RPG Thoughts: Risk By Way of D&D

Hi, I'm LAZ, and I have gamer ADD.

I admit it, hell, I embrace it. Since last year at this time I've run/played in homebrew D&D, Ravenloft, Alternity, Vampire; The Masquerade, Spelljammer, Planescape, Mordheim, and now, I'm starting Birthright. I'd probably play even more if I had more time/opportunities.

The thing is that the reason that we change games so often is generally due to work. I play at work, so if we get busy, our game gets abandoned. Sometimes we get back to it, sometimes we don't. Right now, there is a big gearing up for a major promotion, so it looks like we are going to be busy for the foreseeable future.

I'm tired of not gaming when we're busy. Funk that jazz! (See the pun?) So I needed something that we could keep going regardless of how busy we are. I needed something that wouldn't necessarily require any type of stats. I wanted to do something Epic. Not Epic level, that's just dumb. I hated that book, its whole solution was 'bigger monsters', which misses the point.

I wanted to do something political (which is really what VtM is about, but the PCs always miss that). So after trying to jury rig something, I remembered that I owned Birthright. Birthright was the right idea. It was massive and sprawling, and it really didn't require that much conversion.

Birthright is a unique campaign, and I think that most people who bought it used it wrong. Hell, I played it wrong for years before I realized how it SHOULD be played. Every campaign I was involved in was Adventurers who were Kings! Which is the wrong emphasis. It is Kings who happen to adventure. That's a huge difference, one that most people missed. The thing is that the Kings are supposed to be like the Kings of old, leading armies, fending off assassins, and doing diplomacy. Adventurers wander around looking for fights, Kings have fights brought to them by their subjects. Roleplaying out a diplomatic session should be paramount, not shaking down informants for information.

That's the great thing. The rules for the Domain turn (IE the Ruling part of the game) are pretty divorced from the normal rules of D&D, so I don't have to spend a bunch of time figuring out a ton of stuff like I did when I converted Ravenloft II from 1st Ed to 3.X. Right there is a big reason that I want to play this game, I can continue using the same rules that I'm already comfortable with.

So that's one point in its favor, the other is that it is practically custom made for a PBM (play by mail) game. Which is exactly how I plan on running this. Each day people will email me their domain actions, and I'll compile it all and send out a world update. Which is perfect. Those who play can make their decision at some point of the day and send in what they want to do, I come home, compile everything, declare what happened, and send out an update. So we all continue playing, but we do so in our own time at our own pace. So the game continues, and I don't really have to do anything that extraneous.

To keep everyone up to date, I created another blog (yes, another one); The Thousand Year Game. Check it out if you are interested. There's still a few unclaimed territories, and I wouldn't be opposed to someone else joining in.

Philosophy and Games: Math Makes Worlds III- Remaking the Wheel

So continuing on a theme here, Math Makes Worlds. Today, I was at work, and a tad bit bored, since half the gang either left early or had called off. So I came up with what I thought was a BRILLIANT idea. A high level campaign based on building up political power...

So I quick jotted down some rules, I got a in a grove. I thought that a three month time frame per game turn, and some influence rules, and man, I was writing a mile a minute. Then I started on some quick military unit rules, and thought about a quick way to lay them out on 3x5 cards to represent units. Then I realized something.

I was channelling Birthright.

Goddamn.

Why re-do what has already been done? It's there, all for the taking, but it is an interesting thought, especially when Von and Porky comment on one of my Blog Posts. They both had a really good point, though. With all the RPGs out there in the world, there are tons of rules. It's like a bad translation of a Mac advert, 'We've got Rules for that'.

The point that I was trying to make, and completely missed out on, which is pretty typical me, is that the rules are what make the worlds. Each system has inherent in its Maths what is acceptable and what is not. The Math is what drives it. The thing is that the Maths are enablers and preventers of actions.

The prime differences between games are what the maths allow you to do. When you boil it down, in a game there is no difference between the any particular roll of the dice, the flip of the cards, or whatever weird mechanic that Deadlands used. They are all statistics. What is your percentage chance to take an action or complete an action? It doesn't matter if its a sword swing, a bolt gun blast to the skull, or a charming evening with your intended prey. It is the fluff that makes the Math work.

However, the Maths do double duty. Besides just becoming the crunch that makes the fluff go round, it influences what the fluff allows. That's the point of the whole thing. The limits of the Maths. Everyone talks about 'breaking the game' and oh dear, can I think of some damn good game breakers. It doesn't just happen in wargames with lots of spam, it happens in every game.

Just off the top of my head here's three;
1. World of Darkness- 8th Gen vampire with Clerity 5, 15 actions per round.
2. D&D 3- Monkey Grip, Improved Trip, Knockdown, get a free trip attack if you cause more then 10 damage, and monkey grip allows a Huge weapon. So with an average of 2d8 damage and add in your strength modifier, and instant trips.
3. Trenchcoat- Tales of the Floating Vagabond, pull ANYTHING that is less then 8 pounds out of your trenchcoat.

Now, the Maths made those rules. All right and legal as a judge. Were they properly play tested? Probably not. The Maths are king of all. How the Maths interact with the fluff is the king of all. There has to be a crossing over between the Maths and the background.

In a wargames, since all the action takes place at a birds' eye view, the maths are quick and dirty. The faster you can determine things on the back end, the quicker that you can get on with the game.

In an RPG, the math is more personal, since it was developed as a single player system. Yes, there is a group, but it is the individual that makes it work.

The best way to illustrate this is to flip the roles. Trying to run a mass battle with RPG rules bogs down and takes forever. Trying to run an RPG with wargame rules leaves much to be desired, it is too simplistic. The degree of abstraction strikes again.

The rules are math. The Math is Rules. I really wish that I could explain it better, my lack of education fails me again. The Math creates the reality that the fluff hints at. I think that if I continue I'll just write in circles. So I'm going to stop now, and go and see if I can find my old Birthright stuff, why remake the wheel?