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| A few of my games |
I’ve been asked how long it takes to get a game up and running when introducing a new role-playing game (RPG) to my group. This is a hard question to answer. What I’ve found is many times that is not the question they really want to ask. It usually comes down to one of two questions. The first is how quickly they can get a new game going with their group. Or, what would be the right game for their group.
The first question is a lot more of a directed conversation. Whereas, the second can be looked at a little deeper to determine what a group is like to determine what would be a good fit.
There is no one right game for all groups. What we are really looking for is the best game or the best style of games for our groups. Games one group enjoys will be shelved by another. I’ve seen this happen with games I’ve enjoyed, and also when playing games others raved about.
Finding a game for your gaming group means finding a game fitting the style of game they want to play. When looking for a game, people almost always have a genre picked out. They are at the point of figuring out which fantasy, espionage, space, or post-apocalyptic game the group would enjoy playing. Since you already know your group, it becomes your job to select a game that matches up with the dynamics, personalities, and desires of the group.
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| A few more games |
One of the biggest considerations I've found of matching the group with a game is the balance the RPG has between storytelling/creation, and strategic elements/mechanics.
Level of Narrative and Strategy
RPGs fall somewhere on a line between narrative and strategy. In fact, every game falls somewhere along that line. Some are more reliant on the narration of events, where others use a mechanic to give direction of the outcome.
A pure narrative RPG is one where there is no need of dice, cards, coins, or any other item to help in the determination of success or failure of an event being played. When I was a kid, there was a camping game called Pass The Stick, or Story Stick, which is an example of a pure narrative style.
When holding the stick you tell the story. At any point in your story you can pass the stick to another person around the campfire and they continue the story where you left off. This keeps going until someone ends the story by bringing it to a conclusion or by throwing the stick in the fire. Most of ours ended in ashes.
Strategy based RPGs use game mechanics to help determine the outcome of an event. The mechanics are to give a random determination of success or failure. And there are rules or guidelines about how things can happen.
A random outcome to a task a player is attempting alters the story of the adventure. Most games using a level of strategic control use dice, although I have seen systems using other options. Dice are a lot more common and provide a larger range of control through the different sizes and the number used. Seeing if you succeed or fail at a task becomes the guiding structure for the story.
I have been in games where the determination of success or failure was the end of the description in the story. Other times, I've seen players use the random result to expand the scene of the story to provide details to color the events without changing the outcome. Neither is right nor wrong; it comes down to preference.
Knowing what level of narration and strategy your group likes will help in the selection of a game.
Getting the New Game to the Table
The level of complexity in the mechanics of your new game will determine how long it takes to bring it to the table. Simply put, the more rules the game has the more time it will take to learn them. There are people who are comfortable with allowing someone else know the rules, but there are those who want to know the rules of the game they are playing before they start.
Narrative based RPGs are designed to give more leniency on the structure to provide more opportunity for players to build the story as they play. If you have a group who likes doing this, it works. Don’t confuse this as meaning these players are more creative. A player who can develop an effective strategy is creative. It comes down to the style of creativity being expressed.
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| A different shelf |
Games using a smaller rule set in this way is going to be an easier learning curve. It doesn’t mean it will be easily accepted or implemented, just easier to learn.
The more mechanics a game has, the more time you should provide for the group to become familiar with them. A large portion of this time is before sitting down at the game table. Whoever wants to be running the game should have a decent understanding of the rules. (Whatever the game calls the role of the person running the game doesn’t really matter. For simplicity I'm going to refer to them as the game master or GM.) The GM is the person who is managing the adventure the rest of the players are putting characters into. And, as the GM, this will be the person who makes the final decision on anything that comes into question during play.
In our group we also have a rules lawyer. In many groups this is considered a bad thing, but for us it works well. He enjoys strategy games, RPGs and others. Because enjoys strategy games, he likes reading through the rules to learn how it's played. When we are looking at bringing games to the table that are heavier on rules, he gets involved before we play. When we play, he provides clarification. The GM still has final say, but we have a solid path to walk on. He also helps in developing house rules that fit our group.
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| Some GURPS books |
The better you can match up the game to your group on the scale between narrative and strategic gaming can make a big difference on getting to play the game at all. Some groups want more narrative control where other groups want to feel the success of winning the day through a dramatic roll of the dice. It is easy enough to figure out by watching how people play. Or, you can talk it over.
Another aspect I’ve found to be a good indicator of how a game fits with your group is when you are creating characters. This topic requires an article all its own.
If you have a comment, suggestion, or critique please leave a comment here or send an email to guildmastergaming@gmail.com.
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