Open RPG Feedback

[Stu]

I would like to start an open rpg at the shop, but it seems like I'm going about it all wrong. Any ideas for what our community would most enjoy would be appreciated. The poll is just to spark ideas.

I want to port the Mighty Scenariodrome over here before Rob disposes of the old site, but I won't bother if it doesn't add anything to the community.

[angel_lord]

I haven't voted yet, because I really need more information.

What rules system do you want to use, are there choices?

To be honest. I would love to play down at the shop if the game and flavor was right.

[Stu]

On the other forum, I had posted ten potential campaigns, each with a preferred rule system and choices, along with notes on flavor, challenge level, etc.

I will likely repost these in the Stu's Asylum section--there seems to be some interest--but these are my thoughts as I set them up:

Some of the value in running an open game is to attract new players, or players new to the community. For that, you want a campaign and some rules with a broad appeal. The easiest way to hit that would typically be to run vanilla D&D with one of the massive published campaigns, such as World's Largest Dungeon or City, or the nicely-done Ptolus. That cuts down the GM's prep time, assures the players some value for their time, and guarantees that everyone will have an interesting story to tell which is completely within other players' frame of referrence.

That's a good way to go, and I know Dave H--sorry Dave, I always mangle your last name--runs D&D intermittently, but I don't know the details.

I always have to be "different," though, so I would like to run something "different." The next most obvious choice seems to be Warhammer Fantasy. It's incredibly popular, incredibly good, and with all the Warhammer miniatures players at the shop, you again have that automatic frame of reference. I know some of the kids are starting a campaign, and I know Jason, for one, has logged a looooot of hours in the Empire. But I don't think anyone is running it openly in the shop. The Warhammer 40K rpg will come out soon. Man, I bet a bunch of the Friday night kids would go nuts over that.

I've played a good deal of WFRPG. Stay away from boats, man. No good comes from boats in that game. But it just doesn't grab me to run it.

I'd like to run RuneQuest at the shop. So far, other players interested in the game have had scheduling conflicts. That happens. But I think RQ is going to be pretty popular in it's new incarnation. It has great features, and they're licensing great properties, like Lankhmar and Elric. I will eventually just start sitting down at the shop at a predictable time, waiting for players to show up. That's frustrating, though, and I would like to be more efficient.

I had a variety of campaigns posted. Three fantasy, with different flavors. Two sci-fi with different flavors. Three Mo-Dern, with different flavors A pulp, and a Victorian to round things out. The default rules were usually Tunnels & Trolls and Mercenaries, Spies, and Private Eyes. These games are easily available, they're related, they're simple, logical, and I've been playing them for decades, so it's quick and easy for me to prepare for several sessions at a time. Both rules sets lend themselves to customization to groups and campaigns.

But--I could just as easily go with GURPS. I love GURPS. I could go with Hero. I would really love to run some Savage Worlds. Any good generic game would be cool to use, because we could transfer to different campaigns without changing rules. Or--since another reason for open games is to expose players to new games--we could go with a four-story "campaign of the month" using a different game each time. I have a queue of games I would like to play but haven't yet. Weapons of the Gods, Qin, Hollow Earth Expeditions, Edge of Midnight--soon I'd like to get my hands on a copy of Spirit of the Century. We could supplement those with "Dad's Game Closet," where we'd play Space:1889, or Everway, or Chill or something. We could have a monthly Chao Studio Hong Kong Action Theater! Grindhouse. We could do a lot of things.

That would be huge big fun. But there's just something ineffable that would be missing. Bonnie Brae Hobbies up in Denver has had a D&D game running in their store for 30 years, weathering all rules changes, controversies, and whatnot. I met people there I still exchange Christmas cards with 25 years later. That's a very interesting phenomenon. I can't completely explain it. What seems to work for that group are its casual feel, it's complete openness (You wanna play? Here's a cleric--go for it!) and the fact that there's always a core of players who show up and want to play. I bet some of them have been playing almost continually. It's wierd on some level, but it's wonderful, too. Lots of shops have that sort of thing. There are definately some oddball players, but with consistency, patience, and good boundaries, they can be fun, too.

