A bit negative, but I kind of agree that combat should probably have less emphasis in a Solarpunk RPG. I remember from the old days that the Paranoia RPG had a similar situation where combat really wasn’t the focus of the game, so they pretty much kept it out of the rulebook and left it to the game master to flesh out if needed.
@poVoq @JacobCoffinWrites Yes, it is a matter of weight. The website says that role-playing combat “doesn’t work. It’s completely subjective. It takes an incredibly skilled GM to make it interesting or coherent.” And I just think the same holds for social dynamics, economy, moral choice or research. But due to the history of how role playing games came about, often we have combat mechanics (they just seems like a must have for RPG), and rarely is there even advice for those other topics.
After reading your impressions a few times, I think I get what you’re trying to say. Tell me if this is mostly right.
You disagree with my assessment that combat needs structure and social encounters don’t. And with my belief that playing out a fight in the theater of the mind is hard, but playing out an interrogation or a search or a negotiation (etc.) using a free-form play styles is. Is that accurate?
For what it’s worth, I think the impression that combat takes up a lot of space is misplaced. It’s about 16 pages in a 200 page manual, and alongside a 140 page campaign book. It’s not that much, imo.
@andrewrgross Pretty much! To be clear: I’m not saying that all of these need rules, but that trusting the GM/the group to make searches interesting, but not fights, is a massive design choice. Somebody mentioned that #FullyAutomated wants to be an OSR game. For that kind of game, “rules light outside fights” is totally a sensible&obvious design. So I guess I’m just very surprised overall that a Solarpunk game would want to go Old School instead of creating rules for new types of narratives.
I don’t want this to seem like arguing, because I recognize the role that tastes play. But if you’re curious, I can share our reasoning.
I saw elsewhere you mentioned Dialect, and I think that’s a great example of a roleplaying game that radically innovates new kinds of narratives. I’ve played it, and it’s an awesome game. So why didn’t we try to do something like that, that totally breaks new ground? Why is this game so traditional?
The first reason is totally banal. The game was never invented deliberately. My friends and I just liked playing tabletop games, and we got into homebrewing a kind of non-dystopian version of cyberpunk, and after a few years decided that it was worth sharing. But I think this fits the themes of solarpunk, because repurposing existing materials for radical new purposes is a common practice, as is rediscovering and updating traditional techniques. Which I really think we did. Although the game is superficially familiar to people who’ve played DnD and Shadowrun and Cyberpunk, et al., there’s a reason we didn’t just use the existing d20 system or another extant system. There are, imo, a thousand little choices that add up to a fresh experience. The game, for instance, does a lot to make players aware of their characters’ physical bodies, their friends and neighbors, and their connection to the natural world.
The second reason we were enthusiastic about creating an OSR-style game was that this is meant as an act of solarpunk evangelism. There are a lot of games which – like Dialect – are great works of art and design, but are not seeking a broad audience. This game is meant to entice newcomers as well as solarpunk diehards. It’s assumed that in a group of friends, if one asks to play a solarpunk RPG, at least a few others will either not know what that is, or immediately imagine a complicated philosophical exercise. We really want everyone – including people who aren’t already active leftists – to try this and like it enough to keep playing even before they understand that the game is trying to present new ideas to them. And this, I think, is the kind of game that new players will often try out.
I hope that helps.