This being the Internet, there are a lot of people around who argue about stuff. the community of RPG players is no different, and I would imagine it's probably more intense than most in terms of emotional investment because games are little nuggets of pure joy in an otherwise crap world of strife. So, the fights that we have as a community tend to be very passionate.
Right now, I don't think there's a game system as a whole that's more divisive than Fate. (Note that I'm not calling it FATE, because it's not an acronym or initialism of anything, as GURPS is.) Opinions on it tend to gravitate toward the extremes--either it's the fantastically innovative pinnacle of the RPG form, or it's the worst example yet of a mechanical mockery of what RPGs are. I don't know, insert your own hyperbole here.
Personally, having run a game Fate, I will say I don't really like it.
Let me start off with some caveats: I know that a lot of people play Fate and they really like it. I tend to be an open-minded guy, so I am open to the possibility that maybe I was just doing a horrible job GMing the game. I have also heard that some prefer to play Fate Accelerated Edition to Fate Core, which was the version I was running. Again, I'm going to point out that I'm forming my judgments with relatively little experience. I've also not played any Fate games that are heavily intertwined with settings, such as The Dresden Files or Atomic Robo. So it may be possible for me to like Fate, but I'm not going to run a game any time soon.
I ended up starting a campaign that was a story of a group of carnival freak show performers in a steampunk setting; think Victorian-era continental Europe. We played about four or five sessions before I realized that Fate was killing the game. I took the characters and re-built them in GURPS, which was the system we used for the remainder of the campaign.
Let's start with the good part about Fate. When I played Pathfinder and other such games, we tended to build our individual characters and then throw them together with little consideration for each other apart from their function. You know the lines. Who is the healer, who is the "tank," etc. This type of mentality is the first step in a game where you are running a glorified stat block as opposed to an actual character.
Fate forces you to come to the table for an introductory session that plans how the campaign is going to go: GM and characters alike. I knew that I wanted the characters to be members of a freak show, but those were my only conditions. My agenda was otherwise blank, and so we arrived at the steampunk fantasy idea after going around the table and talking about what we all thought would be fun. By our establishment of the Aspects (capitalized to emphasize I'm talking about the Fate mechanic) of the world, I also got a big cue as to what flavor the game was going to have. I realize that any old RPG can have this collaboration session, but Fate incorporating it into the rule book really emphasizes how player consensus is crucial to a campaign's success.
What's even more awesome about Fate is the character creation. The first task you are given is to come up with your High Concept, your essence, your defining phrase. In Fate, you are not just a Rogue, you are a Daring Swashbuckler of Venice, an Infamous Cutpurse, or a Disgraced Turncoat. Because the mechanics depend on descriptive but flexible Aspects, you get a lot more character definition. The same is true of your Trouble, a secondary Aspect that defines your downside. Flawed characters are interesting characters, and even if a character is seemingly perfect, everyone struggles with something.
In order for the game to even function, Fate demands that the characters be fleshed out. This fleshing out ensures that you're not just consulting your array of numbers and modifiers that you just so happen call a character.
As if that weren't enough to generate characters that were more interesting than 90% of D&D characters out there, Fate then calls for the Phase Trio (a name I dislike because it sounds way too ambiguous and theoretical). Essentially, each player comes up with three bits of backstory--at the table alongside everyone else. The first bit starts to establish each individual character's history, but the second and third are stories where the other characters are involved. As a result, the beginning of the actual campaign sees a group of characters that are all interconnected in some fashion. They don't have to form your standard D&D Trope Party, but you likewise don't have a collection of individual lone wolves, either.
(Then there's a whole bunch of skill crap and stuff, which is the remainder of character creation, but I've already addressed the best part.)
I think that the preliminary session of this campaign was one of the greatest, because we already had a good sense of who the characters were going to be as the game progressed. The only downside I can see to this approach is that sometimes I like to ease into a character concept and let it develop over a span of play sessions. Of course, the danger is that the character will forever remain a faceless amalgamation of statistics, which has happened far too often throughout RPG history.
What I got from Fate is the realization that in some form or another, I should approach game creation and character creation from a standpoint of open-endedness and collaboration. There is no reason to come to the table with a game prepared only to discover that no one's interested in playing, and there's no reason that the players have to be a bunch of randos who meet in a tavern.
Next time, I'll discuss what happened when our Fate game got going, and why I had to switch systems. Until then, does anyone read this? Comment if you do.
Saturday, January 9, 2016
Wednesday, January 6, 2016
The New Kid at the Old School - Part 2
This is the second half of my first post on my perspective on the "Old School Renaissance," or OSR. Part 1 can be read here.
Arguably the most famous Magic: the Gathering card is the Black Lotus. It's essentially an easy way to get a huge advantage over your opponent if you play it very early in the game, when both players are scrambling to build their resource pool. It was also one of the first cards ever to get banned because it was so ridiculously overpowered. It is usually cited as the most expensive collector card in the game.
I bring up the Black Lotus because it's an example of Wizards of the Coast (the company that has produced Magic: the Gathering since its humble beginnings in 1993) enforcing a sense of fairness and balance into its games. I doubt anyone reading would debate that such a player-vs-player game shouldn't be fair to a large degree.
In 1973, a mere twenty years before Magic: the Gathering changed the face of gaming, Gary Gygax founded the company Tactical Studies Rules (later simply TSR). The original edition of Dungeons and Dragons was published soon afterwards in 1974. But on April 10, 1997, TSR was sold to Wizards of the Coast, which had become a major success overnight by developing M:tG's collectible card game model only four years prior.
Whereas TSR settings like Dragonlance and Dark Sun might have contributed to the rise of the "railroad" in published adventures, The change in company ownership seemingly led to the rise of the modern versions of the rules. TSR did publish an insane amount of supplemental material for the 2nd edition of AD&D, but it wasn't until the 3rd Edition rule set, the first published by WotC, that the game felt, well, different.
Ironically, 3rd Edition was the first not to have two different versions of the rules, "Basic" and "Advanced." There was just the one rule set, and so it was simply called "Dungeons and Dragons," despite ramping up the complexity of the rules. It's not that the additional rules were any more complicated, but rather they were much more inescapable. In my opinion, these new rules were incorporated to introduce the concepts of fairness and balance to the game. The 3rd Edition rules expected that encounters with monsters would be something that would pose just enough difficulty to challenge the PC's, but would more often than not result in their survival. After all, just like a streamlined M:tG deck, there's an inherent investment put into your custom character that would go to waste upon his or her death.
