Playing One Game System or Many, Part Two

The first part of this series of articles was about the benefits of choosing to play one role-playing game (RPG) system. This installment looks at the reasons for choosing to play multiple RPG systems.

Most games are written to fit a specific genre, style, or setting of game. When I bring this up in discussion, I usually get a look and a nod that says, "Duh." Yes, Star Trek is written for a specific game and setting, while Star Wars is another specific setting. I'm sure this isn't surprising to anyone. I have played both of these settings (in several different editions) and they don't cross over. So, if you are a fan of science fiction and not just one of the settings, you will need to learn both to play both.

Playing two systems like this at first doesn't seem like an advantage, but it can free up the gaming group. I have seen this work great when two members of a group traded off running their games.

I was invited to a weekly game where the group had two game masters (GMs) running very different settings: Shadow Run and a high magic Dungeons and Dragon campaigns. One GM ran his Shadow Run adventure. He ran it over several weeks until we completed the adventure.  Then the other GM took over at the table on the following week to run his adventure. When he completed his, we switched back for the next one in Shadow Run.

The switching between systems gave the GMs more time to prepare. After completing an adventure, they each had around a month to work on the next one, removing a lot of pressure. This allowed them to work on encounters and adventures that were a lot more in depth. Each GM could take notes from their last adventure, ask questions of the players, and weave more into the plot lines of what they were working on. This, in turn, gave us, as players, a lot more to work with during the gaming sessions.

Different systems support styles of play designed for the setting, which leads to greater creativity. Even when the settings are similar, like being in the same genre, you can get a different perspective of what you want to do because the system focus is going to be different.

Our main group has a side group that meets on an irregular basis. This is a family group that plays more on a spur of the moment basis. Then there are times when others of us join in. They play Rune Quest, which uses a percentile, or d100, system. The main group plays D&D 3.5, or a d20 system. Knowing both systems has led to some carryover of concepts from one system to the other. The players start trying actions that are more applicable for one system when they are facing a situation in the other. It doesn't always work, but it is fun to see what comes out of the attempt.

This creativity carry-over even happens in more diverse games. When playing a space opera you come into regular situations of dealing with zero gravity. When playing a multidimensional campaign (think like Sliders or Stargate) you are dealing with having to explore new settings without much beforehand information. Yes, some of this may already be in your fantasy or superhero game, but the focus of the game is different. And, like similar settings, after playing something it is a part of your personal background that you can bring into a new game and a new setting.

One of the biggest carry-over experiences I've seen has been from going between higher narrative games and higher strategy games. We have played some narrative heavy games where the description of the event is more important than the rolling of dice for determining the outcome of an encounter. When returning to a game focused with higher levels of mechanics, the extra description might not drive the outcome, but, it pulls the players into the event and they give a higher level of description of events based on what the results the dice are driving.

As you play more games it becomes easier to pick up new games. I talked to a person in a game store who was interested in playing an RPG they saw, but they were concerned it was going to be hard to learn a new system. The first game system may have been hard enough. The second may also be hard. Then, as the number of systems you know (or just familiar with) grows, the next one is easier to learn. A base of knowledge develops that can be drawn upon. More reference points have been created to start from when learning the variations in the new system.

For me, the greatest advantage of knowing more systems is moving beyond needing a system. I've seen this happened in two ways.

The first is being able to run a game on a complete narrative basis. Once you get the players away from being tied to a particular system for their game, they don't need a system to play. I've also had this work with players who don't know any system and want to learn role-playing, thus, not being tied to a system. I've used this when doing one-shot adventures. The group decides on the genre and characters are built with only basic description. The GM then provides the starting setting and the game is underway. Without the confines of a rule set, the group is doing improvisational role-playing—the adventure unfolds as the story is created by everyone. This is a narrative driven by the descriptions given by the players, including GM, around the table.

The other way is being able to build a game system to fit your particular campaign. Our group is always coming up with different ideas of game settings. They might be part of a larger genre, but more in the obscure corner, hiding under the blanket, behind the dresser. Our GMs can take their ideas and build on them without having the concern of how it fits into a set system or gaming universe. One such campaign was a post-apocalyptic mutant setting. Each player was playing a mutant, designed from the earliest edition of Gamma World, skills were develop using ideas from GURPS, then to top it off we were using a pass/fail system for advancing a character's skills. It might sound confusing, at first, but it worked.

