For about a year now, I’ve been trying to get someone in my life into RPGs. She’s not against the idea and wants to get involved, but doesn’t want to play with my group to begin with. This sounds a bit counterintuitive, right? But when you unpack their thinking, it not only makes sense but taught me something about the way games are constructed and why I love RPGs. I wanted to share it with you because I think it’s relevant to how we look at RPGs construction.
This potential player expressed that they love the idea of RPGs but were worried about turning up and feeling like they didn’t know what they were doing. They gave an example of being on a sports pitch, not understanding the rules, but also being colourblind, so that once you think you understand, you instantly set off and tackle the wrong team while people shout stuff from the sidelines.
Of course, I began to assure her that the culture wasn’t like that, no one in any group I run is going to be yelling at someone for doing the wrong thing. But then she said something to me that made me stop and think hard.
“It’s not just about this, though, it’s about how I learn” she said. “It was the same with knitting. When someone just wanted to show me the end product from across the table, then I struggled. When someone instead sat next to me and took the time to explain how and why the wool moved the way it did when I did things, so I took it in” she took a moment to pause and then said “It’s about understanding the mechanics of the thing, once I understand how it works, I can make anything, not just follow a pattern.”
I’m sure those of you who have ever homebrewed any rule for any RPG ever have just done what I did. Realise that RPG design is – apparently – just like knitting. Part of the reason I love RPGs, part of the reason I’ve been writing this column for as long as I have, is because RPGs are exactly like this. They’re a toolbox for experiences. Once you begin to understand how a rule accomplishes something, then you understand what happens when you change it.
This might sound like I’m making a mountain of a molehill, but RPGs are different to a lot of games. The implicit unspoken rule in RPGs is that it they are unfinished when you buy it. You aren’t just reading a ruleset and following it, knowing it will end with a good time; you’re adding to it, patching it, putting it in situations outside of the original designer’s perception of it. Every game of Monopoly I’ve ever played has gone exactly as the designer expected. I’m pretty sure no D&D designer ever foresaw even half the stuff that has happened in my games, how their ruleset would end up deployed.
I realise now, too, that so many other players and I take great joy in this idea. While my games tend towards storytelling and deep in character roleplaying, this doesn’t mean any of us forget it’s a game. People in games where it’s relevant often put together builds for characters that make them run in a way they desire. My partner put together her rogue so that by the twentieth level, the chances of her failing a skill check were so unbelievably slim – partially because she hates missing a clue but also because it was an enjoyable challenge to see if she could make that character work. People take time on this.
I do it too. My current obsession with the Outgunned ruleset is because watching them make supplements that just subtly alter a few rules to make the game a totally different genre and feel makes me marvel. If a game is infinitely hackable, I’ll spend time doing that just to get a better understanding of it. And it’s at this point I realised I’ve missed something.
In most advice regarding new players, you’ll see the same sentiment: don’t give them too many options straight away, make them play the storytelling element before you get anywhere near the rules. And in the post Critical Role world, it makes sense in our heads right? The majority of people who want to play have seen a liveplay and want that experience; the ruleset matters less than the experience of delivering that observed mode of play.
But ruleset IS experience. Form and function are inseparable in a well-designed game. Different games feel different. Lancer feels complex because it’s a game where every time you make a character decision, it feels like you’re bolting a new module onto a giant mech that makes combat more tactical. The Walking Dead has more detailed relationship mechanics than stats for zombies because the game is about the value of people, not zombie kills. Take three games that aren’t trying to copy each other off the shelf in any store, and even if they’re the same genre, they’ll be trying to deliver something unique.
And I began to realise that maybe a few of my players look a bit lost about what to do in games sometimes because I haven’t taken the time to break the system down for them. I’m not showing them a mass of rules, but I’m also not explaining Why any of the rules exist. I know why in Mage each Quintessence has a Resonance, but do my players? Have I just assumed it will eventually become clear in play?
At the same time, we need to give people a chance to learn. Perhaps that new player does want a lack of options. Or perhaps they want to play a wizard and immerse themselves in the spell list, figuring out how spells work and learning the correct combos that work best for the group they’re in.
So what can we do? Well, the first thing is to never be scared of the meta. There’s a culture of ‘creating immersion’ at a table, which seems to hold that never talking about rules at a table for a length of time and just moving quickly forward is best. And while that sentiment is important to a games pacing, I think there are moments of joy in openly discuss the rules. Last time we played D&D, two of them realised that a spell and ability they each had locked into place like gears of a cog and represented a whole new set of team strategies. Their elation was palpable.
It’s worth having this culture of open rule discussion around a game, that wanting to teach is not about ‘wise games master knows all the rules and you just have to make decisions and they will tell you what to roll’. But instead it is about actually Teaching the game you are running to your players. Because for every annoying rules lawyer, there is likely also a proto-designer sitting at your table wanting to know how it all works. Show them behind the curtain, because you never know, that might be the thing that keeps them locked in.
Creative Commons credit: What shall we make? by Ivan Junior Studios, The Mighty Masked Matterhorn (and Humdrum) by harwicks-art and Daedolon (Hexen Mage) by ULTRAZEALOt.