A lot of existing RPG players didn't like this new approach, and many simply stuck with playing whatever edition they were most comfortable with. As time progressed, many new RPG players could only learn with the new, well-balanced system, and some experienced frustration at the sheer amount of structure and rules rigidity that was in place.
Anyway, I'm starting to seriously deviate from my original intent with this post. An interesting by-product of the 3rd Edition rules was WotC issuing the Open Gaming License, acknowledging that a game's mechanics could not be copyrighted, only the game's product identity. Essentially, anyone could call for the procedure of calling for dice rolls and applying modifiers just like D&D in a game they wanted to publish independently, but the flavor that makes it D&D Proper could not be copied.
At the beginning of the OGL era, everything from the original days of D&D onward was not only copyrighted, but also long out of print. For this reason, many so-called "Retro clones"--carbon copies of previous D&D games that changed just enough in detail to avoid infringing on copyright--became popular. For example, if you wanted to play the Moldvay/Cook Basic Set, the Original D&D White Box, or the 1991 Rules Cyclopedia, you could use Labyrinth Lord, Swords and Wizardry, or Dark Dungeons, respectively.
Very recently, earlier editions of the game were reissued and made available for download by Wizards of the Coast. It's for this reason that I'm now able to have my own new hardcover version of the 1991 D&D Rules Cyclopedia (see below.)
One would think that this would spell the end of the OSR era. After all, why seek out cheap imitations of D&D when at long last it's possible to get copies of the exact D&D edition you wanted to play in the first place? Well, the easiest answer is that many clone games have free downloads, but that's also not the primary reason that OSR games exist. The answer comes in the OGL itself: Because you can't explicitly copy D&D, you have to have some originality.
Sometimes these are relatively simple improvements, which could be as minor as improving presentation (I've heard that Delving Deeper is an improvement compared to the relatively poorly-presented Original D&D White Box). In other cases, the changes that are inherent in an OSR game are significant enough to alter the entire feel of the game. For example, compare the Basic/Expert version of D&D to one of the games that is closely based on it, Lamentations of the Flame Princess. The latter is dedicated exclusively for weird fiction. Although a lot of that comes from the published LotFP adventures, the mechanics themselves lend to a grittier game. (For example, encumbrance is greatly simplified and adds an extra dimension to resource management.)
As of now, the biggest players in the RPG market are still Pathfinder (which started thanks to the OGL) and the 5th Edition of Dungeons and Dragons, which is still owned by Wizards of the Coast (which itself is owned by Hasbro these days.) This new D&D Edition has earned a lot of praise primarily for giving a nod to earlier editions of D&D, namely in that the sheer bulk of the rules machinery has been stripped away, especially compared to 4th Edition, the most rules-heavy machine of them all.
While 5th Edition continues to try its best in merging modern and classic play, it is now easier than ever for players (like me) who started gaming after the 3rd Edition paradigm shift to discover the charm of the earlier games of the roleplaying game hobby. Once that discovery is made, there's a wide world of new material that is available, with many new innovations coming every day.
It really does feel like a Renaissance in some ways.
Arguably the most famous Magic: the Gathering card is the Black Lotus. It's essentially an easy way to get a huge advantage over your opponent if you play it very early in the game, when both players are scrambling to build their resource pool. It was also one of the first cards ever to get banned because it was so ridiculously overpowered. It is usually cited as the most expensive collector card in the game.
I bring up the Black Lotus because it's an example of Wizards of the Coast (the company that has produced Magic: the Gathering since its humble beginnings in 1993) enforcing a sense of fairness and balance into its games. I doubt anyone reading would debate that such a player-vs-player game shouldn't be fair to a large degree.
In 1973, a mere twenty years before Magic: the Gathering changed the face of gaming, Gary Gygax founded the company Tactical Studies Rules (later simply TSR). The original edition of Dungeons and Dragons was published soon afterwards in 1974. But on April 10, 1997, TSR was sold to Wizards of the Coast, which had become a major success overnight by developing M:tG's collectible card game model only four years prior.
Whereas TSR settings like Dragonlance and Dark Sun might have contributed to the rise of the "railroad" in published adventures, The change in company ownership seemingly led to the rise of the modern versions of the rules. TSR did publish an insane amount of supplemental material for the 2nd edition of AD&D, but it wasn't until the 3rd Edition rule set, the first published by WotC, that the game felt, well, different.
Ironically, 3rd Edition was the first not to have two different versions of the rules, "Basic" and "Advanced." There was just the one rule set, and so it was simply called "Dungeons and Dragons," despite ramping up the complexity of the rules. It's not that the additional rules were any more complicated, but rather they were much more inescapable. In my opinion, these new rules were incorporated to introduce the concepts of fairness and balance to the game. The 3rd Edition rules expected that encounters with monsters would be something that would pose just enough difficulty to challenge the PC's, but would more often than not result in their survival. After all, just like a streamlined M:tG deck, there's an inherent investment put into your custom character that would go to waste upon his or her death.
A lot of existing RPG players didn't like this new approach, and many simply stuck with playing whatever edition they were most comfortable with. As time progressed, many new RPG players could only learn with the new, well-balanced system, and some experienced frustration at the sheer amount of structure and rules rigidity that was in place.
Anyway, I'm starting to seriously deviate from my original intent with this post. An interesting by-product of the 3rd Edition rules was WotC issuing the Open Gaming License, acknowledging that a game's mechanics could not be copyrighted, only the game's product identity. Essentially, anyone could call for the procedure of calling for dice rolls and applying modifiers just like D&D in a game they wanted to publish independently, but the flavor that makes it D&D Proper could not be copied.
At the beginning of the OGL era, everything from the original days of D&D onward was not only copyrighted, but also long out of print. For this reason, many so-called "Retro clones"--carbon copies of previous D&D games that changed just enough in detail to avoid infringing on copyright--became popular. For example, if you wanted to play the Moldvay/Cook Basic Set, the Original D&D White Box, or the 1991 Rules Cyclopedia, you could use Labyrinth Lord, Swords and Wizardry, or Dark Dungeons, respectively.
