Does System Matter?: Play on Target Podcast Ep. 19

This week out of some masochistic drive Play on Target addresses the often-occurring rpg question: Does System Matter? I'm not sure we answer that- those we have some answers. We try to reshape the question a little bit to one perhaps more useful: what kind of impact does a system have? My gut instinct says that different systems shape results differently, but my GM sense says that I could run anything and make it entertaining. Hubris or Arrogance? I should note also that this is the first week we were down a host, with Andrew G. out sick for this recording. At least that's what he told us- perhaps he actually wanted to avoid this minefield...

DOES SYSTEM MATTER? 
Play on Target Episode Roundup

1d10 RANDOM THOUGHTS ABOUT SYSTEM MATTERS (OR NOT)

1. If system doesn’t matter then how can we look into the eyes of those who fought in the edition wars?
2. If we wanted to tumble down the rabbit hole we could expand the question: if system doesn’t matter then how do we define a role-playing game? Some people feel strongly about question of what constitutes an rpg or even a game. Some would leave Microscope, Fiasco, and Kingdom out of that definition. They're toys or 'entertainments.' Others have trouble with games which blur lines like Descent, Cadwallon, or Battletech. I avoid those discussions because I don’t think there’s anything to be gained from that debate. I’m willing to take a loose approach since I don’t think it harms anyone or reduces utility.
3. Some games feel easier to grasp than others. When I read through a relatively lighter game I'm relatively confident I’ve got the essential elements of play. I can see how Fiasco, Fate Accelerated or even 13th Age work. A game like Hollowpoint offers depth within those light rules, but the core concepts and play come across easily- in part because of the excellence of presentation. But I have a hard time wrapping my head around other games. D&D 3.5, for example, throws me based on the volume and granularity of the rules. But even some light systems don’t click.  I have a hard time figuring out Cortex for some reason despite having read through Leverage, Serenity, Smallville, and Supernatural. I played in a demo of the Marvel game and enjoyed it. But I bought the book and for some reason I can’t resolve those two. I literally have no idea how to run it and I’m not sure if that’s a question of the system or some block on my part.
4. I mention this in the podcast, but I often fear the version of a game I’ve constructed at the table isn’t really the game. Or at least it isn’t the game other people end up with. That’s part of the reason I’m nervous about running thicker established systems online or at conventions. I like demo games because they give me an excuse for streamlining. But years ago I had weird experience with GURPS and Rolemaster. In both cases I clearly hadn’t been playing the same system as they did. And it wasn’t just a question of houserules, but of basic interpretations of elements. Luckily that seemed to be a general issue- with some of the other players coming from a foreign nation of system. Interestingly, I’ve never had that problem with Champions.
5. System doesn’t matter because people achieve vastly different outcomes based on the same systems. A few weeks ago I talked about several games I no longer played. I’d enjoyed them, but they weren’t what I wanted anymore. I made some global statements in those posts and in the podcast about those systems. In particular I said I thought Champions had slow combat Champions. At a guess I’ve probably played 200 hours and run 700 hours of Champions with many different groups and players (five dozen +). The across those we had common consensus about  the relative slowness of full Champions combat. But I had one commenter, smart and experienced, disagreed with that. he found equally absurd my suggestion that Rolemaster combat could be quick. Intelligent people with wide-ranging play experiences come to completely different assessments of a system.
6. Some mechanical fundamentals create vastly different reactions based on assessment of probability and risk/reward. I suspect there’s a mental difference between a game in which you roll 1d6 to resolve an action and a game where you throw a fistful of d10’s- even though the end result may be quite close. There’s also a difference between a game where a single roll resolves everything (like to hit and effect combined into one) and another which has several staged steps (any of which you might crap out on). Then you have games with pure narration, alternate randomizers, or wagering involved. Those temporal (length of process), tactile, and assessment differences make for different games.
7. But system doesn’t matter because if you have a shitty GM, you’ll still have a shitty game. There’s an argument for the reverse that the right GM and right group can have fun with any game. I guess the question becomes how much that system helps or hinders that process. So I'm kind of repeating my assessment in the introduction. I have a theory that different systems are like pets. I'm not a dog person. Dogs are dogs. But to dog people there's all kinds of different dogs, with distinct requirements, individual quirks, and important physical challenges. I don't know what that has to do with anything...I just like the analogy. Some games are written badly so you can't even really get to the system. 
8. I have a group of players who have fairly strong reactions to game elements. They’ll try out new mechanics, but they’re pretty open and honest with what they don’t like. FATE Dice, Gumshoe standard actions, and tag-lines in Dying Earth all elicited negative responses from different players. That’s striking because they’re open to experimentation and don’t dismiss things out of hand.
9. A fixation on system can get in the way of a game. I say this from experience. I’ve spent more wasted hours on this than any other gaming element. By wasted I mean material that didn’t make it to the table, had little impact in play, or ended up discarded quickly. Some of that came from a lack of vision and simply a drive to do something different. My experience with GURPS led me to create a weird BRP/GURPS hybrid I ran for a couple of years. It was incomplete, messy, and only survived because the players enjoyed the story. I lost hours on system building that could have been spent making other fun things. On the other hand we play a homebrew these days that comes out of that tinkering. One lesson I’ve learned is to focus on small changes. Not necessarily in the impact they have (like the changes to damage I made) but in terms of work required. If a new element needs more than a few pages to explain, then I’m probably doing too much work.
10. “Does System Matter” Matter? I’m not sure. I’d say it does as long as it pops up as a boogeyman in questions about game recommendations. As Sam points out in the podcast, we see System Doesn’t Matter comments used to derail discussions or counter advocacy in threads. Ideally I’d like a world where we take as a baseline assumption that different games run by different groups may have different outcomes. With that as a given, we might more fruitfully talk about how a game handles things (points vs. levels, granularity, resolution simplicity) and what it encourages or discourages at the table.

