RPGaDay: Past, Present or Future? When is your favourite game set?

The present.

OK, I'll elaborate.

My favourite genre, as I've mentioned before, is urban fantasy, which almost always takes place in the present day.  Changeling, Scion, The Dresden Files and eventually my current favourite Liminal, they've all been modern day settings.  And I think it works best in the modern day because it presents the fantastical world of fairies/gods/magic/etc. as a contrast to the mundane.  And nothing is as mundane to a present day player as the world of the present day.

"The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there."

Vaesen is a lovely game, and hinges on the clash between the modernisation of the 19th century and the traditions and folk tales of the past.  But the setting itself is already a little fantastical to me here in the 21st century, with radically different technology, social attitudes, and even little things like food and clothes.  The mundane is something that's gradually making its way into the world of Vaesen, via industrialisation, rather than something that's already there.

There's something of an overlap between urban fantasy and horror, but again my favourite is the present day.  Kult is my favourite horror game, and while you can do period settings for Kult games and I've played a few like that, I find what really brings the horror is the intrusion of the supernatural aspects of the Kult setting into what should be the reassuring familiarity of our real world.  The same goes for Call of Cthulhu, where I like the classic 1920s setting but much prefer the games I've played set in the modern day.  To me, the sanity blasting effects of contact with the mythos are far more terrifying juxtaposed against our own normality.

One argument that seems to finally be being put to rest is the idea that technology in general and mobile phones in particular make it difficult or even impossible to do horror. Sure, there's scenarios set in earlier periods where the ability to instantly contact people at a distance would be an issue, but there's more to horror than not having a phone.  Playing in the modern day provides the opportunity for technology to be part of the horror.  Japan had that figured out back in the 90s.  I can't think of any more iconic scene from Japanese horror than Sadako crawling out of the TV screen in Ring.

Modern day settings also avoid a few minor issues with historical settings, such as accidental anachronisms due to different levels of historical knowledge, or having to work around historical gender roles.  Similarly they avoid the zeerust that can occur in futuristic settings, Cyberpunk 2020 being the most obvious example (although sometimes the zeerust is part of the charm).  And I still like playing these settings - but my love of urban fantasy and horror means the modern day is my favourite setting.

RPGaDay: When did you start Gamemastering?

After playing rather sporadically with the friends who got me into RPGs, due to them living in a different town, I finally joined a regular D&D group in 2007.  These guys were long term RPG nerds, and some of them had been playing since the early 1980s.  Despite that, they weren't 100% committed to D&D.  They'd played other games from time to time, including Cyberpunk 2020 and various Warhammer RPGs, although they all agreed they were never playing Shadowrun again after what happened last time.  D&D was definitely the main game though.  I had no thoughts of GMing, not with this highly experienced group who'd been playing D&D since childhood.

Then in April 2007, White Wolf released Scion.

I got invited to play with the long distance group.  Having been thoroughly immersed in Greek mythology from an early age, I created Kallista Malekides, a scion of Apollo, skilled in both medicine and athletics.  I played a game or two.  But then it dawned on me.  I knew a lot about Greek mythology, and had a solid grasp of Norse as well.  The rest I could (and did) pick up easily enough from library books.

A few weeks of reading later, I decided I was ready.  The D&D campaign came to an end, as things normally did with that GM, with everyone dead after accidentally destroying the moon, and I asked if people would like to give this new game a go.  They said yes.

So I ran my first campaign.  I drew heavily on my knowledge of mythology to send them on a globetrotting campaign, encountering different challenges themed to whatever country they were in.  It introduced a few themes that I've come back to on future campaigns, in particular the importance of having proper toilet facilities in your secret underground lair.  After all, if you're building a temple to the Aztec goddess of filth and childbirth, she is absolutely going to want a few loos.

It took me a few weeks to really get into the swing of things, and my descriptions were pretty lacklustre to begin with, but it was all a learning experience.  In particular I learned a lot about the unpredictability of player actions, when one of them suddenly decided a certain NPC must be some massive monster and attacked him, only to kill him in one hit because he was actually just a Daily Mail reader in a Darth Vader voice changer helmet.  And I learned how to incorporate things like that into the plot, where the players now had to do a mission to deal with the fallout of killing the aforementioned Daily Mail reader, which had upset some powerful entities.

And that was how I got started. I ran a second Scion campaign before we collectively decided we couldn't deal with the janky system any more and moved onto other things.  (I'm told the second edition has overhauled it extensively and is probably a lot better.)  I was now part of the group's GM rotation, with a particular focus on urban fantasy games, and went on to run campaigns of Victoriana and The Dresden Files.

That's never changed, really.  While I occasionally branch out into GMing sci-fi and other genres, and will play pretty much anything, urban fantasy is where I started and what I always go back to.

RPGaDay: How would you get more people playing RPGs?

That's a tough one.  But I think it needs a two-part approach.

