My Perverse Character Class Choices

Whilst exchanging emails with one of the TNC, on the subject of gaming (shocking, I know), I came to ponder my reasons for choosing to play certain character classes. Note that I'm talking specifically about systems that have 'Class' as a distinct element of a player character, as opposed to character type, which is a different barrel of monkeys altogether. StevieB is planning to run a big session of 'Dungeon World' at our next SatCon and has been canvassing the TNC for preferred classes to play in this game. I immediately shouted 'Bard!' Steve's initial reaction was that he perceived this class to be quite useless, which is a fair point of view and one shared by many people. However, I find myself repeatedly drawn to classes that don't necessarily have a clear and obvious use in the game's default setting. Admittedly this is probably a perverse approach to character class selection. I work on the assumption that, in most cases, a game's designers have thought carefully about the classes in their system. Therefore I'm keen to understand how they categorise the less obviously useful classes as being relevant and necessary to the game's setting. I enjoy the challenge of playing classes that make me think about why they exist in the setting, and the different ways in which their skills can be brought into play, across a variety of situations. As a corollary point, I completely understand the purity of playing a fighter, but it just doesn't hold enough depth to keep me interested for any length of time.

My boy's first game - as a GM!

Following my son's first encounter with RPGs, as summarised here, the weekend saw him don the mantle of  GM and game designer.

A few days earlier he'd asked me if he could have a notepad and pen.  Seeing as I have an embarrassment of riches in that regard, I obliged.  The next thing I know, he's asking me to play the RPG he's written. How could I refuse? Read on to discover the adventure that sprang forth from his young and eager mind.

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We started off with character creation.  I chose a Dwarf Knight.  The adventure started in my home town, where the royal treasury had just been burgled and the king needed me to find the culprit.  I didn’t immediately take the bait, I instead negotiated a reward for doing this.  My investigations began in the caverns beneath the town, where dwell the poor and unfortunate members of Dwarfish society.  I spotted two Dwarfs arguing over a massive diamond and confronted them.  They both drew swords so I hacked one of them and the other ran away, with the diamond.  I was about to give chase when I spotted another Dwarf sneaking out of the caverns with a large sack, so I elected to pursue him, instead.  A pursuit into a nearby area of jungle yielded an attack by leopards, which seemed to be controlled by a black crystal that each one was wearing.  I took the crystals and continued my chase.  I eventually caught up with the thief, pushing myself to run faster than ever, courtesy of my 'Take the pain' ability.  The thief lobbed lightning at me before I managed to deprive him of the use of his head.  I returned the treasure to the king and collected my reward.  I then visited my wizard friend to get these black crystals checked out.  It turns out they were filled with black magic, but the wizard, Jedanye, could hammer out the black magic, leaving only good magic behind.  Once this was done I could merge the crystals with my axe and choose an enchantment for the weapon.  I went with 'Burst into flames', because it's a classic.

The next job was to find out who was using black magic to control the creatures of the jungle, so off I went.  No attacks this time, but I did find a dungeon entrance and promptly ventured in.  The first cavern contained a skeleton, a zombie and an orc, all controlled by more of the black crystals.  The undead were afraid of my flaming axe and the orc offered little resistance to its kiss.  The main cavern contained a gigantic black cystal, the master crystal!  Manipulating the crystal was a foul necromancer, who withstood quite a beating before I finally managed to dismember him.  In classic style, as the necromancer perished so the cavern began to collapse, so I beat a hasty retreat.

Back in town I converted some of the gems I had received as a reward into hard cash.  I then took this cash and headed underground, to find out why some Dwarfs were living in dark squalour whilst the rest of us had very comfortable lives.  Most of them had simply been dealt bum hands by life, so I distributed the wealth amongst those unfortunates and told them to make new lives in the world above. THE END. 

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Given that he improvised all of this, based purely on my decisions and actions, I think it demonstrates a great deal of creativity and a bright future as a gamer. I didn't start running games until I was 13 or so. Having said that, I had no parental encouragement, or even interest, whatsoever.

Credit where credit's due

I've just realised that in my last post, wherein I frothed and foamed about the 'A Song of Ice and Fire' RPG, I completely failed to credit the real inspiration for me starting a campaign.

So, without further ado, the main inspiration for the latest TNC campaign is thanks to Neil Gow and this set of posts about his game. For those of you reading this who are unaware of Neil (and shame on you should you be in that unhappy number), his is the mind that brought the twin wonders of 'Duty & Honour' and 'Beat to Quarters' to the gaming masses.