In a perfect world, we could start a RuneQuest game on Saturday afternoons. That game grows. We add a Call of Cthulhu game on Saturday nights. The RQ game grows too big to manage, and we split the group, some to play WHFRP or WH40KRPG or whatever. A wierd, progressive cult in Saturday RQ decides to add Burning Wheel on Sunday Afternoons. We add a Dad's Closet and Chao Brothers on alternating Fridays. Everyone posts campaign notes on the board here, communicates through PMs, and we develop a little role-playing community where you know that anytime on the weekend and some weeknights, you can walk into the shop and find a place to sit down and play. There are ways to set up the games to accommodate that style of play. It would be a good place to play with people a little to see what they're like before you invite them to a home game. There would be a pool of GMs and players and active communicatiuon to hook up the best combinations.

I don't know if it's really workable, but it seems very clear in my head. The key question is whether or not there are enough people in the shop community that still enjoy tabletop rpgs enough to make it worthwhile. People post looking for games, and I posted the ten campaigns, but I only recieved one response in total. I may simply be deluded about how many people want to play.

The pattern so far has been that I set something up I want to play. No one shows up a few weeks in a row, and I get tired of sitting there and move on to some other project. There's still nothing I'd rather do, though, so I'm just trying to figure out how everyone can get the best return for their time and energy. So. Any ideas are appreciated.

[Ravenclaw74]

That's a real shame, I feel like I am a old-time tabletop rpger. It is hard to geta group together and keep it going. I guess its because I am adverse to d20. It is also because I am not a wargamer (except Battletech if you count that). I sometimes use the Wargame as a backdrop to the campaign though. Here are the games I would be interested in running/playing. I have these games and I really like the setting/system.

- Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
- Mechwarrior (not Battletech)
- Jovian Chronicles (need to get a better grasp of the rules)
- Mekton
- Lord of the Rings (same as JC above)

I wouldn't mind playing in any other setting. I have a lot od D&D material, but have not played since 2nd edition. And since I got WHFRP and LOTR those would be me favored fantasy setting to play.

[Stu]

I've always thought the shop should have an open WFRP game. It just makes sense. I'd love to play a good, old-fashioned witch hunter again, but I ain't getting on any boats!

I also have a slight aversion to d20. Not overwhelming. I've played it. I ran an abbreviated DragonStar campaign at the old shop. I like SpyCraft. I like Mo-Dern OK, better with the Grim Tales attachment. They definately can get the job done. But there are a lot of games I like better than d20. And since everyone already seems to be familiar with d20, and since Dave is already running some in-shop D&D, I'd like to advocate for some of the alternatives. As noted above, I want to press RuneQuest. Let's see if we can entice some players, and I bet we can establish some substantial rpgs.

[USMC2USAF]

I would actually love to get involved in an RPG (my wife has actually shown some interest too...) but, so far the game systems that have been mentioned on this forum and the previous forum have not been games that I have any interest in.

My favorite RPGs are: Legend of the Five Rings (D10), Vampire: Dark Ages (I may even delve into Vampire: the Requiem), Shadowrun, Twilight 2000, Star Trek (FASA)...

Any suggestions?

Respectfully,
KEVIN

[Stu]

Let's see. You already responded to the dude that wanted to put together a Shadowrun group. If we ever get to put together a Grognard's Gamer Trunk, it would be outstanding to play some Twilight 2000. Or Morrow Project. Wow.

I haven't played FASA Star Trek for decades, but I have played Prime Directive, both in its own system and in GURPS, in the last few years. Star Trek is always a great campaign for an open game, because it's one of those rare worlds you never have to explain to anyone. You just say "Stardate . . . " and players are right there with you.

I'll keep my ear to the ground for the others. I'm sure there are 5 Ring and Vampire DA games going on.

This illustrates the need for a system for coordinating pools of players and GMs. Would you run Twilight 2000?

[Ravenclaw74]

This is to Kevin (USMC2USAF):

What type of particular genre are you into? Do you like fantasy, sci-fi, modern? How about cinematic, gritty, realistic?