1. Raise awareness of RPGs as a fun and popular hobby.
2. Raise awareness of RPGs that aren't D&D.

For part 1 I think Stranger Things is probably doing something, especially in season 4 where we see it played by characters like Eddie who's significantly older than Mike and friends, and also portraying it as just as exciting and memorable as a sporting event.  The upcoming D&D movie could also be a positive, if it can refrain from being terrible, but really just more media with RPGs shown as a normal thing that normal people do for fun.  Unfortunately it's not always that way.  What I've seen of The Big Bang Theory seems to portray playing D&D as more of a thing weird nerds do than normal people.

And yes, the hobby does have a substantial number of weird nerds, but it's also played by actual cool people like Vin Diesel and Tom Morello, so yes, more celebrities talking about their hobby could help overcome the nerd stigma attached to this game.

Part 2 means addressing the sticky point that there are a lot of people out there who might love RPGs but don't like fantasy, and because D&D is the big name, don't realise that there are other options.  So that's what I'm doing to get more people playing RPGs: attempting to promote my own game that contains no fantasy, sci-fi or horror elements and attempts to emulate an extremely popular genre.  I've heard from several married gamers who've managed to convince their wives to give RPGs a go with Matrons of Mystery.

And the bit I can't do, but I hope others are doing, is teaching kids how to play.  I'd like to think that kids aren't encumbered by a bunch of stereotypes and misconceptions about who RPGs are for, and encouraging young people to play not just D&D but games like Doctor Who means that when my generation are all in nursing homes, there'll be people out there willing to smuggle us in some dice and character sheets.

RPGaDay: Where would you host a first game?

I'm writing this in mid-2022 and covid infections are soaring.  Online.  I'm hosting online.  Discord and Roll20.

But there will come a time when regular in-person games become a thing again.  So what you're really looking for in a game venue is a decent table and not too much noise.  I'd probably go to the Olde England, a local pub that does real ales and nice coffee, doesn't play music, and has some decent size tables.  Unlike game shops, which will usually, and quite reasonably, charge you for table space if you're not also buying a bunch of collectible card game boosters or Warhammer minis, the pub was always happy to have us there as we bought lots of drinks, and that's the point of a pub.

The pub's also a nice neutral sort of venue.  Game shops are kind of weird to walk into for the first time, especially as a woman (many of us have stories) but a pub is a pub and a normal place to be walking into.  There's other people around.  You can even go and check the place out in advance if you want to.

My first game of D&D involved walking into a stranger's house full of strange men, and that's not something I'd generally advise people to do, and definitely wasn't something I was comfortable with.  While someone's house is generally my preferred venue for an RPG, a first game for potentially new players is something I would definitely take to the pub.

RPGaDAY: When were you first introduced to RPGs?

A more complicated question than it sounds.

As a kid I watched the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon on TV, but didn't have much concept of the game on which it was based.

I think the games first entered my consciousness while I was at university.  Someone brought a copy of Call of Cthulhu to a Discworld event.  Discworld got its own game.  But I never played anything.

While doing my postgrad course I went into an antiques shop, and found an old D&D box set.

Moldvay Basic Set (1981) #DnD #TTRPG pic.twitter.com/BZ5qbLMucO

— D&D Daily (@dnd__daily) May 9, 2022

 I enjoyed reading it, and thought one day I'd like to play.  But I never played it.

After I graduated I moved in with my boyfriend, who loaned me his copy of Planescape: Torment, from which I developed a deep hatred of THAC0.  I followed that up with Neverwinter Nights.

Then finally I got into actual RPGs, starting with a play-by-forum game that basically went nowhere, and then an invitation to a MUSH (Multi User Shared Hallucination), which differed from play-by-forum in that it happened live so you didn't end up waiting days for a response.  But I'd still not played any actual tabletop RPG.

And then the owners of the MUSH invited me to visit them and play a game.

We played Everway.  Character creation was low on numbers and high on concept.  I came up with Cinder, a fairytale princess who'd decided at the last minute she didn't want to marry the prince and live happily ever after, but to live her own life instead.  And equipped with nothing but a pair of magic running shoes and a winning smile, she set out in search of adventure.

I paid many more visits to my friends, who introduced me to many more games after that.  But it was that one game of Everway that started me on the path that's lead me here.

RPGaDAY: What is a great introductory RPG?

To be a great introductory RPG, I think a game needs two things:

1. Rules that are easy to learn.
2. A genre or setting that the new player is familiar with.

Which means that great introductory RPGs very much depend on the the new player.

With that in mind, I do think that Matrons of Mystery is a potentially great introductory RPG, both for its uncomplicated rules and its cosy mystery genre.

Romance is consistently at number one in genre fiction, but mystery comes in second, with cosy mysteries being a popular subgenre.  Agatha Christie is of course the best-selling fiction writer of all time, with over two billion sales.  M C Beaton, known as the queen of cosy crime, sold more than twenty-one million books and was one of the most borrowed authors from UK libraries.  If someone reads, there's a very high chance they read mystery.

