Five Things We've Learned by Being Humans Who Also Happen to Play Tabletop RPGs...

Earlier on, we posted an article about the role of the GM/referee, and it prompted some discussion (and questions) about what kind of GM I might be.  So instead of flogging a dead horse, here's five simple rules we try our best to live (and game) by:

Disclaimer:  The following is our opinion.  It might differ from yours, but that's not a high crime or misdemeanor, so take it with a grain of salt and humor us.  

(1) Games are great.  But actual people and relationships are (almost) always more important.  You can stop here if you want, cause' the rest is just fluffy window dressing...

(2) Hopefully, the people in your group are also your friends.  And if so, hopefully you value these relationships for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with your hobby.

(3) If one of your players offers to sacrifice their +2 plate mail to keep a cherished character alive, it's the a good-faith negotiation that's well worth honoring.  In these situations, just balance the fun everyone had when the character was alive against any reservations about propriety.  The integrity of the rules takes a back seat to these considerations, especially when a player is volunteering to lose something to keep something else.

Really, challenge is about risk and uncertainty.  But it's also about making sacrifices and understanding that everything costs, so don't turn away any paying customers!  

(4) Sometimes, the spouse or significant other of one of your players will join in just so they can feel part of what their loved one is doing.  Please understand that in these situations, the dynamic has clearly shifted, and the emphasis should change as well.  The goal now is to keep everyone involved, because the death of a newcomer's character immediately excludes them.  People before make-believe games.  Live it.  Love it, etc.

  
Going easy on a non-gaming guest isn't gonna break your game, and if they become a regular (always a good thing), they'll obviously need to adjust their expectations.    

(5) As long as games are played by people, said people will need to negotiate and resolve their differences in a way that scales to the setting and the things at stake.  I haven't seen a rulebook yet that can prevent bad behavior.  It all comes down to relationships, folks...

Tekumel and the Power of "Maybe"...

We're back from a much-needed break - and maybe we go to a monthly format again.  But until then, we do have a little something to start the week...

So, getting to it, we stumbled upon this old article on the Hill Cantons blog and were immediately reminded of what a kindred spirit M.A.R. Barker was.  Not only did he imagine the weirdly exotic world of Tekumel (which should have been more than enough to secure his place in gaming history), but he also seemed to have the "right" ideas about how gaming should be approached.  I mean, if we're gonna look at a game; any game, under the pretense of adventure, then story matters.  Even if it's just the story created when people get together and make decisions in the heat of whatever battle they've stumble into....

The party flees an approaching band of orcs and finds their escape cut off by a collapsed tunnel.  Now this is a tactical problem.  But it still implies story.  Why are the characters underground?  What are the orcs doing there?  And how did the two parties find themselves at odds?  And, more importantly, how do they get themselves out of it?  At this point, we haven't invoked rule one and really, we shouldn't have to.  If gaming is a participatory social exercise, then the narrative, meaning what happens in the course of an emerging story, is what matters most.  Rules are needed.  But only stories are fun.

In Tekumel, the setting (and story)
overshadowed the system, which is how it should be...

Rules are great (and admittedly, rather necessary).  But I, for one, could never entertain myself just by toying with game mechanics.  The rules always need to map to characters and events.  And story isn't just something built into the background.  Story can also be forward looking - and really should.  In the above example, the characters might hide themselves among the fallen rocks or simply surrender to the orcs and hope to reason with their leaders or successfully escape once a suitable opening reveals itself.  Both make for a great story, but both are only fun when we understand them as a story about characters.

And with that in mind, we're convinced that rules (and dice) are only necessary owing (and ultimately reducible) to the following core principles:

(1) Special powers and abilities necessarily modify outcomes and operate under certain conditions and/or with specified (and generally, quantifiable) effects.

(2) While some actions are always successful and others doomed to fail, many can go either way, and rolling dice creates excitement because an action might succeed, perhaps by the barest of margins.  That is, dice emulate risk and uncertainty.

(3) Moreover, the element of risk and uncertainty is more convincing (and seems more objectively fair) when even the referee doesn't know the outcome in advance!

So let's imagine a hypothetical game where everyone is just a person capable of a general range of actions.  Dice are minimized and the "challenge" lies in thinking up a suitable strategy in the first place.  Melee is easy.  Roll 4 or better on 1d6 or suffer 1-3 hits based on the target's size and/or power (10 hits is fatal).  Success kills the enemy and failure forces another round with the potential for even greater injury.  Non-combat actions, in all their variety, are easier still.  Just roll 4 or better.  If the characters and story are interesting (and if the players get caught up in events), they'll have a blast despite the lack of rules because, ultimately, we don't play to tinker with dice.  We play to become legends!

