Foundational Friction in Mythos Gaming

All right -- it needs to be said right up front that I love the Call of Cthulhu RPG. A lot. Really like it. I'm even a very big fan of it's weird cousin, Delta Green. Honestly, I'm down with just about any cosmic horror/Cthulhu Mythos RPGs. And if I'm starting off with this overt of a disclaimer, it can only mean that I'm about to throw some serious shade in the direction of these games...

But it's going to be a very generalized kind of shade, I swear! Because, as I said, in my heart, I truly like these games.

That said... [OK, here it comes.]

I feel there is a baseline, conceptual pitfall with Mythos RPGs: to have an ideal play experience, everyone involved should be fairly well-versed in Mythos lore, or at least familiar with lots of the Lovecraftian horror tropes. Not having these conditions present can possibly set a limit on player enjoyment under best conditions, and can potentially frustrate players and derail fun under worst conditions.

All the Matrix's Many Faces: Cyberpunk RPGs

The cyberpunk genre always lends itself so naturally to an RPG context. I guess it's not too surprising -- there are lots of gameable aspects to it. And, to be honest, I'd be surprised if there was some established genre that wasn't being mined for content by game designers. It walks that edge between a dark, near-future dystopianism that's very relatable to a modern audience and far-side, high-tech science-fiction -- and walks it in a way that feels very natural and is invariably appealing. And, of course, liberally peppering it all with a hearty dose of the film noir aesthetic will only make it even more appealing to a gamer's palate. Multiple great tastes that taste great together: it's like a role-playing sundae. (In which case, what's the butterscotch? The gritty, urban landscape? Certainly, though, the cherry at the top has a monofilament stem.)

I decided that, instead of doing another installment of my prior RPG Tasting Menu series, I would share a few, quick thoughts on the cyberpunk RPGs that I've played over the years, then focus some future posts on a connected project that I've been working on. 

Hail to the Hack: Thoughts on The Black Hack 2nd Edition

When you've spent any amount of time running RPGs, you inevitably learn a lot about yourself as a person, as an improviser, and as a project manager. Or at least you have some suspicions about yourself confirmed through play. So it came as little surprise to me when, after running one-shot sessions of Low Fantasy Gaming, Colonial Gothic, and The Sprawl for one group and starting a longer D&D 5th Edition campaign for another group, I realized that I wasn't so great at storing and juggling a large number of system rules in my head while also presenting and arbitrating over a fictional environment. Giving me access to the rulebook during the sessions didn't help; I struggled with trying to do more than a quick, cursory search for a piece of information.

I thought back on my younger years. Did I really do that? Spend a lot of time just paging through myriad D&D books, searching for all the detailed rules? Did I derail a few dozen immersive moments each session to check on minutia? The memories are hazy and I'm left unsure. Maybe I wasn't tuned in enough to the dramatic potential of immersive gaming to notice; maybe I didn't look much up then either. 

Evaluating Systems

[Edit: I changed out one fantasy game for another, as I concluded that I preferred the more streamlined system of Vagabonds of Dyfed over the more complex, move-based system of Freebooters on the Frontier 2e. 4/27/21]

Recently taking a moment to reflect, I've found myself hip-deep in middle-age. It happens to a lot of us. I realized that, in a likelihood, I've probably got as many games ahead of me as I do behind me. (It's possible this is inaccurate, as I did take ~20 years off from RPGs, but in the interest of an introspective post, let's just roll with that estimate.) I looked back at past campaigns, thinking, They were numerous, but the variety of RPG systems across them was very limited. Like many RPG hobbyists, I tend to collect a lot of game systems -- but, if I'm being honest with myself, there's not a very high chance that I'll actually spend much time (if any) playing those systems.

Admittedly, it's fun to simply collect RPG rulebooks, even if you're not going to necessarily play them all. And, if you're like me, you also get enjoyment out of reading them and expanding your awareness of the variety of rules and mechanics across the hobby. But, that's not ultimately why we're here: we're here to play or run them at the table. So this pause for reflection got me reading. I decided to read through all the rulebooks that I owned (in some cases, it was a quicker read, closer to skimming) so that I might identify my personal "core" games -- those that I turn to as favorites and that I'd be most likely to enjoy running for others. I began a survey of my collection to help me wrap my brain around exactly what I had, how each worked on the simplest level, and how much I valued each personally.

RPG R&D: System Engine

This post is part of a series examining my ideas for a new sci-fi/horror RPG, Red Shift.

One important point that I feel I should lay out, right up front, is that I've recently decided to forego writing the Red Shift RPG. After some introspection, I decided that the world probably doesn't need one more tabletop RPG that badly -- especially with the sheer number of them that are being released in recent years. Even if it had been functional (I hope that I could have ultimately guaranteed at least that much from my design work), it wouldn't have been original enough in a new or challenging way. As a good friend said to me, right now, there are a lot of rulesets out there that aren't strongly supported with adventures or settings. So why would I create one more? That said, I intend to continue this series of posts because I think sharing the design work that I did complete would be useful as part of the overall conversation on RPGs. Plus, it might prove useful to someone who is considering creating an RPG, at least to perhaps provoke some critical inspection. With that out of the way, let's proceed with the first topic...

Hopefully, at the core of any successful RPG is a decently running engine, some kind of resolution mechanic that introduces randomness into and elicits engagement with the game. There are already a number of highly popular and extremely effective systems out there -- as well as a number of less popular ones.

