The bad
That definite hankering which came upon me earlier this year gnaws away at me ever more insistently, and yet we didn't get any roleplaying going. Why? Short form: there wasn't enough interest around the table for me to want to change tack with a successful boardgaming group. Long form: well, therein lies the rub.Readers with more than passing roleplaying experience will be well aware that clashing playstyles and other social dynamics are core issues which can confound a roleplaying group. They are also very personal issues since they arise from the relationships between friends. Tempting as it was therefore to sound off a GM's frustrations here @RD/KA!, I could never escape the realisation that any such roleplayer's bitching in which I felt like indulging should be kept strictly face-to-face. It's only fair after all.
So I was left with the problem of finding a positive way to address the issue of the lessons needful from our previous roleplaying bash. This has proved more than just difficult; it has been quite simply the single most difficult task RD/KA! has set me since I started writing back in 2005. I'm still working on it.
The good
Of course the roleplaying front wasn't all bad in 2009. I enjoyed a fine session in Eberron back in June with the setting's designer Keith Baker when he dropped in on yours truly as part of the first leg of his 'Have Dice, Will Travel' 2009 world tour.Though a short one-off Keith's guest-GM session was a reminder of everything I like best about roleplaying:
- Vivid and unique settings turning genre conventions on their ear.
- Characters: open to game-changing free expression of a sort essentially irrelevant in boardgames' contested structures.
- Stories: not just asides which interpret the gameplay but the whole point of the exercise.
Looking forward
"You did what, exactly?"
When our roleplaying does begin in 2010 it'll be with Donald's Outlaws campaign. At the time of writing it looks like this is just going to be a 3-hander- Donald, Tony and I; which is fine by me because the sessions the three of us played were the highlights of Donald's Flashing Blades mini-campaign back in 2005 (cf. 'The Adventures of Felix Mephisto, Gentleman'.)I'm enjoying this even before it's begun too, because it's given me motiviation sufficient finally to get to work on a long-delayed project: updating my HERO4 player and GM support materials to the standards of the current edition; a project which didn't even get off the ground with HERO5. Expect to hear more soon.
And for my next trick?
With Donald's Outlaws campaign keeping my hand in with HERO6, you'd expect WFRP3 to top my own list of games to GM in 2010. And it does, naturally enough. But it shares that slot with a golden oldie: Mercenaries, Spies and Private Eyes. Originally published in 1983 by Flying Buffalo, MSPE is a great game of modern-era pulp adventure using the Tunnels and Trolls system.
We had shedloads of fun playing MSPE back in the early 80's. The game also holds a special place in my affections because it was the RPG with which I finally managed to put together a successful plot-driven scenario for a group that included 2 GMs of godlike prowess. The secret of my success was simple: I just ripped off a Hammer Horror movie, added a few twists, and Bob was our uncle. I was delighted, as you can imagine dear readers. Pity about the sequel though...I've often thought about revisiting that scenario, especially when I was thinking about quick and dirty one-offs I could run for the Sunday group. I recently realised that simply seeking to repeat past glories was pointless; so instead of rerunning the old scenario, I'm going to run a new one in the same style. More in due course.
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Happy Hogmany!
New Year festivities being what they are, I'm not sure quite when I'll be updating RD/KA! again. So if it's not until next year, here's wishing a Happy New Year to all my readers. Make 2010 a good one! ;)
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2 comments:
A good read this post, could relate to the succinct first section and your rationale for limiting comment. Made me realise that FTF RPG's are too different from the online versions when it comes to the interpersonal IG/OOC dynamics as I have had the same issue when it comes to writing about things on my own blog. Keep up the good work in 2010 and I hope your head isn't still hurting too much.
Thanks for your kind words AG. It's nice to know that I'm not alone in my blogger's perplexity.
I've more or less found my way through now I think:
- Writing material to help Donald get his campaign moving.
- Looking at the issues from the point of view of my own mistakes.
I'm hoping that working through this will get everything out of my system.
A good year in 2010 to you and yours. ;)
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