It’s August and that means that the annual #RPGaDAY ‘question a day’ is here to celebrate “everything cool, memorable and amazing about our hobby.” This year we’ve decided to join in the fun and will be canvassing answers from the ENWorld crew, columnists and friends in the industry to bring you some of our answers. We hope you’ll join in, in the comments section, and share your thoughts with us too… So, without further ado, here’s Day 14 of #RPGaDAY 2017!
#RPGaDAY Question 14: Which RPG do you prefer for open-ended campaign play?
Michael J Tresca: I'm now using D&D 5E for my ten-year-old son's Gamma World hexcrawl game, The Exterior. Despite D&D's hexcrawl roots, there's a surprising lack of rules to support that kind of play -- and by that, I mean mimicking Minecraft's exploration and resource allocation. So I've created a massive Gamma World random event chart from the original rules, created my own crafting/exploration system, we make liberal use of tokens, and it's worked really well. One session is one game day, so it's really easy to play too.
Darryl Mott: Shadowrun. The world is deep and varied enough that you can shift tone with the same group, there’s no “top limit” to character growth through experience, and no matter how awesome the team ends up, it’s a world where there’s still always someone bigger and badder out there.
Angus Abranson: For long running ‘open ended’ campaign plays I prefer systems where ‘in-game’ character progression is reasonably slow. I don’t want a game where my character can go from ‘peasant’ to ‘demi-God’ in a few quick strides if it’s a long haul game. I want my character to get lots of ‘character progression’ – adding elements to his or her backstory, behaviours, relationships, stories they can tell, phobias, injokes, etc – but I don’t want something that will give them quick skill and stat progression. Let them live their lives and grow steadily. I’ve even been in games where we’re “reset” our characters partway through when they were becoming that little bit too powerful. We just dropped a bunch of XP, lost a few abilities and powers we’d picked up along the way, and carried on. I think we actually all decided not to spend XP we gained for a while either unless it was for something that ‘really made sense’ for the characters at the time. As to which specific game… I’m not sure. I think it’s more down to the group and the stories told than a specific game. Certainly some games work better for open-ended play than others, but like all things – the group and story makes or breaks it.
Morrus: All these "which rpg do you prefer for short/long/open ended/early morning/on Tuesdays" questions are really hard to answer. I just don't have a pile of categorised game preferences like that!
Shannon Appelcline (Designers & Dragons; RPGnet): Ars Magica is one of my favorites for open-ended campaign play, but that's not necessarily due to the game itself, but instead due to the style of GMing it suggests: troupe-style roleplay. The idea is that each player has a few different characters to play and that they also take turns being the gamemaster. This creates an ever-changing dynamic where one player's plotlines are enriched by the storylines created by another. It's the ultimate in cooperative storytelling, and it really shines for an "open-ended" campaign.
Stephanie McAlea (Stygian Fox Publishing, The Things We Leave Behind): D&D 5e
Mike Lafferty (BAMF Podcast; Fainting Goat Games): Have you read Ben Robbins’ posts about running a sandbox West Marches style campaign? If I were in (or running) an open-ended campaign, this is how I’d want to do it.
Simon Brake (Stygian Fox): I’ve yet to find a game where this really happened – most games I’ve played in have had a definite campaign framework or story arc. But I’d love to run either an ongoing game of either Unknown Armies, where the player characters are slowly exposed to the Occult Underground, or SLA Industries, where operatives are slowly exposed to The Truth.
Uli Lindner (Space: 1889; Clockwork Publishing): Mostly classical fantasy games with at least some crunch in the rules. I like weirder or rules-light games for one or two session plays, but not for regular campaign play. Currently my favorites in this regard are Splittermond (a German fantasy game) and Pathfinder, but I want to have a look into D&D5 soon.
