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Zombimode
2013-08-09, 12:48 PM
Ok, I often see people saying that they have played a bazillion RPG system and GM'ed for at least half of them.
Now, there is no reason to dispute such claims. I find it impressive, but I'm wondering how they manage to do this.

To me PnP RPGs are my most important hobby. I take it rather seriously (not in the "THIS IS A SERIOUS GAME" sense, mind you) and try to get my group together once per week.

I moved to a new town in late march and in early may I finally got a new group together. Within the semester we roughly played once per month, but now we are thankfully getting the weekly gaming session started.
We are playing D&D 3.5 E6 and are close but not quite at the end of the first adventure. And when I say "adventure" I mean adventure and not campaign (which is a series of adventures with roughly the same party).
There are at least 3 or 4 adventures in planing and I estimate the final adventure concluding in one year form now.

Within that time there isn't really a window to try something else, because that would mean:
- having to learn a new system
- getting accustomed to a new setting
- leaving your character that you played for month behind

And if, in a year, the group is still more or less intact, they probably will finally have groked the system in a satisfying way so they can actually build characters on their own. Switching system will let all of this experience go to waste. Even changing the setting (in the sense of game world) could be seen a counterproductive.

Getting to know your character, the rules and the setting takes time. Finishing adventures takes a frigging long time.

How do you manage to do this satisfactorily for more then a few systems?

Since tone doesn't translate well across written text, I will do the Elcor and add: "with honest curiosity:"
:smallsmile:

kyoryu
2013-08-09, 12:56 PM
Getting to know your character, the rules and the setting takes time. Finishing adventures takes a frigging long time.

How do you manage to do this satisfactorily for more then a few systems?


Depends on the system. Some systems are so close to one another that switching between them is relatively cheap. Others hit such a different combination of decisions/things that it's pretty much a full model shift to switch from them.

I'm not talking full system-mastery "master of min-max" kind of level. I'm talking basic fluency in the system.

But, in general, you can't. I find I get the most benefit by deliberately focusing on systems that are *quite* different from what I'm used to, as it broadens my horizons the most.

Totally Guy
2013-08-09, 01:04 PM
Conventions are an ideal environment. I usually get a couple of new games under my belt in a weekend. It's not long term play but convention games usually highlight the things the games do well.

Knaight
2013-08-09, 01:27 PM
And if, in a year, the group is still more or less intact, they probably will finally have groked the system in a satisfying way so they can actually build characters on their own. Switching system will let all of this experience go to waste. Even changing the setting (in the sense of game world) could be seen a counterproductive.

Getting to know your character, the rules and the setting takes time. Finishing adventures takes a frigging long time.

How do you manage to do this satisfactorily for more then a few systems?
I'd contest most of these. Some people can pick up systems faster than others, some systems are lighter and easier to pick up, so on and so forth. Similarly, it's entirely possible to get to know a character and setting well enough to play them easily fairly quickly, and adventures can be short. I'd consider four or five sessions plenty for an adventure, even in some relatively heavy systems - particularly if it's a system which doesn't have combat that drags on for hours. That doesn't sound like much, but it can still be a good 12-25 hours, assuming session lengths between 3 and 5 hours. That's equivalent to several plays, several movies, a mini-series, and at my reading speed about 1200-5000 pages, with the 1200 figure being for something really dense that probably predates novels. It's plenty of time for a good story with good characters.

So, assume a weekly group (Which is more or less the ideal) - a game a month should be pretty doable. Some take longer, but there are also games like Microscope or The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchasen or Fiasco that are best as one shots.

Roland St. Jude
2013-08-09, 02:07 PM
Some people have been playing a long time, through life stages known for their abundant free time (like junior high, high school, and university). I'm sure there were years when I played games like it was a full time job, in addition to my actual full time obligations. And then there are some of us for whom playing games has been a job.

Some people are very good at the skills you mention such as system mastery, character building, and character development, so that it doesn't take years or even months to play a game to the point of understanding it. And once you've played some different games, you come to learn and understand games much more quickly. A whole group of such people can get into and on top of a game much more quickly than your timeline.

But as noted above, "have you played X?" can be answered in the affirmative after a weekend marathon, a convention session, or a PbP that died after a couple turns. And saying they've "played" mean they've full read the source material, even the basics. That someone has played X doesn't tell you a whole lot about their experience quantitatively or qualitatively.

Knaight
2013-08-09, 02:31 PM
Some people have been playing a long time, through life stages known for their abundant free time (like junior high, high school, and university). I'm sure there were years when I played games like it was a full time job, in addition to my actual full time obligations. And then there are some of us for whom playing games has been a job.

I should probably have mentioned that actually - I do know a few people who played daily for a while. I've never had anywhere near the time for that, but those people could easily get through plenty of systems if they wanted to. The groups I knew generally didn't, but that doesn't really say much.

BWR
2013-08-09, 02:50 PM
I Some people can pick up systems faster than others,

QFT!
My DM has run 3.5 since it came out and it took him years to learn certain things, like how to calculate spell DCs. Which is odd because he learned BECMI and 2e rather quickly. He's better at it now.
Another player of mine still makes elementary mistakes about certain things.
A couple of my friends take to new systems like a fish to water and min-max without even consciously thinking about doing so.

Zavoniki
2013-08-09, 03:07 PM
A lot of it depends on system complexity and system similarity.

My group has run Pathfinder, is about to run Legend, and did both 4th and 3.5. Those are all somewhat similar systems with Legend and 4th being the most out there. Switching between them is fairly easy however. In addition once you know a D20 system, anything based around rolling a d20, which is a lot of RPG's, is easier to learn and pick up because the basic mechanics tend to be familiar even if its a classless skill system instead of DnD.

We've also run a lot of Cortex which is one of the more simple systems around. You can make characters(with no knowledge of the system) in about 10-15 minutes and that goes to probably 2 minutes with knowledge of it and gameplay is even easier.