Crawling (Not Running) Towards Game Design

The more I learn about RPGs, discover new systems and rule sets, read new approaches to running game sessions from the community of bloggers and podcasters, and tinker with mechanics in my own campaigns, the more I come to realize that I'm deeply interested in RPG design. I suppose this is largely true of a lot of gamers, so I'm certainly not lacking for company.

Lately, I've started having that terrible urge -- the one that all gamers who are very interested in design probably face at one point or another. I've been wanting to design my own RPG. 

I know, I know. You're probably shouting at your monitor or your cell phone right now. Don't do it! Knock it off! Take that unexamined notion, pull it out of your brain, sit that nonsense down on the ground, and move quickly in the opposite direction like a hiker who's encountered an angry bobcat on a backwoods trail! 

And perhaps I should. It's arguable that we're living in the time of Peak RPGs. It's easier than every to find and purchase RPGs. There's a new game dropping every few days on Kickstarter. As I recently heard it stated by Ken Hite and Robin Laws in an older episode of their excellent podcast (I'll try to find the specific episode and put a link in here), if you find yourself wanting to design a new RPG, you should ask yourself if it's really necessary. With so many variations of play out there, can there really be anything new under this polyhedral sun? Is there already something out there that does what you want your new game to do? In short: why create clutter?

Selflessness: Thoughts on Eclipse Phase, Transhumanism, & Identity

I've been listening to a fair amount of live-play sessions of Eclipse Phase recently. For the record and the curious, this has all been courtesy of the Role-Playing Public Radio and Technical Difficulties podcasts. I like the exceptionally novel ideas that are inherent to EP -- the kind of plot complications and ethical dilemmas that you just don't find in any other RPG and that are part-and-parcel of a transhumanist setting, where the spectrum of sentience is really wide and physicalities are changed with the regularity of socks.

I enjoy the opportunities to listen in on groups playing this game, as I know I'll likely never do so myself. And this is fine -- there are lots of other RPGs I'd rather get to first anyway. Aside from matters of time vs. the fairly enormous queue of games that has already lined up in front of EP, a big hurdle for running/playing this game is the setting/universe and the built-in metaplot that goes with it.

The Laws of Thermo-dice-namics: Musings on the Potential Heat-Death of Role-Playing Games

Like any pursuit that has existed for a length of time, role-playing games have evolved. During the early days of tabletop RPGs in the 1970's, there was only really one show in town: Dungeons & Dragons. Its designers started with a core rule set and expanded it over the years, adding new content with each subsequent edition. So what began as a single, rough gaming system had grown and refined itself, and found itself no longer alone as other new systems emerged from within the gaming community.

The number of games proliferated as major RPGs established themselves around distinct, central system mechanics -- d20/f20 (Dungeons & Dragons); percentile rolls (Basic Role-Playing, Call of Cthulhu, Delta Green, Warhammer, etc.); dice pools (Vampire: The Masquerade and its kin, Shadowrun, etc.); GUMSHOE/point spend (Trail of Cthulhu, Night's Black Agents, etc.); and, more recently, PbtA/2d6+ (Apocalypse World, Dungeon World, Monsterhearts, etc.). You get the idea. There are, I'm sure, more central systems that could be added to this list, but that's not the focus of my attention here. Suffice it to say there was an expansion, a proliferation of new ways of playing that emerged over the years.

Clerics, Religion, & Magic in D&D Settings

The other day, I was reading this post from Derik at Madinkbeard. Some of what he discusses are similar to things that I've been considering lately: the role of deities in fantasy RPGs and their relations to their clerics and to magic in general.

Derik's approach to deities for an ancient Greek D&D campaign makes a lot of sense. As in the ancient myths themselves, these deities should be active agents in creating the plots, mysteries, and complications at work in the campaign setting. This is similar to the depiction of the gods in films like Jason and the Argonauts or Clash of the Titans, beings with their own agendas and vendettas, with personal stakes in the affairs of mortals, and who can be appealed to in times of need.

I also think he's right when he characterizes deities in your typical D&D campaign as accessories rather than NPCs. You make a cleric, you pick a deity, you tack it on for purposes of spell selection. Typically, it's about as functionally relevant as your character background in 5th Edition. It becomes a name inserted into a blank spot in a prayer or a symbol painted on a shield as an iconic flourish, but it has little role-playing weight beyond that.

Version Control

I wrote this post originally as an email to two friends of mine, mostly as an effort to formally sketch out my thoughts after a short-yet-intense bout of RPG introspection and analysis. I've tweaked the original email a little and added some extra thoughts that I've had since then. But I felt it was worth sharing here as it represents a central conclusion that I've reached in my handling of D&D-style RPGs. 

Recently, I felt the need to identify my favorite iteration of D&D.

Not to the exclusion of other versions -- honestly, I love them all and would probably play any version I could -- but just to know, for myself, which one I might go to first if I wanted to run a campaign. Time being limited as it is, it's important to know the most effective way of playing favorites. (Admittedly, this was also to help me prioritize what supplements to pick up if I were going to invest in future purchases).

I ended up sketching out a rough comparison matrix on a piece of paper, comparing the features that each had built-in or homebrewed by the community. I considered several factors, including things like AC mechanic, character class options, skill systems, even which dice were most heavily used. I then compared this against the parts that were either missing or inelegantly designed by my estimation, those parts that I would have to alter or homebrew up myself to make it a game that I'd consider ideal.