DOES SYSTEM MATTER? 
Play on Target Episode Roundup

If you like RPG Gaming podcasts, I hope you'll check it out. We take a focused approach- tackling a single topic each episode. You can subscribe to the show on iTunes or follow the podcast's page at www.playontarget.com.

The Good, the Bad, and the Digital: Virtuacon Panels and More

This coming weekend sees the first RPG Geek online convention, Virtuacon. The RPG Geek community remains one I enjoyed reading and commenting on- good discussions, smart commenters, and a great database. You can see more about the convention at the wiki here and the G+ community for it here. They’ve done a good job getting hosts and participants from outside the US- giving it an international spin. They have door prizes as well. I think some spots remain open in a few games- you can hunt those down at those pages.

For the convention I’ll be moderating three panels on Saturday October 19th and running two games. All will be broadcast online (and available for later viewing).

PANELS

How to Be a Better Player          Oct. 19th 9-10AM Eastern

We consider how players can improve their experience and that of everyone else at the table. Featuring Jay Little (FFG), Brie Sheldon (Gaming as Women), and Filamena Young (WW, Machine Age). We may consider recent lists on the topic, the difference between self-driven and imposed play, and what 'better' might mean to different people. This event will be broadcast on-air; questions and input from viewers will be welcome. Feel free to contact moderator Lowell Francis (Age of Ravens, Play on Target) with any feedback.

Roleplaying in the Digital Age          Oct. 19th 8-9PM Eastern

We consider how new digital tools have changed our gaming and roleplaying. What challenges face gamers who shift to playing online? How can rpg companies thrive in this new arena? Does the digital era make player easier or harder? Featuring Andrew Goenner (Play on Target, Time Heroes), Steve Sigety (Kaijuville), and moderator Lowell Francis (Age of Ravens, Play on Target). This event will be broadcast on-air; questions and input from viewers will be welcome. Feel free to contact the moderator with any feedback.

How to Handle Difficult Players          Oct. 19^th 11PM-12AM Eastern

From rules-lawyers to bullies- the issue of bad players and how to deal with them comes up in rpg discussions again and again. How do we find useful solutions beyond "just don't play with them"? What kinds of problems are more difficult than others? Can bad play be a useful signal to the GM? Featuring Andrew Goenner (Play on Target , Time Heroes), Steve Sigety (Kaijuville), Sherri Stewart (Age of Ravens), and Filamena Young (WW, Machine Age) . This event will be broadcast on-air; questions and input from viewers will be welcome. Feel free to contact moderator Lowell Francis (Age of Ravens, Play on Target) with any feedback.

