Renewed agenda - Let's Make a Role-Playing Game!

I've let this blog hang around, dead, for too long. Time to get back to posting. I know I have no followers, no viewers, but I'm gonna write this stuff up anyway. I gotta have someplace to put these words and ideas.

For some time I've had 3 different RPG ideas in the back of my head, all in various stages of completion. The latest is YAFG, Yet Another Fantasy Game. I've been mulling over it for some time. I feel like I've been inspired by the Old School movement so championed by James Maliszewski, Rob Conley, Jeff Rients, and so many others. Unlike them, however, I don't necessarily have a strong drive to play OD&D or AD&D. Rather, I want to make something different. Inspired by the original perhaps, not too mechanically distant, but holding to certain ideals.

These ideals are:

Simplicity - This doesn't mean the RPG wears a dunce cap. It doesn't mean players aren't put in complicated situations. It doesn't mean a little interpretation of the rules and of situations won't be necessary here and there. It just means that I don't want people to get so bogged down in the rules that it becomes a game for lawyers only. Simplicity is about tracking fewer, rather than many, numbers, and having to be aware of only so many intersections of various rules. That doesn't mean there will be One Rule to Rule them All or that I intend to dumb down the experience.

Randomness - This comes up often in discussions about the Old School movement. There needs to be some element of chance, and not just rolling to hit. Some have claimed that random world creation and random encounters are what help keep it fun for the GM, and that this fosters emergent storytelling as opposed to pre-written. Well, there's nothing in this game which will prevent any group from playing out the novel in the GMs head, the one that just never got put down in print. That said, random character stats, certain random world elements, and random treasures and rewards, along with the turn of the die for hitting things will certainly be acknowledged and included.

Deadliness - This is probably the most criticized aspect of Old School games and opinions are varied, communities split, and emotions high. This is not a video game where all the enemies level with you. It's a big world, and there are things much bigger and badder than you out there. That doesn't mean success for the GM is a Total Party Kill first adventure out on level 1. It does mean that adventuring has risks, and not all first level players will survive. If a GM wants to pander to his players, by all means. The tools will be there to do so, but this game will be written and designed to encourage players and GMs to take risks, and to tie rewards to those risks. I forget which of my favorite bloggers (probably Maliszewski, but I can't be sure) planted this idea in my head, but it goes like this: 1st level characters don't have lots of back story. They start out blank slates. If they die early, oh well. Higher level characters are much less likely to die, however. Even 2nd level improves survivability dramatically. And after you've played the character a while a personality and a history starts to emerge. It makes it easier to let go of the 1st level failures and helps the surviving characters become more than an exercise in simply leveling up a character already fully formed in the players' heads.

Improvisation - I will not be creating rules for every single fiddly situation possible. The GM, at some point, will be expected to apply common sense and, in concert with the player, make things up as the group encounters difficult situations. Anyone who tries to play fully constrained by the rules will find the game lacking. That's because I have little interest in modeling an entire world in terms of complex rules. The rules are an operational framework to which constant exceptions must be made. You know, like real life.

Classes - Yup. No GURPS-style build-a-character here. You pick a class and that largely defines your abilities. Well, your rule-bound abilities, anyway. As a player you can have your character attempt almost anything you want, and if it's not in the rules the GM will decide what is reasonable.

Fun - This should really be at the beginning, and it's an extension of many things. I want this to be fun for the right people. I don't know how to make fun for everyone, so I'm trying for my own ideas of fun and working from there. If I can make something I would enjoy I'm betting others out there may enjoy it as well.

I have some mechanics I want to throw out and I will do that next post. I'm well into my pit of ideas and I'm up to my armpits in options, none of which are perfect, but some of which, in the right combination, will be good enough.

But that's enough for now.