For me there is no wrong way of playing RPGs. There might be a wrong way for playing an RPG, but I would rather have the fun of the socialization than working through the particulars of a given rule set. So, I lean towards playing all sorts of different games and systems. It doesn't make my way right, it's just who I am. Each of us has to find what works.

I encourage you to get a feel for what you like, what your group likes, and run with it. You don't have to be like me with over a hundred game systems on the shelf. You don't have to tie yourself into the one system that you were introduced to. Just be you.

Grab some dice, if they're needed, some friends, and have some fun.

If you have a comment, suggestion, or critique please leave a comment here or send an email to guildmastergaming@gmail.com.

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Cultural Backstory—Environment

From NBC News

The physical geography of the land plays an import part for why a place develops where it is (covered in a previous article). Another major influence on how the culture develops is the environment.

Cultures around are world have been, and are, influenced by numerous conditions people have to deal with. One of the first aspects people have to learn to live with is the environment that defines the space. This happened in the past and continues today as people move from one location to another. Each location has a unique set of conditions, but there are some general considerations to be taken when developing your own setting.

General climate is an easily identified factor. How hot or how cold an area is determines many factors of how people see, define, and act in their lives. Harsher climates usually mean a higher level of cooperation for survival, whereas climates where life is "easier" tends to lend  to more aggressive societies. As societies develop, they develop different means for dealing with these issues. Another aspect of dealing with the different climates is preparing for the change in seasons.

Every place has its own variation of seasons. Where I live there are four distinct seasons, while a friend in San Diego prefers it there because there is basically one season. The change of seasons determines many natural food sources, plant and animal. Plants are adaptive to their area and food bearing plants are different all across the world. As we advance in technology food sources can become more homogenized, but earlier societies and farmers' markets were dependent on what they can produce in the area.

Availability of food and water is an early determination for how the culture develops. Places where food is easily collected, or hunted, make it easier for the people to sustain themselves. In cultural studies it has been shown that many hunter-gather tribes living where food is easily obtained have more free time than in agrarian cultures. However, the agrarians usually develop in places where growing their own food is easier to do than working at gathering and hunting for everything.

Etna December 2015

Drinkable water is another consideration for the community. Communities in dryer places must consider water conservation as part of their development. Even places where water was available it has been found that large cultures and civilizations were lost because of food shortage tied to their water usage (salination of the soil). When water resources have been depleted earlier cultures moved on. Later societies find other ways of dealing with the loss of water.

In many game settings food and water are not considerations needing to be dealt with, but they can add an interesting twist to your setting and how you have your players and their characters interact with and within the community.

Seasonality also produces different weather conditions the culture needs to adapt to. Think about where you are placing your society. If that town is built along a river, and what is the regularity of flooding and how big is the floodplain? These are two reasons for the rise of the Egyptian culture along the Nile. Dealing with winds on the steppes or on the plains are usually very seasonal and play a part in cultural development. Winter storms, spring rains, summer heat, and the autumn harvest all help define the culture.

Catastrophic events may or may not be regular, but they are used to define the culture. Places where they are used to having the typhoon or hurricane season define many aspects of the general culture. Others might be dealing with tornadoes. Some events are not tied to seasons but are part of the lives of the people. Earthquakes and volcanoes are two natural events people have used to define aspects of their world beliefs.

Within each of these there are parts you can explore and exploit to create a setting all your own. They are also going to influence a number of other aspects of your culture.

Zeus with a thunderbolt

Language is a reflection of what the society has to deal with in their environment. The Inuit people have many different words of what most people just call snow. That is because for them the type of snow is more important than just knowing there is snow. Knowing the type of snow could mean the difference between life or death for them. If you have traditional dwarfs in your setting, they probably have a much broader language to talk about rocks and minerals. A traditional elf might have different words to describe a certain tree to let you know how old it is. In many languages the colorful phrases used are tied to the environmental aspects the society has been dealing with.

Religions through our history, around our world, have developed as a reflection of the environment as a culture developed. Many times the religion was an aspect of defining and understanding the reason for the seasons, weather, and catastrophic events. The stories developed were also used to teach the next generation how to live in the environment they live in.

There are a lot more areas where the environment of a particular society is developing in can affect them. This should give you some areas to think about. This also gives us a stepping point for future articles on some more of the intricate aspects of cultural development.

Have fun with your creation. Even if it is set in an existing game world, you can place influences in you town or city that no other location has to deal with. Someone might say you put something together wrong, smile, take a note, and let them know they don't fully understand the backstory. By doing this you can go into your notes and add information so you can have your people do what you want them to.