Of course we've also run Eclipse Phase. The basic mechanic for Eclipse Phase is simple(roll a d100, get as close but still under to your target number as possible), but its still quite a complex game. Most of us are either Math or Computer Science people(or both), which helps with complexity issues.

Ohh and we tried running Hero System once... And did get all the way through Character Creation.

We've touched other systems independently as well(GURPS, various White Wolf stuff, Paranoia, Shadowrun, etc...) and probably read through even more systems without playing them. I think the more systems you are exposed to the easier it is to pick up new ones.

It depends on who's at the table. If the group can naturally pick up and understand new systems, then running something new, even if its just for a one shot, is simple and easy. If your group can't do that, then sticking to one system or a group of similar systems is probably best.

Zombimode
2013-08-09, 04:17 PM
Thanks for the replies so far :smallsmile:

Regarding the learning of new systems: sure, there are great differences between players. But at my table at least there are always some players who don't have such a great interest in learning new systems all the time.


But ok, lets say that a 2 month period for playing a system before switching to the next is possible, in my experience there is a big motivation to do so. Withing 6-8 session you've hardly experienced the system to its fullest (at least not the more in-depth systems like D&D 3.5), but more importantly most of my current and former players would not even want to switch characters after such a short time. There is so much more to explore, both mechanical and in role-playing, and you've probably just scratched the surface of the setting.

Maybe its also the style of adventures and campaigns I'm running. While its possible to end an adventure withing two months of real-time, there will always be open ends left to be explored. In addition, seeing how a character develops its place in the setting and the story is one of my greatest joys both as a players and as a GM (for different perspectives of course). In either role it would be frustrating to have to start from scratch every 2 or 3 month.

tldr: in my experience (and my preference as well) many players and GMs don't want to change characters and settings all that often.

Rhynn
2013-08-09, 04:23 PM
Ok, I often see people saying that they have played a bazillion RPG system and GM'ed for at least half of them.
Now, there is no reason to dispute such claims. I find it impressive, but I'm wondering how they manage to do this.

So... you're disputing that I've played and run Cyberpunk 2020, Shadowrun, RuneQuest (3rd, MRQ1, MRQ2), Call of Cthulhu, Traveller 2000 AD, Twilight 2000, D&D (BECM, AD&D 2E, 3.0, 3.5, 4E), GURPS, Elhendi, MERP, Rolemaster, Lord of the Rings RPG, Bubblegum Crisis, Artesia: Adventures in the Known World, and several others I can't remember right now?

The thing is, I have, in the space of ~20 years.

You might need to give an actual number instead of "bazillion" for this discussion to make sense. What is an unbelievable number to you?


Getting to know your character, the rules and the setting takes time.

For a given value of time. In my experience, that's mostly "little time." I take it you mean "a long time" ? That's an unsupported assertion to apply to others.

I read through a rulebook in a day or two, and then teach it to my players as we play. Most RPGs only have a single book of rules to learn, and nowhere near the complexity/false depth of D&D 3.X.

Settings vary a lot. For Bubblegum Crisis, watching an 8-episode anime series is plenty of setting knowledge. For RuneQuest, I've spent over 15 years reading and writing and discussing Glorantha. But in most cases, I create the setting as I go along, bit by bit. Why run someone else's Realms when I can run my own?

Characters... I don't quite understand what you mean, honestly. I prefer games where you can create a character in 15 minutes (AD&D, ACKS, etc.), and an hour is about my maximum. Roleplay-wise, you start out with an idea or a stereotype, and then fill everything out as you play. That's not a real time-investment.


Finishing adventures takes a frigging long time.

Only if you do it a certain way. I don't "finish adventures" to begin with*, I create locations and situations. It is very fast. I've spent less than an hour doing prep for each session of Artesia: AKW, because with a basic setting and characters, I could create endless story from the PCs' actions. I've spent more time doing non-session prep, but that was stuff I did because I wanted to and liked it.

* Except when I do; I found an episode-by-episode approach worked great for Bubblegum Crisis, for instance. If it takes more than 2-4 hours for an adventure, though, I'm doing something wrong. Those BGC episodes I wrote were one A4 page each, not counting stats (pulled straight out of the rulebook).


How do you manage to do this satisfactorily for more then a few systems?

One at a time.

kyoryu
2013-08-09, 04:28 PM
For a given value of time. In my experience, that's mostly "little time." I take it you mean "a long time" ? That's an unsupported assertion to apply to others.

My experience is that a lot of that depends on how close the systems are in terms of intent and what they're trying to accomplish. If you just skim over them, you can "run them", but you're probably playing <game I started with> with a different ruleset.

If the games are relatively close to each other, then that's probably how they were intended to be used, anyway, and so that's a safe assumption.

But for games that handle things in a substantially different way, or do things for different reasons, a quick dip probably isn't enough.

AD&D 2 to D&D 3? Pretty easy. D&D 3 to 4? Takes a bit longer. D&D 3 to PF? Almost no time at all. D&D 3 to BRP? Not very long, but a bit longer.

D&D 3 to Burning Wheel? That'll take a while, to truly get at what the game is attempting to really do and why its pieces line up the way that they do.

BWR
2013-08-09, 04:37 PM
Character creation time is also dependant on familiarity with the system. It's perfectly possible to whip up a fully playable character for 3.x in 10 minutes or so. Most of the time is deciding what you want. Actually putting it together goes quickly. I really don't see lots of variety as a weakness.

Rhynn
2013-08-09, 06:42 PM
My experience is that a lot of that depends on how close the systems are in terms of intent and what they're trying to accomplish. If you just skim over them, you can "run them", but you're probably playing <game I started with> with a different ruleset.

