Welcome to the Glyph and Grok - A weekly blog-letter exploring topics in the tabletop gaming arena. We explore design, execution, and culture relating to anything played on a tabletop.
Musings
I became a fan of D&D 5E towards the end of Campaign 1 of Critical Role. I’m using that signpost as the time marker for two reasons. Though I am out-of-lust with 5E, I still enjoy me some Critical Role. Some hard core nerds see Critrole as “not D&D” and I think they’re partly right - just not in the crappy way they mean it.
See, Critical Role - love them or hate them - are just a group of friends playing their version of a tabletop role-playing game the way they want to, and I think the earnest enjoyment is was captivates so many to watch. The most interesting thing I find from a design perspective regarding this, is Dungeons & Dragons 5E actually does not support many of the things that occur on that show that make it interesting. The voice-actors have a lifetime of character acting and cliche situations to call upon in their memory with improvisational skills that enables them to craft powerful scenes. How does a game master facilitate empowering their table to create these things?
More “complex” games like 5E/Pathfinder gives players a “kit” to pilot more than a character to inhabit. The TBIFS (Traits/Bonds/Ideals/Flaws) system seems good enough of on paper but I have never been able to keep more than one in mind at a time when I need a personality touchstone.
There are of course some really good tools in the extended rule books like Xanathar’s Guide to Everything’s “This is your life” section of origins and life events, but these are supplemental to the main line rules. This is not just to single out D&D. In all role-playing games I have tried, I tend to find the magic in biding my time till the right moment to use some ability in a reckless manner. This usually gets my character in to significant trouble but there is always a memorable story in it.
I imagine this is why there are so many “powered by the apocolypse” games. If you havn’t seen these, They are based on Apocalypse World which has characters piloting “character playbooks” providing them a list of “moves” they can perform in a scene. The type of playbook will determine the kinds of things that you do resulting in XP gain which in turn incentivises the players and there’s usually a special move the playbook is built around like a class action. Chances are if you explore any narrative leaning tabletop roleplaying games, they are directly spawned from this concept or heavily borrow from it.
This loosening of the coupling of the players and the story from the “crunch” - the fidley mathematical/tactical bits - allows for a wide range of motion to the players and GM in many cases. I thought this was something I’d thoroughly enjoy. But in my experience I end up in a similar place when it comes to inhabiting the character. In these games, I find myself wondering what I am supposed to do or why my character cares. The shift from combat and tactics to improvised narrative scene resolution can be a lot of fun, but like many aspects of tabletop role-playing, it depends on the table you’re at. If you have a group that can riff and understands how to lean in and lean out to weave a beautiful tapestry with your character actions, then you can do this forever. If you are looking for some direction because you are not a grizzled and hard nosed gamer who’s played everything they can get their hands on, how do you know what to do with so loose a construct? I find the answer is it doesn’t work. Either your GM has a vision and they know how to make it work plug into the desires of the players at the table, or everybody gets bored. In my mind this can put almost as much strain on the GM to make things happen as 5E, which is almost all of it.
So what’s the answer? Is there an Answer? Did I ask a question? I think anyone playing these games has this question pop up over and over for them again when they’re playing, and I think they come up with their own answers because they want to be at that table, playing with some people they know, striving to experience that peak tabletop experience where the juice is flowing and people are having real old fashion fun telling stories and making memories.
Anyway I bring this up as one of my guiding stars when I think about what kind of tabletop game I want to run and design. There’s a mixture of the mechanical crunch and the loosey storytelling that I always enjoy, and I want the game i’m playing to facilitate it outright with its rule-set. I imagine something more interesting and empowering than “inspirational advantage” on a roll, and more system-supported than “just tell me a story about how this happens”.
The Juice
As a reward for making it this far, I’m going to rattle off some memorable moments that I call “the juice” from my lives across the multiverse as a player:
As a pacifist monk in post-apocalyptic North America with no understanding of their surrounding and an M16 machine gun. I “forgave” a powerful enemy, which stripped him of all his abilities, and then I unloaded the M16 on him. I don’t remember if he ended up being a bad guy or a good guy.
As an arbiter and member of the inquisition in the 41st millennia, I carried and detonated a melta-bomb to crater a walking armored chaos death knight. Somehow I survived, as must have been the will of our God-emperor that day.
Being a gun-loving and mostly hated nuisance of a security officer on Mothership Tartarus, I was vindicated in my insane keeping of grenades and ammo on the ship at all times when one of our visitors had two Xenos explode out of his rectum. Got lucky with the first one and destroyed it right there, the second one made it to the vents…
As a newly formed Orc Fighter, I knew I wanted to kill the enemy. Having a low intelligence modifier in game and in real life, I figured extra words meant extra good - so I opted for the “Chainmail, Barding” without looking up what the extra word meant. Horse armor doesn’t fit as well as the kind for humanoids.
As a weird psychic in the God-Emperor’s Inquisition, I often had trouble keeping the Warp from finding me through the veil and even when I had full control, sometimes things didn’t go well. First I summoned a demon from my friend’s shoulder while trying to close a bullet wound…that hurt…And then I loosed a ball of fire in the vents above our position at a terrifying techno creature that was dragging my compatriot through said vents. My compatriot survived, but without any arms to speak of…that hurt a lot.
I am fortunate to have many awesome stories like these, the more I sit and think the more come to mind. And the ones I have where I am a GM playing the world around the players can be just as good.
That’s enough of my ramblings for this week. Here’s hoping your next session helps has the juice.
What I Am Up To
TTRPG Reading: Flee, Mortals! by MCDM
Audiobook: On Writing - Steven King
Project: Almanac of Abominations Zine - System Neutral - Preorders are live!
Fun Things: I’m going to Pax Unplugged in Philly!
Current Campaign(s):
GM - Shadowdark - Custom Setting (Giathos) - Exploring the recently plagued city of Kinholdt. I used the Shadowdark generation rules for districts for this city, I plan to walk through these in an upcoming blogletter for you.
Player - Storm King’s Thunder - 7 Swashbuckler Rogue / 5 Bladesinger Wizard - In the finale! Dragons and Giants oh my!
Useful Things For Your Game
Spotify Playlist Add - Role: Combat and Danger