It is a personal affront to my good friend, +Jonathan Henry,
to mention the “hacking” of games. He has a point. We keep recycling words
instead of using words that have worked well in the past or even creating new words.
So, I’ll refer to it as modifying game rules here.
As someone who is interested in game design, I have a
tendency to look at the rules and wonder how I would do it differently. This is
one of those times when “why?” rears its ugly head again, but it seems fitting
here. Are you making a change to the roleplaying game system just to be
different? Are you adding complexity for complexity’s sake?
I am going somewhere with this. I really am. Bear with me a
moment while I give a little bit of background.
For two years, people have been trying to get me to play
Savage Worlds. I have invested in the books. I just haven’t had the opportunity
to play. This, for some reason, was not a game I wanted to try running straight
from the book. I wanted someone to run me through this RPG at least once before
I tried to do anything with it. Those suggestions to give Savage Worlds a try
got stronger in the Google + RPG communities.
Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to sit down and
have a lengthy discussion with +Keith Bailey regarding roleplaying games. Keith
has been playing for longer than I have been alive—no, really. He has been in
it since the beginning. I don’t think he had the opportunity to purchase the
wooden box set for D&D, but he bought the white box just after that. Since
then, he has played a LOT of games. He has played in a variety of different
campaigns, made rules adjustments that were 20 or so years ahead of their time,
and tried just about every flavor of roleplaying game system out there. He
seemed to enjoy the games that I enjoyed most. He played a lot of games in the
way that I prefer to play them as well. So, when you add his lengthy experience
and similar preferences together and he tells me that his recent experiences
with Savage Worlds has made it his “go to game” for the time being, at least,
it carries some weight.
So, +Robert Brumbelow agrees to run a quick one-shot for us
last night. +Jerrod Gunning , a bit of a Savage Worlds sensation joins in along
with the aforementioned Jonathan. Jon was a bit under the weather and the game
neither supplied clear direction or the freeform, story strong systems Jon has
been having a lot of fun with recently. Keith was held up due to real life and
weather, so didn’t make it until later in the game. There were some bad rolls in the
beginning and the game took some unexpected and unfortunate turns. Were it to
carry out, it would’ve turned into an almost TPK game.
But, you know what?
It was fun.
This was the first time in a long while I had to wonder if
my character was honestly about to die do to something besides my own blatant
stupidity. The rolls were easy to understand, although I asked to verify more
than once just to make sure I wasn’t screwing anything up. The company was
great. The adventure and combat was there. It had everything that I think of
when I think of a great RPG.
So, what does that boil down to?
Well, I read the book. I have skimmed it a few times. I
finally finished reading most of it straight through between yesterday and this
morning. There were certain things that I thought, while looking at it on
paper, that I might want to change. Those things were mostly minor, except for
some changes I might make to the use of cards. But, I realized, for what I want
to do with a roleplaying game, I do not NEED to make any real changes to Savage
Worlds. It was what I need there for a wide variety of games.
I had a great opportunity after the game to speak with both
Robert and Jerrod about what I liked and didn’t like at first. And, it wasn’t
even so much what I didn’t like, because I really enjoyed myself. It was more a
discussion on what was different. They gave me feedback. They answered
questions. They provided me their point of view and even pointed out how not
everyone agrees with them 100%. That’s wonderful.
So, what it has come down to is me looking at using Savage
Worlds as the base for a few games I would love to write. The really cool thing
about this is that the rules are just simple enough that I won’t have to spend
the next three or four years learning all the little trivial things, yet
complex enough to allow for a wide variety of actions and options for
characters. I am great at analyzing things. I can balance a checkbook, but
anything more with numbers and I can get a bit lost. I am NOT a statistics guy
except in very specific areas. Savage Worlds has already done the crunch and
the balance for me. With the added support of a Google +, it’ll be relatively
easy to bounce ideas off of fellow gamers.
The great thing for me is that I have finally found a system
that doesn’t force me to believe I need to reinvent the wheel.
Now, it may not be everyone’s cup of tea. Others might say
the same things about a different system. But, this is how I see it and I feel
and I am excited to find something that has worked out the way I wanted and
needed for it to.
