Roleplaying Games: Which Edition? Which Game?

It's a little bit funny that for all the things I really ought to be doing today, I choose at 11.55am to do the thing that's probably the least useful to me out of all of them and write a blog. Probably me at my most typical, if I'm perfectly honest.

It's so hard to get a game in; who cares what edition it is when you do?

OK this somewhat follows on from the Bitter Veterans post I made last week, and was inspired by a YouTube video from a Youtuber I've been following called Andrew, AKA DawnForgedCast. He's done a lot of really interesting posts about Dungeons and Dragons style roleplaying games over the past year and it's always a pleasure to watch. This particular time he was talking about the question of what edition of what game you're supposed to be playing, given the hostility some gamers have towards editions of the game other than the one they actually play.

Here's the video: http://youtu.be/zKcYXMJ8tVs

But if you can't be bothered to click the link, here are his main points, paraphrased according to my interpretation of them. His comments refer to North America rather than the rest of the world, but apart from the religious fanatics which doesn't appear to happen on the same level, I can't imagine the situation is that much different here in the UK, obviously relative to the size of the countries:

• There is a lot of divide and hostility towards different games, and different editions of games. Many people will settle on one game or one edition and refuse to play or even try any others.
• Out of all the people in America, only a very small percantage of them - some 2 million people - actually play tabletop roleplaying games. (He's gone on sales figures here so the number of people who actually play might have been a bit higher than he suggests, but not much.)
• Out of those 2 million people, 1 third of them play Pathfinder, 1 third play Dungeons and Dragons and 1 third play other games, e.g. Shadowrun.
• Out of the third that play Dungeons and Dragons, about half of them stick to 4th edition and the others stick to other editions.
• Given that Andrew plays Pathfinder, this gives him approximately 650,000 people in America to play with.
• He then goes on to explain that given his own limitations, the number of people he could actually play with are quite small.
• Given all this, why are the very small number of people who actually play games like this spending so much time and energy arguing over what to play, or what edition of the game to play? Surely it's hard enough to get a game together in the first place without it falling apart over disagreements to editions...
• As an afterthought, he then adds that about 30-40% of the people who don't play are actually against such games exisiting at all for religious reasons. So when more people are against it than actually play, why are the people who do play bickering about edtions etc?

By Andrew's own admission the actual data is innaccurate and could have been a little better researched, but he was doing this to make a point, not give an accurate view on the gaming world today.

Which is good, because I think he actually makes a really good point there. I don't find it easy to get a game of Dungeons and Dragons or anything like that going, and a lot of it is to do with conceptions of what game I should and shouldn't be playing.

So, to turn this in to my point, here's a list of preferences that I would like to see when I'm playing Role Playing Games:

• I'd like it to either be Pathfinder or D&D 4th.
• I'd like the players to be in Dudley or the surrounding areas.
• I don't want to play with anybody under the age of 18
• I'd like to have a full compliment of players (4 or 5 people.) I'd also like some continuity - mid/long term adventures and campaigns.
• I can't usually make Thursday Nights, and I can't do weekends either.

If I stick rigidly to this, then out of the very small percentage of people who play in the UK, I've written off:

• Everybody who doesn't play D&D 4th or Pathfinder,
• Everybody who doesn't live in Dudley, Sandwell, Wolverhampton, Walsall or West Birmingham,
• Everybody under the age of 18
• Small/solo adventures.
• 4 out of the 7 days in the week.

Now there are reasons for all of these limitations I've imposed upon myself:

• I have the rules for Pathfinder and D&D 4th, and they are still being supported by their respective designers and publishers. I'm not all that willing to spend even more money than I already have on another game that I've only got a small chance of ever being able to play!
• I do a lot of miles in my car already and it's not exactly eco friendly. That and journeys take time that I don't necessarily have. I don't think I should have to trave for miles and miles to get an experience that I ought to be able to get far more locally.
• Because I teach guitar for Dudley Performing Arts, I have to be very careful about social contact with people under the age of 18. I'd have to be absolutely crystal clear about who they are, how they know me, whether their parents know where they are and what they're doing, do they have consent etc. It sounds brutal, but the fact is that even the most innocent of intentions can turn into an allegation if interpreted incorrectly, and if that happens, it will come up on any future CRB check even if it is disproved. Which would pretty much destroy any hope I've got of getting a job.
• Not being funny but part of the reason the games are so good is when you use the combined abilities of the group to achieve something that can't be done alone. Plus when you're trying to come up with solo adventures you're severely restricted to what you can put in there in terms of challenges; anything but the most basic monsters and traps will result in TPK (Total Party Kill) before the adventure's even got started, so I'd prefer more players rather than less.
• Thursdays I go to Black Country Role Playing Society in Blackheath, and every other weekend I see my girlfriend, who isn't interested in Roleplaying and also lives 90 miles away so it's very impractical to get anything going on a weekend.

However, the practical upshot of all this is that after nearly a year of trying to organise a game, all I've managed to do for any length of time is have Dave around for a solo adventure; we've both run games for each other. Not that we haven't tried to get a larger group together, but:

• Most of my friends would rather eat broken glass coated with cyanide than get involved with wargaming/roleplaying, (seriously, I'm embarrased even to ask them,)
• The majority of people I know who do play tabletop RPGs are either dead against D&D 4th, meet on days I can't do, or both,
• Out of the two exceptions to this, one came for a little while and then flaked out after a couple of weeks due to other commitments,
• The other is Dave.

Dave's been trying to get some people involved in it as well, and he knows enough people to do it but they all manage to come up with reasons why they can't make it that night or whatever.

