#RPGaDay2016 - Day 21: Funniest misinterpretation of a rule?

I can't think of a response to this. I mean, we misinterpret rules (and argue about them) all the time, but I can't say it's ever been an amusing mistake. Or even one that stands out... I can think of ways we've twisted rules to comedic affect when the dice have gone against someone, but really that's for Tuesday. And we adapt rules, but my favourite of those is the mischief dice we introduced to Aberrant and I talked about that last year.

I'm actually stumped. This isn't like me! You normally can't make me shut up!

#RPGaDay2016 - Day 20: Most challenging but rewarding system learnt

I... I don't know! I don't know that many systems, really, and if the game is good I generally don't notice the system after the first few sessions.

There is a particular aspect of Exalted I really like that I'm not familiar with an equivalent in another system, which is the social combat. In martial combat, you have a 'tick' wheel that effectively measures initiative. When it reaches your turn, you announce your action, role the dice (with bonuses for good descriptions) - your attack against their defense - then move your token round the wheel the number of 'ticks' your action takes. Social combat is the same: you get to your turn, you declare your action, roll (with bonuses for good description) your social attack against their social defense.

It's simple. It gives me a frame on which to hang an argument, and the back and forwards nature, rather than a single roll, means I can recover from saying something stupid. It's also given me the confidence to play with arguments. I like being backed up by the dice, but I'm getting more confident to run without them in other games. So this has been a really powerful mechanic for me.

 

#RPGaDAY2016 - Day 19: Best way to learn a new game?

By playing it.

Different people learn in different ways, so for me the best way to learn a new game is to have an abridged version of the rules explained verbally, a skim read of pertinent chapters in the rulebook, and then to play (rereading and having further explanations as needed).

Most systems I've played have either been made up on the spot or known by at least a couple of people before we start, and that works well - as long as the people who know the rules know the rules the same way... But even when it's new to all of us, whoever's GM'ing reads the book, explains some, lets the rest of us read relevant bits as we gen characters, and then we work together to figure things out as necessary - officially with the GM getting deciding vote on conflicting interpretations, but players can be fickle and forgetful so there are sometimes tiffs.

#RPGaDAY2016 - Day 18: What innovation could RPG groups benefit most from?

One of my favourite things about roleplay is that it doesn't require anything more than a couple of people and an idea. You don't even need the most basic-seeming equipment of pencil, paper and die, really.

There's technological innovations that can help make certain things easier, and there's things that will or might be round the corner that would be cool, but you don't need anything.

1. Whatsapp. I've only recently got the app, when Husbit wanted to make a Deadlands group. It's a really handy way to share ideas between sessions, and also to plan around other commitments.

2. I want one of those 3-d hologram table displays like a lot of sci-fi films have at the moment. Really engaging way of displaying a map.

3. Kettle or percolator. Because coffee. (Or tea when I'm in Wales.)

If you can't get to face to face games, I know there are ways to game online that mimic as best they can the experience of being in the room together, and I think that's a real benefit to technology, but it's not something I've experienced.

 

#RPGaDAY2016 - Day 17: What ficitional character would be best fit in your group?

There's such a huge field to choose from I'm feeling almost overwhelmed by this question, so let's focus on the type of person I would want, which is a bit selfish because in our larger group we have different types of players who want different things so I'm looking for a fictional character who swings the balance in my favour. To keep up with Husbit's machiaveillian tendancies you'd need someone like GRRM's Tyrion Lannister, and I'm not sure I want anyone from Westeros in my game.

I'd want someone smart, supportive of others, and who gets what we're doing. Someone who knows sometimes you need to let off steam with silliness, but who can emotionally commit themselves to a game. I suspect JK Rowling's Hermione Granger would fit pretty well in my smaller Aberrant/Exalted group. I don't think Patrick Rothfuss's Reshi or Kvothe would see the point, but Bast, I think, would - and I think he'd be able to work with mine and Bells's softer styler and Husbit's more forceful personality, while dragging Paul away from the skill/equipment shopping lists he favours (Rich GM's so much more often than plays I think I'm assuming he's running this game). I just don't know how safe it would be to play with someone of his nature...

 

 

#RPGaDAY2016 - Day 16: Historical person you'd like in your group? What game?