Federico Sohns (Nibiru RPG): I'd always recommend Nibiru, of course, due to how the PCs grow over time (that is, in a very meaningful and interesting way). With regards to open ended campaigns, I'd always go for games that either have a really rich setting (like Warhammer, either Fantasy or 40k, or games like A Song of Ice and Fire) or games that give great tools for coming up with open-ended campaigns (I really enjoy New World of Darkness in this regard, particularly wanting to mention the celebrated supplement Damnation City, which is plain awesome when it comes to world-building resources).
Simon Burley (Golden Heroes, The Super Hack): It's still Dungeons and Dragons. Make a character with no real idea of where they're going and just keep playing them. My preference is for 1st Edition A,D&D but the principle is the same for just about all iterations. The game unfolds and changes and reveals more options the more you play. It's still the grand-daddy of them all.
Garry Harper (Modiphius Entertainment; The Role Play Haven): A Song of Ice and Fire by Green Ronin.
Ken Spencer (Rocket Age; Why Not Games): Any system calling itself an RPG should be capable of open-ended campaign play. I do not like scripted campaigns with forced story-arcs and plots. Mostly, I present a situation and let the players take it from there. There might be call backs to earlier events, reoccurring friends and foes, that sort of thing, but at its heart RPGs should all be open ended campaigns. If a game does not support this style of play, I have no interest in playing it. Even if, like the Great Pendragon Campaign there is a lot of plot written into the game, I ignore that at my leisure. This might sound odd coming from a game designer, but the game is not what is in the book, the game is at the table. All I do as a writer and publisher is enable that play, I do not create it, I am not in charge of it, and I want you to go places I do not foresee.
Darren Pearce (EN Publishing; Savage Mojo): For open-ended campaign play I’d have to say Savage Worlds, by the way of Suzerain.
Marc Langworthy (Modiphius; Red Scar): There are so many I haven’t tried that I’m sure also deserve a mention here. It depends on setting or system also though. Again, hoping to not come across as biased, but the 2d20 system is great for open-ended campaigns.
****
Originally created by Dave Chapman (Doctor Who: Adventures in Time & Space; Conspiracy X) #RPGaDAY os now being caretakered by the crew over at RPGBrigade. We hope you’ll join in, in the comments section, and share your thoughts with us too!
#RPGaDAY Question 14: Which RPG do you prefer for open-ended campaign play?
Michael J Tresca: I'm now using D&D 5E for my ten-year-old son's Gamma World hexcrawl game, The Exterior. Despite D&D's hexcrawl roots, there's a surprising lack of rules to support that kind of play -- and by that, I mean mimicking Minecraft's exploration and resource allocation. So I've created a massive Gamma World random event chart from the original rules, created my own crafting/exploration system, we make liberal use of tokens, and it's worked really well. One session is one game day, so it's really easy to play too.
Darryl Mott: Shadowrun. The world is deep and varied enough that you can shift tone with the same group, there’s no “top limit” to character growth through experience, and no matter how awesome the team ends up, it’s a world where there’s still always someone bigger and badder out there.
Angus Abranson: For long running ‘open ended’ campaign plays I prefer systems where ‘in-game’ character progression is reasonably slow. I don’t want a game where my character can go from ‘peasant’ to ‘demi-God’ in a few quick strides if it’s a long haul game. I want my character to get lots of ‘character progression’ – adding elements to his or her backstory, behaviours, relationships, stories they can tell, phobias, injokes, etc – but I don’t want something that will give them quick skill and stat progression. Let them live their lives and grow steadily. I’ve even been in games where we’re “reset” our characters partway through when they were becoming that little bit too powerful. We just dropped a bunch of XP, lost a few abilities and powers we’d picked up along the way, and carried on. I think we actually all decided not to spend XP we gained for a while either unless it was for something that ‘really made sense’ for the characters at the time. As to which specific game… I’m not sure. I think it’s more down to the group and the stories told than a specific game. Certainly some games work better for open-ended play than others, but like all things – the group and story makes or breaks it.