Very recently, earlier editions of the game were reissued and made available for download by Wizards of the Coast. It's for this reason that I'm now able to have my own new hardcover version of the 1991 D&D Rules Cyclopedia (see below.)
 |
| My one-off printing of the D&D Rules Cyclopedia |
One would think that this would spell the end of the OSR era. After all, why seek out cheap imitations of D&D when at long last it's possible to get copies of the exact D&D edition you wanted to play in the first place? Well, the easiest answer is that many clone games have free downloads, but that's also not the primary reason that OSR games exist. The answer comes in the OGL itself: Because you can't explicitly copy D&D, you have to have some originality.
Sometimes these are relatively simple improvements, which could be as minor as improving presentation (I've heard that Delving Deeper is an improvement compared to the relatively poorly-presented Original D&D White Box). In other cases, the changes that are inherent in an OSR game are significant enough to alter the entire feel of the game. For example, compare the Basic/Expert version of D&D to one of the games that is closely based on it, Lamentations of the Flame Princess. The latter is dedicated exclusively for weird fiction. Although a lot of that comes from the published LotFP adventures, the mechanics themselves lend to a grittier game. (For example, encumbrance is greatly simplified and adds an extra dimension to resource management.)
As of now, the biggest players in the RPG market are still Pathfinder (which started thanks to the OGL) and the 5th Edition of Dungeons and Dragons, which is still owned by Wizards of the Coast (which itself is owned by Hasbro these days.) This new D&D Edition has earned a lot of praise primarily for giving a nod to earlier editions of D&D, namely in that the sheer bulk of the rules machinery has been stripped away, especially compared to 4th Edition, the most rules-heavy machine of them all.
While 5th Edition continues to try its best in merging modern and classic play, it is now easier than ever for players (like me) who started gaming after the 3rd Edition paradigm shift to discover the charm of the earlier games of the roleplaying game hobby. Once that discovery is made, there's a wide world of new material that is available, with many new innovations coming every day.
It really does feel like a Renaissance in some ways.
Saturday, January 2, 2016
The New Kid at the Old School - Part 1
As I sit and look at my bookshelf of RPG books, I'd say it's fairly well-balanced. There's a lot of GURPS hardbacks, as well as Legend of the Five Rings books and the Mongoose Publishing edition of the Traveller Core Rulebook. Then there's a divider in the bookshelf—it's an IKEA bookshelf that also houses my vinyl records.
On the other side of that divide is Swords and Wizardry Complete, the AD&D 1E PHB, the AD&D 2E trio (PHB/DMG/MM), then the 5th Edition trio of the same three books. Then sits the massive tome that is the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG, a few published modules, then the smaller-format stuff: A Red and Pleasant Land, Lamentations of the Flame Princess - Rules and Magic, Fiasco and the Fiasco Companion, Savage Worlds Explorers Edition, Fate Core System, Reign Enchiridon, and Dogs in the Vineyard.
I have to move some of the smaller books because I just received my custom-printed copy of the D&D Rules Cyclopedia, which I had made once I purchased the PDF document online from Wizards of the Coast. Soon to be added to the collection are a boatload more things published from Lamentations of the Flame Princess. (They'd be there already except that they're coming from Finland.)
Many of the games I've mentioned, and those which I'm most excited about—particularly Swords and Wizardry, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Lamentations of the Flame Princess, and the D&D Rules Cyclopedia—fall into a category known as "OSR." This stands for "Old-School Renaissance." Or maybe "Old-School Revolution," or "Old-School Revival." There's never been 100% consensus on what the "R" stands for, and perhaps that's appropriate.
The first RPGs I got to play used Dungeons and Dragons 3.0, followed by a very brief foray into 4th Edition, and eventually Pathfinder. I remember how Pathfinder seemed like a breath of fresh air at the time from the nearly-a-computer-simulation feel of 4th Edition. However, looking back on it now, I was still stuck in a system that consisted of massive amount of rules and numbers. Our Pathfinder group was fairly large—6 players—and every time we had a combat occur, I had to pull out my laptop to help keep my special abilities straight and tally up my modifiers correctly. I was playing a paladin, so I had a lot of bonuses bestowed upon me.
Also, despite the heavy focus on combat, it never felt as though we were ever in danger of having our characters die, either. Maybe the system is geared towards PC preservation, or maybe it was just unconscionable that we'd have to throw away a character we spent a few hours building. I can trace all the problems I had with the game being tedious to the fact that so much effort goes into building a character and optimizing statistics.
In short, the rules of the game were a more powerful entity than the game itself.
Many postmodern game systems* address the issues of Pathfinder and 3+ Edition D&D in different ways. Fate Core and the Fate Accelerated Edition are both very popular these days. In them, the narrative—including all its details—is built actively by everyone in real time at the table. You can spend the game mechanic's currency to declare a detail about a scene, or actively try to create advantages that you can use for the benefit of your character. Apocalypse World and its derivatives, in particular the popular spin-off Dungeon World, are built to systematically create a highly fluid but intriguing narrative. (In DW at least, the GM is forbidden from pre-planning a story, and has a finite list of actions s/he can take, although these can be broad, such as "reveal an unwelcome truth.") These postmodern games can vary wildly in their approach, but they all affect the narrative in different ways.
*—I've also called them "story games," which I've learned is a term that carries negative associations with a specific website with some bad apples, or "hippie games," which sounds rather pejorative. In contrast, "postmodern games" makes me sound like I might know what I'm talking about, so I'm going to stick with it.
The OSR philosophy of game design, speaking very broadly, is to revisit the era of gaming before there were rules governing virtually all of the possibilities that arise in gameplay. Earlier games had an array of ability scores, but not necessarily skills. Feats didn't exist. With a lack of rules governing every specific possibility, a lot more flexibility and freedom was in the hands of the game's GM. If you come across something there were no rules for, you made the ruling yourself. In these cases, the rules of the game are inherently pared down so that they do not overshadow the game itself.
My first time actually encountering "OSR" was the recent UCon 2015 convention, where I played, amongst other things, Swords and Wizardry. The game felt "old school" to be sure, because there wasn't a lot to the mechanics. Other than a few references to an unfamiliar character sheet to figure out attack bonuses and armor classes, I ended up playing my character, rather than my character sheet.
