Systemless RPG supplements

When playing an RPG, you have to have rules — rules is what makes it a game. At least, that is my stance — some people might disagree. And I am pretty flexible with what a ‘rule’ is: some people do not believe a diceless system such as the Amber Diceless RPG has “sufficient” rules to be classified as a game, but it absolutely works for me.

When you write a supplement for a specific RPG, you have to contend with making the material “fit” with that RPG. The things you write about (situations, monsters, equipment) all have to be expressed in terms of the rules of that RPG. And, unless you are making a complete campaign with lots of worldbuilding, you have to make everything “fit” with the setting and “feel” of the game. RPGs are about something, and your supplement has to care about the same things as the RPG does, otherwise there will be a mismatch and disappointed players who do not get what they expected (and wanted, because they are playing this game). All in all, writing for a specific RPG introduces a lot of constraints.

(As an aside, this is why I remain very, very sceptical of attempts to shoe-horn all kinds of genres into Dungeons & Dragons — D&D is about squad-level combat, so if you try to write a supplement to add some “anime feel” or, even worse, “Ghibli-like” elements to the game, that will just not work within the framework and the expectations of D&D. If you do not want to focus on squad-level combat scenarios, then you need to play a different game. If you insist on playing D&D, you will always end up with a squad-level combat game, or with a game that does not support the things D&D is about.)

So if you write systemless (that is, not for a specific RPG with its specific setting and system), you can do all sorts of cool things. Unencumbered by expectations and conventions, you can let your imagination run free and simply posit things to be true that would not fit the framework provided by any existing RPG. Things like combat, skills and spells, which are often quite highly “regulated” in an existing RPG, can just be posited as being true in the setting of the adventure or campaign. New monsters that do not have to make sense in any rulesystem can be introduced and described.

I think this is why systemless supplements are so… creative. Not beholden to conventions, freely associating and describing. The type of play where someone has a wild idea, and you add it to the game because it’s awesome. That’s the best kind of play, I think.

One of the best examples is Trilemma Adventures, a set of two-page adventures featuring a nicely illustrated map. The adventures are wildly imaginative, with things that would surprise even the most veteran of players. The setups are all rather traditional, in that they assume an adventuring party undertaking adventures because… that’s just what they do: slay enemies and gather treasure!

But recently I have also started reading Reach of the Roach God, which is a systemless campaign setting about a series of underground spaces that are slowly (but surely!) being infiltrated by the forces of the cockroach god. The setting is illustrated and written by people from South-East Asia, and it shows. Temples where monks perform inscrutable (but internally consistent!) rituals, stilt villages at the water’s edge where fishermen bicker, caves with narrow and dark passages… There are beast-people, but rather than cats and dogs, these are bats, orang utans and waterbuffalo people. The setting is so far outside of the regular, pseudo-European medieval fantasy that it is a joy to read. I am really glad that other cultures are finding more and more ways to share their culture through RPG settings.

And the writing is great as well! The NPCs are described in a few ‘tags’ and a few sentences, but it paints a complete picture. Of a young monk, it is said that he is “pensive like the middle child of quarelling parents.” How is that for characterisation?

(Unfortunately, the artist and the writer had a (rather public) falling-out, so I do not think we will see this combo of people publish something like this ever again, which is a shame.)

The drawback of a systemless adventure or campaign is that it requires work from the gamemaster to pour the adventure into the rulesystem of their choice. Selecting something with a rules system that will support the ‘feel’ of the setting, and putting numbers on specific traits of the NPCs and monsters can be daunting task. But it’s one I might undertake, just to get back to that type of creative play again. That might be just what I need.

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