GAME SESSIONS

I’m lucky in that all of these filled- with some players in both sessions!

Microscope: Build-a-World Workshop         Oct. 18^th 10PM-1AM Eastern

Using Microscope, we will build a history and setting in a genre determined by the group. Craft incidents, write legends, and level cities as you so desire. The moderator will set an abstract phrase for the beginning and end eras, but otherwise simply manage the play process. Whatever world we develop will be used as the basis of a FATE Accelerated Edition session on Sunday. Feel free to sign up for one or both. If you've never tried Microscope, jump in and give it a try.

Note: We will use a slightly modified version of Microscope, with abbreviated scenes handled as simple questions.

FATE Accelerated: In the Unknown          Oct. 20^th 9AM-1PM Eastern

In a Friday session, a group of players will craft a world using Microscope. This session will play out in that strange, new setting- who knows what it will be? It will use FATE Accelerated, tweaked to fit the genre. Players won't need to have played or watched the earlier session. For those interested, I will post a report of the created history after that session- but knowing that will be optional.

We Need a Montage: Advancement and RPGs (Part One)

Part Two Here. 

TWO TRIBES GO TO WAR

I come at things from a GM's perspective because I run so much. I fear that colors my sense of the rules, how a session went, and how I feel about the player characters. Ideally I try to play in at least one campaign each year to see things from the other side. But I 'm still worried that issues which bug me as a GM either don’t matter to the players or actually enhance their experience. That’s particularly true when I think about character development and growth.

I suspect players and GMs have two colliding goals in advancement. Players want more things for their characters: enhanced skills, new powers, increased abilities, additional options, and expanded resources. They want their experience spends to matter. They want those to come from their choices. They want to get good enough to kick ass. On the other hand, the GM wants that as well…but in moderation. I want the players to get better, but in a way that makes each gain feel significant. I want an incremental increase in power and a nice smooth curve. I want that to happen over many sessions. I don’t want players too powerful, too fast or they lose some of the challenge of the game. Yet I want them to have plenty to pick from in that process.

Ideally I want every point spend to be tough. Every leveling up should require awful decision-making. Do I buy X or Y? When I see players banking character points away without a specific goal, I know I’ve done something wrong. If they’re storing them for a bigger buy- that’s fine. In that case it becomes my job to get the player to waste them. I taunt them with other options if possible- gaps in their development, new avenues they could go down. By if they aren’t spending because they don’t see anything great to buy then that’s bad.

Solutions? I’ll come back to that- first I need to consider what advancement means.

CURRENCY OF LIFE?

We generally take as a given that rpg characters will grow in the course of a campaign- and that growth will be mechanically represented. That doesn’t hold for some modern indie games, especially one-shots like Durance, Fiasco, and Last Best Hope. Dramasystem has players accumulating bennies between sessions, a spendable resource. As well characters may have their dramatic poles and needs shift. But that’s a fair distance from classic rpg advancement. The ideas of Hillfolk feel like a logical outgrowth on Laws’ ideas elsewhere.

For example in Laws’ underrated HeroQuest he suggests that in most genres the characters begin competent (or incompetent) and remain there. Fantasy, he points out, is an exception to the rule. Here we’re often treated to full story arcs with the pig-farmer rising to become the heroic knight. But most stories revolve around static characters. To handle that Laws settles on a compromise. “That said, roleplayers really enjoy increasing their PC’s abilities on a regular basis. Regular ability boosts helps to keep them invested in their characters, and thinking of their futures. This is one area where HeroQuest bows more to the demands of the roleplaying form than to precedents set by the source material.”

I’d argue FATE follows a similar path advancement in offering relatively modest and restrained growth. The players begin fairly skilled and advancement tied to milestones makes small changes in the power level of the PCs (in general). FATE also shares another feature with HeroQuest, what I’ll call “spendable” advancement. In HQ 2e your experience points are hero points which can be spent to gain success during a session. So if you spend those to win or do better, you don’t have them for buying up your character. In FATE characters can take significant damage and suffer consequences which rewrite an aspect. Repairing that requires a milestone advancement (which can't be used for something else). Even some crunchier systems use a version of that. In Changeling the Lost, players can suffer Clarity loss- which requires spending character points to restore. IMHO experience players don't like losing experience and advancement- it can make them seriously grumpy.

