It's Still on My Shelf: Tenra Bansho Zero

I backed this at about the same time as Torchbearer, about seven years  ago.

Seven years???

No.

I refuse to-

Just no.

I just backed this. A year ago. I promise. Yeah, that's it.

Point is, I still haven't played it. I've always wanted to; the whole game is just so freaking cool, with varying levels of accessibility that scream "I WAS MEANT TO BE PLAYED NOT LOOKED AT". I wish I could say that I have, but I really haven't. Yes, I'm going to blame the Army for this one again, but the truth is that I've been a bit intimidated by the game.

Why is that, you ask?

Well, let's break this down. Tenra Bansho Zero (TBZ) is a Japanese RPG, the first to be translated into English. It's designed to be a four to six hour single session campaign. All the character development that one could possibly have in a campaign gets pushed into that single session. It's hyper intense, hyper focused, just freaking hyper. Everyone has what are called Fates, which are hooks that the players can use to perform so the other players award them Aiki. Aiki is a resource you either use to get a few extra dice for your actions, or you can use it to generate Kiai. Kiai is extremely powerful, but spending it accrues Karma (yes, you have to track it yourself). Get 108 Karma? your character becomes an Asura, a demon enslaved to his desires, and taken over by the GM. You can get rid of Karma by getting rid of or lowering your Fates. You get rid of or lower your desires, you let go, so that way you do not become corrupted.

And then after that incredibly intense session you do a completely different story, in its own session. With different characters.

And you do it again.

And again.

And again.

Each of these stories are supposed to be completely self-contained, jumping from point to point in the really well-detailed setting that the game provides.

In fact, I would argue that the setting is the gold standard for how to make an RPG setting: make a place that needs saving, for whom there is no way out other than the players. Make the players essential. You want people to be heroes? Make everyone else not. Want the players to be a light? Make a variety of darkness they cannot help but feel on their skin. The TBZ setting is so well done that that its quality alone has made me keep the game, just to reference from time to time, to make sure that I'm designing my own settings correctly.

Yes, that was a paragraph-long aside.  The point is that you have to jump around a lot. And, given my own background for preferring long-running campaigns, I found that intimidating. How on earth could I come up with that many campaign ideas, that quickly? That's a lot of campaign work. But ultimately what's won me over on trying this out as a series of one shots is that there are plenty of pregenned characters, all of which are more defined by their Fates (which are player and GM generated) than by their skills, which means that player work is relatively low. And there's nothing stopping you from following the translator's advice and just keep spinning one-shots from the previous session's ending. I mean, all problems were formerly a solution, so that part makes sense.

There's a lot going for TBZ. I really can't wait to finally give it a shot as well. Well, y'know, one day. We'll get there.

It's Still On My Shelf: Beyond the Wall and Other Adventures

What It Is: Beyond the Wall is a one-shot system designed to emulate coming of age tales in fantasy novels. There is no prep work required or desired. Everyone just sits down, grabs a booklet and starts rolling dice. The story should be over, in one session. I mean, it doesn't have to be, but the scope of the game is definitely not supposed to go beyond a single session.

What Makes It Awesome: It does exactly what it says it does, on the tin. So many games make vain promises about what they are and what they accomplish, all for nothing. Not this game. It is fast to set up, fast to play, and has some really freaking amazing tables. I normally don't jazz about tables and all that, but these tables are, to almost the last one, ridiculously awesome.  By the time you're done everyone will have characters, a town will be constructed, and the GM will have a dastardly plot linked into the PCs.

Problems: I do not mind games where there isn't a universal resolution mechanic. I don't play them, but that has more to do with the fact that the games I do play normally just happen to. But here? I take issue with it. BtW's lack of a universal resolution mechanic is the one huge sticking point I keep running into whenever I play this game with folks, particularly newbies. It's not huge, it's not a deal-breaker, but it is a pain. And it does get in the way while playing. It's a minute little piece of dirt in the ointment, but it is there.

Why I Haven't Been Playing It: Honestly? I don't know. Maybe I'm still chasing that huge epic campaign that will define everything, for all time. Mechanically the actual play isn't my cup of tea, despite how fun it is, but given how good the stories are that come out I can forgive that pretty quickly. I guess I'm just not at a point where I want a constantly revolving series of towns and characters and situations?

Yes, I know there's a campaign supplement, Further Afield.

Yup, I own it.

Too large of a scope for the base game, to be blunt.

I see absolutely no point in running this game as a campaign, not when things like Burning Wheel exist. So no, that part just loses out.

It's Still on the Shelf: Star Wars RPG (Fantasy Flight)

So I was talking with a buddy of mine who was considering playing in a one-shot I'm planning. I had originally pitched White Hack at him, but it wasn't heavy enough for his tastes. So he asked me what games I had. And if I could list them. And describe them. I looked over at my bookshelves and groaned inwardly.  This is something of an answer.

What is it: The Star Wars RPG line from Fantasy Flight Games is actually a "trio" of books, each of which handle the three implied settings of Star Wars: criminals, war, and the Force. It's expensive. It's over the top. It probably couldn't have been handled in one book? I don't know? Point is, they're divvied up. You pick the setting you want and move on. Or, if you're like me, you sigh from the depths of your soul and 180 bucks later???

The Star Wars games rely upon using unique dice, which help add some granularity to the action going on. It's not quite as simple as you succeed or fail, but you are instead consulting the dice kinda like a seer who consults the bones from some pagan culture or whatnot. It usually takes a minute, which is fine by me. I don't mind heavier dice mechanics, but your mileage may vary. As you decipher the symbols and realize what just happened, the players and the GM begin to talk it over. The players get to decide what any advantage gained from the roll does, while the GM gets to decide the disadvantage. Both sides have veto power. There's also a Destiny Point economy, where you can fudge in differing things into the game, as well as influence dice rolls. It's intended to be very subtle, one point at a time, but I always took that limit off and players seemed to have a much better time with ti. There's not a lot of guidelines to any of this, per se, but there are plenty of examples that one can measure against in the books.

It's this lack of advice that ultimately make the game a pain to run. You're supposed to award people XP, but it took a long time of me searching the book and going onto a forum to find out exactly how much and for what the players were supposed to get XP for... which as it turned out was whatever the heck I wanted to award them for. Which is fine, but it took far too long for me to get to the intent of the system for such an important thing.  So, if you're going to use the book, make sure to take this paragraph in mind and have a pretty clear list of things players can get XP for!

Why I haven't played it lately: Honestly? I don't find it scratches the Star Wars itch. For me Star Wars is about the interactions of tradition and the collective with the individual in their particular place in history. It's about the characters' search to fit within that framework. Yeah, there's lots of fun action and fiddly bits and whatnot, but those things serve the narrative, they are not the narrative itself.

That and Burning Wheel exists. You have to be able to compete with that level of janky, complex, unique gaming before  I really take notice anymore. FFG Star Wars just doesn't. It runs fine, once you figure out that you're just supposed to make everything up as you go along. Heck, I'd probably use the Career hooks to incentivize the players if I ever ran it again. But it's just not enough. Not for now.

Why's it still on my shelf?? I still like looking through the books, and I still have Star Wars games in mind, and some day I'll probably want to go back to it. We'll see. For the moment I'm at where I am with Burning Wheel. That is enough for the moment.