Narrative Responsibility

Seeing as how I seem to have found a way to use blogspot despite the wobbly giant's best efforts to stop me, I will use it while it is available.

Somewhere on a disk that I haven't found since the move I started writing a post about where the responsibility for developing the narrative in a role playing game lies. Seeing as how I can't find it I will deliver the essence now and maybe add the details later.

Most games squarely hand narrative responsibility to the GM/narrator who in many cases is almost solely responsible for what happens as the story unfolds. Sure, the players (through their PCs) affect the story and can to a degree determine the outcome of individual situations, but it is really the GM that decides the direction of the story as a whole. This is not necessarily a problem as someone has to have a vision of where things are going, but if the GM has also done all the world creation (or taken it from a book) then where do the players have input?

I want to move away from supreme GM control to a more collaborative narrative building experience. I want the players to do more than just tell me about their character background at the start of the game. I want them to tell me about important people in the world. I want them to come up with influential organisations, famed artifacts and great legends that can ll be part of the game.

In game, while I will still hold the reins, I want the players to be having more input than just directing their characters. I want them to describe things that are important to them or their character. If a player is playing a holy knight on a quest, then when they reach the city he (the player) describes the church, inventing details as necessary. In character he can also tell us about the cardinal as the characters are on their way, giving me (the GM) clues to play the Cardinal when the group meets him.

That's it for now. I am going to expect my players in future to have more invested in the game than just a character. Is this reasonable? Well I know it is, but I am really just asking for opinions. Derek's Balance of Powers game (done with Mutants and Masterminds) had lots of these elements. I was just a player, but I invented the main antagonist for the whole first story arc. I felt very connected to the game.

Legion Play Thread

You have been lurking near the home of a man you suspect to be one of Feng's Lieutenants, hoping to over power him and use him to infiltrate Feng's inner sanctum. The home is in Aquifer Heights, a nice enough neighborhood on the border of the city and the suburbs, comprising mostly of 5 and 6 story buildings. You have drifted into the lobby and found the man's name ( Jimmy Chen) on the list of appartments. He lives on the third floor.

Go For Sound

I ordered a few M&M books from Amazon and yesterday got an email saying they were shipping from the US rather than the UK and that the delievry time would be 2 more weeks, which meant that if they shipped the package when they sent the email it would arrive 2 days before we leave for China. If they wait a couple of days however...

Surprise surprise, a package just arrived with the Book of Magic and Instant Super heroes for M&M. The main rulebook (which I don't own a copy of) is the one being sourced from the US.

I am currently getting into the play by post happening in the thread below. I am also waiting for a few replies from other people to start off their play threads. I am still happy to accept other ideas and start new play threads as well. I would even be happy to let other people run play threads here.

So if you have a play thread it will slide down the list, but it will still be active, even if it has been archived.

The Day After Ragnarok

This is a Savage Worlds game and it looks very interesting.

What is gaming style?

Style is a word in the English language. There are different interpretations of many words and this I think may be one such word. So what does style mean when applied to a pen and paper role playing game? I have my ideas, but I won't chime in and bias anyone else. The person who prompted me to start this had better bloody get involved here. I suppose I am implying a threat there.

Morden Is Saved By Mysterious Strangers

Games day was a success. Most of the players enjoyed themselves (one was bored and played his DS) and they managed to save the town. The game itself needs some more tweaks, but I might see if I can make the needed changes and hang onto it to use it again.

The party investigates the barracks:



Fighting orcs in the streets:

The town of Morden

Something mysterious is happening and the Patriarch of Sullus that went to investigate has disappeared.



Luckily a group of adventurers is about to arrive, otherwise the locals would surely be doomed.

What specific genre would you love to play?

I was thinking about what kind of game would I like to run for the next group I game with and of course that really depends on how many players there are and (possibly) what they want to play. I say possibly there because if there are lots of players available I can build a select group that want to play the game I want to run. At the moment I think I would like to run on of two specific* genres:

1. Street level Super Heroes in an Iron Age style. What does that mean for me?
The Super heroes themselves have no powers or at best powers that are fairly minor. Maybe they are stronger or faster than normal or even have powers like faster healing, low level telepathy or enhanced senses. There is definitely no flying, energy blasting or bullet resisting.
The stories are gritty and dark with no clear distinction between good and evil. Motivations are often more personal and heroes often share traits in common with villains.

2. Space Opera with Hard Science leanings. What does that mean for me?
There are powerful factions (could be governments or races or both) vying with each other for supremacy in a galaxy teaming with alien mysteries and super advanced technologies. Society has evolved but is recognizable in some areas, while totally different in others. Science is bent to allow the game to take place on planets in different planetary systems (faster than light travel), but it is not broken in the style of Star Wars or Star Trek; Aliens are not all humanoid English speakers and ships in space don't maneuver like aeroplanes.

While thinking about this, I wondered what I would really like to play. I have enjoyed lots of different genres, but would have to say that the one I would like to play the most would be a space opera like my second example.

What would you love to play?


*I say 'specific' because I want more than just 'Supers' or 'Science Fiction'.

Dungeons and Dragons edition changes

I was wondering why 3.0 changed to 3.5. Was it a marketing thing? Was it because they wanted to power up some things and power down others? Was it something else? I remember reading something about balance issues, but I can't remember. Does someone know?

It might help me understand why I abandoned 3.5 after a while.

Game options for people stuck in 3.5

If (like many people) you refuse to go to 4E D&D, but look at what is available for 3.5 and see a logical endpoint because there is no support for it anymore the you can always try Pathfinder

Not that I am going to play it, but I downloaded the free beta copy (over 400 pages of goodies) and already found a few ideas to adapt to my other games.

Role Playing games and so on

I am starting this blog to chronicle my experiences with and thoughts on Pen and Paper Role Playing Games or RPGs* and even though I have another gaming blog, I have found that it was being taken over by Table Top Wargames.

What games am I involved with?
Currently I am running a fantasy game for the 9th to 12th graders at my school. There are seven kids in the group and they have really been enjoying hunting down an ancient evil that had found its way back to earth. They recently manage to kill it, or at least they thought they had; they just found out its not dead. For the system I used Mutants and Masterminds and it worked very well.

I am leaving the country for a new job in July, so I have been giving the kids a chance to run games to get used to it so that someone can take my place next year and so soon one of them is going to do a Super hero game using Necessary Evil, one of the world books from Savage Worlds. I'm looking forward to it because it is fun to play alongside the kids and I love Supers games.

I am running a fantasy game for a bunch of my mates using the Song of Ice and Fire Role Playing Game or SIFRP. It took a bit of adapting to get it to work (I had to invent a system for magic) but the mechanics of the system work well and diminish that all too common moment where the character falls flat in an area he is a specialist in because the player rolled badly.
My group are currently hunting a Wizard and had tracked him to a trading town (where he had become quite influential) and confronted him. That was where last session ended; well Alex did kick the door in as Mike was climbing one of the walls as Derek looked on aghast.

Lastly, Derek has been running a Supers game that has been an on and off thing for years. 'Off' because he did spend a year and a half mostly living in the USA and we also had a complete change of players at one point; I am the only original player from 2005. Colin moved back to the States and Paul moved to Switzerland. At the moment I am finishing off my new character, as my last character died saving the world at the end of the last story arc.

In other recent RPG developments i bought the player's guide to Hellfrost today and am very impressed with it. I would love to run it or play in it and I can just imagine a person in Sydney who it would suit right down to the ground. Derek had a look at it today and made appreciative noises as he flipped through it.

*I make that clear so I can link back to it when a certain person decides to make jokes about Rocket Propelled Grenades.