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How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Enjoy Reading Games I'll Never Play
Steven Robert
United States
Altadena
California
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Like the rest of you (I assume), I like playing RPGs. But I don't get to play them very often, and thanks to my group's preference for long campaigns within a single game system, I get to play very few systems these days.
And yet...I keep reading them, and getting excited by them, and...not playing them.
It must still be worth it, so why? One nice answer I've discovered is that every RPG has ideas that can be ported into other games and improve my experience there. This list is a collection of some of those ideas: whether they are mechanical or simply "stylistic," these are ways I've learned to improve my "traditional" RPG sessions by reading other games.
Each of these entries is a game or supplement that I've read and either never played or played only enough to get a flavor. For each item, I'll describe one of the insights it provided to me to improve my RPGing.
Obviously I'm no true expert on these games, and I'm no RPG theorist either (Forge? what's that?), so my insights may not be particularly deep. But at the very least they are a record of my growth as an RPGer and perhaps will help someone else find a resource to address a similar issue!
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Steven Robert
United States
Altadena
California
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My first encounter with "indie" RPGs was this little gem - which provided a shocking awakening to what RPGs can be!
RPGs can have self-contained stories!
In today's RPG market, this is completely obvious - but for a longtime D&D/Marvel Super Heroes/Star Wars/etc. player, in which games were built for long-term (or short-term) campaigns, it was something of a revelation to find that focused stories can lead to unique mechanics that not only enhance but actually drive the entire narrative of the game.
A simple lesson, but perhaps the most important!
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Steven Robert
United States
Altadena
California
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The first fully-worked FATE game, in my opinion it's a pulp masterpiece. This was my first foray into any of the modern-style games, and it blew my mind.
Let the characters break out from the numbers!
In all my previous games, characters were, in the end, just collections of numbers. Moreover, the choices that defined a character were heavily restricted, and that seemed to be a necessary part of game design. Enter "Aspects:" free-form taglines that let you emphasize your characters strengths and weaknesses, with minimal restrictions on what those strengths and weaknesses may be. The clever balance comes from fate points, which is how you actually gain the benefits from your strengths: those points are obtained only when your weaknesses come into play. The narrative that develops necessarily emphasizes what the player likes best about their character, and it adds great mechanical weight to the narrative styling.
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Steven Robert
United States
Altadena
California
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A game where I knew nothing about the source material (a British sci-fi comic from the 1980s), but the mix of FATE was too good to pass up.
A unified mechanical system provides for a huge range of stories.
I was particularly impressed with the way SBA takes the core FATE character engine (skills, stunts, and aspects) and uses that same system to describe pretty much anything else in the game world, from monsters to starships to planets to organizations. This has a certain elegance to it, but more importantly it lets the big picture have direct effects on the more personal adventures of the PCs. For example, organizations can battle each other in a system very similar to personal battles, and the Aspects driving that organization give direct aid to its members in their personal battles.
See my full review for more on what I learned.
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Steven Robert
United States
Altadena
California
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Fantasy Craft seems a little bit like somebody took D&D 3.5 apart to see how it worked, and then rather than reassemble it souped up each of the pieces into shiny gadgets that can actually fit together many different ways
Go big or go home!
FC is, in some ways, the logical extension of 3.5, with the volume turned up (WAY up). Races have choices, classes have tons of choices, characters get a "background" that gives them more choices. The impressive thing is that FC manages to be a playable game despite this complexity. Partly that's because most of it is weighted toward defining characters and won't come up in play. Partly it's because it uses many familiar tropes. But I think the most impressive reason is that these choices offer lots of branches from a few well-defined intersections. By taking small sections of the mechanics and offering lots of options for filling them in, you can generate an amazing amount of variety.
(D&D 4E does this, too, but in a more heavy-handed way - I was more impressed with FC's introduction of lots of different character options.)
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Steven Robert
United States
Altadena
California
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This was one of the first indie games I'd ever heard of, but it took me a while to check it out - largely because the setting sounded so unappealing to me. (No offense to Utah, which is a gorgeous state...I just like the escapist aspect of RPGs.) But the system lives up to its promise!
Abstract conflict resolution lends unexpected dramatic power to a game.
I am used to playing out each conflict moment-by-moment, which creates one sort of tension. But (at least in the games I had played) that approach also tends to regulate how we think about conflict (read: combat) and its consequences. DitV's system, on the other hand, forces the parties to determine what they are really willing to do to achieve a specific goal, and then allows them to change their minds later - with consequences. By unifying all sorts of conflict, the system allows one to move from one to the other (almost) seamlessly, and its streamlined resolution system keeps the consequences clear in one's mind.
