RPGaDay 15-21

So I’m still doing RPGaDay in 2022. Here’s questions 15-21.

15 - Who would you like to Gamemaster for you?

Me. Not that I think I’m a particularly wonderful GM, but I run the games I want to play. It would be great if I could also play in them.

16 - What would be your perfect game?

It’s less about the game, but more about the people. With the right group, RPGs are magical.

With the wrong group, they’re awful.

For me, though, the right group would be more focussed on telling a story and in-character banter rather than killing monsters or worrying about getting the modifiers right when rolling dice.

And plot—I do like a game with a plot.

17 - Past, Present, or Future? When is your favourite game set?

Present—I much prefer a present-day (or slightly historical setting).

I find when I’m playing fantasy (or some SF games) that I suffer from culture shock—I don’t understand the cultural norms or how society is supposed to work. (And sometimes GMs punish my ignorance, but that’s a different topic.)

I don’t get any of that with a modern-day game. I understand the world, the technology and what’s going on. Add an overlay of weirdness (vampires, secret aliens or whatever) and I’m in heaven.

So, give me Liminal, Monsterhearts, Call of Cthulhu and numerous others to D&D, Runequest, Ashen Stars or Starfinder. 

18 - Where is your favourite place to play?

At home—mine or someone elses. Around a table. With snacks.

Online is in second place—it’s very easy to get a game (no commute!), and I get to play with friends from across the country, but the social experience isn’t the same. 

Pubs and clubs and conventions—they’re okay, but I don’t enjoy having others around me when I play.

19 - Why has your favourite game stayed with you?

I find this really difficult.

My default go-to game is Fate Accelerated—but it’s not perfect (approaches need getting your head around) and I’m not sure it’s my favourite game. But I often find myself playing (or running) another game and thinking, “this would be so much easier if it just used Fate Accelerated.”

So maybe that does make it my favourite game?

At the moment.

Because my tastes change. For some years I would have said that Call of Cthulhu was my favourite game—I lived and breathed Cthulhu. And then I got into GURPS, at which point that was my favourite game. (And then I did freeforms and started getting very minimalist and I didn’t really have a favourite game.)

So if by “favourite” we mean “flavour of the moment”, it’s probably Fate Accelerated. Ask me again in a few years, and it may be different.

20 - How long do your games last?

A session is normally 2-2.5 hours online. In person maybe 3-4 hours. I like short campaigns, so somewhere between 8-12 sessions—enough time to explore the setting and come to a decent conclusion. 

I’ve never run or played a lengthy campaign, and I’ve no desire to—there are too many games to play.

21 - Share an intriguing detail from a game setting you enjoy.

The IISS Ship Files (Games Workshop’s 1981 book of starship deckplans for Traveller) suggests that jump drives interfere with psionics, and gave their Zhodani ship (the Tiafliet-class patrol frigate) a very distinctive elongated shape with the bridge about 80m from the jump drive. Sadly, I don’t think this idea was picked up anywhere else.

IISS Ship files - still my favourite deckplans

RPGaDay 9-14

 And here’s questions 9 to 14.

9 - What is the 2nd RPG you bought?

Traveller was my first RPG, and then the most significant RPG for me after that was Call of Cthulhu, a year or so later. But between Call of Cthulhu and Traveller, there might have been Gangbusters and Tunnels and Trolls (neither of which I played much). Or were they after Call of Cthulhu? I can’t remember.

10 - When did you start Gamemastering?

It was 1981, and my friend Rob came over to play the weird new game I had just bought (Traveller, as mentioned earlier). We rolled up characters and then tried the combat system. I can’t remember who won.

Rob then bought the Shadows/Annic Nova adventure. He ran Shadows, I ran Annic Nova (I can’t remember who went first).

We always shared being the GM or playing.

11 - If you could live in a game setting, where would it be?

Somewhere upbeat and hopeful in the future (I like to think that we somehow make it past our current troubles and reach the stars). I can’t think of a specific setting that has made me think, “I’d like to live here.”

12 - Why did you start RPGing?

I liked boardgames, I liked science fiction. The advert for Traveller sounded intriguing, and when the game arrived, I tried it out and enjoyed it.

(I then also got into hobby gaming—I bought Car Wars, Ogre, and Cosmic Encounter all around that time.)

13 - How would you change the way you started RPGing?

I wouldn’t change a thing—I like how I started roleplaying: I didn’t start by playing D&D, and I didn’t start by joining someone else’s game. I did it the hard way—figuring everything out from three little black books. I kinda like that. (I wouldn’t wish it on anyone else, but I also wouldn’t want to change it.)

14 - Roll 1d8+1, and tag that many friends and suggest a new RPG to try.

I don’t like tagging people, so I’m going to change this to RPGs I would like to run. I’ve not run any of these, but I’ve played one or two of them (just the once.)

Hillfolk: I’ve played this once, and really enjoyed it. Now I want to run it. But it’s a bit challenging to bring to the table—I find myself intimidated by it. It’s a game I really want to play, and it’s so radical I’m a little surprised that it hasn’t had a bigger impact on RPGs generally.

Urban Shadows: I backed the Kickstarter for the second edition, and I’m looking forward to giving it a try—although it’s another game I’m intimidated by.

