Sunday, December 30, 2018

Tabletop RPGs offer living, infinite worlds


I enjoy computer RPGs (CRPGs) like Skyrim, but one can't escape their finite maps or even just pick up a grain of sand. Tabletop RPGs (TTRPGs) lack those limits.

TTRPGs don't just offer a 'higher level' of world detail than CRPGs. They offer practically *infinite* world detail. I teleport past the 'impassable' mountains, exploring the great continent beyond. I reach an ocean; I build a boat and sail to new lands. I circle the globe, and look to the stars. I travel to entire new planets, exploring them each in detail. I pick up three grains of sand. What do they look like? What minerals are they made out of? What are their histories? I shrink down, and explore their surfaces as if they were entire alien worlds. I shrink down further, and break off individual molecules with my hands. There is no limit on the breadth or level of detail to which a TTRPG can go. This is absolutely extraordinary, and IMO it doesn't get enough attention.

CRPGs also lack mechanics for an almost infinite number of things which can easily be attempted within a TTRPG. In most CRPGs, you can’t chop down a door even if you’re carrying an axe. In a TTRPG, you can easily attempt that – whether there’s a written rule for it or not. You can also tell the GM you're measuring that door to find out its exact height and width. You can ask what kind of wood it's made out of, and examine the grain on its planks to try and figure out what year the tree was cut down. You could try to drill a peephole through it with a dagger, and on and on. Because in a TTRPG *that door is a real door with all of the characteristics of a real door*. You are in a real world, where things behave like real things. It is going to be a long time until CRPGs get anywhere near that level of immersion. If ever.

This is not an attack on CRPGs. Like I said, I enjoy them *and* I enjoy TTRPGs. I’m bringing up some of the limitations of CRPGs in order to highlight the unique, practical strengths of TTRPGs.

TTRPG GMs need to understand, and own, these astonishing capabilities. I’ve used the example of picking up, examining, and sorting three grains of sand - which would be incredibly irritating if my players actually did it. The point is that they *could*, and dealing with that is part of the GM's job. Which is how this post ties into, and is a continuation of, my previous post about what a GM is.

A GM who's just running a cookie cutter out of the box adventure, and not breathing life into it by treating every pebble and blade of grass whose existence is implied (but not specifically described) within it as an equally real detail, and limiting their players’ actions to things which are specifically covered by the written rules,  is failing to take advantage of the major things which make TTRPGs uniquely awesome in the first place.

posted by Jeff Dee @ 9:28 AM 0 comments

Monday, December 17, 2018

Tabletop RPG GMs Need Good Mechanics

Another tabletop RPG design rant...
No set of RPG rules can be completely comprehensive. Its been tried, and the result is always a bloated, cumbersome set of rules which *still* don't cover every possible thing. So instead, most RPG rule sets only provide detailed resolution mechanics for the most common situations. One of the main reasons to even have a GM at the table, is so that they can provide an impartial ruling on things which fall outside of the published mechanics. However (and here's where I'm about to say something which may be a bit controversial), a common attitude exists in the hobby that even detailed, published mechanics are 'just guidelines' - so the GM is often expected to over-rule even those kinds of mechanics on a pretty regular basis. This, IMO, has become a bit of a self-fulfilling prophesy in the hobby - because designers who expect that even their most carefully designed systems won't be taken all that seriously are not particularly motivated to make sure that those systems perform in a robust manner when played as written - resulting in GM fiat being needed to take up the slack, even when written rules are available.
My personal view is that, while the GM is there to handle things which fall outside of the written mechanics, the written mechanics are there to take pressure off the GM 1) so they don't have to make up absolutely *everything* (particularly not all of the most common things, which can be incredibly draining), and 2) to help the GM be impartial (and not be held personally accountable for every single outcome, especially the most controversial ones, like PC death). The more a published mechanic requires GM fiat to 'fix' it during play, the less well it fulfills either of those two reasons for its existence. If a GM applies the rules as written, and gets results which seem inappropriate, then the fault may lie with those mechanics first, and the GM second. The GM *should* be able to retreat behind 'well that's how the rules are written' to escape blame for an undesirable outcome, but when the rule in question is broken then GM should take on the responsibility for correcting it. And then maybe replace it with a house rule, or even toss the rule altogether and accept that they're going to have to make a personal call in such situations from now on, since the written rule isn't handling it well.
In summary: Tabletop RPG rules are there to assist the GM, and this is best achieved when those rules consistently produce reasonable results when played as written. The oft-repeated meme that "RPG rules are just guidelines" works *against* the goal of providing GMs with the kind of well-designed rules sets that would actually benefit them.

posted by Jeff Dee @ 8:59 AM 0 comments