Making sure everyone is on the same page is 50% of roleplaying games, and recently, thankfully, this realisation is slowly being meshed into the rules. It’s always been part of the Oral Torah (תושב”ע), the “general understandings” passed from RPG teachers to newcomers, but I’m of the school of thought which claims that if something isn’t written down and formalised, you can’t trust it’ll happen. Best practices and proper behaviours need to be taught through core rulebooks, not articles and podcasts.
This includes all manners of safety tools (like Lines and Veils), same page tools (like our suggestions here), course-correcting tools (like Stars and Wishes). We see them lately in many indie games, but there’s still a long way to go; among other things, I think they should be customised for each game, because if you just plug-and-play them, you’re sometimes pushing a round peg into a squarish hole. And there’s still a lot of work to do on course-correction, in particular – case in point, today’s page.
A completely new element has been introduced to the game – player secrets – but it’s easy not to even notice that this happened. Whether you’re a GM or a player, you should keep watch for anything that seems like it has the potential to shift the social dynamics around the table – in the real world, not the fictional one – and then use some sort of tool to make sure we are still within limits that are comfortable for everyone and conductive to our desired experience.
The boundaries of play are loose, and must remain so for us to feel like we’re playing (otherwise, it’s a chore), but that doesn’t mean we should let the sheep just run free and into the forest. Better have some watch dogs. And if you’re new to sheep keeping, it’s best to buy a trained one rather then try to raise one yourself with some advice from the neighbouring farms. I don’t know why this metaphor went so rural.
What We’ve Been Doing
It’s been a month since we last saw you, and both Aviv and I have been doing some stuff which you might want to check out.
On Aviv’s streams, she’s now devising dangerously cute creatures in the Hall of Hybrids, per request of her viewers. Watch an example here!
On my front, I am now posting my own weekly webcomic, Melanchlorians: A short-form, semi-funny semi-fanon portrayal of chibi Star Wars figures dealing with melancholy and midichlorians. I mean, why not. Read it on Twitter and Facebook, Monday to Friday at 15:00 GMT.