Who said "skim" ? I said it takes me a day or two to read a RPG core ruleset and learn the rules. What I don't remember I can look up in play.

And "intent" and what they're trying to accomplish don't really seem like they have anything to do with the rules in themselves (but rather with what sort of rules the game has to begin with).

Mordar
2013-08-09, 07:02 PM
I think you must also consider that there are (or at least were) many games that were distinct from one another but had very similar (or exactly the same) systems. I point to, for instance, the Chaosium system (Call of C'thulhu, Stormbringer, Superworld) or WoD (Werewolf, Vampire, Mage, Changeling, etc.), or PaceSetter (Chill, Timemaster, um...others that escape me at the moment).

While one might be tempted to lump them into a single game ala GURPS, the trappings were different and feel was radically different...something I don't know that GURPS or Savage Worlds accomplished in quite the same way.

- M

Jay R
2013-08-09, 08:01 PM
I don't consider myself one of the top-level role-players. I've played ten long campaigns, four short campaigns, and twelve or more one-shots, of a dozen different games. I've GMed four long campaigns, one short campaign, and several one shots, of five different games.

The simple answer is a combination of two things. First, I have been doing this for a long time, starting in 1975.

Second, I read and study games while playing other games. I have read rules for and thought about at least six games in the last month.

kidnicky
2013-08-09, 09:22 PM
One thing to keep in mind is that these days, you have so much rules light stuff. Look at some of the pdf indie games out there. You roll a die, he rolls a die, add modifiers, highest wins. The rest of the book is setting fluff. I'm not knocking these kinds of games, I'm just saying you grok the system in 15 minutes.

erikun
2013-08-09, 09:31 PM
In general, I've found that the most common reason for trying a new system involved curiosity of the new one, boredom with the current one, or disliking the current system and wanting to give another a try.

As others have pointed out, there are a number of systems that can be grouped together for similar mechanics. If you've played D&D3e, then you could probably play Pathfinder, d20 Modern, Mutants & Masterminds, and True20 without much difficulty. The World of Darkness system includes, Vampire, Werewolf, Changeling, Mage, Hunter, Geist, Prometheus, Mummy, and even fangames like Genuis or Dungeoning. The systems do have their differences, especially with character creation, but the base mechanics and resolving rolls is bascially all the same.

If you've been to a convention, then it wouldn't be hard to sit down with a new system for a couple of hours and add it to your "Systems Played" list. The same thing for play-by-post; you could join a game, play for a little bit every day, and have seen what the system is like that way.

[EDIT] And I should point out that some systems are far more rules-light than D&D. Some could easily be read through in under and hour, and have characters written up and a game started within an hour after that. Plus, I've found that the base character/campaign concept activity is mostly independent of system.

Ultimately, it depends on how satisfied you are with your current game. If everything is working out, that's fine! There's no reason to change or discard the current campaign you have if you're playing it without problem.


For me, though, it's mostly a dissatisfaction with the whole D&D3e system, which is something that nearly every group I encounter is playing. I want to give something else a try, as I do like roleplaying and am sure that it can be done better that that system.

SimonMoon6
2013-08-09, 10:56 PM
Ok, I often see people saying that they have played a bazillion RPG system and GM'ed for at least half of them.
Now, there is no reason to dispute such claims. I find it impressive, but I'm wondering how they manage to do this.

Back in my heyday, we young college kids had a lot of free time. We'd get together early Saturday morning (seriously, 8 am) and play RPGs all day long. We might play D&D (1st edition since that's all there was back then) for a few hours, then MSHRPG for a few more hours, then Call of Cthulhu for a few hours, then Palladium, a different D&D game, a homebrew superhero game, etc etc. It helped that we were all interested in running a bunch of different games. Not every game would be played every week, and some games would fizzle out after only a few sessions. But man, those were some great days.

Of all those games, not many stood the test of time. A D&D game I was running ran for five years, until only two players were still around and one of the remaining PCs had been reincarnated into something unfortunate. A spin-off of a superhero game managed to last for ten years, and in the process went through several different game systems. None of the others lasted much beyond a year or two.

Thrudd
2013-08-09, 11:03 PM
How many games you play and how often you play them is just a matter of the interests of the particular group of people. Some groups are only interested in one setting or genre and will stick with one game forever, there are some people still playing their same 1ed or 2ed AD&D games and never tried anything else. I knew people who had no interest in anything besides fantasy/D&D. Other groups have varying interests and lots of ideas.
I, like some others, have been gaming for over 20 years. I have played or GM'd five different versions of D&D, GURPS, RIFTS, Werewolf, Changeling, Vampire, Mage, Wraith, Aria, Feng Shui, WEG Star Wars and D20 Star Wars, D20 Modern, Spycraft, Paranoia...and a couple others I can't remember right now. Most of these were not long term campaigns which went on for years. It doesn't require too much time to learn an RPG system and start playing, in general, and not every group devotes all their time to just one game. "Mastering" a system is not required, nor is it necessarily even advised.
In highschool, my group of friends often had two or three or more people wanting to run different games at the same time. We also hung out at a book/game store where the store owner and several other people would run games and have open invitation for people to join. When a new RPG would come out, inevitably someone would buy it, get an idea for a campaign or adventure, and then get some people to play it. We would just run different games at different times of the week, and not everyone played in all the same games. Later, with other groups of friends, we might have two games going on simultaneously and alternate which one was played each week on "game night", and play two nights if we could manage it. Occasionally take a night off from the recurring games to play a one-shot of something or a board game.

Not every game needs to be an intensive, immersive character drama, in fact most of them aren't. Some games you can slap together a character in a few minutes and start playing. You just need one person who knows the system and has an adventure prepared. As you and your group becomes more experienced in RPG's in general, it will become easier and faster to pick up how new games work. You don't ever need to abandon a game or a character, they will always be where you left them. If somebody wants to try something different for a month or two, it isn't as though you can't return to your beloved long-term campaign again, or do them both at the same time. Of course, no one is saying you NEED to play more than one game. But it is not hard to do. Nothing is "going to waste", this is all in our minds. Sometimes you are inspired to play an epic fantasy setting, but then you watch a movie or read a novel, and get ideas for a completely different setting.