[USMC2USAF]

Ravenclaw74:

I'm into a wide variety of RPG genres and am actually quite open to learning new systems. For me, the enjoyment of an RPG lies in the skill, expertise and storytelling abilities of the GM. I grew up playing the original D&D and AD&D but, soon grew tired of it due mostly to a DM who let us get too powerful and advance to high levels too soon.

At the moment, I am very interested in Samurai genre RPGs (L5R, Sengoku, etc.) or Sci-Fi (Star Trek, Warhammer 40,000 RPG... which was originally suppose to be released this month!), and modern.
However, if I find the background of the RPG story/system interesting then I can easily get heavily involved :)

So, while I do have my favorites, I am still very open to learning more about differnt genres... back in the late 80s I dabbled a bit in Space 1889 and loved the Victorians in Space and Colonialism genre.

Respectfully,
KEVIN

[USMC2USAF]

Stu:

I'm not sure if I would GM a Twilight 2000 campaign... its been an awful long time since I've even been a player in Twilight 2000.
My vast experience in RPGs has been primarily as a devoted player and rarely as the GM.
Although, given the right group of motivated players and group dynamics/chemistry I would enthusiastically take up the challenge.

Respectfully,
KEVIN

[Ravenclaw74]

It's been, hell almost a decade since I was wandering aimlessly in the forests of Poland in Twilight 2000. We never made it home 'sniff'

[angel_lord]

Yep, I remember all three versions of T -2000 fondly (if you count 2.5 as a separate version, as I do).

We decided to stay in Europe and fight for some of the people we had met there. In the process we inadvertently set up our own fiefdom.

In the last adventure we were coming face to face with marauders and power mongers who disliked the idea of people they couldn't exploit, and unfortunately we didn't have the resources to stave them off.

[Stu]

We were ground down slowly in Southeast Asia. We were dying by slivers, sick and hungry. I didn't want to check out because of intestinal parasites, but it was clear that we were running on fumes. We found a very nice cache and murdered "the competition" in their sleep. Yearning for a straight-up fight, sickened by our wealth, I was more convinced than ever that we'd never make it out of the jungle alive. The squad had a long talk about life with the warlords and the flesh peddlers. Klaussen wanted to dig in and go native. I would've rather been the Sheriff of Afghanistan. I supplemented Klaussen's scheme with some sneaky night manuevers and when Klaussen thought we were going on another midnight murder spree, we walked into a cozy little war.

It took a total of 17 gaming hours to resolve the conflict. Never had I prayed so hard for there to be a God and been so sure there wasn't one. Klaussen, rolled up in razor wire, was tortured to death, as he deserved. I "failed my Notice" and took a sugar cane knife to the throat. My dying smile was wider than the wound.

Klaussen didn't speak to me for the rest of college. He was weak.








Man.
You could tell some brutal stories with that game.

[Stu]

I've been chatting with some folks, and even though no one has noted it on the poll, it seems like people are skittish about the idea of playing open games, that is--games out in public. It's not really a mystery why that might be, but I wanted to jot some notes about how open gaming can be really fun with a little attention paid to how they work.

My quick notes turned into an essay, but I'm going to post it anyway, to see what folks think. Thanks, btw, to the folks who've offered some feedback on this thread and the others. It's encouraging.

Open Gaming:
My defense of the practice and suggestions for its implementation

Open gaming is the practice of a non-restricted group role-playing in a public venue, typically a large table in a game store. Typical role-playing is done around a more intimate table in a private residence and is generally considered a superior experience due to the increased comfort of less inhibited role-play in a more controlled environment.

Open gaming exposes an audience to the fun of role-playing. Clearly, this is beneficial to the community, if it can interest new potential players. New players keep the hobby alive and vital. It’s good for the shop because new players will eventually buy some books and dice and whatnot. While open gaming will always be a very different from private gaming, there are some things a shop and a shop community can do to make it fun and beneficial for everyone.


One key to a successful open gaming environment at a game shop is a regular, consistent stable of players. Very roughly, a typical open gaming group is proportioned as follows:

1/4 Core. These guys generally show up, but tend to be a little weird.
1/2 Floaters. These folks may or may not show up. They may find other games, they may get tired of it, they may check in every month. Either way, you can’t really count on them too much, and you try to continually build and refresh this group.
1/4 Absentees. This is the percentage of your total group that you can count on not showing up. This is the amount by which you want to overbook your games. Over holidays and school breaks, this amount will increase to 1/3 or even 1/2.


