Back to Square One

Having moved to Livingston, one of the things I was keen to do was to make contact gamers, in the hope of setting up a game without significant travel. Alas, it appears that the public game club has folded since last I checked, and while I suspect there may well be gamers out there, they are back to having a low profile.

Which is a very familiar situation: Falkirk was pretty much the same some eight years ago!

Now, on the one hand, that's fine - in theory, I know what worked for solving the problem last time. And while you can never be sure the results would be the same, I'm at least no worse off than I was.

On the other hand, I'm eight years older, I have rather less time than I did... and, frankly, I don't know if I care enough. After all, if there was a club but it folded, perhaps that means the interest in the local area just isn't there.

Hmm.

I'll need to give some thought to where I am on this one. I'm starting to think that the answer may be abandon campaign play, and consider running fewer, longer 'event' games on a more irregular basis.

As I said, I'll need to give it some thought.

What Do I Want to Play?

Having unpacked all my RPG stuff from its boxes and sorted it onto the shelves, I find I am ready to get back into gaming. And with upcoming events, I'm keen to get some gaming in before the turn of the year - it's not like I'm going to have much time in 2018!

However, I find myself facing a pressing question to which I don't have a good answer: what do I want to play?

One thing I do know is that I'm feeling rather bored with D&D, Pathfinder, and the spin-offs thereof, so that's out. And I'm not dead keen on other d20 games, either. Beyond that?

I suppose one thing that does grab me, somewhat at least, is the notion of doing some Star Wars d6 gaming - possibly getting a group together for some of the old adventures in a retro-gaming style? Alternately, Firefly is always good if I can get a crew together.

But what I really want is, simply put, something new - give me something I haven't tried before, something that will inspire me.

But what? What?

Wasting My Time

The other part of yesterday's rant concerns another thing that is frequently said about RPG products: that they're just a bunch of tools for the GM to make of what he wishes.

Well, that's just crap.

Here's the thing: I have the ability to create my own adventures, or settings, or even rules if need be. That is, I have the ability to do all these things. What I am lacking in is time.

That being the case, I don't want products that I can take and fold, spindle, mutilate, and otherwise turn into something great. That's just taking all the fun bits of running a game and outsourcing them to someone else. What I want to outsource is all of the work, so that I get those fun bits.

What I expect from an RPG product is that it works for its stated purpose out of the box. If it can then be stripped for parts and used elsewhere then that's a bonus, I suppose, but it's secondary to the main thing. But whatever you state as the purpose of your product is what I expect it to do. (And for that reason I was extremely negative about "Storm King's Thunder" - that was actually a pretty good setting guide, wrapped up in a pretty dire adventure.)

Likewise, if I'm looking for short adventures, pointing me towards one of the storyline books saying that they can be pulled apart chapter by chapter is not helpful. Yes, I know it's possible to do that thing, but that's work I don't want to have to do. (Not to mention that those chapters, taken individually, often make for pretty poor adventures. For the same reason that you wouldn't tend to just read a random chapter from somewhere in the middle of a novel - losing the context of everything that has gone before, and everything that happens thereafter means you miss out on a huge amount.)

So, what I'm saying is this:

If you publish a game with significant rules problems out of the gate, for which the solution is "well, you can house-rule it", you are wasting my time and I'm not interested.

If you publish a rules supplement that I can't just drop into my game as-is and have it work, you're wasting my time and I'm not interested.

If you publish an adventure with significant story problems, or one with serious balance issues, or other problems that you expect me to fix, you are wasting my time, and I'm not interested.

Also, if all you're offering is D&D/Star Wars/Warhammer/whatever with some small fix to some small issue, you're still wasting my time, and I'm not interested. I'm in the market for something new... but it really does need to be something new.

And I'm not buying any new editions of any games I own... at least for a very long time, possibly ever.

And I think that's enough ranting for the time being!

"This is a Cheap Hobby"

Yesterday was the point where I came to unpack and sort all my RPG materials for shelving. And it was the point where I was, once again, reminded of one of the pernicious lies that is told about the RPG hobby: that it is a cheap one.

Now the thing is that RPGs can be a cheap hobby - provided you buy the core rulebooks for games you actually play regularly, and nothing else.

But the moment you move beyond that your price-per-use drops way off. Core rulebooks (for games you actually play) are used very extensively, and thus justify just about any price point. But supplements, settings, adventures? No, no, and no.

Worse than that, it would be nice to think that making the additional investment in any of these things would result in a better at-table experience. But for the most part this simply isn't true: rules supplements tend to complicate what should be a pretty simple game, often with very little pay-off. Added character guides provide more character-building options... but the ones that will see use at the table are the ones most likely to break your game.

Which leaves settings and adventures, which should be safer ground. But good luck finding the good ones - buying sight-unseen gives you very little chance of hitting on anything worthwhile, while good RPG reviews are nigh-on impossible to find, especially now that the edition wars have turned review sites into a terminal battleground between fanbois and h8rs.

(For their part, publishers of course advertise their latest wares as "must have" items. Of course they do! But for the most part, a fairer labelling would be "avoid!")

And so I once again found myself unpacking hundreds of books, many of which have never seen at-table usage, most of which will never again see any at-table usage, and I found myself marvelling at the waste of it all. I've spent many thousands of pounds on books over the years, including more than £1,000 on Pathfinder Adventure Path volumes alone (and many people have spent way more than I have), and most of what I have to show for it is back-breaking piles of paper of no residual value.

But, hey, it's a cheap hobby, yeah?

Coming Out of Storage

We're getting towards the end of the unpacking, which means we're also getting towards the point where my RPG books will be coming out of their boxes and going back onto their shelves. In amongst everything, I've taken the opportunity to repurpose our DVD shelves for RPG books (we'll get new DVD shelves soon), which means I'm not just back up to two sets of shelves, but actually up to three for the first time! (Hopefully, this will mean they're less overloaded, and therefore last longer.)

My plan for the organisation is slightly different from previously: I intend to split them into 28 piles - one for each letter of the alphabet, a catch-all for things that otherwise don't fit, and a special pile for those games I'm particularly likely to use soon (notably D&D 3e and 5e, Firefly, and the W.O.I.N. pair). My plan, then, is for the first 27 of these piles to be fitted onto two of the sets of shelves, with the 'current' games and also our boardgames going onto the third set.

Of course, the other great advantage of this change is that I can get back to some gaming! Maybe. Hopefully. For a while...