Wednesday, May 25, 2005

New Role-playing

Its been a while since I posted anything. Brief summary is BBQ : good, Germany : good, illness either side of Germany : bad. Don't hold your breath for the long version... Also, I doubt I'll bother filling in the books survey that was doing the rounds recently. I really have nothing interesting to say - I own a lot of books, last book read was "Lies, Inc" by Philip K Dick... Doesn't really inspire, does it? Perhaps more fun would be for others to answer the question "If you could recommend any one book I should read, what would it be and why?" I'll try to answer this question if anyone asks it on their blog, and will even try to get round to reading any books recommended here.

Recently I've been thinking a lot about role-playing, and why it sometimes doesn't work. Vaguely, this is leading up to the idea of developing a new system/setting that should encourage a better game. Since I'm never going to find the time to do it on my own, I thought I'd throw some thoughts out to the world at large, and see if something collaborative might be more inspirational. So, comments and contributions on the following are actively encouraged.

First off, the problems I'm trying to address. These, of course, reflect my own experience and biases. Your mileage will vary.

Problem one is the kind of stories most RPGs encourage. Consider a typical movie, tv show, book... You'll have a small number of major characters (four to six doesn't seem unreasonable) and the plot will typically centre on conflict and resolution between these characters. There are exceptions - mainly in the sub-genre of "Lord of the Rings rip-off". In RPGs, however, the number of characters are roughly the same, but the conflict is between these characters as a group and "the rest of the world" (in some sense), represented by the GM. This can lead to "us and them" conflicts, passive player participation in the GMs own storylines, and/or too much work for the GM. I find this is often damaging to the game - one side of the conflict is portrayed by a single person, while the other gets the attention of several people. Attempt anything more complex (three or four sided conflict, multiple conflicts running at once...) and the result is GM insanity.

Problem two is an age thing. As we get older, commitment to the weekly game session starts to waver. The GM becomes faced with either running with missing players, or struggling to find a date that suits everyone's schedules. If games were more episodic, this would be less of a problem. A missing player means an equally missing character. However, typically RPG sessions end for time reasons rather than plot reasons, at least in the open ended games I prefer. Games which end with a statement of "time to go home - I have work in the morning. We'll pick it up here next week" are common. Episodic games require either heavy plotting (more work for the GM) and players who won't get side-tracked (yeah, right). Or they need a definite time limit - three hours real time, the episode ends, even if you don't achieve everything...

Inspiration to solve these problems comes from freeforms. (Side note : these games are referred to as both "LARPs" and "freeforms". I prefer the latter, as it saves confusion with the rubber-sword brigade. Freeforms are the ones which use rock-paper-scissors to resolve conflict.) While freeform campaigns are as prone to problems as any other (and in my experience are often worse...) one off games work very well. (This may have something to do with the quality of people writing the freeforms I've played in - take a bow, guys...) I believe this is partly down to the natural time limits imposed - events happen to a schedule, the whole game ends after four hours or whatever - and partly due to conflict being entirely being between players - no such things as an "NPC" here.

So, proposals. Firstly, lets look at character generation. In most (all?) current RPGs, characters are defined by skills - by what they can do. Fair enough, so are the characters we are trying to emulate. Buffy can kick vampire ass, MacGuyver can build stuff out of junk, Spock can raise a sarcastic eye-brow. But typically, that's it. Oh, we're invited to write an interesting background, or to give our character a goal or three, but there's little support for doing so. HeroQuest, for instance, has a space on the character sheet for "goal", but the published scenarios largely concentrate on Greg's favourite red-head's goals, not our characters. So lets put "goals" at the centre of the game.

Lets use a build point system for character generation. Characters get a very small number of points to start with (enough for one or two weak skills) but get more for choosing goals and secrets. We'll include a list of example goals (with values) to get people started. The goals will be generic, and the GM will work with the players to add the details, working to set up conflicts with other players. Hopefully this will be fairly easy - two players choose "hunting for the macguffin" are obviously in conflict, as are the ones who choose "Dark secret : fathered illegitimate child" and "Dark secret : doesn't know who father is". For bonus points and extra interest, players can choose "unknown secret". This is something they don't even know about themselves. The GM can then use this to fill in the remaining gaps - so if no-one chose "Dark secret : fathered illegitimate child" this can become someone's "unknown secret".

Experience is tied to goals. Everytime you complete a goal (successfully or otherwise) or a secret becomes generally known, you get points to spend equal to that goal's value. You can spend these on new skills, subject to one rule - for every point spent on skills you must choose one point's worth of new goals and/or secrets.

Hopefully that takes care of the conflict problem, but what about episodes? Proposal two : The game always takes place somewhere that imposes a natural time limit. There's many examples of this - an embassay party, on board a ship travelling somewhere - but for reasons I'll come back to later, I want something a little more super-natural. So, a rift in space-time has been discovered, and access to it is controlled by the UN security council. The PCs are explorers, each representing a different country (built in conflict there...) At the start of each session, the assembled explorers pass through the rift, spend a short period on the far side, before being forceably returned to their starting point.

What's on the far side of the rift, and how do the PCs interact with it? That's for another time...

And once again, comments very much encouraged!

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2 comments so far.

Gary [w] wrote :

Deadlands may not be the best example but it is a game that works quite well in getting people to take backgrounds. The Edges/Hindrance system works quite well in regard to people using it to get points or spend some of those points.

I suppose it's because it's Edges and Hindrances system is broad enough that pretty much every sort of character trait can be represented in a game mechanic.

Got a sheriff who used to be an outlaw. Well take the Law Dog edge and the Outlaw hindrance. Of course it still needs some work by the player. If I see someone with Friends in High Places I'll ask them who these friends are and how they got to know them.

Furthermore there is nothing to stop the GM (Marshall) from handing out Edges and Hindrances in game. If a character makes a new enemy then they get a lovely hindrance to go with it.

I also try and hold the concept of group Edges and Hindrances (though I don't really tell the players about these directly). So if the group mess with someone they might make a new enemy. At the same time those heroic actions they did in that town probably made them a few people who would definitely help them out if they asked. I try and make them feel more involved with the world and I think that makes them feel a part of it rather than "PC against all the NPCs".

I'm just wittering now.

11:26 am, 25/05/2005

Graham wrote :

Hi Gary,

If I'm understanding you correctly (and I might not be, never having played Deadlands) this sounds like stuff that I've ruthlessly included under "skills". Basically, at a meta-game level these are ways for the player to interact with the GM and influence the game world. (Or, at the game level, ways for the PC to interact with NPCs.) While there's a number of games that make good use of skills to evoke their setting, they still encourage the "several players interact with the GM, thus creating a story" way of playing.

What I'm interested in is ways to encourage interaction with another player/PC independent of the GM. I'm seeking more of a "several players interact with each other, thus creating a story" approach.

07:21 am, 26/05/2005