Furthermore, UCon featured an entire OSR track, meaning that every table in the room featured a game that would be considered "OSR." It was clear from watching the tables that everyone was totally immersed in the game before them. Contrast that with a few organized play tables (such as Adventurer's League or Pathfinder Society, for example) I saw later in the convention, when everyone seemed to be playing very distractedly, looking in their books or e-readers for rules or other details.
A common perception of the OSR community is that it consists of people who either regressed to earlier gaming editions after not liking new things, or simply never moved on from them out of nostalgia. I would argue that this is not true. Both the OSR movement and the postmodern RPG movement are reactions to the mechanics-supremacy and numbers-dominance of systems like D&D 4th Edition and Pathfinder. The postmodern RPGs tend to attack the problem from a standpoint of asking some of the most basic questions about what is needed to make an RPG. The OSR tends to correct the problem by shifting focus away from mechanics, taking out what is unnecessary and leaving the GM with a more adaptable rules framework than a complex and intricate rules machine.
Am I arguing, then, that the OSR method is a better approach? NO! In the end, my argument is that both the OSR and postmodern games are two sides of the same coin, which came about as a reaction to the rules-heavy trend that RPGs were taking. There are many gamers who can find RPGs in both genres that are fun solutions to the pitfalls of modern mainstream gaming.
Here's Matt Finch's Quick Primer on OSR Gaming (Free PDF), if you're looking for a more thorough introduction to some key OSR concepts.
I'm planning on a follow-up blog post in a few days where I discuss some of the different examples of OSR games, because there is actually a lot of variety.
On the other side of that divide is Swords and Wizardry Complete, the AD&D 1E PHB, the AD&D 2E trio (PHB/DMG/MM), then the 5th Edition trio of the same three books. Then sits the massive tome that is the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG, a few published modules, then the smaller-format stuff: A Red and Pleasant Land, Lamentations of the Flame Princess - Rules and Magic, Fiasco and the Fiasco Companion, Savage Worlds Explorers Edition, Fate Core System, Reign Enchiridon, and Dogs in the Vineyard.
I have to move some of the smaller books because I just received my custom-printed copy of the D&D Rules Cyclopedia, which I had made once I purchased the PDF document online from Wizards of the Coast. Soon to be added to the collection are a boatload more things published from Lamentations of the Flame Princess. (They'd be there already except that they're coming from Finland.)
Many of the games I've mentioned, and those which I'm most excited about—particularly Swords and Wizardry, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Lamentations of the Flame Princess, and the D&D Rules Cyclopedia—fall into a category known as "OSR." This stands for "Old-School Renaissance." Or maybe "Old-School Revolution," or "Old-School Revival." There's never been 100% consensus on what the "R" stands for, and perhaps that's appropriate.
The first RPGs I got to play used Dungeons and Dragons 3.0, followed by a very brief foray into 4th Edition, and eventually Pathfinder. I remember how Pathfinder seemed like a breath of fresh air at the time from the nearly-a-computer-simulation feel of 4th Edition. However, looking back on it now, I was still stuck in a system that consisted of massive amount of rules and numbers. Our Pathfinder group was fairly large—6 players—and every time we had a combat occur, I had to pull out my laptop to help keep my special abilities straight and tally up my modifiers correctly. I was playing a paladin, so I had a lot of bonuses bestowed upon me.
Also, despite the heavy focus on combat, it never felt as though we were ever in danger of having our characters die, either. Maybe the system is geared towards PC preservation, or maybe it was just unconscionable that we'd have to throw away a character we spent a few hours building. I can trace all the problems I had with the game being tedious to the fact that so much effort goes into building a character and optimizing statistics.
In short, the rules of the game were a more powerful entity than the game itself.
Many postmodern game systems* address the issues of Pathfinder and 3+ Edition D&D in different ways. Fate Core and the Fate Accelerated Edition are both very popular these days. In them, the narrative—including all its details—is built actively by everyone in real time at the table. You can spend the game mechanic's currency to declare a detail about a scene, or actively try to create advantages that you can use for the benefit of your character. Apocalypse World and its derivatives, in particular the popular spin-off Dungeon World, are built to systematically create a highly fluid but intriguing narrative. (In DW at least, the GM is forbidden from pre-planning a story, and has a finite list of actions s/he can take, although these can be broad, such as "reveal an unwelcome truth.") These postmodern games can vary wildly in their approach, but they all affect the narrative in different ways.
*—I've also called them "story games," which I've learned is a term that carries negative associations with a specific website with some bad apples, or "hippie games," which sounds rather pejorative. In contrast, "postmodern games" makes me sound like I might know what I'm talking about, so I'm going to stick with it.
The OSR philosophy of game design, speaking very broadly, is to revisit the era of gaming before there were rules governing virtually all of the possibilities that arise in gameplay. Earlier games had an array of ability scores, but not necessarily skills. Feats didn't exist. With a lack of rules governing every specific possibility, a lot more flexibility and freedom was in the hands of the game's GM. If you come across something there were no rules for, you made the ruling yourself. In these cases, the rules of the game are inherently pared down so that they do not overshadow the game itself.
My first time actually encountering "OSR" was the recent UCon 2015 convention, where I played, amongst other things, Swords and Wizardry. The game felt "old school" to be sure, because there wasn't a lot to the mechanics. Other than a few references to an unfamiliar character sheet to figure out attack bonuses and armor classes, I ended up playing my character, rather than my character sheet.
Furthermore, UCon featured an entire OSR track, meaning that every table in the room featured a game that would be considered "OSR." It was clear from watching the tables that everyone was totally immersed in the game before them. Contrast that with a few organized play tables (such as Adventurer's League or Pathfinder Society, for example) I saw later in the convention, when everyone seemed to be playing very distractedly, looking in their books or e-readers for rules or other details.
A common perception of the OSR community is that it consists of people who either regressed to earlier gaming editions after not liking new things, or simply never moved on from them out of nostalgia. I would argue that this is not true. Both the OSR movement and the postmodern RPG movement are reactions to the mechanics-supremacy and numbers-dominance of systems like D&D 4th Edition and Pathfinder. The postmodern RPGs tend to attack the problem from a standpoint of asking some of the most basic questions about what is needed to make an RPG. The OSR tends to correct the problem by shifting focus away from mechanics, taking out what is unnecessary and leaving the GM with a more adaptable rules framework than a complex and intricate rules machine.