Lorsa
2013-08-10, 08:13 AM
So... you're disputing that I've played and run Cyberpunk 2020, Shadowrun, RuneQuest (3rd, MRQ1, MRQ2), Call of Cthulhu, Traveller 2000 AD, Twilight 2000, D&D (BECM, AD&D 2E, 3.0, 3.5, 4E), GURPS, Elhendi, MERP, Rolemaster, Lord of the Rings RPG, Bubblegum Crisis, Artesia: Adventures in the Known World, and several others I can't remember right now?

Actually, he specifically said he was NOT disputing it. He was just impressed.


I've also played fairly large number of systems, some more than others. One lasted only 3 sessions for example, before we found it unbearable. And I think that's the thing, people rarely specify how much playing has to be involved in order to state that they have "played" a game. Do you need to finish a 110 session campaign? Is 2 hours enough? I have technically played Buffy the roleplaying game, but that was learning the system, making a character, doing a combat simulation and playing for 1.5-2 hours. Then the GM supposedly never had time to prepare more (and improvisation wasn't an option apparently) so it was a bust. So, have I played it or not?

I learn systems easily, I always did. But then I have easy to learn things in general. Like Rhynn I can learn a system through reading the core book in 1-2 days. Getting into a large, complex and detailed world can take longer though which is why I often prefer to make my own (though not always).

I've been roleplaying for over 18 years, I don't switch systems very often and I like to stick with those I like but even so I must have tried out two dozen systems or so. Many of those are swedish made and so most people here probably haven't heard of them.

Raum
2013-08-10, 08:46 AM
Getting to know your character, the rules and the setting takes time. Finishing adventures takes a frigging long time.

How do you manage to do this satisfactorily for more then a few systems?Decades of gaming to start with - I've gamed off and on for more than thirty years. Sometimes with more than one group & system at the same time.

I've tried half a dozen or so systems as one shots just to get an idea of how a system plays. Another half dozen plus became multi-year campaigns. However most system experiments tended to last between six and eighteen months - long enough to bring the game to a logical conclusion.

All that said, it seldom takes more than a session or two to grasp a game's core concepts. With something like AD&D or GURPS there's a lot of detail which takes time to learn but that will seldom make a big difference in how the game plays. FATE probably took longer to get used to just because it's a significant departure from traditional play styles. Other games like WUSHU and WaRP are simple enough there really isn't much to learn, just a core mechanic explainable in a few minutes.


tldr: in my experience (and my preference as well) many players and GMs don't want to change characters and settings all that often.Which is why a lot of people haven't played more than a few systems - or even just multiple versions of one system. Nothing wrong with that. On the other hand, I keep trying to find the mythical "perfect system" which accomplishes everything I want from a game. :smallwink:

SimonMoon6
2013-08-10, 11:01 AM
I have technically played Buffy the roleplaying game, but that was learning the system, making a character, doing a combat simulation and playing for 1.5-2 hours. Then the GM supposedly never had time to prepare more (and improvisation wasn't an option apparently) so it was a bust. So, have I played it or not?

Likewise, I've technically played Chill. The adventure was some long laborious mystery with a bunch of clues that we never figured out and the guy only ran it for one or two sessions, with the campaign ending before we figured out what was going on, what the clue about Lady Clairol had to do with anything, whether we were fighting vampires that were vulnerable to mahogany or vulnerable to jade, etc etc. I do remember my "super awesome at driving" character failing a simple driving test and crashing on the highway. And I remember that we were given pregenerated characters, though we also made our own characters in case we ended up playing Chill for real later on.

And we also got to make characters for the version of Chill where you play as one of the typical monsters. I remember I had made a mummy and gave him the ability to teleport. Sadly, I never got to play him.

tensai_oni
2013-08-10, 12:14 PM
OP, you bundled two issues together. System mastery and adopting to a new setting.

The former happens each time you start to play in a new system, and I don't really find it that hard to get used to a new one. Even games with really badly explained rules like LotW take a few weeks at most. Others like Fate/SotC are almost instant for my understanding. I won't know what options are efficient and what are not, but I'll know enough to play the game - and from there, it's all learn by doing. It's mostly the same for my groups as well, but those who are slower are usually helped by those who catch on faster.

The latter, adopting to a new setting, it happens every time you start a new campaign, unless you always play in the same setting which I find boring. Games I play are almost always homebrew or modern day urban fantasy, so it's up to the game master to explain important parts. It's really nothing difficult. As before, it's 100% learn as you go, with the game master correcting you if you make a mistake or a wrong assumption, but we are all humans and play to have fun, so nothing wrong with that right?

Getting used to characters - this assumes you leave the old campaign behind when you start a new one. From my experience this is rarely the case. Especially when you play by post.

Terraoblivion
2013-08-10, 12:16 PM
Apart from time as others have mentioned, there is the fact that most systems don't have the same kind of steep barriers to entry that D&D does. Not only is D&D one of the largest, most complex systems, it has a lot of pitfalls you need to learn to navigate in order to know how to work with the system. Typically there just aren't the same kinds of system mastery requirements to being able to say that you know a system.

Also, as many people have said, once you've tried a couple of relatively different systems, it's easy to pick a new one up from reading it. So if you make the effort to read a lot of systems and don't tie your roleplaying exclusively to what a specific group of people can agree on, you can pretty quickly try a lot of systems. Typically this means either going to conventions or drawing on the power of the internet, though it's also possible that there is a local community or your typical group is just very active.