METHODS

RPG advancement takes three primary forms: random, level, and purchase. Some systems use a mix of the two. Random’s the least used but pops up in the classic Call of Cthulhu where players have to roll to see if a used skill increases. It works there because it underscores the helplessness of the PCs. Other versions of Basic Role-Playing, such as Legend, use a point purchase system, sometimes tied to a die roll to check advancement. GW’s Warhammer Quest has random advancement which works with its board-game roots. Rolemaster has a little of that with stats gains. Players have a base and a potential to their characteristics. When they level they can check to see if those increase.

Most gamers grok and/or have played level-based systems. Usually those tie advancement to experience points. I used to dismiss level-base games, mostly because I hated the XP mechanics. Rolemaster had a set of guidelines ripe for abuse. I played it a lot in high school so you can imagine we abused the letter of the law. But I’ve come to appreciate the way levels can set benchmarks. Many new games use levels in different ways. For example, Mutants and Masterminds hybridizes the points and levels. Your level acts as a limit on power ranks and is determined by your total power points. Rolemaster had a system of development points spent each level on skills. In the core rules players actually plan out their spends a level ahead. We took that mechanic and threw away the concept of experience points. Instead players gained DPs per level and when they spent enough, they advanced.

13th Age offers an incremental approach. PC's level when the GM thinks a significant series of events have occurred. The book suggests a number of combats which take place each level, but I’m not sure I’d follow suggestion. For one thing it doesn’t cover low-combat games. The system allows for incremental advances. Essentially you can slowly accumulate the pieces of your level advancement as you play. It distributes the experience across multiple sessions. That means you don’t have the wait of many games. On the other hand, dilutes that the actual experience of leveling. You don’t get so much new cool stuff- but you do get to increase the many factors (attack bonus, damage dice) based on levels.

13th Age also includes a factor from D&D 3e/4e that I’m not certain about: magic items as a factor of leveling. I’m old fashioned and missed many of d20’s developments. The idea that items or resources could be pinned to levels and advancement didn’t make sense to me. Over time I’ve come to accept it. It assumes a kind of economy of competence- and offers a mechanic for players to enter into a campaign late. More importantly it allows designers to build challenge ratings that actually work. Magic items serve as a wild factor- if you don’t take them into consideration you can’t actually model an effective foe. It still seems a little strange to be narratively- but I can accept it. A 5th level 13th Age character has to have a certain amount of bonus equipment (magical or mudane) to match the challenges of those levels as spelled out in the book. 

Next time: XP and Balance, Point-based Games, Setbacks, and Learning Experiences

Virtuacon Panels

I'm doing three online panels for Virtuacon on Saturday the 19th, the convention organized and run by RPG Geek.  I’m currently moderating three of the panels, all on Saturday October 19, to be done via G+ Hangouts. If you’re interested, I’m hoping to get another voice or two for the panels.

The three panels are:

• How to Be a Better Player     Time-Slot E.5 19-Oct 10AM EST
• Role-playing in the Digital Age    Time-Slot G.5 20-Oct 8PM EST
• How to Handle Difficult Players     Time-Slot H 20-Oct 11PM EST

Each will run about an hour, perhaps more.

If anyone might be interested, please contact me at edige23@gmail.com or via G+. 

The State of the Games: Q4 2013

As we head into the fourth quarter, gaming remains strong and steady. Board gaming has taken an upsurge, but RPGs remain the centerpiece of our work. We’ve added several new video games to complement this, but Wife Co. continues to dominate in this area (especially in the field of Diablo III and Animal Crossing). Two major projects will come to a close this quarter, but we’ve already begun to line up successors.

GAMEMASTERING:

Libri Vidicos: Steampunk Fantasy School (begun 2/07): We’re heading to the third act in this game with most of the plots revealed. We had an excellent showpiece session with the coronation of one of the PC’s brother-in-law. That featured a number of PCs from the previous campaign and ended in the big bad’s plan revealed, a massive vampire fight in a cathedral, and a huge shift in the game world. Since then the characters have been on the move- gathering allies and assembling the last of the clues. They finally made it back to their school through a gauntlet of Shaddai dragon-riders. There they organized and decided on their next course of action. Groups of NPCs- friends and contacts built over the length of the game- headed out to take care of various secondary problems (the Magical Chainers, the Shaddai Coup, the Vampires at Methotos) while they geared up to fight against the major foe, the last true Lords of Ardor, by breaking into the fallen Dwarven fortress-city of Water Hill.

