What Constitutes a Good Role Playing Game?
Written by Harry
July 1, 2008
In the comment section of our Starting With Your Questions Post, Ben Overmyer asked, “What constitutes a good role-playing game?” It’s a very good question indeed.
The answer is that the definition of a good role-playing game varies from person to person. Everyone looks for something different in role-playing.
Personally, I prefer a game that gives me plenty of creative freedom. Too many rules and too much number-crunching are enough to make me crumple up my stat sheet and walk away.
When I was overseas in Wales, my friends were into the GURPS gaming system. GURPS stands for Generic Universal Role Playing System. Steve Jackson created this system and designed it to fit any genre - everything from fantasy, to war games, to sci-fi and some fan fiction like Discworld.
GURPS involved many stats and charts. The game experience was a little tedious for a guy like me who just likes to come up with a character and wing it.
But that’s just me and my preferences. What makes a good role-playing game for other people?
Strategy
Some people thrive on strategy. They enjoy trying to determine how to achieve goals through plotted actions or moves. Their preference is to outwit and outlast, or at the very least, outsmart an enemy, if not the game master.
World of Darkness’s Vampire: The Requiem and its predecessor Vampire: The Masquerade were chock full of political strategy. Many D&D campaigns include plenty of strategy as well. Get into an epic battle and believe me, you’re going to have to start thinking like a general!
Combat
I’ve gamed with many players who live for the fight and nothing but the fight. They don’t care about developing a character’s personality or improving the storyline. They just want to hack and slash. Nothing is better than a Saturday night spent up to their hips in virtual gore.
Combat does have its place. When used well, combat adds spice to a chronicle or campaign. It keeps the players on their toes. I believe that if overused, combat just becomes tedious.
The Dungeon Crawl
Ah, fortune and glory! Some games are all about the accumulation of experience points and treasure. Some people love collecting more than they enjoy the story, and they slog through 10 x 10 rooms full of mud and dragons to gather the goodies.
At Escaping Reality, we give out gifts and trinkets to characters, but these are few and far between. They also have to be earned and deserved. Unfortunately, some people can’t get used to the idea that there doesn’t always have to be a treasure or points to make a game fun.
So What’s the Answer?
A good role-playing game creates fun opportunity for both the player and the Storyteller (or Game Master or Dungeon Master). Never forget that the person running the game usually loves the game as much, if not more, than the players in the group.
A good RPG should also challenge the imagination. The game should make you think and use those brain cells of yours. Before the advent of video games, all we had were our imaginations and toys like little green army men, Hot Wheels, Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs (made out of real wood).
Nothing moved, buzzed, flashed or spoke. If it did, it was probably too expensive for your parents to buy no matter how much you begged.
We had to make up our own games. And that is where role-playing games began.
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I think, coming from an avid reader point of view, that I am most certainly with you on this one. Those other three descriptions just don’t appeal to me at all. Which is, of course, why ER is so much fun for me.
Allison’s last blog post..Taste and Create 9
I’m with you on the creative freedom; rules have way too much of a knack for impeding the good stuff.
For me, the good stuff is also in the immersion. I like a game that gives me a world I haven’t seen before, or a new take on the world I’m in.
I like a game where combat isn’t the be all and end all, because really, even in the systems I play there are only so many ways to hit an opponent with something pointy. More importantly, I like to be able to see situations that just wouldn’t show up in the real world, or even in someone else’s game: one of my favorite sessions to run involved fourteen demigods (including the players) playing a magically enhanced variant on Calvinball.
I like a game where the solutions can get downright inventive, and lateral thinking is as often a way to succeed as having good numbers.
I like a game in which I can prosper not just because I did a good job of building my character, but on the basis of my own wits, social understanding and imagination.
Ravyn’s last blog post..What We Didn’t Say
I like a game where you don’t have to stretch your imagination to visualize scenes or require a bunch of research to get it right. Keep it simple. Keep it fun.
James Chartrand - Men with Pens’s last blog post..Should You Turn Off Your Telephone?
simple-yes If I have to count higher then my fingers…I might be in trouble
Fun..oh were are having LOTS of fun
I think our imagination is stretching and and creating a whole new world and I love it. I can dream about Reckon and see it clearly in color in my sleep. The people and everything. It has become real in my dreams. That makes it easy to visualize and write about.
Now about those trinkets…I never knew about trinkets. Are they shiny? Do they glitter in the light? Can you play with them? What kind of trinkets?
Wendi Kelly’s last blog post..The Perfect Day
@Wendi: trinkets = special abilities. You’ll see when you get the books
I think in any game you will never get everyone to agree on the same thing. So the best game is one that changes so each type of player gets to play their favorite game.
Diane’s last blog post..Independence Undertones In Movies, Shows, and Games