Am I arguing, then, that the OSR method is a better approach? NO! In the end, my argument is that both the OSR and postmodern games are two sides of the same coin, which came about as a reaction to the rules-heavy trend that RPGs were taking. There are many gamers who can find RPGs in both genres that are fun solutions to the pitfalls of modern mainstream gaming.
Here's Matt Finch's Quick Primer on OSR Gaming (Free PDF), if you're looking for a more thorough introduction to some key OSR concepts.
I'm planning on a follow-up blog post in a few days where I discuss some of the different examples of OSR games, because there is actually a lot of variety.
Wednesday, December 30, 2015
System Synopsis: GURPS
So I figured I would periodically go through and offer my opinions on different gaming systems out there. This is the first attempt, so we'll see how this goes.
It took me a long time after getting my first roleplaying game books to end up running my first campaign. Despite starting my RPG life by consuming the AD&D 2E books, my first game used Steve Jackson Games' Generic Universal Roleplaying System, or GURPS.
GURPS has been around since the 1980s and is now in its 4th edition. The system does not feature classes or levels. Instead, you're allowed a certain number of points with which to build your character. Virtually every mechanic in the game boils down to a either a skill check or, less commonly, an ability check. In either case, roll 3d6, apply any modifiers, and succeed if you're at or below your character's skill level or ability score.
With such a simple mechanic at its core, the game flows remarkably smoothly. All that is needed is the occasional reference to your character sheet (or notes, if you're the GM) to determine what the roll's target number is.
The potential failure point is when you have to establish the roll's modifier. Often, the case of no modifier is reserved for your average adventuring scenario. (You know, a thief picks a lock in a dungeon.) Players get a bonus for something being easy or low-stress, and a penalty for something being difficult or rushed.
For example, a gun attack is a check against your gun skill, with an additional modifier based on how many yards away your target is. Add another modifier if your target is moving (the modifier depends on its speed), and then another if, say, it's nighttime. It's for this reason that when I GM GURPS, I typically hand-wave modifiers based on how difficult the attempted action "feels" to me.
Additionally, the base target numbers of your skill levels are sometimes a pain to determine due to the math involved at character creation. Fortunately, GURPS Character Sheet is a free software package that will let you build characters with the right point-buy costs, and print everything out to your character sheet.
Some would consider that combat also has an advantage over D&D and similar systems. Rather than Armor Class being the catch-all statistic of how difficult something is to hit, your character has active defenses (dodge and parry, for example), and armor simply takes away a set amount of the damage that's dealt to you. Others would argue that these factors, while more realistic of how combat works, are unnecessary and bog down the combat experience.
In conclusion, I do believe that for any game I wish to run, I could use GURPS if I wanted to. Its default flavor is one of realism, and all the deadliness and grit that that implies. There are also many other ways, outlined in the GURPS material itself, to incorporate certain optional rules and disregard others to tweak the flavor of the game - make it more "cinematic" or "heroic," for example. But all these require up-front preparation on the GM's part. Once the game is underway, though, it's usually a breeze.
As for me, however, I'm something of a game system junkie. I like playing around with different games to see what they have to offer, and choosing a game to run based on what sort of experiences I've come to expect from them, whether I've had those experiences myself, or heard how others have experienced them, or consumed various actual play recordings on the internet. For me, GURPS will be a reliable standby, but usually ignored while I try out everything the wide world of gaming has to offer.
Pros:
One Game to Play Them All - GURPS was designed to be able to handle any genre of game. It doesn't matter whether you want a Western, Medieval Fantasy, Space travel, or whatever. GURPS has some way to accommodate it.
Simplicity through Uniformity - As I mentioned above, there is one simple mechanic with a few exceptions. Roll 3d6 and get under a specified target number. (By the way, the game uses d6's and nothing else. If you're a fan of polyhedrals, this is not your game.) With the simplicity of the underlying game mechanics, you can quickly get past the system and get to telling the story. The system is quite capable of getting out of the way and fading into the background.
Tons of Support - Got a question on how something works? The SJGames forum is incredibly active. If diving right into GURPS seems too intimidating, The Mook has a very informative website, particularly his New To GURPS Series
Cons:
The Reputation - Those who have heard of GURPS but have not played it have probably heard that it was terribly complex. It certainly can be if the GM tries to use all the optional rules. It's better to read How to be a GURPS GM and figure out what kind of game you want to run first. Odds are, things aren't going to be as complicated as GURPS' dreaded reputation would imply. Nevertheless, you might have a hard time convincing some potential players.
Misconceptions about Options - There are a lot of options presented to GURPS players. But just because there's a character point value associated with having an extra limb doesn't mean that your character gets to have one. The GM needs to clear everything to make sure the character concept fits in the game s/he is trying to run. I think it's crucial that the character concepts be determined first, and only then should you start shopping for Skills, Advantages, and Disadvantages.
Time Investment - GURPS can handle any game fairly well, but it will take some time to determine which rules will be used, and to build player characters for the game. The more you want to tweak the feel of the game, the more you're going to have to play around with incorporating the optional rules. If I want to play a specific type of game, I'm honestly most inclined to try a game system that's specifically designed for that type of game than start assembling the system together from the wonderful toolkit that is GURPS.
It took me a long time after getting my first roleplaying game books to end up running my first campaign. Despite starting my RPG life by consuming the AD&D 2E books, my first game used Steve Jackson Games' Generic Universal Roleplaying System, or GURPS.
GURPS has been around since the 1980s and is now in its 4th edition. The system does not feature classes or levels. Instead, you're allowed a certain number of points with which to build your character. Virtually every mechanic in the game boils down to a either a skill check or, less commonly, an ability check. In either case, roll 3d6, apply any modifiers, and succeed if you're at or below your character's skill level or ability score.
With such a simple mechanic at its core, the game flows remarkably smoothly. All that is needed is the occasional reference to your character sheet (or notes, if you're the GM) to determine what the roll's target number is.
The potential failure point is when you have to establish the roll's modifier. Often, the case of no modifier is reserved for your average adventuring scenario. (You know, a thief picks a lock in a dungeon.) Players get a bonus for something being easy or low-stress, and a penalty for something being difficult or rushed.
