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I have finished^(*) Octopath Traveler, which is just as well, because I had gotten kind of obsessed with it. Every battle is a puzzle, and especially the boss battles (of which there are 32 in the character chapters and some additional ones in dungeons) require the right combination of abilities, equipment and tactics. Of course, there are battles against random monsters on the overland map and in dungeons, but once you have cracked their puzzle (so to speak) they don’t really offer a challenge anymore. And since I am bad at playing games, I had to walk back and forth a bit to gather the right characters and equipment for some boss battles, so in the end I was a bit overlevelled.

(*): I have completed all the chapters of all eight characters. I did not finish (or even enter!) some of the dungeons, nor did I take up the special end-game dungeon (to which some of the chapters make a masterful allusion!) but for now I will declare the game done.

Of course, being me, I considered how a game like Octopath Traveler would work out as a tabletop RPG. There is an official TRPG out, but that is in Japanese. One could easily add the Boost mechanic to a combat-heavy game like D&D. Personally, if I was interested in that, I would also fiddle with the rules for damage resistances and vulnerabilities to add the shields mechanic.

And for sure, the main part of the game is the combat, like in so many computer RPGs. But what made me care about the outcome, are the character stories and the NPCs they meet and the overall story arc of this group of characters. And I was thinking: what would it take to replicate that same ‘feel’ in a tabletop RPG? It could be a real cool Ryuutama campaign with some mature players who all signed up for being the star of the show for one episode, and then be a supporting character for all the other characters’ episodes. A pre-planned campaign wouldn’t work — it never does, because it takes away agency from the players — but you could prepare the next chapter based on the actions of the group and their preferences. What you could plan ahead is the continent/area where the stories would play out, but which parts of which stories would be placed where, would be up to the flow of the game. I was also struck by how some of the character jobs directly map onto the jobs available in Ryuutama: nobles, healers, merchants…

Instead of that, I have assembled a group to play Blades in the Dark with. A few years back, I was part of a BitD campaign that lasted quite a long time. I spoke a friend who had fallen off my radar for a bit. He is the GM of a campaign me and Klik both play in, but we haven’t played for about six months now. This is due to how busy he is, but he does have the bandwidth to play in a game. BitD is an interesting setting — when I described it to him, he immediately pointed to the Arcane series on Netflix, which is what reminded me strongly of Blades too. And it has a lot of player input and improv, so it doesn’t really require a lot of prep for the GM. I’m confident in my ability to wing it. I have assembled an interesting mix of players, and we’re having our ‘session zero’ next week. I’m looking forward to it.

Crossposted from my blog. Comment here or at the original post.