In this episode we are joined by Games designer Malcolm Craig, to look at the role-playing game (RPG) The Price of Freedom, by West End Games. This is a game that created a great deal of controversy when it was released. We look at the flame war that took place in White Dwarf.
Malcolm and I met at the Rolling in the Ruins convention. The event was organised by our friends at The Breakfast in the Ruins podcast.
He has a brand new release. Hot War, Cold City available now from Handiwork Games.
Also in this episode, I am joined in the Room of Role-Playing rambling by Judge Blythy, our resident rules lawyer. We are contributing to #RPGaDay.
You can purchase Nevermind The Dice Rolls from this link.
Enjoy!
Thanks for the shout out. (And you lazy young buggers for doing four out of thirty-one.)
Do you see how the debate about wanting the players to know the system rather than the setting ties in with the ‘GM’s secrets’ thing? You want the setting to have at least some surprises, some discoveries the characters can come across with no previous knowledge. There may be bits of the system that will come as a surprise (“You mean some people are telepaths?”) but they can be held back untilt they come up.
I hadn’t thought of the GM’s stature before. Enjoy your ability to stand for hours until age takes it away from you. You’re quite right that it gives you an advantage not only in breathing for projection but in focussing attention on you.
I think the solution vis-a-vis Charming the chap with the wand of fireballs is for the vampire to murmer (mystically through the telepathic link) “No, no. Do not toast them. Bring them to my castle via this route so that they too can become my slaves and food supply.”
I think The Price of Freedom suffered from Poe’s Law before it had even been invented: yeah, given what Greg was and is like, it was certainly a parody, but it was done closely enough to the sort of thing it was parodying that this wasn’t at all obvious, particularly to people who had already been asked to take Reagan seriously.
I’m definitely setting-first. Rules in the sense of “this is how I do a skill roll”, great, but I mostly play games in which you think about what your character would do, then translate that into game terms, rather than ones that have specific game-mechanical levers you have to learn to use. For me at least, thinking of it in terms of “I’ll insult his honour” rather than “I’ll roll Taunt” helps me stay in character, which is where I want to be. Whereas if the player is happy with the setting they’ll come up with things to do that make sense in that setting, rather than waiting for me to feed them options, and that’s what I want them doing.
I’m very wary of GM tricks. Fool the characters, sure. Fool the players, change the assumptions on them, and it can feel like cheating, not giving them the game they thought they’d signed up for.
At a US GenCon in about 1988 I remember overhearing someone talking about having the original Deities & Demigods (the one with Cthulhu and Arioch, very rare even then) “still in the wrapping, never opened” and wondering… what was the point? There are many other things that would make more money, and if you’ve never played with it it might just as well have been one of them. (In short, collectors ruin the fun for everyone else.)