For example, a gun attack is a check against your gun skill, with an additional modifier based on how many yards away your target is. Add another modifier if your target is moving (the modifier depends on its speed), and then another if, say, it's nighttime. It's for this reason that when I GM GURPS, I typically hand-wave modifiers based on how difficult the attempted action "feels" to me.
Additionally, the base target numbers of your skill levels are sometimes a pain to determine due to the math involved at character creation. Fortunately, GURPS Character Sheet is a free software package that will let you build characters with the right point-buy costs, and print everything out to your character sheet.
Some would consider that combat also has an advantage over D&D and similar systems. Rather than Armor Class being the catch-all statistic of how difficult something is to hit, your character has active defenses (dodge and parry, for example), and armor simply takes away a set amount of the damage that's dealt to you. Others would argue that these factors, while more realistic of how combat works, are unnecessary and bog down the combat experience.
In conclusion, I do believe that for any game I wish to run, I could use GURPS if I wanted to. Its default flavor is one of realism, and all the deadliness and grit that that implies. There are also many other ways, outlined in the GURPS material itself, to incorporate certain optional rules and disregard others to tweak the flavor of the game - make it more "cinematic" or "heroic," for example. But all these require up-front preparation on the GM's part. Once the game is underway, though, it's usually a breeze.
As for me, however, I'm something of a game system junkie. I like playing around with different games to see what they have to offer, and choosing a game to run based on what sort of experiences I've come to expect from them, whether I've had those experiences myself, or heard how others have experienced them, or consumed various actual play recordings on the internet. For me, GURPS will be a reliable standby, but usually ignored while I try out everything the wide world of gaming has to offer.
Pros:
One Game to Play Them All - GURPS was designed to be able to handle any genre of game. It doesn't matter whether you want a Western, Medieval Fantasy, Space travel, or whatever. GURPS has some way to accommodate it.
Simplicity through Uniformity - As I mentioned above, there is one simple mechanic with a few exceptions. Roll 3d6 and get under a specified target number. (By the way, the game uses d6's and nothing else. If you're a fan of polyhedrals, this is not your game.) With the simplicity of the underlying game mechanics, you can quickly get past the system and get to telling the story. The system is quite capable of getting out of the way and fading into the background.
Tons of Support - Got a question on how something works? The SJGames forum is incredibly active. If diving right into GURPS seems too intimidating, The Mook has a very informative website, particularly his New To GURPS Series
Cons:
The Reputation - Those who have heard of GURPS but have not played it have probably heard that it was terribly complex. It certainly can be if the GM tries to use all the optional rules. It's better to read How to be a GURPS GM and figure out what kind of game you want to run first. Odds are, things aren't going to be as complicated as GURPS' dreaded reputation would imply. Nevertheless, you might have a hard time convincing some potential players.
Misconceptions about Options - There are a lot of options presented to GURPS players. But just because there's a character point value associated with having an extra limb doesn't mean that your character gets to have one. The GM needs to clear everything to make sure the character concept fits in the game s/he is trying to run. I think it's crucial that the character concepts be determined first, and only then should you start shopping for Skills, Advantages, and Disadvantages.
Time Investment - GURPS can handle any game fairly well, but it will take some time to determine which rules will be used, and to build player characters for the game. The more you want to tweak the feel of the game, the more you're going to have to play around with incorporating the optional rules. If I want to play a specific type of game, I'm honestly most inclined to try a game system that's specifically designed for that type of game than start assembling the system together from the wonderful toolkit that is GURPS.
Sunday, December 27, 2015
Battle of the Hexes
So a fairly recent discovery of mine has been the concept of the Hex Crawl.
The term "sandbox" in an RPG context refers to the idea that the players are in charge of wherever their campaign is going to go. Much like a child in a sandbox, they are in control of the play—it's up to them to grab whatever they find interesting and run with it, thus defining the game's agenda. As a GM, though, you have to be prepared with a load of potential scenarios for the PCs to encounter. If they choose to go North but you serve them the exact same thing you would have served them if they were going to go East, then that's not really a sandbox.
A certain technique for preparing a large-scale campaign setting like this is to divide a region up into manageable subdivisions. A hexagonal pattern became the standard, perhaps because it naturally tessellates. I'd be interested to know the history of it... Anyway, you populate these divisions with interesting landmarks or encounters. Therefore, if the players want to go to a certain hex on the map in order to follow a plot hook, then they may encounter other interesting things along the way. They may even abandon their original intentions altogether.
Now, my first encounter with the hex crawl was actually plotting out my own subsector for a Traveller campaign, where the subsector is a pattern of 1-parsec-wide hexes (1 parsec = 3.26 light-years). I wanted only a few star systems to be defined, because of the "feel" I wanted for the game. Basically, I wanted jump travel (the week-long process of travelling to a different star system) to be limited to one hex only, because in the setting I was envisioning.
In the game, certain renegade researchers were on the verge of discovering how to make jump travel go even farther, which would be similar to the way Traveller works by default. However, humanity was economically stretched to a breaking point after the exploration of the systems that were within easy reach turned out to be relatively fruitless. Therefore, the PCs' story is taking place amidst a backdrop of a conflict between those who are hopeful that technology will bring humanity's salvation and those who are fearful that it will spell its doom.
Sound interesting? Well, maybe it is, and maybe it isn't. But it definitely doesn't sound like much of a hex crawl, like I imagine many Traveller campaigns end up being.
Now, contrast the above with the Palladium Fantasy game I'm playing in. Our GM will probably disappointed to know that I've forgotten the original thing we were supposed to find—I think it was a lost city in the mountains to the northwest of our starting point. (I've lost the notes from that first session.) Anyway, in our first curveball maneuver, we befriended a goblin and got him to be our guide. We lost him overnight in a seemingly abandoned watchtower, and have traced his captors to some sort of ancient temple. We discovered last session that he eventually became spider food.
However, we were the ones who decided that this goblin was the thing that we were going to follow. We could have easily decided to stay the course and seek out this lost city. We recently added another player to our group, who is playing a ranger. He's hunting a summoner who is also supposedly in our current location. We might go after him or something else might pop up. Since our GM has repeatedly called the game a hex crawl, it would not surprise me in the least.
