Something Besides D&D

Ok, let's get this out of the way... I don't like class and level based systems.

There, I said it. Yes, I know I was originally a D&D character, and yes, I know it's still over half the market. I'll admit that it can be a lot of fun. Hey, I rocked every version of me, and all of the originals were D&D. It absolutely has its place, but it's like that first girlfriend you had as a kid when your hormones finally started making you think you knew what love was.

You tell people she broke your heart, but really, more often than not, you just grew apart. You know it's true.

And ladies, you really just figured out you could do better, right?

So consider this. Samuel Clemens, known to most of you as Mark Twain, wrote -

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”

Wise words, and I recommend them in their original context, but today I want you to apply them to role playing games. If you are one of those people who has never tried anything other than D&D, let me encourage you to branch out a little. Binge some sappy mix tape music if you must, but think about all those other loves out there that are a better fit for you.

There's always a few that wouldn’t try an apple if it were a different shade of red, but most folk love to try new games.

Let me tell you a story. I mean, it's what I do, right?

Thirty-odd years ago, my author and daytime alter-ego had very limited exposure to other systems, but the few he had seen - Stormbringer from Chaosium, Albedo from Chessex, Dream Park by Tower of Night Enterprises, a few others - inspired him to do something different. He wrote a whole set of gaming rules with NO setting. It was a set of generalized rules that could work for any game you wanted to play. It was truly a labor of love.

Gods, he was so proud! He burned through a pack of printer paper, used up a several ink ribbons on an old dot matrix printer, and had it bound at a Kinko's in a soft book two inches thick. He still has spiral notebooks of college rule paper with hours of notes on how things would work, how to make monsters and magic systems and weapons...

He playtested it at a local game shop. That was at least the the early Nineties because they played a Shadowrun heist, which FASA didn't release until 1989. It ran well; the game went off without a major hitch, entirely off the cuff, and only generated a few notes on things to polish. Honestly, I was a bit jealous, but he had earned a little time away from me.

A mutual friend introduced him to the owner of another shop for one more playtest before shopping it to publishers, but as he pitched the idea for a game night and explained the mechanics, what the man said was "Huh - sounds like GURPS."

- Like what??

"GURPS," the fellow repeated, and handed over a book from a nearby shelf.

GURPS - the Generic Universal Role Playing System by Steve Jackson Games. That poor sap - he flipped through this book, more and more distraught, and the similarities were disturbing. The major difference: GURPS used 3d6, and what he’d written was percentile. He felt 3d6 was better; it produced a nice bell curve, and the little bit of math was easier with the smaller numbers.

I'm pretty sure he managed not to let anyone see him actually cry, but...well, you know how it is. He was crushed. He shelved the whole project and got on with his life, heartbroken.

But you never really get over that first mad ἔρως crush, any more than you get over that first ϕιλία love (he kept playing D&D). As I said before, he could lay hands on those notes right now, in the time it take to walk to his office. You never forget the one that really stole your heart.

Yes, that's a good moment to sigh, or maybe roll your eyes at the cheesy metaphors and ancient Greek philological references... but you didn't think I was done yet, did you? >:o]

Flash forward thirty-odd years. As a collector and avid gamer he now had shelves upon shelves of books. He still had Albedo and Stormbringer and Dream Park, but now there were stacks of GURPS sourcebooks, Shadowrun sourcebooks, Traveller from Imperium, Paranoia from Mongoose, various World of Darkness books from White Wolf, MERP books from ICE, even a hardcover of Fate Core from Evil Hat... Indie games, free booklets, rare copies, dice games, card games, drinking games...

Every now and then he would ruefully recount the time he wrote a whole system only to realize someone else had beat him to it. It was a good story. Don't get hung up on the subtle sexual references that I hope aren't going over your head.

And just recently he was on the Fate Discord talking about systems, and comments and questions from people who actually seemed interested made him realize that thirty years had taught him a few tricks, and that the original version was a little more innovative than he had thought.

Solomon said there's nothing new under the sun, but it was a pretty distinct system. Maybe he had overestimated the similarities. Three decades change a market radically. What would have been plagiarism in the nineties is just another take today. I am happy to share that he has dusted off the old notes and started writing it up anew, like an old spark of attraction reignited at a high school reunion.

I have to admit that I miss the old girl too. I'm going to enjoy introducing you, though maybe we should look at a few *other* systems first. I wouldn't want you to say I was easy.

Drop suggestions in the comments, but I think we should start with the inestimable René-Pier Deshaies of Fari RPGs, and his adaptation of Blades in the Dark to a simple, setting-agnostic ruleset called Charge - and even better, Dash, the simple, elegantly stripped-down version that you can print "on a half-fold brochure" and hand out with a few dice on an impromptu game night.

Until next time, my friends.
- Lee