The Defense of Rolepaying Feb.23

Every Time At the Table, 2019.02 23

You might've not heard but a long running ICONs campaign (superhero) wrapped up in a session set after the big adventure culmination, the anti-climax if you will, tonight. This evening, Pery handled the funeral of the Aquaman thought experiment. Killed by a random NPC, after a major PC turned rogue while under mind control deals with his guilt because his own actions in the events leading up to death, there was quite the memorial service. The three players (Charlie, Curtis, and myself) jumped into as many NPC characters, as we had played them as one-off Characters during the last few years during spin-off games, as the GM did.  In TV terms, this was a "supporting Character episode." This was a roleplayer's smorgasbord, and it was kind of random as to who was going to rise to be the stars.  The Torpedo was sent off with a bang for justice.

The venue was rather awesome. Cleveland, has long since transformed into Beta City and Lightfoot Island in our player's minds, but we also have explored the oceanic depths and had some ties there. Torpedo being the latest reincarnation of a prince of Atlantis provided the Mystics of that lost land an excuse to merge the two areas. The surface and undersea depths came together.

Everyone at the table has been to funerals IRL so we kept the memorial part limited. We flexed our RPG muscles by doing quick eulogies for the dead guy as PCs that we hadn't played in a while.  When an unexpected and unknown benefactor provided services for the Wake, the widow, Morgana, Psychic-Extradonaire, there was a pause. At first she rejected the providers, but when Disco, the guilt-ridden rogue hero, tried to protect her from the strangers' pandering, she impulsively invited all attendees to the reception hall.

More than a bit of liberation was imbued at the wake. Landshark was especially enjoying Atlantean fermented jelly-fish while introducing himself as "Bruce the Shark" to Atlanteans, which is akin to proclaiming oneself as a "Bruce the Child Murderer." Mangod, the Cuyahoga County's Super-Powered Deputy Director for the County Sheriff Department, and Disco had some tipsy verbal sparring. Disco went home, but his little sister Nimble, a soccer mom with super-speed, stepped in to keep up with the Jones so to speak. When the reception was found to be a zombie gathering scam, Morgana ended things while Nimble saved the would-be victims without much fuss. An infernal cyborg villain from Torpedo's past stepped forward to claim responsibility for the atrocity, and was made short work of by Morgana and Nimble, while Landshark kind of just drank more.

I was just kind of amazed at how we as a group really made the drama of the event work, and could slip from one persona to another. We had to shift characters midstream. As players, we had to follow the leads given to us by the other players around us. Luckily the mechanics were solid enough to cause a sliver of doubt as to whether or not our actions would help or deter from the plights in front of us. That last bit heightened the experience from "daydream fulfillment" story-telling into OSR style, game mechanic-induced drama-- things could have really gone south and we had to live with any results. The players were really reading rules to maximize the dice rolls and the GM was not being arbitrary as to when we failed during the conflicts.

We had some tasks to overcome, and when a couple weren't accomplished it did not turn into a zero-sum wargame. In short we had a good game appropriate to the premise of the roleplayers coming together for the session. As this group of people at the tabletop play together often already, there are a few leads for the GMs of the group to build off from for later dates of superhero role-playing.

Now about "Community"

Even if you might have bought my products, you more than likely have not sat down at a table to game with me. In case you, seated interweb reader, have not noticed, you have never sat down at a table to game with me. So when you're worried about who has been burning books meant to offend or as to which asshole has been last outed by his boyfriend, I'd appreciate that you don't remind me of my responsibility to be a part of your community.

You guys are full of shit when it comes this community thing. Sitting at the table with someone is doing the "community thing." Commenting on standards to develop a gaming community is being part of a marketing campaign designed to sell group think in hard-covered glossy-paged books with sucky art afraid of being actually in color or unabashedly retarded in skill that will fizzle out in three years, if that. Community is who I know. I don't worry about what is controversial because I write game products for gamers not market audiences.