Another key is the famous, obligatory Saturday Afternoon Matinee game. Depending on the goal of the shop and the interests of the GM, this game may consist of popular rules like D&D paired with a popular campaign like Ptolus, or The World’s Largest Dungeon. It could be something that caters specifically to the shop community, such as Warhammer Fantasy Role Playing for a wargame shop, or Mutants and Masterminds for a comic shop, or Prime Directive for a used bookstore. This is a wide-open game, designed to draw curious players, kids who’ve never played, old or unattractive players who don’t have anywhere else to go, those people’s kids, people new in town, or people who like to play now and then, but not enough to form or stay with their own group.

At first blush, this sounds like a colossally uninteresting group to run games for. There is certainly a challenge to it—a very different challenge to that of maintaining the interest of an intense, intellectual, imaginative group of like-minded players. But the challenge is manageable if you tailor your approach to maintaining the group you have.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v134/stu2000/dogs_playing_ua.gif


Care and Feeding of an open group:


1. Matinee-style Character Development
You know the game will be unevenly and inconsistently attended. You know further that new players will want to try a variety of characters before figuring out their favorites. This reality could frustrate a GM who likes to have a predictable assortment of player characters in order to plan scenarios.

However--if you abandon the traditional “you roll up your character and keep it till it dies” approach to character development, you may get a little extra mileage from the group. Bring an assortment of randomly-created characters, archetypical of your setting. You may forego some details, such as name and gender, so that players may quickly customize the player and feel a sense of ownership.

When the game is over, the players return their characters to the campaign folder and go home. If your campaign is a highly-episodic series of one-shots, that can be the end of it. But you can still inculcate an epic sense of on-going adventure with a little input from the players.

If the character will be appearing next week, and the player feels strongly enough about playing that same character again, he or she may write up and post to the forum an account of the afternoon’s adventure from the character’s point of view, thus “calling dibs” on that character. Of course, if that player doesn’t do the write-up, or fails to show up next week, the character is up for grabs. Experience for that character stays with that character and can be spent by whoever is running that character when it is available to advance.

With this matinee-style character development, the GM always knows what characters are in his folder and can use that information to guide his scenario design. A natural balance will evolve between the needs of the players to identify with their characters and their ability to show up to each game. Predictable characters will always be available to every player, regardless of prior attendance or experience. As players become invested, an engaging public record of the campaign will be posted, without extra paperwork on the part of the GM. This style of character development may take a little getting used to, but it solves a number of issues with an open gaming group.

There is one situation, frequent enough to address, that throws this system off. When a single player who has called dibs on a character continually for months, has played the character extraordinarily well, and has been a constant presence on the forum misses a session, and some hapless novice plays and kills the character that session, you have to have a means of addressing this injustice. The gaming life is hard, and character mortality is indispensable in most campaigns, but it’s an egregious insult to one of your key players for such a thing to happen. If it’s the breaks, it’s the breaks; that may be your style. But if you feel the situation warrants, you may want to consider one of the following options:

If you know that the player will miss, you may indispose that character in some way. He can be captured or poisoned, or on a spirit quest or some such. If the player has been consistent and good, and gives you the consideration of forewarning of his absence, you may feel that he’s given you cause to consider his petition for a sabbatical. You may place other limitations on him, such as a minimum level of character for which you will consider a sabbatical, or an experience point cost. And you get a free plot hook for the next session.

If you think fast on our feet, you may use one of those ploys even if the absence is a surprise. You may want to give the player a break and pull that character from the folder this session. Otherwise, you may let someone play the character as usual, but offer some deus ex machina if the character dies. Maybe the bandits take him hostage rather than killing him, or the monster drags him to its lair, rather than devouring him outright.
Whatever you do, make sure you are doing it only for your Core characters, and only rarely indeed. Remember that the system is set up to reinforce attendance, and it won’t work if you don’t let it do its job. The old time movie serials ran every week before the B feature. You could miss one and the quick recap would scroll up the screen, catching you up. But if you missed two weeks in a row, you were screwed.


