Roam: A Play-by-Post Game of World-Wanderers.
“Eyes that fire and sword have seen, and horror in the halls of stone,
shall look at last on meadows green, and trees and hills they long have known.”
The Lord of the Rings, The First Law, A Song of Ice and Fire, these are stories that follow a diverse cast of characters as they pursue their goals in a world opposed to them. If I could create a game that fosters those kinds of stories, I'm not sure I'd play much else.
I have no idea if I've captured it or not, but I intend to find out.
Roam is largely based on my previous post, Magus Ludus, and takes a few pointers from Into the Odd.
I still hold to the belief that the best rules are the ones that stay firmly out of the way, and only step in during moments of uncertainty to show the path forward.
With that in mind, Roam is a minimal 2-page ruleset that includes suggestions for Tests & Saves, Stamina & Rest, Combat (including large-scale), Reputation, Items, Talents & Magic, Play-by-post, Debates, and Domains. All on 2 pages!
I'm hoping to run a game with this ruleset sometime soon, probably a 1 month commitment, similar to a Wizard School game I just wrapped up, and that I intend to write a report on soon.
Notes
My favorite aspect of this game is its free-form nature. Aside from a few helpful notes about economy, the whole game could be used in just about any setting.
Character creation involves rolling stats & stamina, then picking any character on the map and deciding on a journey for them. The only down-side to this, of course, is decision paralysis. Should I be a harlot looking for her son or a king waging war? Both are interesting stories to tell. A few tables here would be great, though notably as options rather than requirements.
Once the journey is decided, the character fills out any notable reputations, writes down a relevant skill, decides what this character has on their person, and last but not least, crafts 2 talents.Talents: I'm not sure how these are going to work out, but it is 100% up to the player and the GM to decide what talents a character may have. The most important thing about a talent is that it can only be 2 of: Flexible, Powerful, Cheap. I can see those needing further definition, but I think the idea gets across alright. I think a future ruleset could use a few more sample talents as examples of what's possible, as well as simple options to just grab. Theoretically talents could be replaced with a GLoG class template, though leveling isn't really part of the game at this point.
Campaign Building Tips: I think a good campaign with roam will be one where the GM comes up with an interesting world, and then drops 2-3 world-wide conflicts into it. Essera is at war with Vessinar, the Red Priesthood have all vanished leaving commoners distraught, and people have been disappearing without trace in Berisburg. Once you've got a map and riddled it with trouble, let the players know all about it and pick their characters and journeys, then write out a few events that will happen within a week or two, and come up with a new one whenever one passes. If a player interrupts an event unwittingly by their actions, great!
PbP Format: For this game I would let each player have their own discord channel or similar public thread. If they want to do something without another player knowing about it, make them roll Wits to keep their plans secret before opening a private channel. Once per in-game week, write up a few "newspaper headlines" in a public records channel so that players can quickly review the history of what's happened in the server.
And that's it!
Comments
Post a Comment