Oh, For Fun!

Photo by of and by William Thrasher

The photo to the right shows myself holding the two most significant purchases I made during GenCon Indy 2009. They are both significant for two very different reasons, but I present them to you now in the hopes that I may make a point.

I begin with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game core rulebook by Paizo Publishing. The release of Pathfinder was one of the more pivotal event's of this past GenCon. In addition to being one of the top selling books at the convention, Pathfinder continues the Open Gaming License policy first begun in 2000 by Wizards of the Coast with Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition and the D20 System. Since it's initial play testing phase, Pathfinder has been referred to in some circles 3.7 Edition, and this is a fair assessment as the game continues to refine the D20 System from where Wizards of the Coast left off with Dungeons & Dragon Edition 3.5. Due to the schism caused by the release of Dungeons & Dragons 4E, we will likely be hearing a lot more about Pathfinder in the future as other companies acquire Pathfinder licenses and develop additional material for the game, as well as original material extrapolated from the rules.

The other significant purchase was X-treme Dungeon Mastery by the celebrated Tracy Hickman and his son Curtis. This release didn't receive nearly as much exposure or buzz as Pathfinder, but perhaps that is appropriate. I myself only became aware of XDM a week before GenCon when it was the subject of Kurt Wiegel's video podcast Game Geeks. XDM is not a rulebook. It is a humorous and mostly-practical guide to running a more entertaining game written in the style of a secret society's primer. Since returning from GenCon I have read both books, and that brings me to real topic at hand.

Games are supposed to be fun, aren't they?

The question isn't so obvious because we assume we know the answer. Of course games are supposed to be fun. They are amusements, diversions, pastimes, and one of the seemingly insignificant things we do that enrich our lives in grand ways. But when it comes to many role-playing games sometimes enjoyment seems to be a secondary, or even tertiary concern. Fun takes a backseat to the system (as realistic or cinematic as it may be intended to be), or an intricate setting (so detailed and involved that anyone one than the original creator has no hope of using in), maintaining tired game design conventions out of a sense of tradition, or an entrenched philosophical point that makes the end result less of a game and more like a model for thought experiments.

Open Pathfinder. In 575 pages we have a traditional fantasy role playing game. These pages are given over almost entirely to rules. Lots of rules. So many rules that Pathfinder starts to feel less like a role-playing game and more like a skirmish level war game designed to handle every possible permutation and convolution of warfare. This reader was left with the feeling that any role-playing that might be experienced with Pathfinder would be coincidental. Designing characters and campaigns within the system feels less like collaborative storytelling and more like feats of engineering. While I can see the utility of charts detailing the relative thickness, durability, and climbability of walls (pg. 411) or what percentage chance a 5'x5' section of a given type of forest may have of containing a terrain element (pg. 425), I can't see these things as being all that fun. This level of detail amounts to pages that will need to be looked up (slowing down the game) or ignored (making one wonder why they have the book to begin with). And yet, charts can both be fun to read and facilitate fun within the game. MAID, for example, has some of the most detailed and hilarious charts in the hobby, while Dark Heresy's Psychic Phenomenon and Perils of The Warp tables are sure to throw a vastly entertaining complication into the middle of your campaign. It's not that one can't have fun playing with a game system like Pathfinder, it's that successfully role-playing in this kind of system is typically a grueling, uphill battle.

X-treme Dungeon Mastery is, as mentioned before, not a game. But it is the funniest, most enjoyable, most entertaining book I have ever read on the subject of role-playing in my 18 years in the hobby. The authors enthusiasm, nay, the sheer joy they find in the subject saturates every page. Their message is as follows: You are the Game Master. You will throw out the rules when it suits you. You will make up new rules when it suits you. You apologize for nothing. And you will do everything, EVERYTHING in your power to make sure your players have a good time. And if they don't like that, then they can cram it with walnuts! And the authors know exactly what they're talking about. With the passing of Gygax and Arneson, there are few authorities on role-playing more highly recommended than Tracy Hickman. But it goes beyond that. The authors are trying to teach you a few things, and they transition from satire to dissertation so gradually that one doesn't notice the change until it's too late and the text transitions into satire once more. In 158 pages, X-treme Dungeon Mastery does more to facilitate an enjoyable role-playing experience than Pathfinder does in 575.

Bringing us back to the point about fun. Reading Pathfinder was a drawn out, dry, and at times torturous experience, though it was worth it to understand a book that will likely shape a large section of this hobby over the next five years. XDM was a book I did not want to stop reading. Every page, and at times every paragraph, was a jubilation. It makes me think back to my most fulfilling moments as a player and GM of role-playing games. All my fondest memories within this hobby involve games that were fun to read, learn, and play. You can have all three, though any two is nice. Take Pathfinder. I didn't enjoy reading it and I didn't enjoy learning it. But I'll be running it for the first time this coming Monday, and I'm going to do everything I can to make sure my players enjoy it, and hopefully I will as well. But if so, that's one out of three of the read/learn/play trifecta. Whereas XDM has been two out of three so far. And I intend to apply the principals of this book to the playing of Pathfinder. Why? Because both books, despite my views on either, can work together. More than that, they can enhance each other. What good is Pathfinder if you and your players don't have fun with it? And what good is XDM without a game to enliven? We can commix these elements. We can synthesize play style and game theory and philosophy. And when all is said and done, we will have had fun. That is the game.