CRPG – Batjutsu

How can a GM make the stakes important?

On the surface this is quite a straightforward question and therefore I could give a simple answer, but as like most of things in role-playing there are a lot subtleties lurking beneath the surface. I think the easy answer is personal, a perfectly valid answer. I just happened to take it a step further, since what is personal? Why do people care? Why is someone motivated or invested? I go in to more depth of my #PieChartofIndecision in my video, plus touching on my L5R and Aberrant campaigns.

Following on from the time pressure point, when I was working at KJC Games running role-playing Play By Mail games (PBM) for a lot of customers, one of the big issues was players had a limited amount of things they could do each turn. Yep that sounds quite obvious, but since the players had in-game friends and enemies also trying to achieve things, gather resources, uncover mysteries, improve their alliance, undermine their enemies, time pressure really stood out. Thus the relationship between time and choice was emphasised.

A quick short story about being an NPC at the Lorien Trust LARP. As an NPC I created and ran out plots, potentially hundreds of players could interact with or at least hear about the plot; plots at the Gathering could affect thousands. Some of the players chatted with me about how surprised they were with my style of GMing, that I didn’t just run out big deadly plots that I also did several small things, or rather they seemed small to them, but then they wondered. Thus the players didn’t know whether somebody coming in to the guild was actually a threat or not. Then they had to determine what was important, made harder because there were so many things happening, which resulted in some plot being given to other players. Not that everyone was happy, nor everyone was involved, but a bunch of compliments was still great 😉

A common thing that I found at LARP, particularly festival LARP, is that a few proactive players were regularly resolving plots, whilst less physically capable or newer, less well-known/connected players struggled to be involved. This is partly a result of competency, understandably established characters had proven themselves.

The large scale LARP problems mentioned above are rarely a problem in tabletop, mostly because the players can discuss things directly with the GM; so much easier and appropriate to freeze game time than at LARP.

I think another thing to think about is with ComputerRPG (CRPG/JRPG), they are quite different than tabletop. Overwhelmingly with CRPG is that time is not an issue, with the main plots being put on indefinite hold whilst side-quests are carried out; daft when the main quest keeps emphasising how urgent something is. Elder Scrolls and Fallout in particular do this, but it is a core CRPG approach. Whilst I like the games the ignoring of time undermine my character and story immersion, time doesn’t really matter.

Coming back to this fusion of the #PieChartofIndecision, plus other things I’ve not mentioned, we are mortal players playing a game, time matters, time is our stake, the fact we are playing the game itself is part of our choice in life; any game is a stake of our life force.

Over the years, when I talk about liking many types of role-playing games (RPG), I am sometimes asked what my favourite is. I love them all, since they all have different pros and cons, and I like that they have differences. By type I don’t mean the system, setting or genre, but the method of playing the game:

Classic RPG or Tabletop (RPG, or TTRPG), also sometimes called pen-and-paper. Of course, a table is not required, plus games can be played virtually via things like Discord, Zoom, Skype, or dedicated software such as the Virtual Table Tops (VTT): Foundry, Astral, Roll20, etc.
Live Action (LARP). Like with TTRPG, there are many approaches to running and role-playing in a LARP event. In addition to the physicality of taking on a character, there are games with wildly different approaches to combat, some games disallow any contact, to other LARPs using specially designed weapons to keep the game as safe as possible whilst still allowing people to hit each other. The scale of LARP can vary dramatically, with some festival LARP having 1000s of active players at an event.
Computer (CRPG), this label can apply too many games that are played via a computer that do not include player or GM tools to allow for more free form role-playing. It is noteworthy that the RPG is often used by none role-players to mean games that have characters with stats and a story, like Baldur’s Gate, World of Warcraft, Ultima, Elder Scrolls, etc., in part due to how much bigger computer gaming is. There are some excellent CRPG, plus games have been slowly moving towards what many role-players would consider a role-playing game.
Play-by-mail/email (PBM/PBeM), or Play-By-Post (PBP), a very broad term that includes everything from chess to moderated role-playing. The subcategories of PBM are: postage, e-mail, chat, forum, blogs, wiki, journals, virtual office suites and storage like Google Drive, and software assisted. Some games can include multiple methods. Some of these games share narrative control and specialise in creative writing, becoming more like authors collaborating with fiction.

On average, I found that during such chats about favourites, the player asking typically prefers the type of game that they were currently playing; nothing surprising there. On rare occasions, a player would declare all other RPG types as inferior, or even outright stupid/pointless. Predictably, some of them had not played many other game types.

A bit of a tangent, I’ve met a few people whom have only ever played a single RPG, despite gaming for years. I’m curious how they could play for so long whilst not trying out one of the numerous other games. Although it is great that they’ve played something they have enjoyed for so long.

Whilst it’s great that there is so much information on the Internet about RPGs, sadly it is hard to find useful statistics. Thankfully, Wizards of the Coast carried out a big survey in 2000, although I wish they’d asked even more questions. In particular, I’ve often pondered how many RPG books have been sold. In 2004 a BBC article:

An estimated 20 million people worldwide have played D&D since it was created, with more than $1bn spent on game equipment and books.

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Whilst I would have guessed that more people had played D&D in 2004, that is still a seriously big number, especially considering how niche RPGs often seem to be. I think RPG is still growing in popularity, if only because of how popular computer games are these days. Although RPG mechanics are now commonplace in computer games, sadly, those alone do not make a game into an RPG.

At a later date I will write an article about what I think the pros and cons are for the different RPG types. To me, the commonalities of role-playing are compelling. From my experience, all the different types of RPG equally allow for role-playing, as all of them can be just as emotionally intense and rewarding as each other. I’ve played all types of RPGs, covering all genres. Some games use detailed rules systems, ranging all the way to almost no rules. The biggest factor of all RPG is always the players, what each of us individually brings to the game.

The next RPG article will focus on PBM, RPG Power of PBM: Time.

Tag: CRPG

#RPGaDay2018 Day07 GM & Stakes

How can a GM make the stakes important?

Role-Playing Game Types