Really, the concept of only knowing one system or even more extremely refusing to try other systems is far more bizarre to me. I'm just used to being a roleplayer meaning either trying out the systems your more enthusiastic friends bring up or getting out there and reading the books yourself and getting used to them.

Autolykos
2013-08-11, 06:42 AM
I don't find that implausible. I can pick up a new system in about a week (well enough to GM it with patient players, at least). There are three systems I played long enough to really know the ins and outs of (Midgard, Shadowrun, GURPS, in that sequence), and about a dozen others I've tried for a few weeks or months but I either didn't like them or couldn't find a group to play them with. Also some which are kinda in between, like Paranoia or D&D 3.5. Oh, and I started gaming with the ancient 1st Edition of D&D (it belonged to my mother), but I wouldn't play it again. It was good for the day, but games have improved quite a bit over the decades.

kyoryu
2013-08-12, 01:10 PM
Who said "skim" ? I said it takes me a day or two to read a RPG core ruleset and learn the rules. What I don't remember I can look up in play.

And "intent" and what they're trying to accomplish don't really seem like they have anything to do with the rules in themselves (but rather with what sort of rules the game has to begin with).

Again, for games that are relatively similar (in overall structure/goals, not dice mechanics), that works.

If you're going from D&D to Burning Wheel or Fate? I'm going to make the argument that you can't really "grok" the system in short period of time.

I know. I've tried. I still fail to grok Burning Wheel. Fate took a few months to really "get" the system. And I've been playing RPGs for 30+ years.

But now that I've "gotten" Fate to a great extent, I think I could pick up, say, Cortex+ fairly quickly.

obryn
2013-08-12, 02:04 PM
I love different RPG systems and generally have a pretty good head for keeping mechanics separate. It's part and parcel to running a whole bunch of RPGs since 1981-1982ish.* :smallsmile: You learn to compartmentalize them, same as you would when learning a new language.

I am normally running some flavor of D&D as a regular weekly game (this has been 3.0, 3.5, Arcana Evolved, and 4e in some mix since 2000, though 3.5 got mostly tossed aside near its end) but I also like to spice things up with 3-4 week interludes a few times a year. Since we started with 4e, this has included Dungeon World, Savage Worlds (doing a pulp-ish Call of Cthulhu thing), Paranoia, AD&D 1e, Call of Cthulhu d20 (heavily houseruled), and several more. I'm planning on both Fate Core and a D&D Next playtest in the next few months, too, and maybe some RC D&D. I usually prefer to keep simultaneous games in different settings and systems, to minimize confusion, but I'm making an exception for Next. My group is often casual, but they trust me as a DM and are usually willing to go along with whatever.

In the 3.x days, we had Star Wars Saga Edition, WFRP 2, more CoC d20, and ... wow, a lot of others. If we expand the net really wide to back when I had abundant free time, we can include games like Mythus (guh... flashbacks), Marvel FASERIP, DC Heroees, Earthdawn, Palladium TMNT, a foray into Mage 1e (terrible system), MERP, and probably dozens of others. My group in middle/high school swapped out games a lot; we were all kind of junkies for new systems and never stuck with one campaign very long.

And apart from that, I love reading new systems and learning what they do well. I'm reading 13th Age, Talislanta 4e, Rules Cyclopedia D&D, and Spears of the Dawn now, and checking into Last Stand on occasion. And I can't wait to bury my nose into Ehdrigohr when I get the softcover that's on its way.

I'm sure there's more systems I'm missing, but the long and the short of it is, I don't really find it hard to keep all these various systems separate. It's a learned skill, though, make no bones about it.

e: OOH! I almost forgot that I hate myself enough to want to run Powers & Perils (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powers_and_Perils) someday, but I do not hate my players enough to talk them into it.

-O

* I learned from the Moldvay Basic set that a friend of the family brought over and gifted to me because he was moving on to AD&D (and later bought those books from him when he'd quit gaming). So it had to be 1981 or 1982, but it's not like I was keeping a diary, you know? I know I was maybe 7 or 8 at the time, and in elementary school.

elliott20
2013-08-12, 02:58 PM
For me, the reason why I have played so many systems (and having GMed at least 3-4 myself) is because my group pretty much runs one-shots on a weekly basis. We occasionally will do a longer campaign game but even those only last 6 sessions at most.

There are quite a few guys in our group who have been at this for at least twice a week for the past 5 years the group has been in existence. (I've drifted in and out due to work, foreign postings, and family obligations) So you can imagine that's a LOT of indie games they have played through, and generally, they can grasp what a game is trying to do within 30 minutes of picking it up, along with a lot of the design conventions. i.e. dice pooling mechanics, compel mechanics, etc. They are no stranger to the design conventions and why they are. So in their case, picking up new systems is really easy.

Plus, not all systems are so top heavy. D20 is generally one of the harder systems to learn for the simple reason that there is a lot of content to sift through, while the games we play tend to be lighter on the rules, and heavier on the fluff, which is much easier to "get". i.e. Prime Time Adventures took a grand total of maybe an hour or two for me to learn. monster hearts was even faster, and probably took me 20 minutes. This is in contrast to D&D 3.5, which took me almost 3 years of weekly 6 hour sessions to finally master, and thanks to what seemed like a never ending list of splatbooks, a never ending learning curve. A lot of that mastery time was spent on these very boards, and looking at character optimization boards and such.

Terraoblivion
2013-08-12, 03:03 PM
Again, for games that are relatively similar (in overall structure/goals, not dice mechanics), that works.

If you're going from D&D to Burning Wheel or Fate? I'm going to make the argument that you can't really "grok" the system in short period of time.

Varies from person to person and based on how deep an understanding you consider a working knowledge. As well as how you define a short period of time, I guess.

