...was written by a good friend of mine, while we were at High School (the University of Toronto Schools). I found it near the bottom of a box late in 1998, and I was so impressed at how in tune Erik was with the concept of good gaming, almost a decade-and-a-half ago, that I had to publish this here. It contains a few in-jokes, which I may or may not explain on request.
Lastly, this article is reprinted with permission of the author. Well, on with the show!
"I'11 use my long sword since it does dl2 damage". "Well, my #3 shield has a couple of more points than my #5, so I'll turn it towards the attack". "Oh, shoot. Their .357's do a lot more damage than our PPK's. Our characters better close to hand to hand".
Are these sentences, or sentences like them, common in your campaigns? Are your players thinking and acting like players instead of characters? If so, then you are suffering from one of the most frustrating problems facing GM's today: mechanistic games. Mechanistic games, when they occur, will almost certainly result in a decrease in the fun players & GM's get out of a game, and the game itself will sicken and die. But a cure can be found! Send your donations to...
Before I ask for your money, I suppose I should explain what it is I'm crusading against. Mechanistic games are, to put it simply, games in which the die rolls are as important, if not more so, than the actual plot of the game. Although many people may feel that this is highly unlikely , it is far more common than they realise. The mechanistic game has many forms, and they are all tough to combat. In fact, the most obvious form is the "hack'n'slash" campaign. Most of you probably know what that is. For those who don't, a "hack'n'slash" campaign is one in which combat and action dominate the game. The party walks into the dungeon, kills the monster, takes the treasure and goes on to the next room. Since in all but the most simplistic game systems combat involves far more die-rolling than anything else such campaigns can turn high-impact dice into smooth spheres in a matter of months. This prolific calculation of probabilities is one of the main symptoms of mechanistic games, but the others are far more insidious and difficult to detect.
Consider the following conversation: "Bill, should your thief climb that wall to see what we might have to face?" "Good thinking, George. I guess I can have Finleaf get on top of the situation (ha, ha). Somebody gimme some ten-siders". Many players and GM's would see nothing wrong with this little snippet of game-play, but it is actually another symptom of mechanistics, namely player/character distinction. If you notice, both Bill and George distinguish between Bill and Finleaf, his character. This may not seem like much, but when this happens the game ceases to be an RPG! The premise behind RPGs is that you are acting out situations in which you would not normally find yourself. In this game, the players are making no attempt to act out the personalities of their characters, and without that effort the game might as well be a Fighting Fantasy book or Star Fleet Battles as an actual RPG. The role-playing is non-existent, so the only thing left is the die rolls. (If you don't agree that in this game this is the case, look at it this way: How many elven thieves do you know that crack bad puns?) Now I'm not saying that every gamer should be a Mazes & Monsters psycho and actually live like their characters, nor am I saying that people who do play this way are bad players, merely that it is likely that mechanistic game-play is taking hold. Other symptoms of mechanistic games are: Players playing multiple characters (unless they are very good, they are probably trying for quantity instead of quality); lack of creative solutions to problems or lack of any creative thought; players looking for ways to rolls dice. All of these should tell you that mechanistics and boredom are on their way.
Now that everyone reading this is sufficiently aware (and paranoid) of the threat that mechanistics poses, I am going to outline for all the GM's how to avoid or defeat the mechanistic menace. The treatment plan is outlined below, with the immunisation plan following:
The first step in defeating mechanistics is recognising the problem. If you feel that your campaign is afflicted with the blight, go back to the beginning of this article and review the symptoms I have outlined. Ask yourself honestly if any or all of the symptoms apply to your campaign. If they do, get your players together and discuss the problem with them. Counselling is available! If your players are aware of the problem but wish to continue playing in this way, let them! If you like mechanistic games, more power to you. You have defeated it already. If, on the other hand, your players agree with your feeling that the campaign must be de-mechanised, start instituting the steps below into your campaign.
One of the main difficulties in recognising and eliminating mechanistics is that, in almost every game system, it begins with the very root of the system, the character generation rules. In almost every case, from D&D to Traveller to Toon to Champions, the players have a very active hand in creating their characters. This is good except for the fact that by the time the numbers are totalled and written down the player knows everything there is to know about the character. A player will know his strengths, weaknesses, quirks and funny bits to a 'T', something the character would not. For example, in Champions a player will know that his character has a strength of 40, meaning he can lift almost 6.5 tons. Unfortunately, the character of Boogie-Woogie Man that he is playing would not know that he could lift 6.5 tons, only that he could lift "a whole heck of a lot". This knowledge means that players are more aware of their heroes limitations and will play accordingly, and the comic-bookish atmosphere the game is supposed to create is destroyed. This is the same for all games, and the more detailed and realistic the generation system, the more severe the problem. The only solution I have found to this day is tough, and requires a lot of work on the part of the GM, but it works. The solutions is to have the GM make the characters for the players. This does not mean that the GM sites in an ivory tower as a God-on-High and hands the players what he wants them to play (although this does work for Paranoia). Instead, the GM discusses with the player what the players wants to play, takes those ideas and mixes in a few of his own to create the character. He then tells the player what the character would know about himself, and the player uses that to role-play far more effectively than he could've before.
This works especially well if the ideas in Step Two are used. Basically, in Step Three the GM only makes die rolls when he feels they are necessary. In D&D, for example, how many times have you spent a couple of minutes having your strength 18(00) fighter slaughter a couple of hapless kobolds with clubs? It may be good for someone just learning the combat system, but in most cases, it's a lot easier to say "I'm really disappointed in you! You actually missed one of your attacks, so it took you four swings to kill them! For shame", and get on to more dramatically important things. As I said, this works well with Step Two because if the characters don't know what they will need to hit, etc., they'll be less inclined to argue with you over the results. There'll be no "My 8d6 energy blasts should've taken him down by now!" The game will also be sped up if you do this, allowing more time for good stuff like character interaction.
The spectre of mechanistics has been banished, and you don't want it to return. The first step in immunizing your campaign is to make sure that the plotlines and scenarios you take the group through are enjoyable. If you use commercially produced modules, it is generally a good idea to tinker with them a bit to suit your own campaign, because damn few of them will mesh perfectly. If you make your own adventures, remember these rules when you write the next one:
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