When I was young, I always enjoyed maps and gazetteers. I spent huge, formative parts of my childhood unattended and wandering libraries, browsing through history books with big beautiful maps and photographs, art histories and gallery books, and of course fantasy. Opening a fantasy book as a kid and finding a detailed little map sprawling across its first pages felt like discovering a a well in the forest. What more did its depths hold? How deep does it go? What lives in there and makes it its home? I would spend notebooks drafting my own maps; worlds painted out by maps alone covered in symbols and cramped notes, forgotten at the turn of the page for the next world. Picking up books began to have that same sense of wonder and curiosity as finding a new painting in Super Mario 64 and diving in to see what lies beyond.
Getting into the RPG scene, this fascination with maps and worlds held strong. For me, reading an RPG setting book was interesting only so much as I was drawn in by the world- my eyes glossing over any of the fiddly mechanical bits. Eventually, when I started running my own games, I was increasingly frustrated by those mechanical bits- the crunch that gunked up the game and slowed it down. I was interested in discovering stories, spinning tales of adventure and mystery, not interested in any way in identifying where in a five by five square a character was standing and whether or not they got an attack of opportunity on a fleeing goblin.
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| Jon Juarez |
The crimes of the character sheet have been talked to death, but to summarize my issue with it is that the character sheet becomes the lens through which a player views and interacts with the world. The statistics and abilities listed on the sheet become the be all end all- the definition of how a player through the avatar of their character is allowed to interact with the game world. I encountered this problem most commonly when I started running TTRPGs and was running through 5e. I had players who had never played before who were laser focused on what their sheets said they were allowed to do, and I had players with a great deal of 5e experience who would likewise defer to the character sheet for all of their abilities and actions. Similarly, I've played in games run by 5e only DMs who have their own lock ups with doing things outside of the defined modes of play as highlighted by the sheet and the rules.
Looking at it from a design perspective- the issue appears to me that the character sheet provided a tool- a hammer, and if you give a player a hammer then everything gets hit with a hammer and only a hammer. Likewise, when your system is focused entirely on the procedures of combat then the game gets mired in the application of the procedures of combat. While that may be some people's jam, increasingly I'm realizing that I prefer to run a game in the fiction of the game as opposed to the interface of established rules and restrictions.
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| Free Kriegsspiel Revolution |
And, conveniently, there's already a word for this thing I'd like to try. The Free Kriegsspiel Revolution, the ultimate in rules light (dependent), unshackling worlds from the burden of systems. Many links below, but the summary hits the exact notes of the problem I've been trying to put a name to for years: Play Worlds, Not Rules. It's changing the layer of player interaction in the game from interaction with the system as an intermediary for the game world to interacting directly with the game world.
I don't want to get too far in the realm of using words like proceduralism and diegesis here, but check the additional reading below if you're into that. For me, the form FKR takes is the simplest game of:
- Referee describes the situation
- Players ask questions about the situation
- Referee answers questions
- Players describe actions they take
- Referee describes the effects of these actions on the situation
No numbers or attributes, just characters and situations.
At the moment, I don't think I'll go fully diceless- at least on my end. As a GM I love random tables- but in general I plan to embrace dicelessness. Hearkening back to Constellation, which I ran earlier in the year, the vast majority of that was diceless and it ran smoothly. For an FKR style game to work, there are two things that are critically important:
- Mutual trust between the players and the GM. The players must trust that the GM will make rational rulings and judgements and is not biased against or for the players. Likewise, the GM must trust that the players are reasoning agents in their own regards.
- The GM must have a strong sense of the world and communicate it to (or with) the players.
This style of gaming reminds me of when I started running games and didn't have access to a printer for character sheets, so we would just use notebook paper and go. The sense of storytelling freedom where you don't need to box your imagined settings into the ill fitting restraints of a defined system is extremely freeing- and it makes all those old setting books still applicable- "Any rulebook can be pillaged and have its meat enjoyed as the skeleton rots in the sun, however a FKR referee will only consume whatever agrees with the world" - Weird Writer. For my own works I think I'll need to look at how I want to portray worlds and scenarios in a new light.
No gods, no kings, no rulebooks
Slaughter all of your sacred cows
Play Worlds, Not Rules
Anyways, here's some cool maps I like while I ruminate more on this. Maps are fantasy. Make more maps.
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| Break!! |
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| The Gackling Moon |
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| Yoon-Suin |
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| Ace Combat Strangereal |
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| Mekton, Algol II |
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| Hubris |
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| UVG map snippets |
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| Bone Age |
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| I Roved Out |
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| Kill Six Billion Demons- excellent RPG map material |
Additional Reading:
A researcher at heart, increasingly I have three dozen tabs open when I write a post- so here they are.
FKR Non Exhaustive Analysis by Weird Writer to Roll to Doubt
Focus on the World series from Sam at Dreaming Dragonslayer
Diceless Violence, Decisive Combat, and Diceless Resolution by Sam at Dreaming Dragonslayer
A Way of Free Kriegsspiel Revolution by Sam at Dreaming Draognslayer
FKR - Free Kriegsspiel Revolution by Larry Hamilton
Rules Heavy - Worlds and Classes by Chris McDowall
HUDLESS Adventure Gaming by Sofinho at Alone in the Labyrinth
Less Rules to Do More: Advancement by Justin Hamilton at Aboleth Overlords
Yes, You Can Resolve Action Without Dice And Do It For Years by Jim Parkin at d66 Kobolds
Non-Authoritative FKR Core Gameplay Loop Tutorial by Wizard Lizard
Dear Players, Description Is Not Fluff, It's Meat by Wizard Lizard
What is Artpunk? by Patrick Stuart at False Machine
What does diegesis have to do with games? by Nikoten at Pathika
A Manifesto For Proceduralism by Gus L
New Simulationism by Sam Sorenson
The Tyranny of "Rule" from Labyrinth Lesbian
Against Procedurality by Miguel Sicart
Matrix Games by Tom Mouat
JOESKY TAX
I have NOT been paying my taxes lately, so here's a table of cool lanterns I'm proud of from my Bars Aplenty supplement.
- Howler: A wolf’s head bronze lantern that howls when wolves are nearby.
- Insurance Policy: An inconspicuous lantern with a dead-man switch that explosively combusts two hidden flasks of fire oil three seconds after released.
- Sealamp: An orb of swirling sea glass with a handle on top, can be used to light the way underwater. The lantern fish inside must be fed every day.
- Puppeteer Lamp: This lamp has cutouts of monsters and animals that can be used to project false shadows to trick the unwitting.
- Spirit’s Lantern: An old wrought iron gravekeeper’s lamp. Once per night a spirit can carry this lamp for an hour. Follows simple instructions.
- Blasphemer’s Flame: This skull shaped lantern is powered by a Vampiric Flame. It runs for one hour for each HP fed to it.
- Cannibal: When unhooded, this lantern consumes any light source within 30 feet.
- Dragon’s Head: Forged from heartsteel, this legendary lantern can be blown into to make a dragon breath attack. 3 charges, must be recharged by being hit with a real dragon breath attack.
- Thief’s Accomplice: When shone, this lamp only illuminates the most valuable thing in the room.
- Twin Lamp: A double sided fairy-wrought lamp. One side casts light, the other casts darkness.
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