Also, the more systems you know, the easier it is to understand new ones, even if they have radically different goals and approaches. It's like any other form of learning, the broader your knowledge base is, the easier a time you have conceptualizing something new.

elliott20
2013-08-12, 03:12 PM
Varies from person to person and based on how deep an understanding you consider a working knowledge. As well as how you define a short period of time, I guess.

Also, the more systems you know, the easier it is to understand new ones, even if they have radically different goals and approaches. It's like any other form of learning, the broader your knowledge base is, the easier a time you have conceptualizing something new.

For me, the jump from D&D to Fate was probably the most intuitive, actually. On the other hand, I had a hard time doing the D&D to Burning Wheel jump, thanks to BW having so much I had to go through as well. The least intuitive jump for me though, was actually the leap from D&D to Prime Time Adventures, which totally changed the way I look at character creation.

kidnicky
2013-08-12, 03:21 PM
Likewise, I've technically played Chill. The adventure was some long laborious mystery with a bunch of clues that we never figured out and the guy only ran it for one or two sessions, with the campaign ending before we figured out what was going on, what the clue about Lady Clairol had to do with anything, whether we were fighting vampires that were vulnerable to mahogany or vulnerable to jade, etc etc. I do remember my "super awesome at driving" character failing a simple driving test and crashing on the highway. And I remember that we were given pregenerated characters, though we also made our own characters in case we ended up playing Chill for real later on.

And we also got to make characters for the version of Chill where you play as one of the typical monsters. I remember I had made a mummy and gave him the ability to teleport. Sadly, I never got to play him.

I used to travel in the same circles as the type of people who play Vampire the Masquerade. Eventually curiosity got the best of me and I made a character and got into a session. I hated it,partly because of the group of people,but also I just really didn't like anything about the game itself. That was the only time I've ever played,I don't even remember how the dice conflict resolution worked. I'll never play again.

That said,if you ask me if I've played V:tM,I 'll say yes. I did play it.

OTOH I can't in good conscience tell you I've really mastered any system,even D&D. We know enough to have fun,and fudge the rest.

kyoryu
2013-08-12, 04:01 PM
Also, the more systems you know, the easier it is to understand new ones, even if they have radically different goals and approaches. It's like any other form of learning, the broader your knowledge base is, the easier a time you have conceptualizing something new.

Well, and the "broader your knowledge base is" thing is key. If you've played a bunch of systems that all have the same assumptions/goals but with different math, then something with more radically different goals gets harder to understand fully - you'll generally try, at some level, to make it "work like" what you know.

But if you've truly got a couple of significantly different systems under your belt, then you probably make less assumptions, and that can certainly help you pick up new things, even if they're significantly different.


For me, the jump from D&D to Fate was probably the most intuitive, actually.

Which version of Fate? I can see that especially with Strands of Fate, as it pushes the system closer to being more traditional, and gets rid of some of the elements that are "less" traditional.

Things that I've seen a lot of people have issues with are things like lack of weapon differentiation, the fact that any kind of aspect/whatever doesn't give a constant +2, but only one when invoked in some way, the general lack of "bonus stacking game" stuff, good aspect creation, compels in general, etc.

The *rules* aren't hard, but putting them into a consistent model where they make any kind of internal sense requires a somewhat different view of RPGs than many "traditional" games.

Again, this will vary based on the particular flavor. Strands definitely minimizes this.


On the other hand, I had a hard time doing the D&D to Burning Wheel jump, thanks to BW having so much I had to go through as well. The least intuitive jump for me though, was actually the leap from D&D to Prime Time Adventures, which totally changed the way I look at character creation.

Yeah, I can see PTA doing that, for sure. Though I find Fate Core char creation to be pretty different from D&D in that you generally focus on different things.

obryn
2013-08-12, 07:26 PM
On the other hand, I had a hard time doing the D&D to Burning Wheel jump, thanks to BW having so much I had to go through as well.
Well, Burning Wheel is a beast. To this day, the only system I've owned that I can't make heads or tails of ... well, there's two, but I think one was on purpose ... were:

* Burning Empires. Holy crap this thing is a brick. I love the comics, but I just didn't get it.
* Immortal, which basically dares you to try and understand it, because the writers try their very hardest to hide things like resolution mechanics. I don't think it's actually a workable system in any sense of the word. Not as written, anyway.

-O

elliott20
2013-08-12, 09:16 PM
Which version of Fate? I can see that especially with Strands of Fate, as it pushes the system closer to being more traditional, and gets rid of some of the elements that are "less" traditional.

Things that I've seen a lot of people have issues with are things like lack of weapon differentiation, the fact that any kind of aspect/whatever doesn't give a constant +2, but only one when invoked in some way, the general lack of "bonus stacking game" stuff, good aspect creation, compels in general, etc.

The *rules* aren't hard, but putting them into a consistent model where they make any kind of internal sense requires a somewhat different view of RPGs than many "traditional" games.

For me, that was Spirits of the Century, which is like Fate 2.5, I guess. I got it fairly quickly, but it took me a while to start writing good aspects. That part I STILL have problems with. A lot of my aspects are just too bland, or don't come up enough, or don't have enough compel worthy situations to them. That part requires a lot of work on my part.

Oh yeah, and Burning Empire is indeed quite the beast. I remember trying to run that sucker. Man, I was in for a rude awakening. The thing about burning empire (or any variant like Blossoms are Falling) is that the skills have incredibly specific things that they are supposed to do, and so you need a huge tome to get it all down. Thankfully, my group had one super diehard Burning Wheel / Burning Empires fan, and he basically helped shepherd us through the entire game.

But the part I loved the most about it? Beliefs. That's pretty much now a staple hack in all games I run.

kyoryu
2013-08-12, 09:22 PM
For me, that was Spirits of the Century, which is like Fate 2.5, I guess. I got it fairly quickly, but it took me a while to start writing good aspects. That part I STILL have problems with. A lot of my aspects are just too bland, or don't come up enough, or don't have enough compel worthy situations to them. That part requires a lot of work on my part.