This campaign will wrap before the end of the year. That may take some session shifting, but I’ve spoken to the GMs who run on the opposite weekend. In all we’ll have done almost eight years of play. I have some ideas about what I want to do next with this group if they’re interested. I have a couple of short-run games I’ll like to try with a solid group (particularly DramaSystem) so I hope we can do that. I’d also like to figure out a way to wrap up the Wushu campaign with this group.

Last Fleet: Airship Fantasy riff on BSG (begun 5/11): This group’s also heading for a showdown . They’ve discovered a way out of the devastated world and the war between the two Elven Empires. It requires a transformation and a recreation of the world, a detail they’re keeping mostly to themselves. If the final gods learn about this, they might intervene. In any case, we’ve had some great character stuff at their salvaged city, including Marreg being forced to kill his brother. In the last session the players completely undercut and changed plans at the last minute. They’d originally devised a kidnapping and battle to get the resources they needed. Instead, at the last minute they zigged. They brought all of their social skills to bear and enlisted a hated enemy to join them, promising him the destruction on an foe he hates even more. The group has a complex plan- subject to all kinds of possible failures, but they know where they’re headed at least.

We’ll also finish this campaign by December. Keep in mind I’doriginally planned to run it only one year. We’ll take a break and then come back in January after the holidays. We have several possibilities. Assuming one player in particular returns, I have a mini-campaign I promised him. It’s an Iron Man-style M&M game.

The House of Shimasu: Homebrew Legend of the Five Rings (begun 11/12): I remained pleased with this campaign and happy with the adaptation of Action Cards to the setting. We’ve done two full seasons worth of adventures and are about to go into Autumn and the next round of seasonal actions. I’ve put the bigger plot seeds into play and we’ll see how those develop. Everyone seems to have figured out a little more about their offices (Spymaster, Magistrate, Ritual Master, etc). I need to develop the NPCs more, but I like the pacing. Each season, the daimyo assigns them a few tasks which they can carry out as they see fit. The players choose their direction and methods. The campaign has legs, but we will lose one player in the summer when she heads off to graduate school.

Changeling Lost Vegas: CtL Classic Online (begun 12/12): We skipped several sessions in Q3 due to schedules (especially Gen Con). We then had a transition of players, with two leaving and one returning. I’m taking advantage of the opportunity to switch games systems, moving from World of Darkness to a version of FATE. That’s a test and we’ll see how well it works. We’ve had one orientation session which IMHO went really well. They’re three strong and enthusiastic players with dynamite characters. They’re also willing to go along with the experiment in system mechanics. We’re going to test out a few sessions and then we’ll think about recruiting a new player or two. In game, the Motley has completed their tasks to gain entry into the Freehold, but no one has yet committed to the Court. That opens up a world of possibilities. Their next task is putting on a party for their fellow Changelings.

First Wave: Year One: Mutants and Masterminds 2e Online (begun 6/12): We completed the second arc of this campaign (17 sessions IIRC) with the group fighting off the forces of Hell as well as several gargantuan monsters (including Fin Fam Foom) sweeping over New York. I managed to bring many threads together, with the allies and friends they’d made during the campaign reappearing to lend them aid. I enjoyed the campaign which had great character development. The group’s come together in a striking way, with classic characters given a new spin (especially the group’s leader: a heroic version of Mr. Freeze). We will return to this campaign for the third and final arc in January 2014. That will (I hope) be my riff on the classic big scale stories of the comics, a cosmic tale with some play on my favorite concepts.

PLAYING:

Legend/13th Age: Derek Stoelting has been running a striking fantasy game with a world he created. He clearly has a strong sense of what he wants- a little of the feel of AGOT with more high fantasy elements. We’ve started to get a solid sense of place, especially with the main city we venture out from. We originally began the game using the Legend rules. We gave it a good try, but it didn’t quite work for our group. I’m not sure if it was balance, resolution oddities, or the strange initiative/action sequence. Derek picked up 13th Age at Gen Con and liked it- and I do too. It has a more open feel than Legend, but beyond that I dig the way the game plays. We’ve only had two sessions with the new system, but I’m excited to play more.

