Friday, September 30, 2016

A Rose By Any Other Name

(I probably use that quote all too often as a justification!)

Story-gaming is so embedded in my life now that it kind of happens regardless of what else is going on - except at times of extreme stress such as trying to escape the orbit of Rome airport with a incomprehensible GPS device to get to a hidden villa on the outskirts of Florence after two thirteen hours flights from Auckland to Rome via Shanghai, for which not even the stiff-upper-lip approach served very well!) Normal driving, sightseeing, gallery browsing and so on does not seem to halt the semi-creative flow.

Many of the games we play have little to do with Trollworld but they are all deeply inspired by Ken's genius for simple game mechanics and his determination that freedom outweighs the rulebook, but not without a framework to experiment from (a constitutional American!).

Exploring 5th Edition D&D with Charlie is an interesting process but for all its merits in my eyes compared to earlier versions (not that I studied them closely!), I can't help but nudge it along Trollworld lines. Clerics become another class of wizards for instance and my monsters fail to behave according to the script; when I read that Constitution is hardy ever used for DCs, I think "Really?" and find that it is just not true. Substituting 'Perception' for 'Wisdom' just about gets me past my horror of not having 'Luck' to turn to - but I find myself backing that up with lots of 'Charisma' rolls so that the whole thing seems credible.

Making it all vaguely credible, humourous and fluid - there's the challenge!

By the way, I think I discovered the resting place of the Holy Hand Grenade...


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