This may help. At least, a number of people seem to like it:

https://plus.google.com/108546067488075210468/posts/RiPHDaSa6Yg

The problem with aspects is that nothing in a "traditional" system really maps to them 1:1. THere's lots of things that are aspects that show up in traditional systems, but nothing that really exactly matches them.

I like to look at aspects as "what are the key parts of your character's story". Other ways of looking at it would be "a story about your character should include the following".

If you think of the first five things that come to mind about, say, Han Solo, those are *probably* aspects. And they're probably not things that traditional systems do an awesome job of capturing.


But the part I loved the most about it? Beliefs. That's pretty much now a staple hack in all games I run.

Yeah, Beliefs are awesome. They can pretty much be represented in Fate by aspects, but again, not a 1:1 relationship (all Beliefs can be done as aspects, but not all aspects are Beliefs).

In both cases, they both act as things to drive the plot around, which is cool.

obryn
2013-08-12, 10:28 PM
Oh yeah, and Burning Empire is indeed quite the beast. I remember trying to run that sucker. Man, I was in for a rude awakening. The thing about burning empire (or any variant like Blossoms are Falling) is that the skills have incredibly specific things that they are supposed to do, and so you need a huge tome to get it all down. Thankfully, my group had one super diehard Burning Wheel / Burning Empires fan, and he basically helped shepherd us through the entire game.

But the part I loved the most about it? Beliefs. That's pretty much now a staple hack in all games I run.
Yeah, if I had someone to hold my hand through it, it'd be fine, but I was completely lost. Still can't decipher it. I was expecting cool setting info, too, but it's pretty much all game, no explanation, IIRC.

Burning Wheel has a lot of really cool ideas, but neither I nor my players are a good fit for its peculiar way of doing everything.

-O

elliott20
2013-08-12, 11:36 PM
Yeah, if I had someone to hold my hand through it, it'd be fine, but I was completely lost. Still can't decipher it. I was expecting cool setting info, too, but it's pretty much all game, no explanation, IIRC.

Burning Wheel has a lot of really cool ideas, but neither I nor my players are a good fit for its peculiar way of doing everything.

-O

Well, that's sort of the problem with Burning Empire, the setting is implicit in the lifepaths. i.e. if you read through setting burner, the planet burner, and the lifepath burner, you already have a rough idea as to what kind of stuff you'll end up. It's not easy to get through because of the presentation. I personally feel that the best way to get through that is to go through the planet burner, and stop focusing on the overall setting as a whole as all you need for this game is already contained in the planet you just burned up. The players, in this case, honestly, I feel the easiest way to handle that is to just ask the players where do they want to end up, and then just backtrack through it so you can get a character and running. Otherwise, yeah, it can get very overwhelming. It's like trying to sit down and learn 3.0 in one sitting. You're not going to come up with CoDzilla on the first sit through.

Still, I love myself some Burning Wheel. When I get the chance, I totally want to play some of the other settings out there.

tasw
2013-08-13, 12:34 AM
I play different games for the same reason I dont always go to the casino to cash my check and put 20 on black on roulette, or 20 on deuces wild each week. I like different games with different rules.

Anymore when I start a new game I tell the group I want to play it every week for 6 months and then wrap it up and start something new. Usually a new system, sometimes just a very different campaign in the same system. But I have 0 interest in playing the same game for years on end like some people say they do.

There are so many interesting looking games out there that I want to try them all, and I like lots of them for different reasons so I want to play those more then once, but still not over and over again.

I dont worry about players learning the rules. Thats my job. To learn the rules, help them through character creation, make an easy cakewalk adventure for them to understand the rules in play and then let them make new characters if they want.

When starting a new system I never get deep in a story until 2 or 3 sessions in so I can tell if the group is feeling it or not and if they want to change things, so that they can without causing plot problems.

I also play with 2 different groups. So that helps with trying different systems..

obryn
2013-08-13, 08:05 AM
I play different games for the same reason I dont always go to the casino to cash my check and put 20 on black on roulette, or 20 on deuces wild each week. I like different games with different rules.
...
I dont worry about players learning the rules. Thats my job. To learn the rules, help them through character creation, make an easy cakewalk adventure for them to understand the rules in play and then let them make new characters if they want.
tasw and I may not see eye to eye on many things, but this is exactly the same for me, too.


Still, I love myself some Burning Wheel. When I get the chance, I totally want to play some of the other settings out there.
Oh, I'd love to dig into it, but I think I need a group that's a lot less casual than mine is. I checked into Torchbearer, which as I understand is Burning Wheel Lite, but I didn't think that'd work for my group, either. :smallsmile: Dungeon World, OTOH, covers similar topics (with a lot less attention to logistics) in a much lighter format. That worked very well for us.

-O

kyoryu
2013-08-13, 01:08 PM
Anymore when I start a new game I tell the group I want to play it every week for 6 months and then wrap it up and start something new. Usually a new system, sometimes just a very different campaign in the same system. But I have 0 interest in playing the same game for years on end like some people say they do.

I think 6 months is a good time to really get into a system, and really "get" what it's doing and internalize its logic.

I can deal with longer term campaigns, but generally for a longer term campaign I prefer a structure more like what I call a "paleo" campaign.

elliott20
2013-08-13, 02:48 PM
"Paleo Campaign"?

Depending upon the system, I think. Most systems my group plays doesn't need 6 months. It barely needs 3 weeks, in some of the more extreme cases. (Then again, this is why we have a new system almost every month)

kyoryu
2013-08-13, 03:00 PM
Yeah, a "paleo" campaign is what I call a particular type of old school campaign. The main features are:

1) Large pool of somewhat inconsistent players
2) High mortality rate/no guarantee of survival
3) Each player has multiple characters, and choosing which is run is done on a per-game basis
4) No "plot", though there may well be events that happen in the game world.

