RPGaDay 2021 - Day Fourteen

 

Day 14 - SAFETY - LIMITS - FUN - MOMENTUM

SAFETY and FUN

In Ralph Koster's wonderful book A Theory of FUN for Game Design he suggests “The only real difference between games and reality is that the stakes are lower with games” and that “Games serve as a very fundamental and powerful learning tools” because there is that SAFETY. The Idea is that within gams there are systems and things that can be learned and improved through practice - just like any skill in the real world.  Though there may be consequences in the game - and in role-playing games, for YOUR CHARACTER, there are no REAL WORLD consequences (well… unless you are a total asshole to your fellow players and they all end up hating you and never want to speak or talk to you again…) The book is about games in general, slightly leaning towards video games and simulations, but everything he talks about applies to RPGs and I think it RPGs ESPECIALLY can be have a LOT to teach people in FUN and SAFE environment. No, you can’t learn to be a better marksman or other PHYSICAL skills by rolling dice, but through role-playing, with a good GM, there can be a lot to be learned about social interactions and tactics and cooperation and other systems of all kinds! I should to on with more examples - but hopefully can think of your own from your own gaming (and maybe share them!). I don’t have all day to write and essay (or my OWN book) about it… 

ALSO SAFETY

A comic I recently came across - not my own - I think it speaks for itself. 

MOMENTUM

I’ll admit I DO have a problem with keeping the momentum going in RPG campaigns that I’ve run. I am eternally envious of those forever campaigns that go on  for year. It’s always been my dream to play a character (or run a game where the characters) starts a lowly, first-level peasant and work their way up over the years (of game time… but maybe also IRL) to become powerful figures in their world and possibly “carve out a kingdom by [their] own had” as Conan once said. But, in reality, my campaigns generally last from a few session to a few months and then fizzle with no satisfying conclusion.

 

Now, a large part of that is me ( and due to neurodevelopment issues that tend to make me highly prone to distractibility), but one thing that I find that kills MOMENTUM for me and makes me even more susceptible to said destructibility is people not showing up. I get it, life happens, people can’t ALWAYS make it to a game… but I often feel, for some people, that the game is a thing that they do if there isn’t something else going on… “Sorry, man, I got to play hockey tonight”… “Sorry, man, some friends are going to see a movie”… etc… are the excuses I hear and it makes me wonder if they would ever consider saying to the others “Sorry, man, that’s GAME NIGHT”. I mean, when I set up a game night I carve out that time-slot and make is SACRED - I WILL tell people “nope, that’s GAME NIGHT!” 

Also not my own - a meme I lifted from the internet, I'm not sure of the original author. 

I don’t know… maybe this is just me blame-throwing to cover for my own problems… But, as I said, nothing makes me, as the GM, more prone to the aforementioned distractibility and losing focus than getting super excited for a weekends game and putting in a lot of my own time preparing for it ,  only to have to cancel because too many people “can’t make it” and I am thus left with nothing to do that evening by be along with my thoughts and despair about why I’M the one that’s the lowest on everyone’s priority pole and then my internal mechanism for cheering myself kicks in… NEW IDEAS! And suddenly everyone shows up next week to find HEY, I’M STARTING A TOTALLY NEW CAMPAIGN! And everyone is, like, WTF? 

Some coping mechanisms I’ve tried to imply, with variable success, is to keep sessions episodic - so that it’s easier to make an excuse for why someone isn’t there and make it so no one character is absolutely vital to the game and will cause it to come to a grinding halt if they aren’t there. This is easier for me to do when playing in person and playing a game with a strong tactical combat element and all characters belong to an organization that issues orders for missions (its why I’ve LOVED military RPGS - Recon, Only War, Behind Enemy Lines, etc) - also worked well with narrative campaigns of tabletop miniature skirmish campaigns using Savage Worlds or similar. 

Also, I’ve had to try really hard to lower expectations for how long a campaign will last and tell the players (AND MYSELF) up front that we are only going to play this one adventure… and MAYBE it there is still interest and MOMENTUM I’ll run a second short adventure or story arc… 

What do YOU do to keep momentum going in adventures and campaigns? 

I think my friend Bruce is on to something with GMing professionally and charging players money to play. People are less likely to blow off thins if they’ve made a MONETARY commitment to - because then it’s “real” and has “value”…