Now, I mentionted BCRPS that I've been going to for about a year and a half now. This is basically ways I've got of making it happen, and in fact was the first roleplaying group I got involved with. They're not shy of new members, but because it's a group of 20-30 people, they do have to organise it accordingly to make sure everybody can play. The games run on an 8-week rotational basis and different games with different players/settings/GMs are organised each rotation, so that people are not stuck indefinitely in 1 game. It's a good way of getting games in that you're not used to. So far I've tried Pathfinder, Leagues of Adventure (based on Ubiquity,) Traveller, Star Wars, Shadowrun, Savage Worlds and Call of Cuthulu. Some I've enjoyed more than others but I've never not enjoyed it. However it does mean that it's almost impossible to get any kind of continuity with the games or play at higher levels than 1 to about 3; they're all either seperate adventures or if they are part of a campaign, it's not easy to get the campaign going beyond the first adventure because even if you do run it later, most of your players will be comitted to other games by then.

Well, that's just the way it works with those guys, and between that and not playing, I know which I would rather have. So simply by getting rid of 2 of those limitations I mentioned earlier (the choice of games and the continuity) I can ensure that I'll usually play at least something every week. And since most people I know think this sort of thing is a complete waste of time anyway, or if they don't they certainly have no interest in being involved with it, that's got to count for something.

Now I understand that certain games may be better for some demographics than others. If you've been roleplaying for a while then I get why you'd probably like Pathfinder or Cuthulu better than the current edition of D&D, and that's fine. I wouldn't necessarily unleash a complete beginner on either game, and in fact I'm in the early stages of coming up with some D&D adventures that beginners can play and enjoy without getting bogged down by too many rules, another blog for another time. But people who say things like 'I only play 3.5,' or 'D&D 4th is crap,' are only further dividing what is a very small hobby. From what I've seen of the various different games, a lot of the enjoyment comes from your approach to it as players/Game Masters anyway.

This applies to Wargaming as well by the way - I've been with Games Workshop for 13 years but I would be open to trying something a little bit different in the right spirit.

So - you know who you are - try something a bit different! Try and enjoy it instead of looking for reasons why you won't. You might be surprised.

23/6/2011: Leagues of Adventure: Plateau of the Ape Men

As you've probably gathered from my 'bunched' approach to blog writing, I tend to fall behind quite a lot. I end up writing about things literally weeks after they've happened by which time I've generally forgotten everything that went on. I've got a lot of things to talk about that's happened over the last few weeks and a limited amount of time to write it all in. For this reason, I'm going to leave you in the hands this week of Mike, AKA Gruffalo Crumble, who played the part of Evelyn Cross and did a bit of a write-up of this session that I ran. I'll give you a bit more in-depth information about what went on when I come to write next weeks session up:

"Gliding low over the expansive African savannah, daredevil aviatrix Evelyn Cross pilots her prototype dirigible (on loan from the Aeronautics Society in London) into a rolling cloud bank, which utterly obscures her view of the terrain. Also on board are eccentric German antiquarian Wilhelm von Bremer, gluttonous game hunter Big Allistair and brilliant detective Lewis Granville.

The dirigible is rocked as some unseen assailant shreds one of the airship's wings, severely hindering Evelyn's ability to control the vessel as it careens blindly through the fog. Big Al readies his rifle, as a dark shape circles back around towards the dirigible. A huge, winged monster swoops at the ship, but one deafening blast of the big game hunter's elephant rifle leads the hungry pterosaur to veer off in search of less formidable prey.

However, the damage to the dirigible has already been done, and while Evelyn (narrowly) avoids a catastrophic collision with the side of a mountain, she is unable to prevent the vessel crashing down along a densely forested, tropical plateau. The pilot and passengers all survive the impact, but even the least technically-able can see the dirigible has been damaged beyond hope of repair.

Stranded in the depths of some explored jungle, the heroes forge on through the trees towards a distant cave, leading north along the bottom of a long, narrow trench. It isn't long before the ground begins to tremble underfoot and a thunderous roar heralds a rockfall blocking the group's retreat. The only way is onward!

Emerging from the trench back into the jungle, the heroes are ambushed by a small group of savage Ape Men wielding primitive clubs. Big Al and Detective Granville quickly dispatch the hairy brutes. Searching the bodies, Evelyn finds a locket, inside of which is a photograph of one Cynthia Davenport, a female adventurer and anthropologist of some renown, who disappeared on some mad expedition several weeks previously.

Following the trail, the heroes reach the crumbling ruins of an ancient city, constructed in a style that Professor von Bremer recognises as being vaguely Egyptian. The missing anthropologist is spotted being dragged towards a sacrificial altar by a particularly impressive looking Ape Man adorned with feathers and baubles befitting his station as spiritual leader of the group. The heroes battle their way through a horde of savage tribesmen and confront the shaman, who throws Cynthia to the ground and draws his knife - only to be blown into red mist by the fiery discharge of Big Al's enormous gun the instant he relinquishes his human shield.

As the shaman dies, he implores his pagan god to punish the heroes for their trespasses - and the volcano towering above the ruins rumbles into life! As molten lava rushes through the streets of the forgotten city, the party race for Cynthia's hot air balloon - and their only means of escaping the plateau alive! Evelyn makes it first, with Big Al, Professor von Bremer and Cynthia all diving into the basket as it lifts off into the air. Nobody had noticed how Detective Granville had fallen behind, and they look away as the unfortunate man is overtaken by the river of liquid fire."
I think that more or less covers it. Cheers Mike!