If you have a comment, suggestion, or critique please leave a comment here or send an email to guildmastergaming@gmail.com.

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RPG Location Backstories--Context in the Larger Physical Setting

Questions about developing a cultural backstory were presented to me. How did I come up with some of the ideas I use in developing my city and other settings I use in my role-playing games (RPGs). What they were looking for ways of going beyond the charts presented in the books they were using, which provide the skeleton of information. They wanted to flesh out their work to provide a setting their players could have more interaction in and with. Our discussion has been more involved than what can be comfortably covered in a single article, so I am breaking it up into separate subtopics.

This is world building, even if it is only on the scale of a city or a town. I am sure everyone reading this understands that. The reason I am saying it is to make sure we are all talking from the same point of view, because this applies when creating for a story, or for an RPG. This is also something to remember when creating because you need to understand how your creation fits into the larger scale. The society, kingdom, city, town, anything, you are developing fits into a larger picture, even when no one else sees what that grander scene is. This helps in maintaining a continuity of what you develop now and allows for easier expansion later.

The location where people settle was selected for a reason. Historically, many locations in our world were selected for a specific reason or a combination of things making it even more desirable. Some examples are where trade routes crossed, where water was available, where salt was available, or some other resource that society considered valuable.  There are also a number of towns that were started because they provided a central location for groups like farmers and ranchers. Still, other locations were developed because of their defensibility or for their religious importance. Each of these are reasons that fit into a greater picture—food, shelter, accessibility, defense, religion. One way to see how this process works, or not, is through reading.

You may have read books, or maps, people created where there were locations that had no reason for being there. Those types of locations make it harder to follow the story. Even with dealing with a fantasy setting, we have a logical part of our thinking that is constantly looking for patterns. When a place is presented that doesn't fit into a pattern we notice something is wrong, even if we don't know what the problem is. You probably have books you enjoy because there are patterns below the story, supporting it, through the world building the author has done. These great authors go a step further in developing places from the past.

People don't continue to congregate in a location if there is no reason to be there. There might be some lone prospector or a gang of desperados living in the ghost town, but there is a reason it became a ghost town. When the desirability of the location is lost, most people move on. On the reverse, as long as the desirability can support more the town develops into something bigger. This process happens naturally in our societies, but as a creator you have options.

When you are building a world from scratch you have the ability to place the locations based on how you design your world. If you want a port city, you can create a location with a good port and probably access to a navigable river. You might have a location based on the resources available to the people who live in a location. Another place might develop where major trade routes cross, giving access to a lot of trade goods and people. Another place is the oasis where the caravans stop. Finding a simple, logical, reason for the location is all that is needed to start a development.

You can also build the geological world and develop up from there. Many years ago our group had a shared world that several different game masters (GMs) took control over our own section. We started with a map with only geological features, there were no listed places of habitation. We each then decided where, in our section of the world, the towns and cities were located, but we did this as a group so there was some understanding of interactions. Many of the places were selected based on what we have discussed that made sense. Some of the reasoning was done in reverse order—there is this place in the middle of the mountains, but why?

You can also use existing maps (topographical ones can work well for this). You can start with a map showing the terrain and add in the places of habitation. By applying the same reasoning as above you can find the places best suited to having someone living there. I ran a series of adventures using a map of Nevada and it wasn't until later in the campaign that players recognized where their characters were.

This same principle can be applied in settings where ruins are a major part of the adventuring (fantasy). The connectivity can be established by having a reason for why the place developed where it did. Then, why it was abandoned. There are plenty of examples around our own world providing examples. You don't have to have anything elaborate, but having something gives a stronger feel to the adventuring area. The reasons might not even seem legitimate to some of the players because they will be dealing with foreign concepts.

Different races are going to hold resources at varying levels of importance. You might not be populating your world with the typical fantasy races, or the slew of races portrayed in some science fiction settings. You might have a world populated by one race, like what we live in. Cultural differences, however, have always affected what populations do. Those differences reflect in where the people settle, and how they live in those areas.

Any location, living or dead, has a reason for why it is or was there. Archeology, anthropology, and other academic fields look for the reasons and how people interact(ed) with the causes to have the societies develop when and where they did.

You can create unique and interesting places around your world. That is one factor making RPGs interesting to play—you are exploring differences you would never be able to do in real life. The links to the players' reality allows for the jump into the characters' reality to happen much easier and helps to avoid some of those confrontations of "that's not right."

