Creating Roleplaying Opportunities

The other week I played DCC for the first time. It was a blast. I had a wonderful time. Three of my level zero wusses died in the first session, in hilariously awful ways. Blood was flowing, we were solving puzzles and trying to survive... and boy was I failing. But I noticed something while we were having a great time: we weren't really roleplaying, as I had come to understand it. Again, I had a blast! I was engaged! But it wasn't like we were truly RPing.

This isn't a complaint. It's more of a meditation. A processing. Please keep something in mind: I have been playing either Burning Wheel or Crescendo constantly for going on... ten years? I have been steeped in very deep, narration-heavy, roleplaying for a very long time. I don't say that as a boast. It's a fact of my life, and in order for this post to make sense, you have to know that.

Now, I am a firm believer that systems influence people. I think it's possible to encourage people into roleplaying more, into any system, with just a few modifications. After thinking about it, here's what I thought of:

Whenever possible, hook mechanics into roleplaying.

You can't make a fictional world in an RPG without the rules the players agreed to. Throwing the rules out actually makes the world incomplete. I've found that the more you bring the rules into roleplaying itself, the better the roleplaying itself is.

Hold any possible skepticism for the moment. Here's some ideas on how you do it. 

Use Their Player Classes/Archetypes/Backgrounds to Describe Scenes

Whenever you're done describing a scene, ask each player to add a detail that would interest their someone of their class, archetype, or background. Let the players add to the scene. Let them help you tie the noose.

Players Must Justify Success

If a player doesn't narrate why they should succeed in their action... they don't. It's not "Roll for it", it's "No". That simple. 

Rolling comes up, generally speaking, if the GM feels that the plan given by the player might be plausible. This one little rule will almost entirely do the trick, just on its own. If you require actual narration, with an attempt to solve the problem before them, players will do it. 

Justify Advantage When Rolling

Rolling should never be neutral. Either the player has justified having advantage on the roll or they get disadvantage. 

This comes down to system choice, of course, but the general mechanics of most RPGs can be fit to this rule pretty easily. This rule keeps the player engaged in the fiction, even as they pick up the dice. It's a small trick, but it keeps the flow of narration going. Be more merciful than not. Rolls are usually instigated by the GM, not the player, so if you're forcing a player to fend for themselves and then not be terribly lenient about them responding it's actually going to kill engagement. Let the players feel like they're rising to the occasion.

Let Them Narrate the Loss of HP

Or whatever negative stuff you have in your game. If something happens to the character (like gaining Stress, losing HP, gaining Conditions), ask them what that looks like for their character. Players naturally want to use the system to describe their characters. Let them! They'll invest if you let them do it.

Conclusion

The idea that the fictional world is complete without the rules of the game doesn't really work, because it doesn't. You aren't just playing make-believe, you are using a ruleset to guide make-believe. Bringing the rules into the fiction, to make it an aspect of roleplaying, makes the overall experience more cohesive. The rules are in the world. You bring the rules in, and the loop is complete.

Eating Crow: Rippaverse

On a basic level, I get being anti-woke. I hate performative empathy, toxic positivity, and offensively shallow Marxism as much as the next person with a brain. Yes, woke still exists. Yes, it's still bad. No, it’s not anymore “caring about people” than sticking someone in a Soviet camp.

At anytime someone of less reading comprehension than my seven year old gets lost, refer to the above paragraph.

In 2020/21 I would say I was a fan of Eric July’s content. He seemed to have some strong common sense, without being driven by the insane rage that had taken over so many. He was pleasant and snarky, without being a jerk  

So when he announced he was going to start his own comic book company, Rippaverse, I was excited! Sure! I would need to see proof of concept and whatnot, but as a general idea? Absolutely! I wanted to see what he had to offer. 

I have written reviews on three Rippaverse comics: Isom 1, Isom 1 and 2, and Alphacore. I was generally positive about the three books and handled Isom 1 and 2 the way I would want someone to handle my first written works: as trailers for what they may accomplish. Alphacore isn’t the best thing Chuck Dixon ever wrote, and its art is atrocious, but overall, I liked it. Overall, strong enough to keep me buying. Not the best stuff I had ever read, but I thought it had potential.

Then Yaira 1 came out. 

And then Goodying. 

Holy crap, did I hate those books. The art issues that plagued the first three (particularly Alphacore) were even worse than before. The art was just flat out bad. The plots clearly needed another pass or five before being sent to the penciller. 

Yaira suffered from having too much stuffed into it. There's all these ideas that, on paper, are really good, but they don't interact very well with each other, not in 90 pages. 300? Sure. 90? Absolutely not. The plot doesn't breathe, so it all felt incoherent. And, once again, the art is just... it's a hodge podge of crap. I hate saying it, because it's very clear everyone is rushed. If you can't deliver a good product on time, delay. The story and art are what matter! Saying "Oh, we're on time" is not enough. 

Goodying was bland. Flat out bland. Again, there's good ideas in the text. Goodying being a stoic is a cool idea! Goodying as a character was easily my favorite in Isom 1, and I loved the things revealed about him. But the plot is just flat out bad. It's not serviceable. It's not even mediocre. It's bad. The characters stay static, and the plot just doesn't... do anything. Nothing. It's just there. There's characters I do actually want to see have an adventure, and it's boring to read about them. And that's unforgiveable in a story.

These are just outright bad books. Defending them sounds like a wife with a black eye saying they tripped down the stairs. I wish it wasn't so! But they're so cookie cutter. So corporate. Rippaverse's stuff reads like the kind of corporate shlock I hate Marvel for, but it's supposed to be some scrappy indie company. I take offense at that. 

A splash of cold water across the face. Two, really. That's what Yaira 1 and Goodying were. The problem was that my hatred became retroactive. No longer was I as generous with Isom or Alphacore. They stopped looking like birthing pains and became a “If someone tells you who they are, listen” situation. It’s one thing if you’re figuring out your craft, but this started to look like someone loving the smell of their own farts. 

Unfortunately, July has clarified that for me via his Iliad-length Twitter (it will NEVER be X) posts. Here's part of one.

C’mon, folks, that’s just cringe incarnate.

So. 

Here’s the deal. 

July’s stable of crap is soulless. I can hear the squeaky squeak of the pen in the checkboxes. Once is your first time, sure. I get it. Writing is legitimately hard. You gotta figure out how to structure your ideas to put some soul in, that makes sense. Five times, three of them from other creators, is on purpose. The line just feels so bland and mediocre. Much as I hate 99% of Marvel these days, at least they have the grace to be bad. Bad is clear. Bad is easy. So is good. But mediocre? Get out. 

The problem is that most of the “anti-mainstream” is like this. They have checklists of what they think are in good stories, like it's a form. Like somehow, some way, they can just connect the dots. 

You know who else talks like that? Corporations.

I'm disappointed. I wanted Rippaverse to be good. I really did. But this just isn't it. I spent my hard-earned cash on books that were, at best, mediocre. And considering that I can't seem to find an honest review of any Rippaverse stuff, or even anyone actually talking about it in general, I can't even ascertain if any future books are worth my time or not. 

And that tells me a lot.