Enclave

 

I have a hatred for shills disguised as reviews. You know the ones I'm talking about, where there's nothing wrong with the game, it’s obviously perfection, and it's within their best interest for them to say so. I also have a hatred for "reviews" that do not reflect table experience. A read-through of a game is not the same as a review, and frankly most "reviews" of RPGs are outright fraudulent.

This is not a review.

So to get it out of the way: I am not an objective source. I love this game. Robby, the designer, has helped me with mine own baby, Crescendo, which has a similar vibe. Robby’s opinions on things aren’t exactly my own, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I look up to and respect his opinions more than I normally would, even if I don’t completely agree with him on implementation. You are not reading someone who can be objective.  I’ll tell you what I’m looking for when I look at the industry and why I love this game so much, and you can make up your own mind.

So, here's my concerns. Most RPGs do not teach good table talk. Modern Dungeons and Dragons destroys most good habits people could have built for RPGs, takes a dump on the wreckage, and then salts the earth so that way its shit JUST stinks and can’t compost. Most people who get away from the game Ron Edwards generously said caused  “brain damage” in its players find it takes years, sometimes a decade or more, to undo the damage wrought by WOTC’s trainwreck. All RPGs have to contend with The Great DnDisaster in their texts, either leaning into the brain damage, or fighting against it constantly on every page. Heck, some games go so hard against the DnDisaster they actually create entirely new problems of their own! All in an effort to help people heal from the damage!

But then there’s my least favorite part of the industry: the “rules-lite” garbage. Masquerading as “getting out of the way”, the lite-reactionaries throw out most of the supportive structure that’s actually good to have in the mistaken belief that most of us will go looking for supporting products or want to make up whole swaths of the game at once. Sorry, I’m a parent, not an unpaid designer.

That’s technically true because someone paid ten bucks for Apex. Once. So I am a paid designer! Hooray!!!

Point is, it’s usually not rules-lite, but rules-anemic. It’s infuriating. 

For those who are curious: yes the above is my nice opinion about the state of the industry; I’m not naming names, nor am I speaking my very pointed opinions on the “solutions” to the DnDisaster. The above is simply what’s going on, stated strongly so that the actual shitshow that is modern RPGs can be looked at with accuracy.

What in the everloving fuck does this have to do with Enclave, you may ask?

Simple.

Enclave is one of the best introductions to RPGs ever made, easily rivaling the classic Tenra Bansho Zero. This anorexically thin book is what I’d honestly throw at anyone who’s recovering from the DnDisaster AND total noobies, at the same time. This game is a gold standard for what RPG rules should be like.

How? Why?

By hyper focusing on merging mechanics with the conversation as tightly as possible. See, the DnDisaster can rightfully be called “brain damage” because it puts the two key aspects of an RPG, conversation and rules, in as acrimonious a rivalry as possible. Spoiler alert, but power gaming and taking advantage of a metagame shouldn’t be a dirty word. If you flinched at that congrats: your own sense of playing games itself has been turned on you. Hence why it’s called “brain damage”. And why I continue to use the term unironically. 

Enclave melds these two elements so tightly that it drops dice altogether. For some that is going to be a huge no-no;  rocks or nothing! And that would be sad, because the one thing I have found while playing Enclave is that it helped me remember how much fun just making shit up can really be… except there’s a short but robust system of rules in place to help keep things easy and fair. 

Part of this has to do with the book itself. At “typical” RPG size and 60 pages, Enclave simply isn’t what I like holding in my hands. It feels flimsy to hold. I don’t like that. But the fact that I’ve never had an issue looking up a rule in this “FEED ME A BURGER PLEASE”-sized book is something I must begrudgingly acknowledge. Some of this is definitely because the book’s organization is very clear. But the utility of a thinner rule book was honestly lost on me until this game, where the rules actually do matter in running the game, so that’s what I’m talking about now.

The gameplay itself is, as Martha remarked of Crescendo, “rules invisible”: all the rules faithfully respond to narration already going on, or are so intuitive that all it takes is a moment’s glance to understand the rule. So it’s not that you forget the rules, but that they encourage you to do what you already wanted to do to begin with. It’s not often you find a ruleset that’s so dedicated to legitimately getting out of the way, while providing support by giving you mechanics in spots where there would be questions as to how to handle things, like Rally. 

Of more questionable worth is the apparent hatred of numbers, while still using the concept. Is ++ really different from 2? Functionally? No. I get where Robby is coming from, and I applaud the attempt to keep the game as grounded in the conversation as possible, but I personally think the game goes too far, taking out useful trackers like HP and DCs simply because numbers are bad. But, and take notes here kiddos, the systems that replace the numbers are functional and more than satisfactory. Assigning color levels to stuff looks weird till ya do it, and then it makes sense. Now, I'm not new to RPGs, so I can't speak to whether or not it's better than numbers, but criminy it does work. Could it have stayed similar to previous  systems? Yes. Does it work anyways? Also yes.

There are very games on the market today that actualy focus on the conversation that aren't incredibly reductive, aka PBTA. Enclave isn't reductive, but focused. There's a mechanical variety to Enclave that's really subtle, quiet, but there. Sometimes the best things in life are the really quiet ones, which give just the right nudges, at the right time. And Enclave is exactly that.