BOARDGAMING:

Tabletop Deathmatch: I haven’t heard anything more about the status of this competition. They’ve putup a teaser video, but I’m not sure when the episodes will drop and what kind of timetable we’re looking at. I’m really hoping to get some solid feedback out of the process. That would be useful. I’m less excited about watching myself on video in a documentary looking like a goofy.

SECONDARY GAMES

I should also mention the other games happening in our greater group. In total we have about fifteen people locally. Besides my games, we have two happening I’m not involved with, but have overlapping members. One of my players, Scott, is running a Pathfinder campaign. Another, Kenny, is running a fantasy campaign using the Action Cards rules. I’ve had other GMs run using the homebrew I came up with, but in both cases I was actually at the table. It’s wild to see it run completely independently. I look forward to sitting down and talking to Kenny about his experience afterwards. As well the online M&M is playing a sci-fi campaign run by Fabian. He’s going to wrap his present arc at the end of the year. By all accounts that’s going great guns and I expect they’ll return to that.

The Place of Dead Games: Play on Target Podcast Ep. 18

This week the Play on Target podcast takes a look at games we no longer play- why and what took their place. We stop playing games for many reasons, not all of them a judgment on the games themselves. At least in my case there’s been a shift over time as I come to understand what I like about systems. That learning process lands people and groups in different places- from those who want a throwback to the games of their earlier days, to those looking for a game that puts story first, to gear-heads who want to play with the inner workings of the mechanics. Once again we hit on questions of system (which we address directly next episode). I think system has an impact and shapes experience. Learning to recognize and assess how those factors mix with the groups I play with pushed some game migrations. I think you can get useful info by looking back at fallen games and figuring out why they dropped dead for your group.

GAMES WE NO LONGER PLAY

Play on Target Episode Roundup

BOULEVARD OF EMPTY GAMES

In preparation for this episode dropping I put together three posts looking at  major systems I’d “buried.”

• The Place of Dead Games: Rolemaster
• The Place of Dead Games: Champions
• The Place of Dead Games: GURPS

Of course all of the systems are alive and kicking, with companies still producing material for them. You can't define a game as dead even if the company’s dead- people can still play it. I like to imagine groups out there right now running SPI’s Universe, Avalon Hill’s Powers & Perils, or even Mongoose Publishing’s Starship Troopers. I mentioned those games because I played them and loved them. In each case I played or ran multiple campaigns using them, logging in at least a couple hundred hours of table play for each (and likely more). But my tastes have shifted over the years- the crunch, detail, granularity, and numbers I once loved aren’t as appealing  anymore.

BUT IF YOU’RE PLAYING AND ENJOYING YOUR GAME THAT IS A GOOD THING.

In a few cases I’ve found other systems to handle the niches those three filled. I like Mutants & Masterminds 2e for supers. It isn’t perfect, but it does what I want a supers game to do. If I want talented normal I’ll use my homebrew or FATE or even tossed together Unisystem. If I want fantasy, I’ll fall back to a homebrew, FATE, or even a system specifically tuned to a particular setting. Of the three I mentioned Rolemaster would likely be the only one I’d want to go back to. I could see playing that again with just the most basic books for out goofy action fantasy.

FOLK HISTORY AND THE COMMON RPG

One interesting exercise would be to trace the oral history of games and gaming within a region. For example, we had a local game store open in 1976 selling minis, D&D and wargames. You had a couple of generations of gamers who flocked there originally: grognards and new punks. My sister and her peers constituted the next generation after that. Then came my friend Art’s group, then came my generation. Eventually the number of gamers grew and diversified so you couldn’t even read things that way. But you could see significant shifts both in terms of what games people played and how they played them. When I worked and managed the store in the late 1980’s and mid 1990’s I could read pretty well the divisions- the White Wolf groups, the Battletech fiends, the Rifts Savants, and the still largest faction, the TSR aficionados.