Thank you Neil, for inspiring the TNC to travel to Westeros.

GRRM Mania Strikes!

The multi-pronged assault of watching 'Game of Thrones' season 2, coupled with the start of season 3, plus re-reading the books (nearly finished 'A Clash of Kings'), married to our new campaign of 'A Song of Ice and Fire' RPG has resulted in a critical mass of GRRM mania in my head. The strange thing is, I read the books years ago and enjoyed them up to 'A Feast for Crows', which I disliked greatly. On second reading I'm deriving far more enjoyment from these tales. I don't know whether the excellent HBO series has affected my reception of the books this time, or if the superb RPG by Green Ronin is to blame, but either way I'm a happy camper.

The RPG is clearly a labour of love by the designers. Westeros is evoked splendidly by the beautiful books and the elegant system that perfectly facilitates the type of game one wants in this setting. The combat is swift and brutal, whilst intrigue is a set of combat mechanics in its own right. In fact, this is the first RPG I've seen that devotes nearly as much page-count to social intrigue as it does to combat. There are well-designed parallels between the core mechanics for both forms of conflict, something that Burning Wheel attempted valiantly, but fell short of magnificence. ASoIaF RPG achieves this wonderfully and, for that alone, this game deserves every success.

We have only played four sessions thus far, but even so an awful lot has been accomplished by the PCs. Some of this is due to the aggressive way in which I'm driving the story and framing scenes, but a large part of this progress is because of the system, which just seems to cut to the chase and put the drama centre-stage. Another key strength is that every player conceived their character before applying character creation mechanics, and then were able to not only create the exact character they wanted, but finished with characters that are bloody great in their chosen areas of specialty. The fighters are rock hard, the schemer could talk the hind-legs of an Arcturan Mega-donkey AND persuade it go for a walk afterwards, whilst the rogue is a near-invisible spectre. It's great to see players start out with very competent characters that have been tailored to their exact requirements, rather than having to play 10 or 20 sessions before realising the character that has existed in their mind since the start of the campaign.

I could go on and on about how much I love this system, and I probably will in future posts, but for now I'm going to sit back, grab a brew and immerse myself in the imperfect, but highly enjoyable world of GRRM.

Age of Arthur RPG

For those of you who want an Arthurian RPG with a darker tone than that provided by the anachronisitic setting of Pendragon,  allow me to recommend Age of Arthur, by the inestimable Graham Spearing and Paul Mitchener.  This is currently available as a watermarked pdf.  I believe that a print version should be available from May 2013.

Agon at SatCon 1

Agon was tremendous fun and ran even better than I had imagined it would.  The scenario was simplistic, but captured many themes of heroic tragedy.  The system played beautifully.  Simple contests were quick to resolve, with success granting narration rights.  Combat took a little time for us to fully grasp, but once we did, the fights zipped along.  The competitive aspect means that there is a very pleasing game element to Agon.  It's certainly a system that rewards clever interaction with its mechanics.  I particularly liked the way in which the Antagonist (GM) gets nothing for free.  Every challenge thrown at the PCs must be paid for by the Antagonist from his Strife pool.  In practice what this means is that I spent approximately half of my Strife allocation prior to the session, for things such as challenges I already knew that I wanted and for specific monsters, beasts and NPCs.  The remainder of the Strife pool I used in play to make challenges more difficult, as need and drama dictated.  I spent all of my Strife, although the game notes that the Antagonist who finishes a quest with Strife remaining is doing a very good job.  I will spend it more intelligently next time. 

I'd love to play this game because it feels perfect for my somewhat hammy play style.  I'll just have to hope that someone runs it at Continuum.  Overall it stands out as the best of the game-focused RPGs I've run thus far.

My boy's first game

I've just run my boy's first gaming session.  He asked me if he could try "something like D&D", whilst we ate dinner.  He said that he had an idea for a character, so I broke out Wordplay and got him to describe his character in terms of traits.

2 hours later and Magalor the Ranger has successfully rescued a southern wine merchant from the vile grasp of Gnolls and, with the help of his Blacksmith friend (Valkis) recovered the merchant's wagon-load of wares.  Flush with reward money and the adulation of the village, he has bought his first horse and is now eyeing the wider world outside his home village of Stoneburg.

The adventure continues.....