TheAlkaizer
Game Designer
I was thinking about the other thread about our buying habits for RPG products; and tonight I just finished my second session ever of Forbidden Lands and I was reflecting on what I found difficult, easy, good, bad and what I learned from my experience. I'm sure we all pulled some lessons or learned things from forays into other RPGs and systems.
For example, my exploration of Forbidden Lands, which is a game that leans hard into proceduralism and random tables is that I might still be preparing too much stuff when I run D&D. Forbidden Lands leans a little too hard into that territory for me, but these two GMing sessions with this system showed me that with the right table, the right players a little creativity you can have a great evening. I hardly ever use random tables when I run D&D and I tend to worldbuild, and thus prepare a ton. It's been very refreshing to just arrive with a few notes jotted down, a few index cards with reminders for the relevant rules and just go for it.
For a more concrete example. The party stopped at a ruined watch tower to send the night. The sorcerer made a survival roll to Make Camp. He failed to get a success and thus I had to roll on for mishaps. The result was that "one of the adventurers lost a piece of gear. The GM decides what it is". I rolled to select a random player and asked him to describe his inventory. He's a Dwarf Rider with a donkey called Nana. He described five objects in his inventory. I told him to roll a D6, and that each value would correspond to the respective item in his inventory, and a 6 would be his donkey. Obviously, he rolled a 6 and hilarity ensued. We all described the scene where the Dwarf came back and said to the sorcerer "Hey, where's Nana?" for the Sorcerer to answer "Oh, I untied her for a moment, she's... she's... wait." Unfortunatly we had to end the session, but next session they'll spend the evening looking for the donkey, which sounds like a ton of fun. I don't think the mishaps really expected for mounts to be included, but it turned out great.
What about you? What are the lessons you learned? What systems taught you the most?
For example, my exploration of Forbidden Lands, which is a game that leans hard into proceduralism and random tables is that I might still be preparing too much stuff when I run D&D. Forbidden Lands leans a little too hard into that territory for me, but these two GMing sessions with this system showed me that with the right table, the right players a little creativity you can have a great evening. I hardly ever use random tables when I run D&D and I tend to worldbuild, and thus prepare a ton. It's been very refreshing to just arrive with a few notes jotted down, a few index cards with reminders for the relevant rules and just go for it.
For a more concrete example. The party stopped at a ruined watch tower to send the night. The sorcerer made a survival roll to Make Camp. He failed to get a success and thus I had to roll on for mishaps. The result was that "one of the adventurers lost a piece of gear. The GM decides what it is". I rolled to select a random player and asked him to describe his inventory. He's a Dwarf Rider with a donkey called Nana. He described five objects in his inventory. I told him to roll a D6, and that each value would correspond to the respective item in his inventory, and a 6 would be his donkey. Obviously, he rolled a 6 and hilarity ensued. We all described the scene where the Dwarf came back and said to the sorcerer "Hey, where's Nana?" for the Sorcerer to answer "Oh, I untied her for a moment, she's... she's... wait." Unfortunatly we had to end the session, but next session they'll spend the evening looking for the donkey, which sounds like a ton of fun. I don't think the mishaps really expected for mounts to be included, but it turned out great.
What about you? What are the lessons you learned? What systems taught you the most?