And then there's television.  Midsomer Murders first aired in 1997 and twenty-two series later, it's still going.  Maybe it's not as popular now as when it first aired to 13.5 million viewers, but shows don't run for twenty-five years unless someone's watching.

Then there's the somewhat participatory nature of mystery fiction, whether on the page or the screen.  There's the invitation to the reader or viewer to look for clues, consider the evidence, and attempt to solve the crime for themself.

Furthermore, murder mystery evenings are a popular activity in Britain.  A lot of pubs and hotels put them on as an event with a meal, and there are box sets you can pick up to play them in your own home.  A lot of people who've never played an RPG in their life may well have played a murder mystery evening and be open to the idea of a mystery game.

In short, cosy mysteries are:

• Hugely popular in Britain
• Something that encourages participation
• Something people may have already participated in

So I'd like to think that if you want to introduce someone to RPGs and you know they're an avid fan of cosy mysteries, Matrons of Mystery might just be the way to lure them in.  It's a murder mystery evening.  Just like on TV.  You know how to play.

RPGaDAY: Who would you like to introduce to RPGs?

Theatre people.

I guess I should elaborate on that a bit.

By theatre people I largely mean actors, although of course that includes voice actors, comedians and other performers.  And I want to introduce them to RPGs partly because many of them seem to really enjoy it when they try it, and partly because there's a lot I can learn from them.

Gamers who are also theatre people tend to be good at bits of roleplay gaming that I, an extremely shy person, am not so hot on.  Character voices, emotion, accents, that kind of thing.  These things aren't necessary to be a good gamer.  They're pretty insignificant compared to things like treating your fellow players with respect and engaging with the plot.  But they are things that can add a bit of extra fun to a game, and seeing the way theatre people play has helped me feel more comfortable with adding more character expression to both my PCs and NPCs.

Occasional conventions aside, the vast majority of my gaming has been done with one small group in my home town.  It's only in the last few years, initially at the MK-RPG club and then over lockdown in the Good Friends of Jackson Elias discord that my horizons have been broadened and I've had the opportunity to play with a much wider range of people.  And that's been a constant process of learning, as every person has brought something new to the table.

So right now it's theatre people who have the most to teach me, but really I don't know who I'd like to introduce to RPGs.  Because none of us will know what they're bringing to the hobby until they get here.

On a slightly more serious note, I'd also like to introduce more women to RPGs.  Because even though the gender balance is improving, it's still sufficiently rare for me to sit down at a table where the number of women equals or exceeds the number of men for it to be a notable experience.  I'd like to see that change.  I think it will.  And I hope that by being visibly female and a gamer, I can help that happen.

First Time Playing: Apocalypse World

I've played a lot of PBTA games over the last few years (and even made my own) but I've only just had the opportunity to play the game that started it all: Apocalypse World.

We had four players plus the GM, and began by choosing playbooks.  I went for the Brainer, having had a sneak peak the previous night, and the others picked the Battlebabe, Chopper and Gunlugger.  There was then the now pretty routine process of picking options for name, appearance, gear, attributes and moves.  Then came relations, here known as history, for some reason shortened to Hx.  We each had some questions to ask the other players, which established some initial connections between us and gave us an idea of how we felt about each other.

To give us all a bit of focus for this one-shot, the GM asked us all to come up with a goal for our characters.  More sensible characters wanted money and respect.  I decided my weird Brainer just wanted people to be her friends, and if that meant using her mind powers to force them to do nice things for her on pain of pain, then so be it.

And in we went.  Things kicked off in a canteen.  Thanks to the GM having been watching the brilliant and annoying cancelled Blood Drive the barman was briefly modelled after Julian Slink, although after he'd been named via madlibs and ended up called Guava Seattle, his personality might have shifted a bit.  From there things proceeded in the largely improvised fashion that I'm familiar with from other PBTA games.

For how the whole thing went down see Trouble Comes to Stagnant Waters.

Other than the game itself, which was a delightful romp through a Mad Max style future and which I'm very much hoping to play again, the most interesting thing was comparing how much of this game can be found in the many other PBTA games out there.  The Sprawl loses the XP triggers and replaces them with character agendas and mission targets.  Kult: Divinity Lost drops the playbook aspect for a more flexible approach to character creation, while my own Matrons of Mystery does away with special moves entirely.  But the original game's DNA can be seen running through everything that it inspired.

There were a few bits I didn't really get.  I entirely understood the mechanics of Hx rolling over when it reached +4 and gaining an XP.  I just didn't understand why.  Maybe if I play more it'll start to make sense but at this point it really feels more mechanical than narrative.

Not that that matters.  A game doesn't literally revolutionise RPGs without being pretty damn amazing.

(And yes, I know Apocalypse World calls the GM an MC.  That doesn't mean I have to!)