Game = Life

I read a lot of gaming blogs and listen to a number of gaming podcasts - I'm on a constant quest to improve my skills as a GM and my enjoyment as a player.  I get a lot of good ideas from the indie gamers at The Forge; things that I may not agree with, but that make me think and examine my own assumptions.

Today's gem is Resolution Lag from RPG Blog. Wow. This essay completely nails my biggest dissatisfaction with just about every game system I've ever tried. I'm an immersive roleplayer, even as a GM, and it always seems to me that things slow to a crawl when combat (or conflict) begins. It's my primary complaint about DnD 3.5 (and D20) - the d20 "whiff" factor.  I miss you, you miss me, I miss you, attacks of opportunity, a gazillion modifiers to keep in mind... combat takes forever.  I'm bored and ready to move on long before the fight is over. 

I like my games fast and cinematic, and yet am unwilling to decide everything by GM fiat.  There is a place for randomness in my GMing/playing world; I just don't want it to stall the game's momentum.

I have yet to find a system that's frictionless enough for me, though Eden's Cinematic Unisystem comes closest.

I ran my first session of the Serenity RPG today, for CARP.  All in all, I think it went very well.  The scenario, "Some People Juggle Geese", was only a few notes on a couple of scraps of paper, and I ended up using the crew from the movie (as statted out in the RPG), but it went really well.

I won't offer details, since I plan to run this at Origins (and possibly GenCon), but I haven't laughed so long or so well in quite a while.  Other than Inara, who was, in my opinion, somewhat neglected, all of the characters had their moments to shine.  I've figured out what I need to do differently next time to punch up the pacing a little, but all in all it ran very much like an episode of Firefly.

Best of all, I got this from one of the players in email tonight: I know he had a lot of fun watching the play, as we both agreed, it was like watching an episode of Firefly.

These are the moments that I, as a GM and storyteller, live for.

Keep Flyin'!