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Steven Robert
United States
Altadena
California
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After discovering how much I liked FATE, I heard about this game (which had been in development for a very long time). Once again, I knew nothing about the source material, but the prospect of FATE with magic was exciting enough to get me to check it out in preparation for the game, which I promptly pre-ordered. And I definitely did not regret it!
Collaborative campaign creation invests the entire group in the story.
FATE with magic was indeed cool, but what was even cooler was the blend of setting and character creation that is meant to kick the game off. A session of interactive planning leaves the entire group with a city setting that they understand and in which they are invested. The PCs not only have relationships with each other, but a place they can call home. The GM has a bare-bones sketch of the threats faced by the city, enough for the players to have context and to inspire more stories than even a long campaign can include. And, what's more - the process is fun!!!
See my full review for more on what I learned.
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Steven Robert
United States
Altadena
California
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The title says it all: a game to mimic the gore, terror, and humor of slasher flicks. I'm not a fan of the genre, but I am always interested in how games manage to emulate genres.
Free your villains from their stat block!
To me, the most interesting aspect of this one was to break the typical "RPG monster" mold by treating the killer not as a creature but as a force of nature. I'm so used to running encounters with stat blocks - where it is often all but impossible for both parties to survive to meet another day - that this simple idea really struck me as powerful. Why treat every enemy the same when they serve very different purposes in the narrative, after all?
See my full review for more on what I learned.
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8.
RPG Item: Dread
[Average Rating:8.05 Overall Rank:95]
Steven Robert
United States
Altadena
California
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Horror is not my cup of tea, whether in movies, books, or games. I knew this game would be extraordinary for the genre, but I didn't appreciate how broadly applicable the advice on pacing and tension would be. And that's not even my primary take-away point:
Leading questions make for a great kickoff to the game!
Character creation in Dread is a narrativist dream - just fill out a questionnaire about your character and his/her relations with the others! The trick is that the questionnaire is built by the GM, so you can drop hints and point the players into plot elements that will be important - but do it in such a way that the players have great freedom in how they engage with these points. I think this is a perfect compromise between letting the players completely drive the game's plot and railroading them through a predetermined storyline.
See my full review for more on what I learned.
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Steven Robert
United States
Altadena
California
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This is another one of my first forays into true "indie" games; I don't think I'd encountered anything that tried to emulate a particular storyline so closely. And I'd never seen a game with card-based mechanics.
Don't be (too) afraid to let the players take the narrative reins.
This was the first game I encountered where the players could assume substantial narrative control, and that was - of course - eye-opening. Although there is a "Dealer" in the game, who runs the story, the winner of a conflict gets to narrate the consequences, within guidelines set by the cards. A dying player also gets extra freedom. Although I'd seen some player input before (like "declarations" where skills let a player add something new to the world), this elegant incorporation of player-narration into a game that nevertheless had a GM made me think about how I could incorporate that sort of freedom into more traditional games.
See my full review for more on what I learned.
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10.
RPG Item: Fiasco
[Average Rating:8.52 Overall Rank:5]
Steven Robert
United States
Altadena
California
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Ah, the GM-less gem of 2010! This one garnered a lot of well-deserved attention, and for once I knew (at least some of) the source material. So picking it up was a no-brainer. It's a game I'd love to try with my non-RPG friends, but I'm not sure I'd get the buy-in the game needs.
There is as much power in establishing as resolving.
Oddly, I think my biggest takeaway from Fiasco illuminates traditional GM-run games - maybe that's because I really haven't thought enough about GM-less games! Fiasco splits "narrative authority" (meaning the ability to structure the story) into just two parts: one player gets to establish who/what is in a scene and what's at stake, while another determines whether the outcome is good or bad.
I find that a very helpful way to contemplate a GM's duties. By establishing plot points, the GM isn't resolving anything but is setting a framework for what can be resolved by the players. Even in "player-driven" games, the GM implicitly makes these kinds of frameworks by setting difficulties, etc. I think the goal is to have as light a touch as possible and allow the players as much freedom as they want.
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Steven Robert
United States
Altadena
California
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I like FATE a lot, and while I'm not normally a hard sci-fi fan, the buzz on this one was good so I snapped it up. I expected a small perturbation on Spirit of the Century, but Diaspora is oh-so-much more than that.
Social combat really can have the same dramatic heft as physical combat.
This is another one from which I could choose multiple lessons. But the most exciting aspect for me is the social combat "mini-game." I love the idea of using a map to add some tactical heft, the range of skills that can come into play, and the flexibility of the maneuver system. Most impressively, social combat rivals physical combat in depth while retaining a distinctive feel.
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Steven Robert
United States
Altadena
California
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Anthropomorphic mice with swords but no magic: not an easy sell for me, and I'd never even heard of the comics. But the game's reviews intrigued me, and I read it with pleasure.
"Soft failure" makes for more interesting narrative.