A lot of stuff in AD&D is built around this kind of campaign, but it pretty much died off when people my age picked up D&D at age 10, and the people running those campaigns (usually in their 20s or higher around 1980) left the hobby.

You can see the telltales of this style of play in settings like Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk.

DragonLance was probably the final nail in the coffin for that style of play.

It can work well for longer games because:

1) It's very resistant to player churn
2) You're doing different things, even within the same "campaign"

Mordar
2013-08-13, 04:03 PM
I play different games for the same reason I dont always go to the casino to cash my check and put 20 on black on roulette, or 20 on deuces wild each week. I like different games with different rules.

I'd like to echo this and add just a little extra bit...

I had my formative gaming years when there were dozens of well-promoted and easily available systems (and this to a kid in a 14,000 population town in Minnesota in 1980s...though I was close enough to the Twin Cities for probably monthly trips to the "big mall"). This set my expectations to a level of being able to handle different rulesets and mechanics without undue worry...in fact, without it seeming to be an obstacle or undesirable quality whatsoever.

Consequently, even in the era of "generic" systems (FUDGE, Savage Worlds, etc) I prefer to play games/settings in the ruleset with which they were originally brought to market...at least at first. It saves on conversion, sure, but should hopefully also speak to the spirit of the game as intended. That may yet be naive, but there are worse things to be :smallsmile:

- M

erikun
2013-08-13, 09:29 PM
Oh, I'd love to dig into it, but I think I need a group that's a lot less casual than mine is. I checked into Torchbearer, which as I understand is Burning Wheel Lite, but I didn't think that'd work for my group, either. :smallsmile: Dungeon World, OTOH, covers similar topics (with a lot less attention to logistics) in a much lighter format. That worked very well for us.

-O
As I understand it, Torchbearer is more of a gritty dungeon crawl. The system doesn't assume that characters will necessarily succeed or even come back alive. Burning Wheel is a much more typical RPG system these days, with your typical heroic characters who face surmounting odds but with the odds stacked more towards the heroes.

At least, that has been my impression. I haven't played either, so it's hard to give more specific options. My impression is that Torchbearer is definitely anything but Burning Wheel Lite, though.

Raum
2013-08-13, 09:53 PM
Agreed - if you want Burning Wheel light, take a look at Mouse Guard. Torchbearer is more of a "push your luck" style board game* turned into an RPG. You've got a limited set of resources (equipment, survival gear, rations, torches, etc) available for you to get in, hopefully grab some loot, and get out of the dungeon. You have to get out before your conditions (Hungry, Afraid, Exhausted, Injured, Dead, and more) weaken you to the point of ineffectiveness. Fail and you'll leave worse off than you entered possibly to the point of poverty...assuming you live of course. ;)

It's an interesting game. A bit too limiting / targeted for me to really like it but it is interesting.

*Yes, I realize it's not a board game. It simply has some similarity to "push your luck" mechanics.

elliott20
2013-08-13, 10:45 PM
Agreed - if you want Burning Wheel light, take a look at Mouse Guard. Torchbearer is more of a "push your luck" style board game* turned into an RPG. You've got a limited set of resources (equipment, survival gear, rations, torches, etc) available for you to get in, hopefully grab some loot, and get out of the dungeon. You have to get out before your conditions (Hungry, Afraid, Exhausted, Injured, Dead, and more) weaken you to the point of ineffectiveness. Fail and you'll leave worse off than you entered possibly to the point of poverty...assuming you live of course. ;)

It's an interesting game. A bit too limiting / targeted for me to really like it but it is interesting.

*Yes, I realize it's not a board game. It simply has some similarity to "push your luck" mechanics.
I basically think of it as "dungeon crawl: the ubergame", where you push the dungeon crawl stuff up to 11. It's like Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup is to Eye of the Beholder.

CarpeGuitarrem
2013-08-13, 11:41 PM
It's noteworthy, too, that you can concurrently play different games. I run Fate every other week, play in a weekly game of Torchbearer, and am about to start running weekly 13th Age at my FLGS. Before the game of Torchbearer, I was running a game of Burning Wheel. I'm getting ready to run a 7-hour convention one-shot of Tenra Bansho Zero, a game that's all about running shorter campaign arcs. That's five different RPGs during (roughly) two months. It's not always that jam-packed, but...well.

(Also, Mouse Guard isn't necessarily Burning Wheel Lite. I would say that Burning Wheel Lite is most definitely the Hub and Spokes (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/98542/Burning-Wheel-Gold-Hub-and-Spokes). The biggest weakness to that being, since it's just a demo, there's no character creation. But it's the core rules, without any of the subsystems, and it runs just fine.)

kyoryu
2013-08-14, 12:21 AM
(Also, Mouse Guard isn't necessarily Burning Wheel Lite. I would say that Burning Wheel Lite is most definitely the Hub and Spokes (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/98542/Burning-Wheel-Gold-Hub-and-Spokes). The biggest weakness to that being, since it's just a demo, there's no character creation. But it's the core rules, without any of the subsystems, and it runs just fine.)

Yeah, Mouse Guard is Burning Wheel Core, not Burning Wheel Light.

CarpeGuitarrem
2013-08-14, 08:48 AM
Yeah, Mouse Guard is Burning Wheel Core, not Burning Wheel Light.
Burning Wheel Prime, I'd say. :smallbiggrin: As though it escaped from some parallel universe that was somewhat different but not totally.

elliott20
2013-08-14, 07:52 PM
Tenra Bansho Zero
<3
I have nothing but the best things to say about Tenra. It's like they took 15 years of indie game design concepts, took out the best parts, and smashed it all into one game.... 10 years before said 15 years even happened.

It's just such concentrated awesome.