Morrus: All these "which rpg do you prefer for short/long/open ended/early morning/on Tuesdays" questions are really hard to answer. I just don't have a pile of categorised game preferences like that!
Shannon Appelcline (Designers & Dragons; RPGnet): Ars Magica is one of my favorites for open-ended campaign play, but that's not necessarily due to the game itself, but instead due to the style of GMing it suggests: troupe-style roleplay. The idea is that each player has a few different characters to play and that they also take turns being the gamemaster. This creates an ever-changing dynamic where one player's plotlines are enriched by the storylines created by another. It's the ultimate in cooperative storytelling, and it really shines for an "open-ended" campaign.
Stephanie McAlea (Stygian Fox Publishing, The Things We Leave Behind): D&D 5e
Mike Lafferty (BAMF Podcast; Fainting Goat Games): Have you read Ben Robbins’ posts about running a sandbox West Marches style campaign? If I were in (or running) an open-ended campaign, this is how I’d want to do it.
Simon Brake (Stygian Fox): I’ve yet to find a game where this really happened – most games I’ve played in have had a definite campaign framework or story arc. But I’d love to run either an ongoing game of either Unknown Armies, where the player characters are slowly exposed to the Occult Underground, or SLA Industries, where operatives are slowly exposed to The Truth.
Uli Lindner (Space: 1889; Clockwork Publishing): Mostly classical fantasy games with at least some crunch in the rules. I like weirder or rules-light games for one or two session plays, but not for regular campaign play. Currently my favorites in this regard are Splittermond (a German fantasy game) and Pathfinder, but I want to have a look into D&D5 soon.
Federico Sohns (Nibiru RPG): I'd always recommend Nibiru, of course, due to how the PCs grow over time (that is, in a very meaningful and interesting way). With regards to open ended campaigns, I'd always go for games that either have a really rich setting (like Warhammer, either Fantasy or 40k, or games like A Song of Ice and Fire) or games that give great tools for coming up with open-ended campaigns (I really enjoy New World of Darkness in this regard, particularly wanting to mention the celebrated supplement Damnation City, which is plain awesome when it comes to world-building resources).
Simon Burley (Golden Heroes, The Super Hack): It's still Dungeons and Dragons. Make a character with no real idea of where they're going and just keep playing them. My preference is for 1st Edition A,D&D but the principle is the same for just about all iterations. The game unfolds and changes and reveals more options the more you play. It's still the grand-daddy of them all.
Garry Harper (Modiphius Entertainment; The Role Play Haven): A Song of Ice and Fire by Green Ronin.
Ken Spencer (Rocket Age; Why Not Games): Any system calling itself an RPG should be capable of open-ended campaign play. I do not like scripted campaigns with forced story-arcs and plots. Mostly, I present a situation and let the players take it from there. There might be call backs to earlier events, reoccurring friends and foes, that sort of thing, but at its heart RPGs should all be open ended campaigns. If a game does not support this style of play, I have no interest in playing it. Even if, like the Great Pendragon Campaign there is a lot of plot written into the game, I ignore that at my leisure. This might sound odd coming from a game designer, but the game is not what is in the book, the game is at the table. All I do as a writer and publisher is enable that play, I do not create it, I am not in charge of it, and I want you to go places I do not foresee.
Darren Pearce (EN Publishing; Savage Mojo): For open-ended campaign play I’d have to say Savage Worlds, by the way of Suzerain.
Marc Langworthy (Modiphius; Red Scar): There are so many I haven’t tried that I’m sure also deserve a mention here. It depends on setting or system also though. Again, hoping to not come across as biased, but the 2d20 system is great for open-ended campaigns.
****
Originally created by Dave Chapman (Doctor Who: Adventures in Time & Space; Conspiracy X) #RPGaDAY os now being caretakered by the crew over at RPGBrigade. We hope you’ll join in, in the comments section, and share your thoughts with us too!