I love hearing about the different routes people took to come into the hobby and how their group evolved. I know several people who had Traveller as the most important developmental game. That never did anything in any of the game groups I played with. The closest we came to hard sci-fi was Cyberpunk and FASA’s Star Trek. For many groups, D&D began their career and served as the continuing lynch-pin  but not for any of the people I play with. My group has gamed together in one form or another since the late 1980’s and tried many different systems. But Vampire and such only ever served as a slight detour, Call of Cthulhu rarely had sustained power, and stuff like TORG, Warhammer Fantasy, and Deadlands withered on the vine.

GAMES WE NO LONGER PLAY

Play on Target Episode Roundup

If you like RPG Gaming podcasts, I hope you'll check it out. We take a focused approach- tackling a single topic each episode. You can subscribe to the show on iTunes or follow the podcast's page at www.playontarget.com.

The Place of Dead Games: GURPS

Third in a series on games I loved, but no longer play. You can find Part One: Rolemaster here and Part Two: Champions here.

LEAD OR FOLLOW

I fell into Rolemaster and Champions because I followed the games others played. In both cases the slightly older generation of gamers ran with those systems. I tagged along, eventually buying in fully. My friend Jim’s mentioned that he started with Champions and rarely played  anything else. In my case I tried many different games, switching around constantly. I wanted to be the person found a system everyone loved; so I ran Ringworld, Ghostbusters, Paranoia, Stormbringer, and James Bond. I relished new games and I had my ego invested in gaming. But none of those games took off. Then in 1985 Man to Man came out from Steve Jackson. I’d played Melee and Wizard, as well as buying most other SJG micro-games. We had a player in our group who’d loved The Fantasy Trip. He ended up running M2M as an arena fantasy campaign where we fought for our lives, bought our freedom, and then tried to make it as huntsmen in the wilderness. We liked the system for the flexible character creation and the mix of crunch and simplicity to the combat.

The following year, SJG published GURPS which took the M2M combat engine and built a great point-based system around it. I loved it right away. I picked up everything that came out for it in that first run- GURPS Autoduel, Horror, Horseclans, and most of all Fantasy. I ran an Amber-inspired campaign with multiple dimensions, Gamma World-like weirdness, and an 'anything goes' vibe. We got many things wrong in those early days: for example we realize Magery had a limit or that Passive Defense wasn’t always used as an extra defense roll. The campaign I ran was bad, but served as a shakedown cruise. I got out of my system the concept that because you could do anything, you should do everything.

YEARS AND YEARS OF PLAY

My next campaign became the basis for the fantasy world I’ve ended up running since then. In ’87 I ran a GURPS fantasy campaign where players had no character sheets and had to work out what they could do. I run it fully improvised for four sessions. A few months later I decided I wanted a solid and ongoing fantasy campaign using GURPS. I needed a system which I could easily adapt. I used everything I’d spun in that mini-campaign and fleshed out the setting. Then I ran it for the next three years- a campaign that ended up with a dozen and a half players coming and going, and finished with a solid group of seven, two of whom I still play with and one of whom died not that long ago. Running a fantasy campaign with low-powered characters shifted my thinking about gaming. Combats could kill or maim easily. The PCs fought mostly humanoid foes and enhanced beasts. Late in the campaign I unleashed a Beholder on the group, which killed one character and sent another into a fear-induced panic. You didn't kick the door in and fight the dragon; you had to play smart. 

GURPS became our go-to pick-ip game. The older group of gamers didn’t really buy into the system, so we felt like trailblazers. And of course we entered into the inevitable system and edition arguments. When the GURPS 2e arrived, we bought that up. Within our group you could count at least one player owning every supplement. We had three to five GMs at any particular time running Space, Modern Espionage, Conan, The Wheel of Time, Pulp Action, Horror, or Samurai. Supers proved to be the one exception for us. We had Champions or DC Heroes for that. And frankly GURPS Supers was pretty dire. Clunky, rough, and oddly constructed. It felt tacked on.

I ran GURPS through several more fantasy campaigns with my ongoing setting. When I studied in Cairo, I only took the GURPS core book with me and ended up running for a great group. However, over time I began to wonder about the limitless chrome offered by Rolemaster for fantasy. Perhaps my game world suffered because the system kept it so restrained and low-powered? For the next campaign, I used RM. The tonal shift and strange feeling hit right away. It just didn’t work. My world had certain premises- tough heroes fighting against desperate odds to bring down evil. The power creep of RM worked against that. Eventually I relegated that system to another continent of the world and kept the core setting more realistic or at least more reasonable with GURPS. That’s what GURPS does well- really well. It helped define years of fantasy games and shape the feeling of the setting. I ran three parallel three-year campaigns with it and then another several including a four year steampunk/ swashbuckling fantasy game. Everyone knew GURPs and we played the hell out of it- which meant we also saw flaws.

