My Life As A Gamer: RPG-As-Wargame In Action (Forgotten Ruin Playtest)

Below is another Actual Play video for the upcoming Forgotten Ruin RPG, still up at Kickstarter for another week (and four times over its goal).

This is what you show to Normies about what you can expect from a real, typical, RPG session. Look at the back-and-forth, the goof, the focus on objectives and logistics, and--and here's the key point--the creative use of problem solving to deal with unexpected things that occur during play. That is the creative element for players in this medium: using what you know and have at hand to resolve difficulties that stand between you and your objectives.

That, folks, is wargaming. That you don't run an entire army, or even a warband, or that you do so cooperatively with an impartial referee adjucating affairs in play doesn't change that you're wargaming.

This means that you have clear, objective measures to work with and clear, objective standards to meet; playing Rules As Written reinforces this, and--believe it or not--makes the game more acceptable to normal people. For those familiar with Jeffro's Trollopolous campaign, and the interactions between various characters that emergently occur and produce unexpected changes in the state of play, Forgotten Ruin is clearly going work this way when run accordingly as it's based on Original D&D.

So don't let anyone gainsay that this is the truth of the medium. It is, and those that are turned off by it don't belong in this hobby anyway.