Lastly, I'd like to mention the Carcosa setting book, published by Lamentations of the Flame Princess. The book was recommended to me by a fellow RPG player during our discussion regarding morality and in-game conflicts after a game we were playing. The reason being, sorcery rituals in the Carcosa book all involve human sacrifice, and potentially other gruesome NSFW elements. For this reason, the supplement has gained some notoriety. However, a good chunk of the book consists of descriptions of hex contents in a massive catalog of the planet. Many describe various population centers, some describe monster encounters, and some outline where you can find material components for those nasty sorcery rituals.
If I were to run a fantasy campaign again (and I really want to), I would probably scrap my idea of intricate world-building in the way I've done before. I mean, it remains an option, but the randomness and elegance of generating a world in a series of interlocking hexagon-shaped building blocks is at once both amazingly simple and remarkably effective.
In closing, please check out the following links that have helped me learn about hex crawls. Also, please comment with your experiences running hex crawls, or with links to more hex crawl resources.
Run A Game: The Hex Crawl
Lorekeeper0: Hex Basics series
Welsh Piper: Hex-Based Campaign Design
Bat In The Attic: How to make a Fantasy Sandbox
The Alexandrian: Hexcrawl
The term "sandbox" in an RPG context refers to the idea that the players are in charge of wherever their campaign is going to go. Much like a child in a sandbox, they are in control of the play—it's up to them to grab whatever they find interesting and run with it, thus defining the game's agenda. As a GM, though, you have to be prepared with a load of potential scenarios for the PCs to encounter. If they choose to go North but you serve them the exact same thing you would have served them if they were going to go East, then that's not really a sandbox.
A certain technique for preparing a large-scale campaign setting like this is to divide a region up into manageable subdivisions. A hexagonal pattern became the standard, perhaps because it naturally tessellates. I'd be interested to know the history of it... Anyway, you populate these divisions with interesting landmarks or encounters. Therefore, if the players want to go to a certain hex on the map in order to follow a plot hook, then they may encounter other interesting things along the way. They may even abandon their original intentions altogether.
Now, my first encounter with the hex crawl was actually plotting out my own subsector for a Traveller campaign, where the subsector is a pattern of 1-parsec-wide hexes (1 parsec = 3.26 light-years). I wanted only a few star systems to be defined, because of the "feel" I wanted for the game. Basically, I wanted jump travel (the week-long process of travelling to a different star system) to be limited to one hex only, because in the setting I was envisioning.
In the game, certain renegade researchers were on the verge of discovering how to make jump travel go even farther, which would be similar to the way Traveller works by default. However, humanity was economically stretched to a breaking point after the exploration of the systems that were within easy reach turned out to be relatively fruitless. Therefore, the PCs' story is taking place amidst a backdrop of a conflict between those who are hopeful that technology will bring humanity's salvation and those who are fearful that it will spell its doom.
Sound interesting? Well, maybe it is, and maybe it isn't. But it definitely doesn't sound like much of a hex crawl, like I imagine many Traveller campaigns end up being.
Now, contrast the above with the Palladium Fantasy game I'm playing in. Our GM will probably disappointed to know that I've forgotten the original thing we were supposed to find—I think it was a lost city in the mountains to the northwest of our starting point. (I've lost the notes from that first session.) Anyway, in our first curveball maneuver, we befriended a goblin and got him to be our guide. We lost him overnight in a seemingly abandoned watchtower, and have traced his captors to some sort of ancient temple. We discovered last session that he eventually became spider food.
However, we were the ones who decided that this goblin was the thing that we were going to follow. We could have easily decided to stay the course and seek out this lost city. We recently added another player to our group, who is playing a ranger. He's hunting a summoner who is also supposedly in our current location. We might go after him or something else might pop up. Since our GM has repeatedly called the game a hex crawl, it would not surprise me in the least.
Lastly, I'd like to mention the Carcosa setting book, published by Lamentations of the Flame Princess. The book was recommended to me by a fellow RPG player during our discussion regarding morality and in-game conflicts after a game we were playing. The reason being, sorcery rituals in the Carcosa book all involve human sacrifice, and potentially other gruesome NSFW elements. For this reason, the supplement has gained some notoriety. However, a good chunk of the book consists of descriptions of hex contents in a massive catalog of the planet. Many describe various population centers, some describe monster encounters, and some outline where you can find material components for those nasty sorcery rituals.
If I were to run a fantasy campaign again (and I really want to), I would probably scrap my idea of intricate world-building in the way I've done before. I mean, it remains an option, but the randomness and elegance of generating a world in a series of interlocking hexagon-shaped building blocks is at once both amazingly simple and remarkably effective.
In closing, please check out the following links that have helped me learn about hex crawls. Also, please comment with your experiences running hex crawls, or with links to more hex crawl resources.
Run A Game: The Hex Crawl
Lorekeeper0: Hex Basics series
Welsh Piper: Hex-Based Campaign Design
Bat In The Attic: How to make a Fantasy Sandbox
The Alexandrian: Hexcrawl
Thursday, December 24, 2015
A Level 0 Blogger Appears
Here we go, another blog. At least this time, I've chosen a subject that's not only got my attention, but seems to be holding it for quite some time—tabletop roleplaying games (RPGs). I've written about other stuff that hasn't held my interest as much (baseball), as well as my other passions like photography and chess. However, photography is a giant investment of both time and money, so my involvement occasionally wanes. I am on a long dry spell at the moment, especially since I want to focus on large-format portraiture, which only amplifies the amount of time and money involved. As for chess, I'm just not good enough at it to write with any authority.
The subject of RPGs, however, seems to be a topic that's well-suited to me. I'm naturally a creative person, and I've been involved with them in some manner since the mid-1990's, when I had a copy of the black-border AD&D 2nd Edition Dungeon Master Guide (TSR 2160).
Now, when I say I had a copy of the DMG, I mean just that. I didn't have a copy of the Player's Handbook or the Monstrous Manual because I didn't know I needed anything else to play. In fact, I didn't have any friends to play with either, so it was mostly me sitting at the kitchen table many evenings eating a bowl of cereal and flipping through the book, admiring the artwork and concocting adventures in my head.
Actually, my childhood was not entirely devoid of gaming. I also had the 1991 Black Box set, and I ran my grandma through Zanzer's Dungeon. Or at least the first few rooms of it. She was confused, but a good sport from what I can recall.
