Evening, Nerds.
The title is clickbait, sorry – but I promise it will make sense if you read to the end.
Throughout this series of articles: Crunch And You, I’m going to be referencing the undisputed king of TTRPGs, Dungeons And Dragons. There are many reasons for this, up to and including the fact that it’s good for my SEO. But seriously, it’s got to happen an awful lot because when something becomes the standard by which most people measure any RPG system, there has to be a good reason for it.
I say there are lots of good reasons for it – they may be tradition, familiarity, whatever you want to call it. It was the first, and with that comes a certain kind of diffidence. It must be the best right?
Depends how you measure “best”. The irony with this view is that DND is basically four or five separate game systems rolled into one. It has changed so much over its forty-something year history, that it alone proves that there must be some value in exploring the different ways in which people can sit around a table, think of a cool character to play, and roll some dice. The dice are the most important part.
So, in the tradition of Gary Gygax, TRS and Wizards Of the Coast themselves, I’ll be embarking on creating my own TTRPG system.
I know, typical right? Everyone thinks they can do it better – but I justify my struggle by reasoning that the real beauty of being part of any gaming community is trying something new; and I can’t think of any way to honour that more than throwing my hat into the ring.
I’ve spent my life playing games – games that attempt to merge creativity with social interactivity to create something which is greater than the sum of its parts; but I’ve always been struck with a particular kind of ennui – always feeling like the game I want to play doesn’t exist, that the one I’m currently playing is almost right but never scratches the particular itch I want scratched.
I feel like a lot of people can relate to that. I think the social element helps, but when a game allows me to make the choices I want, in the way that I want; that feel fair, balanced and always afford me more choices, not less – I feel like I’ve found a home in that game. The phrasing seems kind of odd, but that’s how it feels. And those games are the ones that I stick with.
I must admit that Dungeons And Dragons 5th edition fits the bill in that respect to such a degree, that I would estimate that I’ve played it for around eight thousand hours.
So why do I want to improve it? Well, I don’t really. It’s perfectly fine as it is, but for one thing it’s not mine.
The adventures I write are mine (I’ve always hated and avoided pre-written modules), but there must be some narcissistic element to my personality that just wants to see people enjoying something I create in its entirety. Or maybe DnD’s just bad and I hate it.
I mean come on. It’s fine but it’s got its limitations. There’s a reason Pathfinder exists, or even why DnD 2nd edition was the reason DnD is still around to this day. The complexity was lost around 5th edition for me.
They did the same thing to every proceeding edition of the Fallout franchise – sanitise the mechanical systems to suit new players and bit by bit, remove the complexity that gave it such depth. Now we’re stuck with fallout 76 and everyone wants to forget it ever happened.
There are thousands of ways to create baseless one-note characters in 5th edition (I’ve made tons of them myself, I absolutely hate the beehive druid, Swarm-Nerd or whatever it’s called. Tasha be damned.).
But I digress.
This article isn’t even what it was initially about anymore. You know I was going to write an article on skill systems? How skills are a ludonarrative abstraction, necessitated by the limitations of time and scope on a game system? Then I started rambling, and here we are.
Maybe I’ll do these articles as my clickbait ones. “Why DnD is bad and you should hate it” – I mean am I really cynical enough to do that, just to get my foot in the door so I can really talk to you about what I want? That I think I have some pretty cool ideas, that I think I know how to not just create some pretty fun experiences for you, but in ways you probably never thought you could enjoy them?
Why the hell not?
Well, there it is, some kind of rambling philosophy again – why do I do this? It just came out, unbidden and unrelenting. Maybe this is what Bukwoski said when he wrote “If it doesn’t come bursting out of you, despite everything, don’t do it.”
Well, I did it, and maybe somebody will read it, and maybe somebody will care.
You probably should. We’re gonna do something special one of these days, and you could be part of that.
Good night.
Fact of the moment: The sun is going to explode one day.