So far all of my content has been board game related because ultimately I play board games most often. However, that isn’t the only nerd-sanctioned hobby I have (or still do) enjoy. Very early on I managed to run a few games of the perennial classic Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) and its where I learned that I will probably never have a group or the time for a consistent RPG game and I learned this when I was nineteen years old. Way before i had pesky things like a job, or a loving (and yet still needy) family to devote my time to. It just never really worked out.I both joined a few campaigns and scheduling and other messes caused the game to die out. I ran a few games and yet again they died out pretty fast. Though during this time I learned that there is a lot more than classic D&D for RPGS.
The game tells you what you can do, but not always what you can’t do.
Everyone who has a hobby knows that one of the most fun parts of being within the hobby is arguing about the hobby! Its why for a lot of sports hobbyists you pick a team and have rivalries, and in board games there has always been constant tensions between eurogamers and ameritrashers, Eurogamers and Train gamers, and of coarse Eurogamers and Eurogamers.
One of the arguments that I always got into with RPG enthusiasts is the appropriateness of D&D for all types of campaigns. You see D&D is ultimately a tactical combat system. It is a system where you are meant to do combat. The most obvious way to know this is by analyzing the book. As an example from some other peoples analysis D&D is just over 50% pure combat focused.1
That doesn’t mean that you can’t run things as non combat, in fact you can but you have to either use fewer mechanics or “roleplay through it” which is basically “make the GM make it up.” If I wanted a game that would have a lot of chase scenes, I would have to make up in D&D how chase scenes function, though if I were willing to use a different system like for example Savage Worlds (which attempts to emulate pulp adventure like Indiana Jones for example) there are chase scenes built into the rules specifically which are pretty easy to handle. Naturally I always wanted to do less work, and that meant using systems that complemented the game I want to run rather than whatever system the players seemed to know. I started browsing the internet and finding discussions about very specific game experiences and how there were systems that made those games feel “right”. Naturally I was drawn to these…the people i had available as players were not always though.
People are always the problem
Like in boardgaming the problem always has been and always will be getting the right people in the right place all at the same time to play a game. This always proved to be difficult, but it was even more difficult for people to agree to a specific type of game, the mood of it and then after all of that you don’t just need to do this for one night but you have to plan for multiple evenings, ideally meeting up frequently enough that people don’t forget what happened and still remember how to play. This is an even harder sell when you are trying to get people to agree to play a game that isn’t what around 70% of rpg players play on a regular basis (D&D). So now you need even more buy in and for people to learn rules which may go against the rules they learned in the game they usually play. This is asking too much of most people, its just how it is but that doesn’t mean there isn’t always a solution somewhere in the furthest reaches of the RPG books.
One shot, do not miss your chance to blow
One shots. Single session campaigns or scenarios for games. Where you come, sometimes you make characters sometimes you just get them, you play your game for 3-4 hours, you finish up and then you go home. No further commitment, you may have enjoyed it, you may have hated it. Sounds familiar doesn’t it? Almost like a board game session (for a reasonably long board game)? Maybe this is why I was drawn to this kind of game in the first place. Even better you can do all kinds of things that you normally can’t in a campaign game. Player death (or even a total party kill) is much more reasonable if it feels like it was earned in the scenario. Not succeeding is fine, as is having unintended consequences that you (and the players) don’t have to follow up on. Your definition of “winning” in an RPG completely change in the one shot, it also means you can do a bunch of very niche systems that are effectively built for one shots. There are now better horror options, like Dread or 10 Candles. There are really interesting social games like Fiasco or movie franchises with the serial numbers filed off like InSpecters. All these games lead to interesting choices and interesting experiences that are hard to hit with the standard D&D mould but have given me wild experiences over a long period of time.
So there was my story, all about how I play some stuff other than board games. This post isn’t meant to communicate a thesis other than, just because you think RPGs aren’t for you if you come from board games you may be surprised. They are fun storytelling experiences that can lead to some interesting fun and occasional introspection. Also its something I can link back to if I ever talk about RPGs in the future rather than board games and say “SEE SEE! I have talked about this before”