RPGs & Storygames discussion

Here's the place to say hello, introduce yourself, maybe talk a little about what brought you here.

I'm Tod Foley, aka As If. My company name is As If Productions. I'm an RPG designer and interactive developer; my experience includes both tabletop and computer-based interactive experiences, some of which are literally roleplaying games, others of which are tangentially related. My latest game is "DayTrippers" - a surreal science fiction reality-hopping RPG.

I'm a little surprised there wasn't already a group up here devoted to roleplaying books and materials. I feel the roleplaying industry as a whole could use more of a presence at Goodreads, and that's why I decided to start this group. Here at GR we are surrounded by people who love reading, which should make it a great place to find potential players, GMs and collaborators.

Thanks for the invite! GR looks like a really neat place and I hope to find lots of good books this way!

My name is Melissa Fisher and I am a stay at home mom living at the farm I grew up on. I hope to take it over and maybe sell produce and eggs on the side. For now I help write for Awful Good Games, a tabletop game business created by me and David Guyll.

I am willing to read any book that can grab my intrigue within the first chapter.

My name is Antonio, I'm from Mexico. I found this community while looking for books to inspire me and help me become a better game master. I love reading and I've spend a lot of time reading game books, looking for inspiration or the perfect system.

Welcome Antonio, you will find this is a very slow group!
I started it because I was curious: why were there no discussions about roleplaying books on goodreads? Well, maybe we found our answer. ;-) But you never know, right?

Hey all,

I'm from the old school age of pen & paper too (D&D basic set to be specific), but I've largely sold out these days with significant time and contribution in the video game RPG and Strategy genre mod communities. My most recent RP project involved writing and running story-driven historical based D100 forum based campaign.

By the way Tod, you've got some history. I like what you said in an interview I caught on the order of "some of the best times we had the dice never hit the table" You should make that one of your author quotes on GR.

Cheers!

Hi Aaron! Yeah I got some history. Long in the tooth, I be. :-)

I thought there'd be more roleplayers here at GR, but I guess this just shows us how much of a "niche" we are, huh?

I agree it's a niche now, but also the foundation of which everything is built on to toot our own horns. Reminds me of when I was taking a commercial art program way back when learning typography, and production art with pens and rulers instead of the computer.

Seems I can add books to the shelf? Hope you don't mind I added some classics for discussion, I could have added more, but figured I'd better ask before I went wild.

By all means.
I hope for the scope of this group to grow beyond "Tod's Favorite Picks" :-)

Haha! Alright chief, and hopefully grow beyond my dusty old shelf as well!

Hey Tod!

Thanks for the invite. As you know, I'm a voracious consumer of, and contributor to, social media in most of its forms, so I'm happy to add another page to my atlas of cyber localities for me to while away the languid hours, er, that is to say network, develop contacts and- oh why pretend?

I shall prowl and poke around hereabouts, and may at some point drop the occasional bon mot, witty allusion and/or learned reference to things roleplaying and literary-related.

c_b

Hi there!
I'm Matt from New Mexico. Since 90% of my reading has been RPG books for the past couple years, I figured I should join.

Anyone else find it difficult to review RPG books on their literary merit without reviewing them as games?

Welcome Matt! I haven't revisited mine yet, but when I do it I will definitely review from the bigger picture.

I don't write reviews, so that part is easy. I have maybe 300 RPGs on my hard disk, only a dozen or two of which I ever intend to actually play. But I read 'em!

Hello. My name is Jason and I'm an alcoholic....no wait, wrong group!

Kinda cool to see a group like this on here. I don't play anymore, but I like to reminisce about the good ol' days. I use to play D&D 1st ed. I've done reviews for most of those books on GR (link below), mainly as an excuse to read them over again and share my thoughts and memories. I look forward to doing some of that in this group.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...

That's impressive, Jason! (No, not the alcoholic bit, that part is relatively mundane to be honest...) Ah, I see some old classics in there - the Vault of the Drow haha!!! I haven't thought about that in ages! Looking forward to reading your reviews.

Also a belated answer for Matt... Yes for most games it's hard to separate the mechanics from the writing style, and I'm a systems guy so it's probably particularly hard for me (unless the writing is just really sucky). But I can think of some notable examples, and you guys can probably think of more. For instance I think the "Apocalypse World" rules go far beyond merely laying out the rules; in fact I believe that if the stylistic passages were removed and only the rules remained, the book would be about 1/5th its current size. The style informs the nature of play much more than the mechanics themselves. Another good example is "Lacuna" by Jared Sorensen, in which the style of writing in many places is more like a surrealistic parody of a game manual, complete with redacted portions and counter-intuitive instructions.

Lastly I'll throw in my own work for "DayTrippers" - in which I separate the mechanical portions from the essays and "how to play" portions and fictional passages - which latter bits are intended to imply a sort of free-wheeling sardonic stance that's difficult to convey in mechanical rules (at least that's how I see it).

Basically, I think it's the tone of a text that can set it aside from mere mechanics, and the tone is usually not found in the mechanics themselves, but in the ephemeral material surrounding them.

Hi Jason, good to meet you. My word, that is impressive! I'll try to find the time to read them all; that'll be a big Summer reading list lol.

Tod wrote: "Basically, I think it's the tone of a text that can set it aside from mere mechanics, and the tone is usually not found in the mechanics themselves, but in the ephemeral material surrounding them"

I couldn't agree more. Tone is all-important, and you can only get that from the writing. I get very impatient with grognards who go 'I don't need all the fluff blah blah... wannabe SF writers  blah blah just tell me how to play the game'. That might be true for D&D and Pathfinder (although I'd argue that even for those games it isn't), but for games that present a radically different style of gaming and/or a very specific gameworld, such as AW, DayTrippers - even WoD I'd submit - and my own effort, Sci-Fi Beta Kappa, without having read the fluff you can't properly be said to be playing the game. Oh, you can know when to roll dice, how many of which hedrality to roll, and how many you get to add bc of having this or that trait, flaw, motivation or skill, but you're not really playing the game, you're just solving a mechanical puzzle.

For me, the best games are not ones you're able to play with the mechanics alone, but rather ones where you can play with the setting material alone. I remember a couple of years ago when a gamer buddy first introduced me to Exalted. He knew both system and setting inside out, and he'd regale me in the pub with stories about it for hours. I was entranced; I knew I simply had to play this game. People say it's clunky, and it is. They say there's lots to learn before you can really grok the system, and that's true too. But I don't care. The meshing of all the spells, charms and stats etc. in a given action is infernally complex, and if it were any other game I'd dismiss it utterly, hurl the core book across the room (that would be a big deal, it's very heavy), and exclaim loudly 'This game is pants!' But instead I go round proselytising it, like some crazed roleplaying John the Baptist, all because I read the book (or to be more accurate had it read to me), and fell in love with the game as a result.  

Well, I've been posting reviews on GR for nearly 10 years now, so they tend to build up over time. I wasn't looking for the kudos...but I'll take 'em! :) Thanks

I only heard about GR a year or so ago when I saw that Paul Czege had posted about his game My Life with Master here. I made a mental note to find out how to upload my own game book, but of course never did.

"I use to play D&D 1st ed"

Good to see another old schooler. Hard to believe GR has been around for 10 years and I only recently got the itch to sign up.

Hi, I'm Desi. I played a bit of 3e V:tM and 3.5 DnD a long time ago and have more recently gotten deeply involved in my local 5e, CoC, and indie RPG communities. I'm working on my own game right now (as mentioned in the news/announcements thread) that's up on Kickstarter, and am really interested in the small/indie/obscure rpgs that have been coming out in recent years.

Welcome Desi