RPG Errata: Endeavour, and Themes

Endeavour, by Armiger Games, is a playset for the Paragon RPG system, which was made famous by AGON, the epic myth TTRPG. Inspired by the hopeful and optimistic Science Fiction genre — specifically the original Star Trek — Endeavour sees your characters traveling throughout the galaxy, discovering new species, alien cultures, and strange artifacts in your quest to learn more about the universe.

AGON, on the other hand, is about retelling epic adventures in the style of the Odyssey. Your characters travel from island to island on their journey home, subject to the whims and wills of the Gods.

To state the obvious: The Odyssey and Star Trek are very different kinds of story. The former is about heroes, angry gods, defiance and struggle, and an everpresent yearning for home. Star Trek is about exploration, discovery, and our highest ideals. There is little that connects the two.

Right?

While there are a few minor differences, it’s important to note that Endeavour is played in the exact same way as AGON. The differences are almost entirely narrative in nature. Endeavour is practically a reskin; Page 7 of the rulebook has a chart that explains the rule-changes, specifically how most of them are just changing words.

In AGON, you earn favor from the Gods. In Endeavour, you earn assistance from Civilizations of the Interstellar Confederation. In AGON, you travel from island to island, performing Great Deeds and earning Trophies. In Endeavour, you travel from planet to planet, finding Discoveries and collecting Artifacts. In AGON, you recieve Pathos and Agony while earning Fate. In Endeavour you suffer Stress and Distress as you gain Experience.

These two systems do wonders to highlight the flexibility both of Game-narrative and Ludo-narrative. AGON was designed specifically to model an Epic Myth in the Grecian style. Ludo-narratively, the system is strongly connected to the ancient myths of monsters and Gods.

But with just a little bit of reframing, the exact same system is now Ludo-narratively supporting the optimistic Science-fiction stories of the 70s, when each discovery was a chance at learning more about our place in the universe. Poetically, you could draw connections between ancient pantheons and galactic alliances, but really the only practical similarity is that Gods and Civilizations have more power/resources than you do, and you are in some manner answerable to their desires.

One of the many questions asked by scholars about the creative arts is; how many stories are there?

From the Monomyth to the Seven Basic Plots to John Gardner’s Two Stories, people have tried to reduce the art of storytelling to a small number for ages. I myself think there is only one kind of story: “Someone does something important.” It is at once a perfect distilation of what a story is while also being completely useless in a taxonomical sense.

Endeavour makes an excellent case for this homogenizing of stories. Indeed, all RPGs that are based on other systems make that case when they drastically shift tone and theme while maintaining the basic ludo-narrative.

Dread is a horror game, where players build a precarious jenga tower, ludo-narratively representing the growing tension that ultimately leads to a character’s horriffic death. Star-Crossed is a romance game, where two players build a precarious jenga tower, ludo-narratively representing the growing tension that ultimately leads to two characters kissing. Sure, there are other differences, but ultimately the jenga tower mechanic is designed for dramatic tension — that both horror and romance include this tension makes the system perfect for these different kinds of stories.

This is the art of reskinning stories: reframing narratives and adapting situations to fit genres and themes. In Blades in the Dark, you’re playing a group of scoundrels and brutes. You’re not supposed to be heroes, you’re thieves and bandits. You’re fighting for what power and wealth you can get while avoiding or corrupting the police. You operate in opposition to the powers-that-be. It’s only natural that there are several Forged in the Dark systems that embrace that idea and turn the system into a story about revolutionaries opposing an empire, or a band of adventurers fighting the Lord of the Dungeon.

This is the goal of all SRDs and Generic systems, after all; mechanics and stories don’t have to actively support each other to be effective. Take whatever mechanics you like and use them to help tell a story, and it won’t matter if you’re rolling a d20, 3d6, or however many d10s.

But even bespoke systems with strong ludo-narratives can be adapted. I wonder sometimes if Generic systems are going to vanish someday soon. The appeal of telling your own stories is a strong one, but doing so in an established framework — Fantasy with d20s, horror with d10s, or comedy with cards — can make things easier for people. After all, if D&D can be reskinned into science fiction with gun-wands and laser swords, aren’t all RPGs Generic systems?

Endeavour proves that they can be, and that “all RPGs are hacks” isn’t just a quote about the games’ systems, but their stories as well.