RPG Medium

What is “fun?”

Remember when I asked that question? Oh what fun we had!

Now I’d like to talk about a kind of answer to that question. I’ve talked about Levi Kornelsen’s Manyfold theory several times through both this long-form treatise and its errata, but I suspect that some of you haven’t taken the extra step to actually go read the PDF. That’s fine, we’re all busy with something or another these days. Nevertheless, I still think its important, information, worthy of discussion.

At the same time, I can’t just reprint the whole thing here; that’s borderline plagerism, and taking attention away from an interesting piece of work.

So rather than plagerize, I will “join the conversation.”

“This is a game that is fun.”

When I wrote my original post on Into the Woods, I mentioned the original box-set rules for Basic D&D, also known as “The Red Box.” The first line of this rule book: This is a game that is fun.

Let’s ignore both the clumsy childish sentence structure and the somewhat cringy “I have to tell you it’s fun or else you might not realize it” sentiment, and focus on the content. “This,” meaning the original Basic D&D RPG, “is a game,” meaning not a sport or tool but something to enjoy in your leisure hours, “that is fun.”

I’ve talked a lot about this amorphous concept, both in passing and as a nebulous “good” that we should all be aiming for in our RPG games. I’ve talked about how competition is a kind of fun that RPGs tend to eschew, opting for a co-op play-style. I’ve talked about how different kinds of practices both support and weaken the “fun” of the medium. I’ve talked about how the “Tyranny of Fun” can limit the medium, and how “fun” might not even be the be-all-end-all of our games.

I think it’s time to stop beating around the bush, be a Better Socrates, and explore this core concept of our hobby.

Iron Valley, by M. Kirin, is a solo RPG powered by Ironsworn and based on Stardew Valley. You play a recent transplant to Iron Valley, a quiet little community where an old family farm sits waiting for you to build it back up to its proud industrial roots. Or, maybe you’ll make friends and get married, or spend your time exploring and charting the spooky forest, or any number of other adventures that await your attention.

Iron Valley is one of any number of RPGs that have come out in recent years that are, for lack of a better word, cozy. The goal of the game isn’t to amass loot or slay dragons, it’s not to save the galaxy or avert planetary destruction, it’s to spend time with community, find new friends and nurture the world. That’s not to say you couldn’t be a monster-slaying defender of the town — you can do anything in an RPG — but the focus of the game isn’t violence, it’s humility.

Tactiquest is a Tactical RPG still currently (at time of writing) in the beta playtesting stage. Written by level2janitor, (who you may remember also wrote Iron Halberd) Tactiquest is a half-diceless sandbox RPG designed for fast fights, diverse play-styles, and fantastical stories. Each creature-type you chose grants you bonuses, each class has multiple perks to shape your strategy, and there is the requisite extensive list of spells.

What’s half-diceless mean? I’m glad you asked.

Okay, let me first take a step back and say this unequivocally: I don’t think Errant Challenger is a bad game. This is a rhetorical device, yeah? Just go with it for a second.

Errant Challenger, by Fauix, is still in its Beta at time of writing. It’s a fairly straightforward system, easily graspable by most anyone familiar with RPGs.

It’s a bad RPG.

I mean, look at it! It’s not so much a rule-book as it is a word document exported to PDF. The cover is poorly structured AI mush. There’s no real setting, just a chunk of fantasy pablum. The system itself doesn’t do anything that hasn’t been done twenty time over in different systems.

Against the Apocalypse, designed by Oleander Garden, is a game about war, last stands, isolation, and death. It is a game where the players are soldiers in a war against the Demiurge, who sends their hollowmen every Sunday in an attempt to kill the players. They have little in the way of supplies or hope, and the game will end the way all wars must, in death.

The game is, in a single (compound) word, Anti-narrative.

Divided into two parts — the fighting and the downtime — the game encourages the players to unfold their character’s lives in the manner things would happen, not should or could. The book asks players to be honest with both themselves and their imagined world: the goal is not to tell a story, but to simulate life.

Errant, published by Kill Jester, is a, quote: “rules light, procedure heavy, classic fantasy role-playing game in the vein of the first few editions of that role-playing game and its many imitators and descendants.”

Another one?

Not to complain, but the RPG medium is rife with OSR D&D-likes. Rife, I say. What is there to be gained with breaking down yet another one, when we could be talking about interesting games like Rosewood Abbey, LORDSWORN, Pine Shallows, Lumen Ryder Core, Edelweiss, The Long Shift, or All the While?

What is to be gained, I think, is purely an excuse to talk about that first line in the description: Rules-light, Procedure-heavy.

Iron Halberd, by Level2janitor, is a medium weight OSR Fantasy RPG. Recognizing the variety of definitions in the world, the game clarifies OSR to mean that the game is deadly, the story is player-driven, resource management is important, and the system itself is compatible with most other OSR resources.

Anyone familiar with OSR systems will be quickly familiar with most of Iron Halberd’s offerings. Stats are randomly generated, the world is deadly, and the focus of the story is on the player’s actions, rather than the GM’s Mary-Sue villains. Inspired by Dungeon Crawl Classics, Knave, and 13th Age; the system has rules for warbands, strongholds, crafting, hirelings, and long-travel.

But what does “medium weight” mean?

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.

Immortal Lich Henry Kissinger, by Graham Gentz, is an artifact of its time.

It’s hard to explain what Henry Kissinger is to people who don’t know. It’s very easy to explain who Kissinger was, but what “Kissinger” is…

Memes of Death playing a claw machine, Steven Colbert dancing in his office, and a prevailing sense of an omnipresent cruelty existing in the world; its easy to see why The Immortal Lich Henry Kissinger was made. Henry Kissinger was, in many ways, a complicated person.