On Thursday of last week, Black Lodge Games cut this video on RuneQuest.
Ars Magica got this right.
The trick is to design the rules of the game to be the reality of the world and then present those rules in the manner that your man would comprehend them in situ. Runequest somehow fucked up what Pendragon/Paladin/Prince Valiant and Stormbringer/Elric! as well as Call of Cthulhu got right.
Doing this is how you ensure that, no matter who picks up the manual, they operate the machine the same way (so long as they actually follow directions). What has gone on instead is what too many Official Setting projects do: become Setting Bibles for Intellectual Property development.
Furthermore we see that these guys became lorenerds for their own creation. No one fucking cares about your fucking lore. Players need to know the stuff that matters to play here and now; if it does not directly and immediately matter to play, it is irrelevant and should be discarded. If rolling a man looks like it involves doing homework, you fucked up and you deserve to fail.
This is what Ars did, across its editions, which is why it still gets played by its cult-like and cult-sized following. You don't need to know shit about Europe in the Middle-Ages; you need only to know what your man's specific situation is, and how he relates to everyone around him. Everything else can be done as you go. Hell, even the "Hermetic Magic" is made-up bullshit (vs. IRL Hermetic Magic).
AM is what Steve here wants RQ to be.
This why RQ is on borrowed time; its fuckups are catching up to it, and to Chaosium, which threatens both game and publisher in ways unique to them unless and until they correct course and put out the proper products that people have consistently revealed--there's that Revealed Preference thing again--that they want.
Dry academic bullshit ain't it, chief.
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