Kingdom: I’m a huge fan of Ben Robbins’ Microscope—it’s the one game that I couldn’t wait to play after I had read the book. I’ve got Kingdom, but haven’t got it to the table yet—I really need to push that up the playing order. I might have played this, once, at Furnace.

Trophy Dark: I listen to the Fear of a Black Dragon podcast (which is generally excellent). They have mentioned Trophy Dark and Trophy Gold several times. I don’t have Trophy Dark, but I gather it’s inspired by Cthulhu Dark (which I do have) and focussed on one-shot play, so that appeals.

Good Society: The Jane Austen game. A pleasant change from flying spaceships and staking vampires.

Monsterhearts: I’ve played Monsterhearts once, but would like to run it.

RPGaDAY 2022 Q1-8

I don’t normally do RPGaDAY—it happens in August, and August is holiday month for me.

However, this year, while I was on holiday, I caught Covid and was stuck at home with little to do.

So this year I’m doing RPGaDay. I’m posting them daily on the Tavern, and here are the first eight.

1 - Who would you like to introduce to RPGs?

I don’t think there’s anyone I want to introduce RPGs to that I haven’t already.

However, there are people who I wish would play RPGs with me. (Mrs H, in particular--it would be nice to share RPGs with her. But if I did that, I’d probably have to be more into the garden/allotment than I am. So we have a happy balance - she plays boardgames, and I cut the grass, strim and compost. She has watched me run a game for friends and sat there in puzzlement while she knitted. This reminds me of when my mum overheard me roleplaying with my friends back when I was at school: “You’re just making it all up!” she accused me. Well, yes.)

I’ve already GM-ed for my daughter. Her first game was when she was 4 or 5, when I ran Faery’s Tale for her. She’s occasionally played since - she’d happily do more.

2 - What is a great introductory RPG?

I don’t worry about teaching rules when I’m introducing someone to roleplaying - I tell them to describe what they want to do, and I tell them what dice to roll and whether they succeed.

Back in the 80s, before Geek culture ruled, Call of Cthulhu was my go-to game to introduce new people to roleplaying. It’s easy to explain that this is a ghost/horror story. (Toning down the mythos and sticking to vampires, werewolves, ghosts and so on.) BRP was a nicely simple system.

To me, the setting is more important than the rules. I can handwave some tricky rules, but it’s much harder for a new player to understand an inaccessible setting. (Modern-day or recently historical are best for me.)

(And dare I mention Freeform Games? Yes, they’re larps (but that’s just TTRPG-ing standing up), but we describe them as murder mystery games. We make an okay living by introducing ordinary folk to roleplaying games without telling them that’s what they’re doing.)

3 - When were you first introduced to RPGs?

1980 for me. A cryptic advert for Traveller in Starburst #22 and #23 intrigued me, but it was another year before I actually purchased those little black books.

(I've written about this before.)

4 - Where would you host a first game?

Ideally around a table in someone’s home.

5 - Why will they like this game?

I don’t know why anyone enjoys roleplaying. We all enjoy it for different reasons—perhaps to hang out with friends, be part of a story, chew scenery, kill monsters, and escape into a fantasy world. Everyone’s different.

So I’m rephrasing this as:

How would you run an RPG session to make it likely that a new player would want to play again?

So, some principles:

• Keep it small: no more than three or four players. That gives everyone plenty of spotlight time.
• Keep it short: A short one-shot adventure—I wouldn’t drop a new player into a massive ongoing campaign. The ideal adventure would have some investigation and roleplaying before a fight. No longer than about three hours of play.
• Accessible background: Make the background accessible. If you must run a fictional universe, remember that their character knows more than they do.
• Keep the system in the background: Don’t overwhelm them with numbers and statistics. I would probably use Fate Accelerated, which I’ve taught new players many times.

After that, I hope they will enjoy sharing an adventure with their friends, and I hope their character does cool and memorable stuff they couldn’t do in another medium. And maybe then they’ll come back.

6 - How would you get more people playing RPGs?

I’d like to see more positive depictions of roleplaying in movies and television. Stranger Things was great, except the kids were geeks and nerds. It would be nice to see RPG gamers depicted as less nerdy and more ordinary.

A harder question is how to get more BAME people playing RPGs? I remember chatting with Remi at Aircon in Harrogate a few years ago, and he noted the attendees were 99% white. I hadn’t noticed—but I’m white, so it didn’t seem unusual to me. I don’t know how to fix this, although I expect positive BAME role-models in cinema and television wouldn’t hurt.

7 - System Sunday: Describe a cool part of a system you love.

I’m not sure I love Fate, but I like Fate points. They do so much:

• They reward good roleplaying and putting characters in peril.
• They permit players to create story elements at the table.
• You play them after you roll the dice—so you’re unlikely to waste them.
• They’re powerful—a +2 bonus doesn’t sound like much, but on the Fate probability curve, it’s huge.

I may not love them, but I miss them when the system I’m playing doesn’t have them.

8 - Who introduced you to RPGs?

Nobody, as explained when I answered question 3. I was patient zero – I was intrigued by a cryptic advert in Starburst for Traveller. I had no idea what I was buying…

Next time

Next time - answers to questions 9 to 16.