no subject
I think I figured out part of what has made me so crazy for the last week. Genes Weather Being sick or tired
Okay, maybe it is a little of those things. But! I am interested in underlying causes.
Cause 1: The special event.
In high school, when we played RPGs it was always a special thing. It was usually part of a sleepover and it often took some cajoling to convince the DM to actually run something. Accordingly, we played every few months - if that. When I ran my Victorian Call of Cthulhu campaign, it was the same - partly because after we all left for college, it was much more difficult to get the gang together. So - RPGs as a weekly or biweekly thing was actually kind of new and different. I had a brief period of that during undergrad, but was never in that many games - I didn't really have the time.
So, I think, part of my system of the week trial from last year stems from that. It made each game more work in a lot of ways, and I was always already planning the next one even while running another game. To run the same game over months and fully explore the plot is actually.. kind of something novel.
Cause 2: The exclusivity problem
This one is an artifact of fanboyism and system wars. The reasoning is basically this - if World of Darkness and D&D are competing products (which they only somewhat are, given the different player base) then you can only pick one. CHOOSE. Now you can never go back.
Well, it sounds really stupid when you put it that way. But part of my problem with committing to a specific thing - even one I've run before - is how it feels like you're shutting other things out. And then you start to wonder if your comfort zone is more of a cage. "Everyone else can run D&D (or fantasy system)! Why am I still over here with Call of Cthulhu?" Again, it sounds ridiculous when you write it out, but the thoughts are not fully logical.
So when I get interested in a game or a genre, I tend to jump in with both feet at the same time as I turn my back on all other genres. It's weird, because I'd say some of my more successful games have stemmed from mixing and matching different influences (Tess of the Durbervilles and H.P. Lovecraft, anyone?).
It's such a bizarre idea - that since I am running Dungeon World (for instance) that it would be incongruous for me to also have a Call of Cthulhu game going. The kind of internal consistency I am working for is impossible and would be, in fact, the exact kind of homogenized boredom that I hope to avoid.
I'd feel even worse about this fallacy if not for the fact that I see it in nerds everywhere. In my opinion it's this sort of idea that leads to identity politics arguments over D&D and bitter, drawn out arguments about whether tieflings and warforged are the right kind of fantasy.
Anyways, the associations get weird and rapidly nonsensical pretty quick in my head. I can watch anime without running Tenra Basho Zero. I can read horror without running Call of Cthulhu. I can run the Pirates! game without watching the Pirates of the Caribbean movie every night.
Cause 3: System matters (except when it doesn't.)
And now I'm going to render most of the above hand-wringing moot.
Because of a realization that came to me from a podcast (thanks, Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff).
They realized that (as game designers) the galling statement that "system doesn't matter" has some logical roots. And one of them is when people are really saying, "(When different systems are run by my usual DM, who runs most of the games I play, then) system doesn't matter."
And this is somewhat true for me. I won't say that I outright discard large chunks of the systems I play with, because I don't. And if it didn't matter somewhat to me, I wouldn't spend the time and effort going through different ones.
But. I select systems based on certain criteria. I run games that then emphasize certain aspects. And the criteria and emphasized aspects are probably pretty similar through my games.
The repeated criteria are these:
- Rules that get out of the way
- Flexibility for on the spot calls
- Accessibility to the players
- Reasonable ability to guess the probability of success
And in play, I think I emphasize a lot of asking questions and talking to people. Combat is largely de-emphasized, and is meant to be really important when it does come up.
- So when we played Monster of the Week, it hardly felt like we were using a system at all, because it flowed so naturally into these behaviors.
- And this is why I like d20 Call of Cthulhu; since it removes most of the (to me, as DM) extraneous mechanical complexity from d20 D&D and leaves the interesting bits, plus monsters
- This is why, while I really like aspects of Mouse Guard and Burning Wheel, it's difficult for me to get fired up about a campaign, I think. Because the mechanics are really primary - they are structured in such a way to hang really interesting and dynamic characters around those mechanics, but they are very much front and center.
- And even this is why I can't make up my mind about Fate so far. The interplay between character description and mechanical action is unlike anything else to me and so it is New and Different.
- MaoCT is in sort of a weird place with this. I'm not fully sure what to make of it, but partly just need to spend some time with the mechanics.
I think I picked Dungeon World over Monster of the Week for the campaign partly because it was more outside my comfort zone, but running Dungeon World.. still feels like one of my games. PCs, dark artifacts, and backstory the PCs have yet to see (so far).
That got way, way too long but should settle some of the mind chaos.
The more things change, huh?
And the upshot of that very long, very rambling screed is this:
A game: Pirates! with Dungeon World
B game: Team Rocket with Monsters and Other Childish Things
C game: some flavor of Call of Cthulhu is what I'm leaning towards; it feels right.