I've been racking my brains trying to think. I think I'm taking it too seriously, because I dismiss people due to language or cultural divides... but then again, if we're looking for someone who would suit our group, then language/culture does matter (though I suppose we could assume a universal translator/babel fish to get round language). And I'd want to pick someone who'd want to play, which (asides Francis Drake's famous game of bowls) isn't something history usually records. Picking someone and saying they want to play, or their culture doesn't affect the way they think (I'm thinking Boudica, Queen of the Iceni, here, whom I'd love to meet but the culture shock either way would likely render that meeting unsatisfying) is cheating to me: you're changing the person. Which makes this difficult.

Geoffrey Chaucer would be interesting to meet: a great storyteller, but also an astronomer might imply the right kind of geekery. His writing shows humour and an interest in character, so maybe something like Pathfinder would suit.

Euripedes, again a storyteller. When I studied Medea, it was under the impression that this was a strongly intersectional feminist play, because it highlighted the terrible way the Greeks treated women and foreigners (the title character being both). Unusually for plays surviving from that era, the female characters in his are nuanced and powerful. They also tend to be aggressive and angry, which leads some to view his feminist creditentials with suspicion (and is part of my point about culture earlier). I think I'd like to play something set in Ancient or Mythological Greece with him, so he could expand my knowledge and correct my misconceptions.

Albert Einstein is not a storyteller, but I can imagine him at a gaming table. I'd love to play with someone that smart - maybe something like Aberrant, where the pseudoscience would hopefuly amuse rather than annoy him. I feel like it should be a lighthearted game.

Other writers and playwrights too - Changeling with William Shakespeare; Vampire (or something political) with Jane Austen; and what about time travelling to Lake Geneva in the year without summer to play Ravenloft... 

Bharata Muni is credited as the auther of the Natyashastra. Indian Theatre was one of my modules at uni, where I came away believing the text to be much older than Wikipedia says. The myth I was taught relates to the ages of the world. It's cyclical, you see, each cycle lasting many millenia. The world was in a golden age, when gods and men walked together, but that part of the cycle started to end and fewer and fewer men could interact with the gods. Bharata Muni and his son were the very last, so the gods gave them theatre so they could teach others how to see the divine as the world shifted further from the gods, to help people be ready for when the world shifted back in line. I would love for that mythological version of Bharata Muni to run a game for me, something of his own devising, steeped in the traditions he learnt from the gods.

#RPGaDAY2016 - Day Fifteen: Your best source of inspiration for RPG's?

This feels an awful lot like Day 26 last year, which I struggled to answer and still feel a bit at sea over. So here's the story of a particular bit of inspiration for a particular part of a roleplay game - specifically, Svetlana's rather ambiguous father.

My elder sister recalled reading and rereading Maurice Sendak's Outside Over There to me over and over and over again when I was that age of child where you want that. Something about the story held me utterly gripped - she was terrified, but hid it well, seeing herself in the role of Ida, I guess, whilst I knew that if anything happened my big sister would save me, just like Ida saves her sister.

I saw the end of Labyrinth when I was young and the film seared itself in my mind such that maybe 15 years later time stopped when I found the DVD on my housemate's shelf and knew I'd finally found the film.

A huge Pratchett fan, I put off reading Wee Free Men because Husbit said it was too clearly aimed at children - but I loved it. It carried that same theme. I recently gave a copy to a 9 year old friend, and am terrified she won't love it.

I have an idea for a novella on these lines too.

I read Juliet Maurillier's Heir to Sevenwaters because it has that same story, of a child taken by the fairies. However (and in an attempt to avoid spoilers), what really caught me was a secondary storyline, revolving around the male love interest. It turns out, his father is a powerful fairy who went around impregnating women in the hopes of getting a male heir. You meet a much older woman who transpires to be his half-sister...

And that fascinated me. I wondered what it would be like to be the abandoned daughters - the novel implied there were many. And then fey blood is one of the sorceror types in Pathfinder, so I gave it to Svetlana and invented this whole backstory where her father was a powerful sorceror in an ancient tribe of elves who intermingled with the fey, he more than the rest, eventually reaching a point where he's maybe more fey than elf. And on some whim, he decides he wants a son, so finds a wife, and bores of her before she's produced more than daughters. On to the next one, and the next, until he stopped bothering marrying them and merely seduced the women - his power when Svetlana was conceived such that he didn't need to physically be there, but came to Natasha in a series of dreams.

I picture him as very ancient but still youthful. Mysterious, capricious - and still seeking a son. I don't know if Svetlana is the most powerful of his offspring, but all have some magical talent. I left the rest to the GM. He says he has ideas...