Reading Tea Leaves and RPG Systems

One of my GM friends mentioned after playing The One Ring 1e, "Why do you think there's Hope and Shadow in the system?" This was a rhetorical question because he was critiquing the game we had just played in. He thought the GM was being too nice and didn't push the boundaries of the game. I hadn't thought about that. I was just optimizing my moves and trying to "win" the scenario without using too much Hope or getting Wounded.

"What?" I said.

"Why put Shadow in the system if the designer didn't intend us to use it? It's supposed to come into play."

He was right to a degree. It's there to be used, but probably not used to bludgeon us over the head with repeatedly. That would have been cruel and unnecessary and probably abuse of the system by the GM, but it should come into play.

This of course started the hamster wheels running in my head. Making me do a deeper analysis of various RPG systems. Why are certain things designed that way? Why are certain design elements present?

The other day, I played The One Ring 2e (TOR). The Journey system as written was pretty tough. We traveled from the Shire to Bree and it cost us 8 Fatigue. My PC had to take his helm off or else he would have been Weary. The system was designed to simulate being tired after a long travel. The Lord of the Rings movies had a lot of travel in it. TOR simulates it.

In Call of Cthulhu (CoC), there is a Sanity system. Hit Points don't increase over time, so the PCs stay squishy. You are supposed to lose SAN and have Bouts of Madness. Mistakes will kill you in spectacular ways. In one game, a PC put on magical armor without really knowing what it did. It sealed him up in it, turned translucent, and then he exploded, splashing blood and organs against the inside of the translucent armor.

Yes, as a Player, you want to make your SAN check and lose the minimum amount of SAN. So, you can survive to the end, but part of the fun is to actually go insane. I trust my Players to play out their Bout of Madness because it's the fun bit. The grinding loss of SAN for long surviving PCs is also fun to watch as the PC spirals down into madness.

Alien 1e RPG has a Panic system and it works brilliantly. It replicates the panic when something unexpected happens. I personally think during an action scene it's better than CoC's SAN system. Though the SAN system in CoC simulates the effects of long term stress better.

Delta Green has a great Bond system which simulates relationships at home breaking down due to stress at work. You can spend Bond points to reduce SAN loss. It's the cop who acts distant at home because he can't talk about his day job of looking at grisly homicide photos day in and day out.

I had designed my own version of The Walking Dead and realized that zombies aren't the threat, it's people. People cause more damage than anything else in The Walking Dead TV series. When Free League came out with their game, they realized the same thing. Zombies are only an environmental hazard. "Humans are the real monsters." I played the game and found that humans were very squishy, be prepared to have backup characters. I suspect the game wasn't that popular because people were looking for a first person shooter, not a game based on Havens, Factions, and Relationships.

When I played Vaesen, it felt like Monster of the Week until I used Campaign Rules (p.86, Chapter 6). The Headquarters adds continuity between scenarios and longer story arcs for the PCs. Too bad this was buried one third into the core book.

Mörk Borg is brilliant except you need to know that the key bit is The Calendar of Nechrubel, p.16. You have to activate Miseries even for one-shots. On the back cover is important information: "The world is dying, time is short. How will you face these last days? Robbing the graves for soil-stained wealth, or face down the apocalypse, hoping it can be fought?"

There's no instruction on how to use Mörk Borg. It has very flavorful random tables and a great online PC generator. If you read the rules carefully, the game is about an impending apocalypse and what your PCs is going to do in the face of that.

I played D&D 5e, Curse of Strahd. I was trying to build a flim-flam man who sold snake oil and used sleight of hand. I built a Vancian Mage focused on illusions. All the spells I found were mostly short term combat spells. I wanted to be able to Curse someone with the Evil Eye, but that spell only lasted 1 round. My most useful spell was Mage Hand. I concluded D&D was designed for tactical combat.

I was talking to another old GM friend and he told me he used to hand out XP for treasure which I never did because I thought it was double dipping. You kill the creature, get XP, then take their treasure, get XP. Well, he said, but then thieves can't just steal treasure and level up without killing things. Damn! I never thought of that. In our games, the thief just used their backstabbing skill to kill creatures and take their treasure. If you look in AD&D, there are XP awards for keeping magical items. By D&D 3.5, XP was awarded based on CR (Challenge Ratings), generally for only defeating creatures. The focus had shifted to killing things only.

Different systems emphasize different aspects. Various elements are important, so when I hear about someone new to a RPG system and says, "I don't like XYZ and I'm going to remove/change it." As if all systems are GURPS and you can swap parts in and out without affecting the whole game or the designer's intentions. I cringe.

I think people should understand what the game is about first. Then they can house rule stuff if they think it's broken. Some things are broken such as Alien RPG's panic cascade. All the GMs I know have house ruled a fix for it.

When I heard about Brindlewood Bay, I thought what the hell? It's a murder mystery, but the scenario ends when a Player comes up with a plausible explanation and then you roll dice to see if you're right or not. But, but, but... That's just make believe and not a real murder mystery. Then one of my friends played it and loved it. He told me the game is about roleplaying nosey old ladies getting into other people business. The mystery solving is just an end condition for the scenario. Oh, ok, I get it. Now I want to play it.

Some games are obvious as to what you're getting into. I played Eat the Reich and loved it. Overpowered PCs killing Nazis. Hurray!

Some are not. I tried Dune and will give it another shot, but it's sort of a metagame. The game is designed to go from small (hand-to-hand fights), to armies, to galactic intrigue, but using a single system. A number of things are handled with just a die roll. I glanced at some of the campaigns and some of the chapters are handwavy meta-level events. Sometimes you have to send an army, but you can't roleplay that, but the rules cover that instance.

I have the Kult books. The lore is incredible and it tells you on Chapter 1, p.38 that the world isn't real. It's a prison for people designed to make them compliant. The jailers are Demons and Angels. I had a friend tell me he was playing in The Black Madonna campaign and was getting bored after months of playing. I said, "What?" I told him the premise of Kult. He told me nothing creepy was happening. What? Something has definitely gone off the rails.

One time, we tried Blades in the Dark. But it was a one-shot where we did a single score. The system was very meh and I didn't get what was so special about it. Once I read the book, I got it. It introduces Clocks and building out your Crew and Claims. It's more about growing your criminal enterprise.

Another one of my GM friends says he just sort of wings it when running a new system. But then we're not really playing that game, but his game flavored by the new system. Not exactly the pure experience I was looking for. It's any color you want, as long as it's black. So, why try a new system if we're not really playing it?

Before you run a game, you need to understand the system and what effects various parts create. You must understand the intention of the designer, then you can change whatever you want to your heart's desire. Some rulebooks aren't written very clearly or are badly organized, so some tea leaves need to be read for that complete understanding. Sometimes you have to run the system a few times before it clicks. Sometimes it's easier if you play it first. I was lucky with my first game of Mörk Borg. The GM made us roll 3 Miseries that had come to pass before we started the one-shot. And he explained the world would end with the 7th Misery. This increased the urgency for whatever the party was aiming to do.

So, For the love of God, Montresor! If you see some odd bit of rule that you're unfamiliar with, maybe there's a reason for it. Ponder before discarding.