Category Archives: Roleplaying

Zephyr De Rondell, captured by Charlie Moss

Differences

Five years ago, I would have told you that liked playing the IoD games, but what I really enjoyed was running and crewing games.

Four years ago, I would have told you that I was looking forward to Empire, but what I really enjoyed was running and crewing games.

Three years ago, I would have told you that I enjoyed Empire, but I was considering changing over to crew because what I really enjoyed was running and crewing games.

Two years ago, I would have told you that Empire was finally starting to click for me, but what I really enjoyed was running and crewing games.

One year ago, I would have told you I was having a blast at Empire, but there weren’t any other games I was looking at playing, and what I really enjoyed was running and crewing games.

This year, things changed. I went to Future’s End and came away from that event with more energy and desire to play it again than I can recall ever experiencing from a game before. That led to me dropping IoD completely because it was a drain on my time for no reward. I’ve started playing Stargate and realised I was going to keep playing it when on the drive back I said “And next time, I’ll be playing with a compound fracture” and Fraser pointed out that I’d said I’d be playing the next one. This year, I got my Imperial Title in Empire, got over every problem I faced and produced the best results from a game I have ever had (thanks to a glorious mistake, but it worked!). I then promptly died at the next event but I have so much energy for going back and playing that my main worries are actually that I’m not going to look good enough for Dawn – not over what I’ll do.

I’ve also stopped being an active element in No Rest for the Wicked. After running By Schisms Rent Asunder, I went on break, and I’ve not really phased back in yet. I’ve done some things here and there, but mostly I’m letting the others handle things, and it feels good. It’s making me question how much I do enjoy running events, and what I want to be doing when I do run them.

There actually is no question about it: I do enjoy running events and I do enjoy crewing them, but I’ve also learned to love playing them as well. I’m going to take a longer break from running things than I anticipated (I still have three events on the cards to run[1][2]), but I’m going to keep back from being an organiser for a while longer[3]). The love for playing events is something I’ve been missing for a long time – I’m not sure I’ve ever really had it in the entire 12 years I’ve been LRPing, so it feels good to finally be feeling like this.

If you’re reading this, thanks to Kelly, Fraser, JD, Cat, Cherry, Rob, and the others who’ve made me come around to enjoying playing games instead of just running them.

Footnotes   [ + ]

1. my birthday party, one for No Rest, and one for Stargate
2. The Stargate one may actually be pretty far in the future
3. If you’re reading this Rob, I guess you were right.

Future LRP Ideas

As I’ve intimated in various places at various times, I’m kinda working on a LRP project separate from No Rest for the Wicked, Inquisition Chronicles and indeed the entire Warhammer 40,000 franchise. I have a partner-in-crime on this, but we’ve not been able to sit down and discuss what we want to do with it due to running the last No Rest event, and other things getting in the way. So that’s on the back burner for now. It might be the awesome collision of Outlaw Star, Cowboy Bebop, and Firefly in one new IP, or it might not. We haven’t even gotten that far, though I do love the idea of making an Outlaw Star LRP.

Something else that’s come up is the idea of a new parlour LRP[1]. This game would be something different from any other LRP (or LARP)[2] I’ve run: rather than putting people into a situation and then either having them work with the situation or go off on linears (or both), the idea would be that the live part of the game would be social with missions happening outside of game-time. Let me explain.

For this concept, we’d be looking at something like SLA Industries, Shadowrun, Orpheus, Demon Hunters, or Bounty Hunter Bebop – a game where you gather a team and go run missions for prestige, money, some other prize, or all three. The pub part would be a gathering of people able to go on these missions – bounty hunters, shadowrunners, mercenaries, etc – who grab a mission off the board, put together a team for it, then go back to drinking to “prepare”. Missions would then be run between games as tabletop sessions, and there’d be a leaderboard of some kind indicating which characters were top-ranked. The general idea would be that you’d have to weigh up the balance between taking the A-listers on your missions (which makes them more likely to succeed) versus increasing your own lead on them (as if they’re with you, they gain the same rank boost you do from the mission). There’d be some kind of meta-plot behind some of the missions, and we’d generally try to make the scene interesting, but the general obvious part of the game would be about the rankings and taking missions to get money, fame, and glory.

There wouldn’t be any downtime system – just up-time politics and the missions between games.

Curious as to what people think of the idea. I’ve probably not explained it well, but I think it has legs.

Footnotes   [ + ]

1. also known as pub LRP, pub LARP, parlour LARP, or just LARP – usually while associated with World of Darkness games
2. the difference between the terms is a whole different post

Lost Letters

I may come up with a better name than this, but I like the alliteration of Lost Letters.

Letter-writing roleplay is something I had never really considered to be it’s own thing until recently, having set it firmly in the category of “assisting other roleplay” in my mind. The idea I had was that letter-writing made other games better – writing letters between characters enhances roleplay. I’m not sure when I changed my mind about that and determined that the act of writing letters on its own could be more than enough roleplay to be getting on with without needing the structure of an external game to support it.

And so, my concept of “lost letters”. These are letters or emails which while addressed (correctly) to the recipient[1] seem to be impossible or out of left-field, encouraging the recipient to respond and between the two of you create a new world of roleplay.

The first example of this I did was crafting a letter from a shady laboratory to a replicant[2] offering assistance with maintenance and upgrades in exchange for the opportunity to study them. This was well received, and it’s been in the back of my mind ever since.

