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Session Reflections

Last night I ran a session one-shot nominally set in the Nordlond Viking-esque world created by Doug Cole and using the “powered by GURPS” Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game (DFRPG). The game was offered as an Open Table start-up and attracted five players. We set the power-level at 125-point characters using Delvers To Grow.

The first thing to say is a big thank you to the players for turning out with such incredibly positive energy and intent. I enjoyed the session – despite what I will note in my reflections here – and deeply appreciated the experience. They played with great gusto and positivity that echoed what I wrote yesterday about player willingness to have a good time. Thank you, chaps!

This was the “regular kind of game”: a traditional roleplaying game played in a style that evoked the rough-and-raw manner in which I probably played as a teen. There was no defined play-style and the only declared goal was, “Let’s play a one-shot dungeon game”. All the players came with different approaches and it was a glorious mess! I loved it… and it was entirely the kind of game I would have hated playing in.

My key learning was:

  1. DFRPG at 125-points was entirely too much for me to handle at this stage in my GURPS learning curve.
  2. The players who enjoyed the Rules-immersion were evidently enjoying the combat.
  3. The Otherworld-immersion was promising at the beginning but absolutely overrun by the combat scenes.
  4. I should have hard-framed the whole session to the dungeon door instead of starting in the village.
  5. This was entirely not the kind of fantasy game that I would want to play in… but it might well have been exactly what (some of) my players wanted.

Being that this was a one-shot and ostensibly setting up an Open Table game – a world where players can drop-in and drop-out between sessions, where you can have more than one character, and where each session is firewalled as a discrete unit of play – there is a lot that I could legitimately change before I play again.

The largest point of learning was realising how far away from the “regular kind of game” my tastes have travelled. As a player and a GM, I would prefer a different kind of experience.

As a Player, I would choose to prioritise the Otherworld-immersion and Character-immersion – to place the focus on being in-character, as-character as the primary goal of play. This would mean lower-powered characters and challenges, a simpler prescription of the GURPS rules options, and much less focus on Rules-immersion at the table.

But – and this is a big BUT – I enjoyed providing a session for some old friends and new acquaintances. I discovered a truly supportive spirit of play that can sometimes be forgotten or covered up by the more controlled attempts to play “seriously”. The other side of the coin was that I realised the necessity to be prepared to loosen up my games when I GM, depending on the desires and tastes of the players.

I am incredibly grateful for the guys who showed up and allowed me to run such a confusing, messy, and gloriously awful session that somehow seemed to work. I was more like that clueless but excited and energised teenaged gamer… and I was the GM who genuinely cannot get quite THAT excited about the mechanisms of play.

There’s much to ponder. There’s also the necessity of seeking feedback from the group – which I hope posting this will begin. But there is the joy of play to savour too. I had a really good time, even if (as the Apprentice GM) I feel that there’s a lot more to learn.

Game on!

6 comments

  2. My feedback from the player perspective (only one player’s perspective, very likely other players had very different experiences)
    Following your points
    1. 125 pt characters (125 pts + 50 disads + 5 quirks = 180 pts) are a lot more capable than our previous starting characters. I think the highest we went was 100 pt characters (100 pts + 30 disads + 5 quirks = 135 pts) and usually we had lower starting points (75) and lower disad limits (25). These more powerful characters had higher skill values which allowed them to take advantage of a lot of options and suffer the penalties to success from them. The added options add a lot of calculating during the game until they become second nature, which it was not for any of us at the table. I am still in favor of our usual starting range of 75 to 100 pts with 25 to 30 disads and 5 quirks. Delvers doesn’t have templates for those options, it has the fixed levels of 62 and 125 as choices. That is why I asked for 125 vs going down to 62.
    2. It’s true I enjoy the tactical elements more than the character immersion, but I am very slowly getting more used to the latter. I enjoyed both aspects of play, beginning in ‘town’ meeting the other players/characters and the tactical combat puzzle at the end. Talk about rules at the table was somewhat expected, this was the first session using a different (slightly) ruleset and new characters. If this group was a regular weekly game, same people and characters, rules in your face talk would fade a lot over time.
    3. Yes, in world immersion was very high in the beginning scene. Very quickly building a ‘group’ from the starting characters I felt. Even the difficult choices made after the attack built on the immersion. The rules and tactical talk when combat began was a big change, but I don’t think it’s totally fair to say that is not immersion. Trained warriors would be having those kinds of tactical thoughts during tense moments. Some would even engage in long, detailed conversations about them with others they trust.
    4. I think, from my and my character’s perspective, that would have been a great loss. That would have made the tactical puzzle we faced meaningless. For that I can sit and play a traditional wargame with no RPG elements in it. I want the tactical side of the game to have more meaning.
    5. Your games which have parts that are purely character/setting focused and parts that are tactical combat always strike me as much more balanced than what I manage to offer as a GM. The character focused parts are a stretch for me, but that is because RPGs are my second gaming love and I am much less practiced in them (and my personality leans the other way). I want to stretch those muscles, but I think I will always want puzzles and tactical puzzles to play with.

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    • Thanks – great feedback, and honestly shared too! And, yes, Combat-immersion is an experience. I enjoy it when I play tactical games, including as part of RPG skirmishes. I just prefer a more naturalistic, make-believe presentation instead of rules-talk. 👍

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      • I think as a group gets used to the combat rules and internalizes them, they might become less intrusive. The maneuvers and techniques of GURPS combat can start to become more like a language for imagining a make-believe fight.

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  3. Sounds like a great session to me! In my experience, GMs always think the session has gone worse than it did, and the comments from your players certainly support this.

    I think it’s because as the GM you’re aware of all the different ways things could have gone, and you know you’re just making stuff up based on a handful of post-its and some half-remembered rules (or at least, I certainly am). Your players only see the end product, the apparently seamless story you’re presenting.

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