There are a lot of elements of this game that I love, but the one that stands out most is how interesting MG makes failure. Failure in a test won't stop the players from proceeding - but it will complicate their lives. Perhaps they'll gain a negative condition (like Angry or Tired), or perhaps the plot will twist around so that they take a few steps back from their goal. In either case, the story moves forward, but the players' situations become more interesting. This is a huge step forward from many other systems, where failure stops the narrative (temporarily) until the players and GM can identify a workaround.
See my full review for more on what I learned.
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Steven Robert
United States
Altadena
California
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This is one of those classics that I completely missed thanks to my one-track D&D gaming past. But my 2010 Secret Santa sent it along, giving me a chance to see what I had missed all along!
"Crunch" and "flavor" aren't (necessarily) diametrically opposed!
Ars Magica has an incredibly complex magic system, with numbers and formulae flying around everywhere. But somehow that feels right for this game, in which magic is almost a science, and the players' mage characters are meant to explore this science in downtime throughout the game. I was in danger of thinking that rules-heavy systems were fit only for very specific stories, but this one showed me that rules can be your friend, too.
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Steven Robert
United States
Altadena
California
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Ah, Burning Wheel...the game the "cool kids" play, at least in my head. I had to know what the big deal was, and my 2010 RPGG Secret Santa obliged. Understand, though, that I encountered Mouse Guard first, so a lot of the concepts were not new to me.
Layers of conflict resolution mechanics can enhance the narrative.
BW is a heavy, heavy game - or a very rich game, depending on how much you embrace its principles. But what impresses me most is the layering of detail: it's actually perfectly possible to play the game while ignoring the heaviest parts (especially combat) and just using simplified versions that exist in the rules. That is nice for people learning the game, but more importantly it's also nice in that the pacing can easily adjust to the narrative. This is a big problem in D&D, where building up the dramatic tension and properly managing resources requires that the PCs slog through lots of fights before the big boss - fights they'll almost definitely win, but that can take up lots of in-game time. BW seems like it can easily adjust to such issues.
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Steven Robert
United States
Altadena
California
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This is the least traditional RPG I've read so far - not only is there no GM, but the players jump back and forth in time, often without even playing "characters."
Sharing does not equal collaboration.
Personally, I'd use Microscope to generate the campaign world for another game, stepping up collaborative campaign creation even more. That idea isn't new to me (see Dresden Files above), but Microscope ratchets it up to a different level by turning it into its own game. The key difference is how sharing occurs: in this case, each player gets independent input into the game - meaning that others can't monkey with your contributions to the storyline. In other versions, each person's contributions are much more nebulous, in that discussion is always ongoing.
My impression is that the Microscope method makes for a much less predictable history, where storylines likely don't blend together seamlessly or have neatly packaged resolution. That strikes me as both more "realistic" and more conducive to adventure, because there's less risk of generating such a neatly packaged story that the PCs' role becomes obvious.
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Steven Robert
United States
Altadena
California
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I'm not exactly inexperienced with d20 games, but I haven't played a superhero game since my teenage years. Nevertheless, I've got a fairly inexplicable soft spot for them (since I don't even read comic books!).
Effects-based systems offer tremendous flexibility by breaking the game down to its core possibilities.
The elegance of the effects-based power system really struck me. This is the first game I've studied with a system like that, and it seems to keep rules bloat to a minimum while allowing maximum flexibility.
On the other hand, it does not feel like a beginner's system, because the jump from effect (with a host of stacking and variable modifiers) to superpower looks to be a difficult one. As much as I'd like to see a magic system built like this, I can also appreciate why most games take a different route.
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Steven Robert
United States
Altadena
California
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The current indie darling meets D&D - how could I resist? I didn't exactly get what I expected, but it was still a fascinating read.
Metagame structure can enhance the in-game narrative.
To me, the most striking departure from other games I know was the concept of "GM moves," which codify how the GM forces the narrative along. At first I found these sort of overbearing - they are in some ways obvious (introduce a twist) and in some ways very restrictive (because the GM can't act at will). But then I realized that this codification allows the players more freedom of action and hence more input into the direction of the story: the GM is indeed restricted from setting too much in motion behind the scenes, so that the players' story is central. I'm still not entirely sure I like that approach, but it is at the very least an important prism through which one should approach even traditional GMing, if you want the players to maximize their agency.
(I really first encountered this idea with the Player/GM turns in Mouse Guard, but DW takes it to a new level for me.)
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Duisburg
NRW
Altadena
California
Thanks for the offer!
Winnipeg
Manitoba
Sadly, my list is essentially:
anything I read that isn't D&D/Pathfinder.
Fiasco's hit the table once though, and I really ought to push for that again next time I host.
Duisburg
NRW