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.