You Don't Need to Use Them All

Two years ago, one of my players, Denis, was thinking about running a game. There was some light pressure from the group for him to give it a shot. He eventually settled on trying to run a Gamma World game, details here and here. 

That game never got off the ground. For Denis, he felt that there was too much pressure to compare to others in the group who have years or even decades of experience running games. 

At the English camp we were teaching at through most of August, several guys were asking Denis and I about our games (some are former players, some just curious about RPGs). Denis mentioned that one of the main reasons why he never got his GW game going because the random encounter tables seemed overwhelming. 

I instantly understood what he meant. Random tables like those in the books require the referee to be familiar with most of the creatures in the book. And with all the mutations in GW, that may make it overwhelming. If you only need to worry about a few monsters you've placed in a dungeon, plus whatever powers your players have for their characters, it's not as overwhelming. If everything in the book is on the table, it's a lot to deal with. 

I told Denis that he should try to run the game, but just drop random encounters. The look of relief on his face was noticeable. I think he had been in the mindset that the game has rules for this, so he needed to use them. But that's not true. 

You don't need to use all the rules to run a fun game. Especially when you're just starting out. I ignored lots of rules when I was just starting out as DM nearly 40 years ago. And the games were fun, and challenging. Once you are comfortable with the basics of the game, and with planning and presenting adventures, the more complex stuff can be added back in.

First Draft Complete

I've finished the first draft of my Treasures, Serpents, & Ruins Game Master Guidebook. Well, not technically the first draft, but the first completed draft. I made three or four abandoned starts at it before I got the book I wanted. And I've still got to write the Afterword. But pedantics (yeah, I know that's not a word) aside, the first complete draft is done. I've got all the explanations of game play, advice to the new (or new to OS game style) GM, game systems for dungeons, wilderness exploration, town adventures, domain administration including warfare, planar exploration, and high level epic quests. I've also got a fairly lengthy section on alternate or optional rules and suggestions for limitations or allowances to make the game fit the GM's campaign world and preferred style of exploration-focused play. 

I've got to get my notes organized for the next Star Wars game coming up in a week and a half, but after that's done, my game time will be devoted to reading carefully through this whole 128 page document and revising/editing. Then I'll format it, and I should have it up on DriveThru some time this summer. 

Once it's up, I'll also make a condensed Rules Reference book, with just the rules and system guidelines that can be easily used at the table, without all the explanations for new GMs. Experienced DMs who aren't curious about my gaming philosophy and don't want to bother with yet another explanation of how to play the game, but just want something to use to check the rules, this will be the book for you.

 I also want to do a few updates to both the Ruby and Jade players' books, based on play at my game table and also a few mistakes I've found here and there. And that will make TS&R complete...until I decide to add a Middle Eastern/African fantasy supplement, or a pulp sci-fantasy supplement, or a Pre-Columbian Americas supplement, or an Australian/Oceanian supplement. Potentially. I'm not as well versed in the myths, legends, or history of some of these other areas as I am with European and Easter/Southeastern/Central Asian myths, legends, and history. 

Anyway, it will be a complete fantasy heartbreaker soon.

TS&R GM Guidebook Progress

In the past week or so, I've made some good progress on my TS&R Game Master Guidebook.

I finished up rules for naval mass combat (modified and simplified from those in the module M1 Immortal Storm), wrote some general guidelines for high level epic quests, and revised the section on artifacts. I still need to write up some more sample artifacts. I had an example of creating an artifact from an earlier draft, so that got a touch-up, and I have a list of legendary items from various myths and legends that I plan to give the 1E AD&D treatment, describing the item and its purpose, but leaving the specific powers and drawbacks to the individual GM. 

Oh, and now I'm working on describing the Planes of Existence. 

Once I get the artifacts and planar stuff done, all I have left to do is outline some optional or alternate rules (like suggestions for different ways to do energy drain attacks, or using X in d6 for Thief Skills instead of percentages, or optional rules for multiclassing, or using BX/BECMI style race-as-class). I do have 1st drafts for some parts of this last section done already, as the ideas come to me. 

Once that's done, I was planning to put in a section with quick reference charts from around the book, but I realized that I already intend to release a simple rules reference book for more experience GMs, so this might not be necessary. It would be roughly the same thing, and since the majority of people will own these as PDFs, it might be easier to have quick reference stuff in one document window and more detailed rules explanations in another. 

Once all that's done, I'll give everything an editing pass, and see if I can get someone else to read through it as well. Sometimes I get to rambling and over-explain things, or make an assumption that some point is obvious and don't explain it well enough. When I'm teaching in class, I can tell from student reactions that this is happening and correct myself. When I'm writing, I don't have that luxury. So a pair of fresh eyes or two will help me to improve and clarify things a bit. 

The book chapters are: 

The Basics: what is an RPG, how do you use these funny dice, what is the reward-feedback loop, player-centered play, etc.

Running the Game: How to manage character creation, how to manage a game session, procedures for dungeon/wilderness/town-social exploration, rules for combat, advice on adjudicating rules.

Preparing the Campaign: How to set up a campaign, create a home town, create dungeons, wilderness, NPCs and factions, and how to bring it all together into a campaign world.

High Level Games: Running domains, mass combat, magical research, epic quests, planar adventures, artifacts. 

Modifying the Game: Advice on limiting races/classes/spells to fit the campaign, optional rules, alternate rules systems. 

If I can keep up the pace over the next week (the final week of winter break for my university), I may be able to knock out the first drafts of the sections I still have to write. Then, if I can find a few people to give me some feedback, I will hopefully get this thing ready to release sometime over the summer or fall of this year, along with the Rules Reference book. And then I can consider compiling everything I've put out for TS&R into a print-on-demand volume, and also work on player and monster books for other genres besides Euro-fantasy and Asian fantasy.