2. Differential Involvement
When it becomes apparent who your Core group and your Floaters are, you want to differentially reinforce the Core. Part of this occurs naturally. As the Core calls dibs on their characters, those characters will earn experience more evenly and consistently and will advance in a more satisfying way for the players that invest in them. This is good. Each player should get a return for his or her investment.

To build group cohesion, you may offer inexpensive premiums to players that hit certain experience thresholds with their preferred characters. Personalized pencils or custom dice, or even t-shirts can be produced inexpensively, and if they aren’t given out too frequently, they remain special and don’t break your bank. Perhaps you could celebrate a character’s milestones. Bring in cupcakes for the completion of a quest. Or maybe a parchment letter from the king, celebrating a character’s upcoming nuptials. These things unquestionably seem a little corny around the typical gamer basement table, but they’re a nice touch and a good conversation-starter for people who don’t all know each other very well. Furthermore, they are a positive way to show everyone in the group who’s doing well in the campaign.


3. Ridin’ Herd
Once a GM establishes an open group and accustoms them to the matinee style of play, he or she continues to face challenges that infrequently arise in a typical basement game. An open group is much more diverse than a group that falls together due their common interests. When you have irascible hardcore grognards side-by-side with kids and folks with disabilities and middle-aged housewives who got into gaming by playing Everquest online, you have to be unusually entertaining, energetic, encouraging, fair-minded, and generous. There are few other recreational areas in life which will draw as diverse a group, but that’s a huge part of the fun.

The magic of this kind of gaming usually brings people together. They have to trust each other to solve problems in the game, and they enjoy the common escape from the vast cornucopia of life’s irritations. But we’ve all seen hurt feelings and poor social skills exhibited at tables, as well. The best a GM can do often is to keep his antenna fully extended for these types of problems and to address them as early and as clearly as he possibly can. An additional source of support for the GM is the staff of the shop hosting the game. They are hugely invested in the game going well, and are usually full of helpful advice about how to deal with unusual people.


4. Matinee-Style Scenario Design.
Successful matinee scenarios are somewhat less diabolical than your typical GM-designed deathtraps. This in no way means they are easy, or combat light, or anything else. But it does mean that you have to consider some aspects of scenario design differently than you do for a typical basement game, such as:

Unpredictable group size and nature. If you adopt the Matinee Style Character Development, you will already have dealt with many of these issues. Be sure you plan for scalable combat encounters. Be sure you include opportunities in each session for combat, interaction, mystery solving, with each path providing incremental progress toward greater goals. It’s not an exact science, but it doesn’t have to be. Just remember to plan wider, rather than deeper than you would for a basement group, because you will have a fuzzier idea of what the group is likely to do.
Almost continual interruption. Since part of the point of an open game is for it to be seen, the interruptions are virtually unavoidable. The key to balancing game intensity and the reality of the environment is to set very clear boundaries on In Character and Out Of Character interaction. Use a visual cue to mark strictly IC scenes in the game. Frequently release the players from the cue for the four Cs: Combat, Clarification of the rules, Conferring with other players, and Chatting with onlookers. You will have to model how strict you want this to be. The more strict you are, the more intense the game. But the environment limits the intensity, so be realistic. But wherever you decide to mark the boundary, keep it clear and consistent so the players can internalize that rhythm.
A high degree of player inhibition. It takes a while to build a comfort level in an open group. You should acknowledge this and keep all your great GM dirty tricks to a minimum until the players start to feel secure. For those who feel uncertain of the rules, keep a cheat sheet of some kind—a flip chart or a PowerPoint presentation—handy and refer to it often. Introduce new rule concepts explicitly and design scenes in the game that will use them. For players uncertain of their roles, try very hard to offer opportunities for each character to shine each session. If you point the first few opportunities out to novice players, they will grow bolder more quickly.If you consider the differences in an open group as opposed to a typical group as you plan your sessions, you will more closely meet the needs of your players and provide some solid entertainment both for them and for your shop community at large.

