in a good way. Give me some real skills, give me a chance to love my character for more than their ability to one shot a group of mooks, for fucks sake give me more control over my character than I'm liable to find in a Bioware game and we can talk. Until then I can't see myself spending money on, much less running, the new wave. I can't imagine I represent much of a loss in their profits but that's fine, I'm plenty capable of enjoying myself with some 3rd ed D&D or homebrew oWoD. Maybe I'm not alone. Hopefully, I'm not alone. If so, good luck out there. I hope to see you all at the table someday.