CRACKS SHOWING

For some GM's armor felt weird and we tried a couple of variations on that, including on quite striking ‘piecemail’ approach. We also worked on options to break out Will and Perception. Over time we restricted certain advantages as too potent, or limited them to one player per campaign. We cut out even many disadvantages- those which cause more problems to the rest of the group than the player who’d bought them (anything about being Stubborn, a Loner, Bad Tempered or the like). But we also worked to smooth the game- skipping many of the crunchy bit details about number of seconds to do certain actions, working out ranges for everything, multiple turns to stand up, and basically all of the deeper bits of the combat system. You might call what we ran GURPS Lite Lite. But we hit the most problems with the Magic system.

Just to be clear- I love GURPS 3e. At a conservative estimate, I’ve run 350 sessions of fantasy using GURPS. In the early days, we only had one or two persons in each campaign willing to take on the responsibility of being the magic user. That made them unique and meant I didn’t have to pay all that much attention. But over time I began to see problems with the mechanics. GURPS Magic feels like the designers built it to keep power gamers in check. The effects and mechanics are tight and limited. Unless a spell-caster concentrates on an extremely narrow path, they’re never as effective as a sword-wielder. I heard players complain about this over the years, and I usually dismissed that as a non-issue. Yes, fatigue and mana limited them, but they could buy their skills higher to compensate. Yes, they weren’t as effective in combat, but they had so many more options. Yes, they had multiple rolls and resistances to get through for a modest impact, but hey they did magic. Eventually I began to see the problem for our group- magic  felt unsatisfying and frustrating for those who played it. Even veteran players who knew the system felt tied down. We experimented with several variations, notably Infinite Mana, but those felt like band-aids.

THE NEW THING

Then as we finished up a big multi-year campaign, SJG came out with GURPS 4e. The reaction from our group was a universal meh. Everyone owned and had bought into GURPS 3, but no one except me felt like forking over the money for a new edition. More 3e stuff- sure, but no one wanted a new version. I bought it anyway- the nice collector’s set in the slipcase. And I didn’t care for it. I disliked the layout and I disliked the new and much more complicated approach to character building which felt like second-hand Champions. The few modest changes they had made- to costs for Strength and the method for Passive defense made sense, but little else worked for me. Still, I held out great hope for the revised version of the magic system. Perhaps now we’d get a more flexible, interesting, and less straight-jacketed set of ideas. We didn’t. GURPS Magic 4e ended up bundling together the previous two spell books and only making changes to fit with the core shifts. I even held out hope that the new GURPS Thaumatology would offer other options, but if anything it presented other dense mechanics, equally or more restrictive.

And that was it for us. I suspect everyone still has their copies of GURPS 3, but we haven’t played it in eight years. I don’t see if popping up anytime soon. GURPS offered some of the best low-powered adventuring, but we’ve moved on to other games. Perhaps we might take it up again, but I doubt it. It has likely entered into the graveyard of games for our group. It is recalled fondly and much beloved- and I suspect many of the awesome sourcebooks will stay on our shelves for years. 

PROS (for 3e)

• Highly customizable and easily adaptable 
• Interesting damage mechanics
• Great for lower powered or "normals" games
• Relatively simply character creation mechanics
• Abstracted and loose system for advantages and disadvantages
• Some crunch to the combat
• Many great and rich sourcebooks
• Relatively fast to resolve- easy dice mechanics

CONS

• Weirdly complicated mechanics for some systems (vehicles, Martial Arts)
• Overly detailed combat mechanics, including 1 second rounds (can be stripped out and ignored) 
• Balance Issues (requiring tweaks if you're worried about that)
• Unfun Magic System (to be clear: IMHO and that of our group)
• Math and more math in 4e
• Doesn't handle higher powers as well
• Requires a good deal of hacking to get it into the shape you want (social combat, alternate magic, etc).