Savage Worlds Archives - Jeremiah Tolbert

#RPGaDay 9: What is a good RPG to play for about 10 sessions?

Oh, I like this one. This is the kind of thing I can sink into.

Ten sessions is a great length for any game that doesn’t have a focus on power progression and leveling up. If we compare sessions to television, what we get is a ten episode series or season. This is a really great length for creating a story arc, in my opinion. Longer, and you have too much filler. Shorter, and some characters might not get an opportunity to be in the spotlight.

So, let’s talk about games that don’t have a strong focus on power progression (like, say, D&D or Earthdawn does). GURPS would be a good system for a game that doesn’t require characters to level up. That’s a classic, but I often find the mechanics a little too fiddly. Half that game seems to be creating a character with the points buy system. I haven’t played GURPS in probably 10-15 years, to be honest.

Another thought would be Savage Worlds again. If I was looking to run something rules light and fast, with a focus on story, I’d definitely default to Savage Worlds because I’ve had a lot of time to really get to know it, and it’s a “setting neutral” system that doesn’t force a lot of world building on you. I like to do my own world-building.

Another idea might be the Cypher System. I’ve only played this in the form of Numenera, but I really liked the emphasis on freeing up the GM to focus on managing the game and the story.

But let’s go old school. I think if I had a group of people willing to commit to a ten session campaign, I would spin up a game of Mage in the World of Darkness. Mage has one of my all time favorite magic systems, and the world building isn’t so detailed that I feel completely boxed in and unable to tell my own stories. Characters don’t really have a huge emphasis on getting more powerful, so you don’t have something like “oh, now we have level four spells and everything about this adventure is cake now” to worry about in your planning. (Seriously, I hate designing encounters for high level D&D play. There’s just so much more you have to think about).

I’ve run a lot of short campaigns of Mage, and it has allowed for some of the wildest and most imaginative play I’ve ever had. I know the ins and outs, although I may be a little rusty on the various magical traditions now. And when I say Mage, I mean Mage: The Ascension, not whatever form it’s mutated into now. I don’t want to play Mage with spells; the free form “spheres” magic system was the best.

Whew, thanks for taking the long way around on that one with me.

For the month of August, I will be participating in #RPGaDay. I haven’t posted much on this blog about my love for role-playing games, and for a while, I wasn’t really acknowledging that love myself. But RPGs were my entry point in the the geek lifestyle, and they are very important to me. I’ll be exploring my relationship with RPGs all month with these posts.

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Jeremiah Tolbert

Disabled

August 9, 2017

Gaming

GURPS, Mage, RPGaDay, Savage Worlds

#RPGaDay 8: What is a good RPG to play for sessions of 2hrs or less?

I’m not a big fan of sessions shorter than three hours in length. Most groups take upwards of half an hour to an hour just to settle in, unpack, and get themselves ready for the game. That leaves little time for actually playing.

I find 3-4 hours is the perfect length for a session, although I have played shorter games and longer games. If I was told I’d only have two hours, I’d most likely default to a board game rather than an RPG. I want every session I run to have a story arc. A two hour session to me feels like it lends itself to “flash fiction” length games. Three or more, that’s a short story, and that’s the length at which I feel most comfortable.

But okay, okay, I’ll do my best to answer the question in the spirit it was asked. Probably the best game for me for a short session is one in which the rules are light and don’t bog down things very much in mechanics. Any system like D&D that requires a lot of GM book-keeping wouldn’t be great. You might get 2-3 encounters at best done in a 2 hour session of D&D. Whereas, with a lighter system like Savage Worlds, I think you could get through a lot more game.

Two hours of combat wouldn’t feel like much, but a role-play heavy session of something like Savage Worlds Deadlands Reloaded could be satisfying. A mystery adventure, something with a lot of questioning and talking. Combat is basically, in almost every single session, highly decompressed storytelling. Every action requires a roll. Whereas, a game where the GM and the players trust each other to role-play and lean less on the dice, that’s likely to move more quickly.

For me, it’s not amount the number of dice rolls, and it’s not about the number of experience points. A session’s value is measured to me in pure units of story. So while I think two hours makes for a very brief session, combine it with a rapid play system, and you could do well enough. Just stay away from Rolemaster.

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