How I got here and why

The Origin Story

Well…here I am, finally. I’ve been playing tabletop RPGs since I was about 12. I soft-began the hobby when my mother started buying me Choose Your Own Adventure books. I was hooked instantly and had a pretty sizable collection when a friend of mine (we used to trade CYoA books with each other) told me about D&D and did I want to try it? That was back in 1987 and I played a REALLY large number of games since then, from the “basic” stuff like Call of Cthulhu and Traveller all the way up to mega-crunchy things like Living Steel and Millennium’s End (which used a plastic overlay to randomize combat hits and hit locations). 

Anyway, in the last couple of years, I’ve noticed a few trends in gaming, and a few trends in my very specific gaming, that led me to writing this blog. I won’t fool myself into thinking my preferences for a game are universal or even interesting to anyone except me. But they are particular, and I’m hoping someone (or several someone’s) are interested in my niche of the niche of the niche part of the tabletop RPG hobby.

What I Noticed

Most games in our shared hobby fall into what I like to call “adventure mode”. That is, a main assumption of the game is that players will want to “adventure”. In general, this seems to be go out on quests (or the modern and future equivalent, missions), and get loot or plot points or whatever. Player Characters are various kinds of “peon”, for lack of a better term: people at the bottom of the social hierarchy, who might do various tasks for people above them, but do not, themselves, wield any influence or power over the game setting itself, unless they are one some earth-shaking quest or activity that the GM allows to change things. 

This also assumes a few other things. PCs aren’t usually terribly tied to their communities or anything else, really; they’re ne’er-do-wells free to list where they may. PCs are also heavily armed and supremely dangerous and everyone is more or less okay with that; basically, small groups of heavily armed people who show no compunction to NOT solve problems with violence are not perceived as immediate problems. Lastly, the PCs are assumed to be the sorts that won’t take any authority over them, and will, in fact, actively fight it, while also, often, simultaneously upholding the political/social/mythical status quo. 

Mind, there’s nothing wrong this! As said, a great many successful, popular games follow this format. It goes without saying a vast number of video games use this format as well. It’s exciting after all, and fun. There’s fighting, exploration, interesting loot, and more fighting. Plenty to do, plenty to enjoy.

But…

Thing is, in all those years of gaming, I realized – I hate this pattern. Or at least, I’m bored with it, and since I generally GM, it’s not something I want to do. This might be a function of getting older; I mean, some years have passed since 1987, but I’m not really interested, and haven’t for a long time now, in doing some random weirdo’s mission to get whatever or talk to whoever (or more importantly, as GM, to play as that random weirdo handing out world-shaking quests to the group of randos that met in a tavern a few days ago). 

To me, and possibly me alone, there’s something fundamentally weird about “adventuring”. To be a touch more specific, I find where this activity isn’t tied to anything: not to culture, society, family, or anything, I’m finding it harder and harder to suspend my disbelief and get into it. Early in my gaming career I gravitated to games like Runequest (especially the Glorantha kind) that assumed you were part of community, and you were doing things for and because of that community. This of course later led to games like Vampire, where you could engage in social machinations that rival your favorite period piece or 90210-style teen drama. Not exactly my cup of tea (I’ll get to that in a moment) but heading in that general direction. 

Of course, you say, totally-not-a-strawman-reader, you don’t have to play all games in “adventure mode”! My group has whole sessions we don’t roll any dice! Well, yes, that’s true, and you’re right, but that isn’t what I want to get to. Can I play games in the style I want? Sure! No one will stop me. But do most games facilitate what I’m looking for? Not really, which is the crux of the matter. 

So What IS My Cup of Tea?

As I commented to someone recently, what I want is probably pretty weirdly specific. Given I don’t want “adventuring” (which, as posited, is the default for many-a-game), what do I want?

The short answer is: politics. The longer answer is: politics/war/community building/social conflict. 

So, politics. But why?

Here’s where I briefly delve into pop-psychology and assume a whole bunch of things about myself I can’t prove and would probably make a trained psychologist go mad. To wit: I think such games are fun because I like those sorts of stories where people/cyborgs/alien fish heads/whatever have to make choices within their socieities that impact others around them, while balancing other societal concerns and their own sense of self or honor. 

The video game Mass Effect, for example, has remained one of my top games ever, and one of the smaller but important reasons is quite simple: the game doesn’t assume you’re a peon. From the start, you’re someone people in power take seriously. As the game moves on you start to affect politics and whole worlds and societies. You lead fleets into battle and handle crises that determine where people stand, how they live and die. THAT’S the stuff I want. I spent a large part of my gaming career as some peon doing fetch quests. No more! It’s one of my principal problems with Skyrim (an awesome game I spent way too much time playing): they let you gain leadership of a guild (several guilds, actually) but in the end, you’re still, basically, a murder-hobo adventurer. Your positions and titles ultimately mean nothing (except you get to take society goods and it’s not considered stealing – that’s, I’m a little embarassed to say, kinda sweet). 

What This Blog (Hopefully!) Will Be

This is my attempt, looking at tabletop RPGs, and probably the occasional computer/console RPG, to examine our hobby and see where particular games gives us room to delve into our fantasies of amassing political power or societal influence, of moving armies or starting revolts, and, in general, of being able to be political, and have that be what the game is about.

What’s that, totally-not-a-strawman? You say you don’t like politics in your games! Well, I get that I guess; you want a certain kind of fun. I mean, you do you, yeah? But for me, to badly paraphrase the Bard, the politicking is the thing. And I’m hoping to look at games that facilitate that sort of play (and occasionally comment on those games that could be this way but aren’t, or games that say they are but actively get in the way).

In any case, in the coming weeks and months I hope to elucidate those themes in this blog, to the enjoyment of all! And if you’d like to see how I’m doing that, have a look at the latest articles I’ve written (or any of the past ones too): Articles