Of course, precedent would eventually kick in, certain rulings codified, and additional rules developed to account for the stuff of the setting, and at this point, the above becomes a proper game, complete with detailed charts, tables, and source books.  But our hypothetical game simultaneously reveals not only the hobby's biggest strength, but also its inherently self-limiting nature.  Because ultimately, all we need to know is that success is either yes, no, or maybe - and then have 'em roll for the maybe part!  Everything else is just the story...    

Homunculi (for Diceless Dungeons)...

OK, no dissertation this week, just a little something for Diceless Dungeons; a sorcerous companion that can be magically fashioned, albeit with difficulty, from a forbidden tome that will only be found on adventures (a dragon's hoard perhaps)...

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

Click on the above link to get this creature (item?) in pdf form.  But also read on to consider the special role of the homunculus in a quasi-medieval world setting...  

Now, this ruleset doesn't go into too much detail about its implied setting, and this is by design (the referee should be free to create whatever they wish).  However, it does suggest something vaguely medieval; a place where magic is rare and, more importantly, widely feared and mistrusted.  That said, any magical writing is going to be exceedingly rare and probably forbidden, and while the homunculus so created offers obvious advantages, clever referees should avoid the tired assumption that magic (and at the very least, magic of this sort) can be practiced with impunity.  All power comes at a price.

That being said, going about in public with a miniature demon on one's shoulder is sure to attract the wrong sort of attention, and even the act of hunkering down for days at a time performing strange rituals will doubtless alert religious authorities!  None of this has anything to do with special rules and everything to do with proper role-playing, which we've always maintained was diceless to its very core.  So roll your minds and get busy playing!

My First Time (Toys Without Tots)...

Remember your first time?  The excitement?  The sweat?  No, not that first time.  The other first time.  I mean, when you first realized that you were a gamer. 

So, testimonial.  The story of my first time (minus the sweat)...

Back in the sixth grade, I used to catch the bus on a street corner just one block away from where I lived.  We'd been there for years, and I clearly remember walking to elementary school and passing my future bus stop every day.  Hell, I even remember doing the math and calculating how old I'd be in the year 2000, getting the numbers right, but utterly failing to anticipate home computers and the whole Y2K thing.  But yeah, I knew that I'd turn 33 in that future time and was pretty sure I wouldn't get that awesome flying car...

But back in 1978, I found something better.  I found role-playing.

Now, I was a sixth-grader and in the process of outliving my interest in toys.  Sort of.  The truth was, I was still interested in play, but I didn't know how to channel it.  I liked models and still appreciated my Shogun Warriors and Star Wars action figures.  In short, I still loved the stuff of childhood play, but didn't have clue one about what to do with any of that...

Check out these toys.  I mean, who could resist?
(Image courtesy of the talented painter: The Mighty Eroc)

Play without toys?  Adult play?  I craved some mythical next step...  

OK, so, back to the bus stop.  It sat on the driveway of a house on a corner lot.  And sometimes, usually on warm summer nights over the previous season, the garage door was open to reveal people playing something around an elaborate tabletop diorama.  I was intrigued.  And yes, it was a war-game.  But my curious inquiries led me to a friend and his older brother who was becoming interested in a new kind of war-game called D&D.  And so it began.  My first character was Elvor the Slayer, an elf in the old-school, meaning he could alternate between fighter and magic user between adventures.  He died in old-school fashion, but the genie (so to speak) was already out of the bottle and doing stuff. 

So I was a role-player now.  It was a Saturday afternoon in early Autumn.  We were still rubbing summer out of our eyes, and there was lots of pre-game chatter about Star Wars and the latest episode of Buck Rogers coming on that night.  And there was also an adventure; something about exploring the ruins of a crypt.  But what I really remember is rolling up my character and getting a 14 intelligence.  Exciting stuff.  And then there was the game.  It was like playing with really cool toys in my mind.  Only the best toys ever...

We fought some kobolds and got a quick (and rather brutal) lesson in why we needed to search for traps and carefully explain everything we were doing.  There was surprisingly little combat, but I staggered away with 2 HP and decided I was wearing my armor next time, although my one spell had helped us stay alive.  It was chaotic, crazy stuff.  And I was totally hooked.  My love of play had survived adolescence, and I found out who I was.

Now, to be clear, I'm a lot of things.  Most more important than gamer.  But my first time, happily devoid of awkward backseat acrobatics, was still a critical (and accurate) revelation...