As you may or may not know, besides making games and websites, I’m really into pen and paper roleplaying games (such as the Dungeons and Dragons, GURPSs, etc). Recently, I’ve created a website so that a few friends and I can play some D&D over the internet, as most of the friends I know who are interested live in different parts of the country (and some in the states). The actual tabletop playing of D&D I was doing a month or so ago has stopped for the summer. I’m currently DMing two different groups, and kind of experimenting with the whole “playing a social game that’s supposed to be played face to face on a table with lots of paper over the internet”. It took me a few weeks to get an engine that I thought was suitable up, but I did and have started playing, and thus far, it’s working out wonderfully well.
If you’re interested in experimenting with the engine yourself, you can check it out here.
Anyhow, that’s not where I’m actually going with this blog post. That’s the introduction.
The last few days I’ve been reading a blog called Ars Ludi, which, as the subtitle says, is all about the art of the game, roleplaying game theory. It has some really good articles about playing role playing games in general, and it’s been a really useful resource for my own games. One of the really interesting things on the blog is an experiment that the writer had done a few years ago, which he called the West Marches. West Marches is a very interesting take on role playing games which I had never thought about, though I think it would be a very good experience to try sometime.
In case you are unfamiliar with most role playing games, here’s how they basically work: There are several players, who go on an adventure that a Game Master (GM) (or in the case of Dungeons and Dragons, a Dungeon Master (DM)) controls. The GM creates a world, and then creates adventures that the players partake in. The GM controls all of the environments in the world (creatures, people, etc), while the players play through it. Each roleplaying game has it’s own particular set of rules on how to interact with the world, but generally the characters can do whatever they want, within reason. Read up more on them here, they’re super interesting.
Anyhow, what West Marches does, is instead of having a GM that creates adventures for the players to take part in (ex. An evil Wizard has taken over the town, and is raining terror over the country, or there is said to be a secret lair of treasure in a forgotten castle, now crumbling away, said to be full of ghosts), the players choose what they want to do. Basically, you have a city, and all around the city (or in this case, all to the West of the city) is wilderness. The players themselves decide what they want to go and explore next, what treasure to hunt down, what they want to do. The GM basically acts as a person who controls everything around the world, and explains what happens. They’re totally neutral, instead of writing up stories and dungeons that the players take part in (and then acting as the game master).
In the West Marches that Ben ran (the author of Ars Ludi) he actually had about 16 players, but he didn’t play with them all at once. Instead, they had a big e-mail list, and players would basically say “Hey, on Tuesday, who wants to go and explore [area] with me?” and then they’d get together with the GM and explore that area.
This way, you have a number of parties out exploring at the same time, which are switched up now and then as players ask “Hey, who’s interesting playing Thurs. and searching this particular area?”. Over time, the parties explore more and more of the world, and create a map and info on each area of the wilderness that they share with the other players.
This is a really interesting way to play roleplaying games that I haven’t really thought about. I really want to try this in real life sometime now (I guess I need to search around in Winnipeg for players that are as interested in this as I am).
Anyways, if you’re interested, you can read waaaay more about West Marches here. Really cool stuff.
This was really cool to read.
I’ve always been interested in playing Dungeons & Dragons (or other pen and paper roleplaying games) but have never had a chance. I’d love to join a Winnipeg group if you were forming one. Unfortunately, I don’t know very much about this type of roleplaying. Would there be a lot I would have to learn first?
Hey! I would love to set up some kind of Winnipeg roleplaying group over the summer. In all honesty, you don’t need to know too much about them. The best way to learn is to learn while playing, so I really don’t mind running some sessions with players who’ve never played before – as long as they’re focused and interested.
We should definitely try to start something up sometime in the near future. If you know anyone interested, definitely say so!
I read this, and it seemed pretty cool. I especially liked how all the players collaborated on a map, and how he would change the dungeons over time by putting different creatures into them.
It sounds like it would take a lot of commitment from the GM because they would have to make up a lot of details about the world and manage a lot of different characters. Also, the players would have to learn how to make goals for themselves without the help of the GM, which can be surprisingly difficult if you don’t have any direction.
Yeah, it definitely takes a lot of time for the GM to do. He basically needs to be free quite a few days of the week, as sessions are scheduled pretty randomly.
I think that a (main) part of the experiment was seeing how well the players could play acting out more individually – finding things out more or less on themselves. He (Ben, the author of Ars Ludi) stated in one of his blog posts that some of the players had never played a roleplaying game before, but it still worked out OK. I think if you’re taught at first to go and explore what you want, and be ready to think up ideas that you want to do in the game yourself, then it becomes more of a habit. I have to admit, if I played one of these games, I’m sure it would take me a few sessions before I got the hang of “what do we do now?”, because I’m used to being directed by the GM.
I would definitely want to try something like this, it sounds really interesting.
It kind of reminds me of dungeon crawler video games, because it basically works off the same mechanic – you have a home base, and you go out into the wild and explore ancient ruins/deadly forests/etcetera, and fight/negotiate with whatever baddies are in those places.
And…this is what happens when I only check my feeds for three months. You go out and update your blog and I never notice.
Anyway, I haven’t played any RPGs of this type, never really got into them, though they do sound interesting. I don’t know of any groups in my area…maybe I’ll look for some at the college I’ll be attending.
@Liam: Yeah, maybe a bit… except this would be 100% more interesting because anything can happen, rather than being restricted by computers.
@Desert: hehe, it’s alright. I can’t say I’ve been keeping up to date with all of the blogs I usually follow either.
And yeah, these types of games can be pretty fun if you find the right people to play it with. It’s one of those games that takes a lot of patience and time. (Well, in terms of time, the game never really ends. It only ends when the players want it to end).
I’m sure there’d be a group at any medium/large sized collage. Tabletop roleplaying games have been growing in popularity since the 70s, so I doubt it’d be that hard to find some people playing it.