Tonight it came up again, and I came up with the concept of letters that are replies to letters that were never sent by the recipient. Exactly how the chain of letters came to be is up for decision by the participants in it, depending on how they craft their letters and responses. It could be that the letters are travelling in time somehow ala The Lake House, or perhaps the original letter came from an alternate reality. Perhaps a doppelganger has been pretending to be you and sending letters on your behalf, or perhaps you aren’t who you think you are. It could be that it’s all an honest mistake but you find yourself enthralled by the contents of the letter.

There are no rules to this game except those you apply yourselves. You need only someone to roleplay with and a chosen medium to do so in. I doubt the concept is entirely original, but feel free to attribute me if you want to, or link to this post – I appreciate a bit of traffic now and then.

Footnotes   [ + ]

1. not “to the occupier” or “to whom it may concern”
2. a cybernetic entity capable of mimicking human form and behaviour

#rpgaday2015

I have completed by run of #rpgaday2015 posts as I am giving up on finding one for day 27. You can find links to all of the posts below if you’re interested.

  1. Forthcoming game you’re most looking forward to
  2. Kickstarted game you’re most pleased you backed
  3. Favourite new game of the last 12 months
  4. Most surprising game
  5. Most recent RPG purchase
  6. Most recent RPG played
  7. Favourite free RPG
  8. Favourite appearance of RPGs in the media
  9. Favourite media you wish was an RPG
  10. Favourite RPG publisher
  11. Favourite RPG writer
  12. Favourite RPG illustration
  13. Favourite RPG podcast
  14. Favourite RPG accessory
  15. Longest campaign played
  16. <a href="http://www.drunkoncaffeine pop over to this site.com/2015/08/18/rpgaday2015-day-16-longest-game-session-played/”>Longest game session played
  17. Favourite fantasy RPG
  18. Favourite sci-fi RPG
  19. Favourite supers RPG
  20. Favourite horror RPG
  21. Favourite RPG setting
  22. Perfect gaming environment
  23. Perfect game for you
  24. Favourite house rule
  25. Favourite revolutionary game mechanic
  26. Favourite inspiration for your game
  27. Favourite idea for merging two games into one
  28. Favourite game you no longer play
  29. Favourite RPG website/blog
  30. Favourite RPG playing celebrity
  31. Favourite non-RPG thing to come out of RPGing roleplaying

#rpgaday2015 day 31 – favourite non-RPG thing to come out of roleplaying

Cheat answer: LARPing, but a LARP is just another form of RPG.

Cheesy answer: the relationships I’ve made, people I’ve met. My entire network of friends over the last decade has come about because of gaming. Between the people who I met directly by gaming with them to the people who I met by partying with those people, I’ve made a vast network of friends across the world through roleplaying.

When I was in the Imperial Order (way way way back in the day), I could honestly say I was talking to people on five continents on a regular basis – the only ones I didn’t have covered were South America and Antarctica. Nowadays I’m getting name-checked with seemingly every second introduction at events (“oh, you’re the No Rest for the Wicked guy, right?”). It’s an odd feeling but it promotes the community feeling of the LARP crowd (as does small-world LARP syndrome where it seems that everyone knows everyone after a few years and you get the constant “how do you know X?” questions on Facebook).

#rpgaday2015 day 28 – favourite game you no longer play

A few candidates for this one, but I think I’m going to go with Created.

Promethean: the Created was a strange game that took some effort to understand. A game of monsters trying to be human by emulating them. In the Isles of Darkness, I played Rocker, a Frankenstein on the Path of Tin struggling to communicate with other people and lashing out with violent lightning when he couldn’t find any other way to let things out. Unfortunately, being one of the smaller games in the IoD, it suffered for want of storytellers and eventually all of the games closed, leaving Rocker’s story unfinished. Still, he got some good music and lightning in before he died.

#rpgaday2015 day 26 – favourite inspiration for your game

Pretty simple, this one: song titles. When I was running my mortals game for the Camarilla UK/Isles of Darkness, I’d often use Lordi song titles to inspire plot.

Probably one of my best plots came from using “Forsaken Fashion Dolls” as the core premise and seeing where it went from there. I started with the idea that maybe abandoned shop mannequins came to life somehow and ended up with a mad scientist who had lost their daughter creating a doll replica of their child, bringing it to life, and then becoming distraught at what they’d created and running off. The doll, left to herself powered by a spirit bound into her “heart” and given the mind of an eight-year old, had reached out in her abandonment and brought friends to her in the form of mannequins she animated unconsciously. That was a rather emotional plot when players got involved.

#rpgaday2015 day 25 – favourite revolutionary game mechanic

This one I have a little issue with, as I may have said before, as every new game mechanic has a tendency to be proclaimed as revolutionary but there hasn’t been any real revolutions in gaming caused by any of them.

That said, I’m quite interested in the Mayhem deck from Planet Mercenary. They’re cards that add something interesting to the game, bits of story that can make your game better or worse either on a temporary or permanent basis. The game uses a 3d6 mechanic with one die being a different colour – if the odd die is highest, you get a Mayhem card.

Example cards can be found on the Planet Mercenary site, and I really like the ideas behind this game. Playtesting of the Mayhem deck indicates that it works well and encourages story coming from rolls as well as results, so I’m looking forward to getting my hands on it, and trying the mechanic out.

I’ve seen similar mechanics before – the most memorable of which was a storyteller who would draw a tarot card for some rolls and situations and the card drawn would influence how things went.