Once you have developed the comfort level and set the expectations for your environment with your Saturday Afternoon Matinee, you will undoubtedly find interest in role playing increasing. That’s the magic of it. People can’t tear themselves away. You can set up as many additional, more specialized groups as you want. As the specialization increases, the games may become more selective about their players. You don’t want ten year-olds signing up to be corrupted by squamous toad-gods in the late-night Call of Cthulhu game. The beauty of starting with the Saturday Afternoon Matinee is that you always have that game to refer folks to if they don’t fit at another table.

Eventually, the various groups become so fun that new players pour into the shop to compete for slots. The different games cross-pollinate and GMs gradually begin to raise the bar for each other. Private basement games improve all over town. It’s a freakin’ renaissance.
The final key for developing the community to this level is communication. Internet forums are a solid form of communication, and just about every shop has one these days. You just have to develop some consensus on how to use the tools these forums provide. You may also need to post some form of paper communication visibly in shops to catch the casual roleplayer who may not be online or who may simply be unaware of the forum seething with creativity and excitement, just beyond his grasp. There are a million best ways to develop communication, bounded only by the insanely overdeveloped creativity of the gaming community at large.

*******

Many thanks in advance to anyone patient enough to have read that. :)

[Ravenclaw74]

Man.
You could tell some brutal stories with that game.

I remember we were trying to help a couple of German soldiers in Poland, one guy had some serious dysentery. When we were foraging for food one of our PCs got seriously mauled by a bear. Now we had two people in serious need of medical supplies we did not have!

[Stu]

I remember we were trying to help a couple of German soldiers in Poland, one guy had some serious dysentery. When we were foraging for food one of our PCs got seriously mauled by a bear. Now we had two people in serious need of medical supplies we did not have!

I love a game where that's an awesome story. I never had superpowers in that game. I never got rich. I never died of old age, that's for sure. Getting a full meal was a big day. I got a little flesh trade refugee "wife" once. That was nothing but trouble.

Actually, it wasn't much different from my real marriage . . .

[angel_lord]

The thing about that game was that it could be as gritty and fatalistic, or as heroic as you wanted it to be.

During our first few serious encounters we burned through Ammunition at an incredible rate.

Some of us has bought quite a bit of ammo during character creation, and Cached it in various safe spots thoughout Poland.

Only there weren't any safe spots were there? Some of our Caches got raided while we weren't there.

At one point, dangerously low on ammo, We were force to create makeshift spears using K-Bars, Ash polls with electrical tape.

It was a quite a while after that before we were able to secure any ammunition or weapons.

[Ravenclaw74]

I will be advertising some games in the near future, once I have nailed down what games I want to run.

[Orrlak]

Hey Stu.
I am an old D&D player from the late 70's. Always liked it but couldn't find enough players to keep it going and thought it was too complicated. Have been playing with the idea for some time to incorporate WFRP into my WFB campaign. Mordhiem, EinF, WH skirmish, WFB... get the idea? My new 2 1/2 car garage has become my hobby zone so that opens possibilities I did not have before.
I am presently in Iraq but when I return would be most interested and willing to join in. I am already planning a trip to Denver to visit the store that has been running a game for so long.
I am for WFRP. Already have 4 characters started from the new edition came out.
I will keep watching the forum to see what you decide to do. If you have any suggestions or questions please e-mail me. I have plenty of time to respond.

Thanks
Rick

[Orrlak]

STU!!!!
It's me again! I just finished reading your "defense of open gaming"! My brain is on overload. WOW! Sounds like a wining concept to me! If you give me your phone number could I call you sometime to talk about it? If so give me a good time to reach you. I'm 10 or 11 hours ahead of you guys in Colorado.
Thanks again.
Back to reading.
Rick

[Stu]

Rick--sorry about your brain overload, but I don't think there's any need to involve the lawyers, right? ;)

I think the WFRP guys are still going strong at the shop. My RuneQuest goup ran several sessions, but we did not draw a large, consistent group on that one, and my gamer ADD kicked in. I still want to play Dartgh Vegas with a large group, but I don't want to beat a dead mule if that's not what other peole want to play.

My next run at an open group is going to be the new Saga Edition of Star Wars. It's D20, so it's similar to D&D and the previous edition of Star Wars. The millieu is one a ton of people are familiar with and enjoy. So I think it has a good shot. We'll see.