Anyway, I didn't get into a real gaming group until college, and that was over AOL Instant Messenger. (Yeah, remember when all that was happening?) With only two exceptions (plus a convention), all my gaming has been online. It's great to have a game, but nothing beats that at-the-table experience. On a side note, please get in touch if the list of games below interests you and you live in or around Ann Arbor, Michigan.
My hope for this blog is to explore topics related to tabletop RPGs, as well as share my thoughts. I've done print publications (zines) for my photography work, and I'd like to explore a more traditional-style zine with my zeal for RPGs. What's encouraging is that the OSR (old-school renaissance) community seems to be quite active in this area. I'm hoping to get a lot of support, if I can think up enough content for such an endeavor. If that sort of thing goes well, I would eventually like to self-publish an adventure or even a series of them. If I sell them online, I could make tens of dollars if enough people like them!
Alright, this has gone on long enough. I wanted to conclude with a list of my RPG pedigree, so to speak, because it will give you an idea of what sorts of games I am likely to talk about on this blog, or at least what I'm fond of at its outset.
Games I've run:
The subject of RPGs, however, seems to be a topic that's well-suited to me. I'm naturally a creative person, and I've been involved with them in some manner since the mid-1990's, when I had a copy of the black-border AD&D 2nd Edition Dungeon Master Guide (TSR 2160).
Now, when I say I had a copy of the DMG, I mean just that. I didn't have a copy of the Player's Handbook or the Monstrous Manual because I didn't know I needed anything else to play. In fact, I didn't have any friends to play with either, so it was mostly me sitting at the kitchen table many evenings eating a bowl of cereal and flipping through the book, admiring the artwork and concocting adventures in my head.
Actually, my childhood was not entirely devoid of gaming. I also had the 1991 Black Box set, and I ran my grandma through Zanzer's Dungeon. Or at least the first few rooms of it. She was confused, but a good sport from what I can recall.
Anyway, I didn't get into a real gaming group until college, and that was over AOL Instant Messenger. (Yeah, remember when all that was happening?) With only two exceptions (plus a convention), all my gaming has been online. It's great to have a game, but nothing beats that at-the-table experience. On a side note, please get in touch if the list of games below interests you and you live in or around Ann Arbor, Michigan.
My hope for this blog is to explore topics related to tabletop RPGs, as well as share my thoughts. I've done print publications (zines) for my photography work, and I'd like to explore a more traditional-style zine with my zeal for RPGs. What's encouraging is that the OSR (old-school renaissance) community seems to be quite active in this area. I'm hoping to get a lot of support, if I can think up enough content for such an endeavor. If that sort of thing goes well, I would eventually like to self-publish an adventure or even a series of them. If I sell them online, I could make tens of dollars if enough people like them!
Alright, this has gone on long enough. I wanted to conclude with a list of my RPG pedigree, so to speak, because it will give you an idea of what sorts of games I am likely to talk about on this blog, or at least what I'm fond of at its outset.
Games I've run:
- Fate Core/GURPS: Easily my most successful campaign, and the only one I've run in person. PCs are members of a travelling carnival freak show in a Steampunk pseudo-Europe. Lasted about 10 sessions before I had to move to start my career. We started in Fate Core, but switched to GURPS after I formed the opinion that Fate was too intrusive on the gameplay.
- Traveller: Online, and only two sessions deep (not counting character generation). Originally intended to be a gritty sandbox, but I learned that sandboxes aren't the easiest things to get off the ground. Needs work before resuming if I ever want to revisit it. (Which may or may not happen because I don't like sci-fi as an RPG genre, I've discovered.)
- Dogs in the Vineyard: Evening-slot con game at UCon 2015. Pretty well-received, it seemed. Never seen such intense roleplaying and player-on-player conflict.
- Legend of the Five Rings: Con game one-shot (Legacy of Disaster) at UCon 2015. Also well-received, albeit with a much different flavor than the DitV game.
- Lamentations of the Flame Princess - gritty system based on B/X, with a heavy focus on weird fiction and horror. I am thinking of making an adventure or campaign set in 1500s Germany during the Protestant Reformation.
- Legend of the Five Rings - One of the players of the aforementioned Legacy of Disaster one-shot expressed interest in a campaign. The L5R system is one that I've wanted to run for a long time, but haven't explored aggressively.
- Dungeon Crawl Classics - A fun game that highlights the more off-the-wall elements of the OSR genre. Huge online community makes this a very interesting and fun game. Not sure a campaign would be the best fit, but it's a system that's got my attention.
- D&D B/X or RC - I am waiting on a custom printing of the Rules Cyclopedia to arrive. I will digest it at leisure and may eventually want to run a loose game based on its rules.
- D&D 5E (ongoing campaign) - Fun game that's much better than Pathfinder/3.5. Still not sure if it's far enough removed from said system for me to want to run it, though. Our GM is awesome and that fact may be hiding potential system flaws.
- Palladium Fantasy 1E (ongoing campaign) - My first Hex Crawl sandbox game. Very old-school feel, although I'm not sure whether or not I like the skill system yet. The game itself really grabs me though.
- Dungeon Crawl Classics - A handful of adventures at a bookstore in Lansing, with a really fun group. Cementing my affection for anything you could call OSR.
- Dungeon World - Very well-run one-shot game that features a very transparent rules system. Has me interested in PbtA games.
- GURPS Horror - First game with my weekly online gaming crew. Although I joined halfway through, it was great because it wrapped up a nice little story arc.
- Pathfinder - interesting campaign with interesting ideas fell apart because it's Pathfinder. We also had a group that was bordering on the too-large (7 people)
- Swords and Wizardry - Con game one-shot. OSR system, but not enough info to determine whether I would like it, especially since I think there were a few house rulings going on.
- Call of Cthulhu - Two con game one-shots. Futility and despair in a crunchy candy shell. Not sure I like it. Feels too much like a haunted funhouse ride because what are you going to do, punch Yog-Sothoth?
- 13th Age - One-shot con game with a D&D-turned-free-form feel. What Pathfinder could have been.
- Star Wars FFG - Various one-shots at conventions. Neat die mechanic, but far too crunchy a system for me. I'm done with feats or anything that looks like them.
See you for the first real post later on.
-D.
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