Tuesday 22 August 2017

Take It Easy #RPGaDay2017

22. Which RPGs are the easiest for you to run?

I can dive into a FATE game with very little prep work, especially if I've got pre-gen characters for the players ready to go. This is something I used to do when I ran regularly at local cons -- set up pretty, accessible character sheets for running various things in Fate, so all I'd need to do was have a vague idea what the adventure was and I was ready to go. My pre-gens look like characters about 3/4 of the way done, and with a couple extra aspects/choices they're ready to play.

I also recently re-discovered the joy of running OVER THE EDGE, a game that I have loved since the first moment I heard about it on Usenet news groups back in the hoary days of yore. These days I've been running a playtest of the third edition rules, which are slick and play fast, but it's really the setting that makes my brain crackle with possibilities. A few wild ideas (or scene set-ups) and some input from the characters, and off we go.

I guess I should broaden my answer a little bit to say that the games that appeal to me most as GM are ones where I have to engage with the mechanics myself the least, giving me extra space to listen and pay careful attention to the players. That would include CINEMATIC UNISYSTEM, a game we played the hell out of a few years ago, and the whole family of PbtA games, although I've only actually run them a few times myself. It makes all the difference when I can spend my time listening rather than worrying about what die I have to roll next. The extra bit of energy and focus goes into thinking about how to pay off what the players are doing.

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