Author: Ravious

Your mileage may vary, but as a GM I find a unified front of players pretty boring. “Why, yes” they all seem to say although only one player is talking, “we all agree and do this.” In real life even something simple like choosing where to go to eat on a group dinner can become a balancing act. Bob’s on a diet, and Fi wants a steak, or at least something from a cow. Throw a vegan in to the mix and the difficulty increases exponentially. No one presses “X” to move along.

The more I play role-playing games, the more I get the feeling that the story isn’t that big of a deal. Sure, a cohesive metaplot would be nice. However, it’s the situations that really seem to stick. Those situations are especially good if players become invested in the outcome. Go for a full boat, when the players want different paths or outcomes.

I just started playing two play-by-post games at RPG.net, and already we’re hitting some great player vs. player or PC vs. PC situations. Continue reading [RR] Player Character Antagonism and Interaction

This review is based on the ePub version (i.e., Kindle), which is currently available for $10 at DriveThruRPG. A PDF version with art and print layout will be out later this year.

This is a roleplaying game. It is possibly the roleplaying game. It is genius. It is horrifying. It is a beautiful balance of everything that would drive a story forward. It is diceless. It is filled with meta-game moments. It is quite a task to understand. If you are on a path to better understanding how to grow as a gamemaster (GM) or as a player with a player character(PC) in tabletop RPG’s, I’d tell you to buy it. If you are on Pathfinder this RPG might as well be in ancient Martian.

This game was to play Studio Ghibli films. Perhaps not as adventurous as Princess Mononoke, which would easily fall under a standard RPG system. This system was designed to play Ponyo or Spirited Away. There’s one scene in Ponyo, where the boy takes Ponyo out in a boat to explore the submerged world. It’s such an interesting slice of adventure, but without much purpose. How would you create a game like that where the player is involved? Continue reading [RR] Chuubo’s Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine Review

Personal investment in a pen and paper roleplaying game is one of the most important factors in the life and death of a campaign. It doesn’t matter through what medium the game is played (tabletop, forum, Google Hangout, etc.), the range of investment in the players matters.

The biggest investment in a conventional game is the gamemaster (GM). This is the player that tells all the other players “hey, come play in my world!” They are the rules arbitrator, worldkeeper, and general destroyer of fun. If the GM doesn’t have a strong vision or investment in the game they want to run, the game is not off to a great start. Continue reading [RR] Investment in the Game

In a way this is a review, but not really. This is also a post about what roleplaying can be, at least, within the context of one RPG: Blood and Smoke: The Strix Chronicle (TSC). It is about what roleplaying can be when the constraints of character are large.

TSC is the latest supplement for the Vampire: the Requiem gameline, which is now being handled by Onyx Path Publishing. Unlike the original Vampire: the Requiem, TSC is a standalone book. It has all the rules necessary to play the RPG. It is also a further world revision of Vampire: the Requiem. It’s basically version 1.5, now with boogiemen. If you are familiar with Vampire: the Requiem, I cannot recommend TSC enough.

For all the rest whose eyes glazed over at the last paragraph. TSC is where you play a vampire. Not just any vampire though. You play a Kindred. This is a vampire that tries to maintain some semblance of what it means to be human. You aren’t a monster, least not fully. This isn’t a game about dungeons or solving mysteries. Well, I guess you can to both. Foremost, it is a game about being a vampire. Continue reading [RR] Stories in Blood and Smoke

The most conventional setup for a tabletop RPG is for a gamemaster (GM) to run the game while the players react. The GM drives the world, and he or she also drives most of the story. The players use their characters (PC’s) to react to the world. Good players will roleplay their PC’s such that the response is what a barbarian would do, and not what Mark the Accountant would do, especially if Mark the Accountant is amoral about the barbarian’s death. In my gaming group we have a wider range with some player sticking to their characters while others blur the line between player action and character action. Either way, conventionally the players react.

A current mechanic I have seen more and more is for the players to be proactive in their character’s storytelling. I would say it is the RPG mechanic of the decade. Players have concrete reasons to push forward with their character’s motivations and ideals in many current systems. I personally love it. Continue reading [RR] Character Story Mechanics