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RPG Thoughts by Chris Chinn

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The Fun Now Manifesto

  1. Not everyone likes the same thing
  2. Play with people you like
  3. Play with rules you like
  4. Everyone is a player
  5. Talking is good
  6. Trust, not fear or power
  7. It's a game, not a marriage
  8. Fun stuff at least every 10 minutes
  9. Fix problems, don't endure them

The Fun Never Manifesto

Contrast and compare with the Fun Now Manifesto above.

  1. Everyone must like the same thing
  2. Keep playing with people even if you don't like them
  3. Keep playing with the same game, even if you don't like it
  4. Not everyone gets to play (and by play, I mean engage & input)
  5. Talking is bad
  6. Fear & Power, never Trust
  7. Commit. Forever.
  8. Be amazed when fun actually happens
  9. Endure, but do not fix problems.

No one in their right mind would suggest these, right?

Try looking in some of your favorite games about "problem players", "Don't let them get too much control", "Planning a campaign", "fudging", "Acting out of character", etc. Try looking on some of your favorite forums & online advice columns about "problem players"/"problem GMs", "Forming a group", "punishing powergamers/munchkins/ruleslawyers".

Try reading Knights of the Dinner Table and pick out the cartoons you can't relate to at all.

After all, no one plays like that, right?

The Checklist

I. What I don't want:

A. From games:

  1. Don't want to fix the rules.
  2. Don't want errata as a basic requirement to play the game.
  3. Don't want to re-explain what's in the book in a clearer fashion
  4. a. From bad, unclear writing/editing
  5. b. From 200+ pages of required reading (setting/rules/whatever)
  6. Don't want to HAVE to play a game for long periods in order to either "get fulfillment" from it OR learn/develop techniques for functional play because of their absence in the book.

B. From the people I play with:

  1. Don't want to have to un-teach Broken Wheel Gaming habits
  2. Don't want to try to intuit & triangulate "what's really going on" because of bad communication habits
  3. Don't want to argue "realism" or fictional realism ("Who would win? Orcs or Klingons?...")
  4. Don't want "sudden surprises" about play procedures in the midst of play — "Oh, we're playing using this & this house rule, and the NPC is using it, now!"

II. What I want:

A. From games:

  1. A clear set of procedures for play
  2. Fulfillment throughout each session
  3. Games that either have endgame mechanics or procedures to create endings for play.
  4. Tools to aid play (quicksheets, summaries, etc.)
  5. Clear writing & layout — at least equivalent to a high school newspaper, hopefully on par with nearly any book you can buy in a major bookstore.

B. From the people I play with:

  1. Open communication about preferences, fulfillment, etc.
  2. Folks who WANT to read the rules(even if it's only a page, like the Pool)
  3. Folks who are interested in developing a shared vision not a scattered collage of ideas
  4. Folks interested in playing different games

The above manifest was taken from Chris Chinn's former Deep in the Game blog. He's currently writing a new blog, Deeper in the Game.