If you have a comment, suggestion, or critique please leave a comment here or send an email to guildmastergaming@gmail.com.

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Reflecting Reality of the Game is Not Always Usually Our Reality

From Unepic

Recently I was drawn into a conversation concerning the accuracy of events in a role-playing game (RPG) session. The conflict was presented with concern to a disagreement of rules, and I was being asked to give an opinion to help settle the dispute. Unfortunately it was not about the rules, instead it was about the inaccuracies of the game within the confines of reality.

I have heard this argument again and again from my early days of gaming, in other words almost 40 years. I was not immune from being involved in these arguments either.  Every time, though, I have been confused on why there is even argument comes up. I understand there is a basis of reality in every fictional setting, it is what we as a player are about to ground ourselves on and to build from. From that grounding point we take a leap over the gap of known reality to create something new—the willing suspension of disbelief. What I have come to understand this is not the argument, but is one aspect of argument for something else.

The person on the side of greater physical accuracy was certain the game could be enhanced if physical properties of things, like volume, (in this case a fireball) were portrayed within the game. In simple terms, they had calculated how much volume a 20 foot spherical fireball should have, and then determined that if the area was constricted due to structures how the fireball would expand until the volume had been placed. This seems like a very logical argument. He had his numbers worked up and was able to present everything logically.

From Fantasy-Faction.com

He then continued his explanation on how he had tried to implement the change into the game they were playing during an encounter. And, how the change would have effected outcome. This, he explained, would had made the party "more" victorious in the situation. And with that conclusion, determined it should be done.

The game master (GM) defending his action simply said I don't want to do that every time some casts a fireball, or any other similar spell. His believes doing that level of calculation took the fun out of playing the game turning it into a math class assignment that would bog everything down to a crawl. More importantly there was only one person in their group that cared about figuring it out and wanted to use it.

My first response after hearing the arguments from the two sides was it sounded like the group had already made a decision on how they wanted to play their game. And, to me, the group should be the deciding factor since it is their game. The GM was backing up the group's decision. They didn't need me to tell them one side was right. Neither, was wrong, depending on how they wanted to play it.

The advice I gave them in the end was to come to a decision as a group of how they want to handle it. It would be a rule for the entire group. I even told them how over the years I have been involved in groups who have had to deal with numerous unclear rules that needed clarification during play, I was even chuckling to myself because this very same scenario was an issue our group had dealt with. We still bring up rules clarifications. There is also the aspect that during game play the GM has final ruling to be able to maintain continuity, which would have been my second point of advice.

During play they did go with the GM's ruling and then started arguing afterwards, but it was admitted the rest of the session was tense and eventually cut short.

I have always argued that playing a game is for the fun of the game for everyone involved. The issue at hand in this conflict was one person's self interest in making his character look meaner and smarter (he admitted it, so I can say it). They still defeated the encounter, and the change to create a more "physically accurate" manifestation of his magic would not have changed anything in the long run.

He also started to understand how he was wanting to change the interpretation the group had been playing under for some time. They had played and advanced his character to the point he could use a fireball spell. If this applied to that spell, why not to the spells he and other could cast at earlier times?

Characters are a part of their environment, just like we are part of our environment. If you are pulling a character into a new environment they don't know and understand, like in the Thomas Covenant Series of books, then I would think throwing this sort of change into play could work, but it would have to come from the GM as a surprise twist the characters would have to learn to deal with. If you want to have this in an environment the characters grew up in, then those are aspects of the world the characters would have known about before ever becoming adventures.

This applies not just to fantasy settings, but to every setting. If you are running a Star Trek campaign, characters are going to know the basics of the universe they are living in. If you are running a present day spy thriller set of adventures, you are dealing with the current day. If you are running a modern day Cthulhu setting, then you have the current day with a lot of nasty creatures and cultists. No matter which way you go the setting is something the characters have a level of understanding about. The skills they grew and the effects they are familiar with stay the same. Yes, unless a twist is introduced by the GM.

I have known a number of GMs who like running their own creations, I like running my own creations. And, when you need to make a twist to the overarching setting, the best thing to do is let the players know before you start. Then the players know, and thus the characters know, about their world. This allows the players to create characters who are familiar with the world they live in, they grew up in, where they will be exploring. There is always something new to discover, however, just read the adventures of any of the historical explorers of our world.

If you have a comment, suggestion, or critique please leave a comment here or send an email to guildmastergaming@gmail.com.

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