What was kind of neat about Mutants and Muskets for me was that I was completely out of the Tinker Zone, and entirely in the Play Zone. I'd spend an hour or two tops getting reading for a session and just play, that was the extent of my involvement. It was a well needed break. Eventually, I went deep into Tinker mode for the ACKS game.
Now, I've been in both Play Mode and Tinker mode for the last month with ACKS. However, I've sort of outstripped the campaign at this point. When I completed Skull Mountain I got myself to a place that there's little I can do until the players have done a lot more mucking about and have decided they're done there and have another objective.
That leaves my mind dangerously unoccupied. So, it wanders. I've been reading and poking around with the early RPG stuff I have, and have been doing some thought experiments (Don't think I'm contemplating another game anytime in the near or even long term future, I'm just keeping the brain busy).
I was wondering what it would be like to do as the old ones did. Start with a fantasy miniatures campaign with really stripped down rules, but with the general principal--anything can be attempted. Then just start to add stuff as we went by piling up "rulings" created as they were needed. Maybe it'd just be a mess. Maybe we're all too much a product of our RPG experience to come up with something that looked different. Maybe it'd be awesome. Maybe preferences would be too at odds to gel things properly.
Again, it's just a product of looking at old things and wondering.
When I get into a game, I end up going further and further than I really need to, especially during the downtime between game sessions.
ReplyDeleteIt is funny that you think of these things. Again it reminds me that our brains are wired so similarly yet so different.
ReplyDeleteMy tinkering is always just the same "What if we started as the old ones did from scratch with stripped down rules" except I have no interest in the RULES so much as what kind of SETTING would result.
I imagine we might have something close to our default law/chaos/neutral pantheon we usually have. However I can't help think it may be different. One of my most favorite games we ever did was the short lived Uthax campaign. We created the wild out of nothingness just as a boardgame with minimal rules.