Supplement Categories Redux

In my last post, I missed out on some supplement categories.  Well, two categories and some subcategories are what I can think of off the top of my head:

• Modules: These materials detail a series of encounters.  This doesn’t really fit under the labels of either Mechanics or Setting, though most adventures include setting so I guess there’s a case to be made that this is a subcategory of that in its most generic sense.
• Meta discussion: These supplements are more about how to play the game in a more general sense outside of the rules.  This typically takes the form of advice and suggestions on how to do things like how to run a certain type of game, how to handle a certain type of player, how to modify the game to get a desired play style.  Heck, discussion of play style fits in here as well.
• Gear: These supplements detail equipment: weapons, tools, armour, etc.  This is really a subcategory of mechanics.
• Characters:  These supplements detail characters in the world.  Can include rules, but this is typically mostly setting.

These supplement categories I forgot to include because I rarely pick up supplements of the above type (not to mention that I think that half of them are instances of the previous two, Mechanics and Settings).

It’s interesting (to me at least, in that I’ve never really given it much thought) that due to the nature of RPGs, you’ll always have a setting, even if it’s an “implied setting”, i.e., a setting that is not spelled out but is nevertheless there when you run the game due to the rules.  Because a game has to be set somewhere, and the nature of defining the rules will create an implied setting automatically if you don’t choose to use an explicit setting.  And there will always be an implied setting whether you have an explicit one or not.  It occurs to me this is also why some games can feel like they have a mismatch of setting and mechanics – because the setting tells us one thing is true while the rules (and thus the implied setting) are telling us another.

On Mechanics and Setting

One of my vices is one common to others in the RPG hobby – the obsessive-compulsive need to buy as much material as you can.  In a way, it’s really weird – for a hobby that is to me so much about using your imagination, I spend an awful lot of time collecting minutiae that in a lot of cases I’ll never get to use.  Technically, once you’re introduced to the concept of role-playing, you never really need any more external information – you can play for a million years with the first edition Dungeons & Dragons rules and have it not get stale.  Of course, there’s reasons to get a new RPG beyond just the concept of role-playing in general.  Most importantly from where I sit, is that new material has the potential to be inspirational.  They can fire the imagination of any aspect of the hobby, and that makes them pretty valuable to me.

Generally, pretty much everything you’ll pick up will be one of two categories:

• Mechanics – The basic rules on how to play this particular game.  While all RPGs are advanced versions of “Let’s pretend”, each has different ways to resolve things that happen in the game so that it doesn’t devolve into, “I shoot him!” “Nuh-uh, you don’t!” “Yes I do!” ad nauseum.  The mechanics answer the questions like, “How do I know if something my character has attempted is successful?” and “How far can my character jump?”
• Settings – The materials describe a game world to play in and they way it works.  Middle Earth of the Lord of the Rings trilogy is a different setting than say the world of Harry Potter, even though both have elves and wizards and magic.

Inspirational mechanics are usually when rules are presented in a way that I’ve not seen before, or a novel application of existing ideas.  Inspirational setting material is pretty much the same but for settings of course.

That said, I have to admit that sometimes after I’ve picked up a new game, I wonder to myself, “Why did I buy this again?”  And sometimes it’s hard to justify.  I can content myself with the fact that I get some inspiration from just about everything I’ve picked up, but on the other hand I have a feeling I’ll never actually get to play most of these and so their utility is a bit diminished.

I’ve picked up a lot of games over the years, and I’ll be going through my library in the near future, giving my thoughts on each.

The Necessary First Post

So here I start up yet another blog.  What’s the purpose of this one you may ask?  Well, it’s a place for me to chronicle my creative pursuits in the specific area of gaming.  Sure, this probably should have gone in my very anaemic “personal” blog, but hopefully this one will focus more on more interesting stuff and less on day to day banality.

I should start out by clarifying what I mean by gaming… I currently see the majority of posts I make here to deal specifically with role playing games, with a smattering of video games on the side.  At least at first.  I’ve been playing RPGs in some form or another for around two decades, and if I had my way I’d be playing a lot more.  Unfortunately life gets busy as you gain more responsibilities in life, and time becomes more and more a precious commodity.   So rather than playing games, I spend a lot more time these days thinking about them.   And now, as is the way of things in our digital age, I’m going to publish my thoughts so they can be read by a world that is probably quite indifferent to them.

I’m going to assume that if you’re still reading, you know a little something about what I’m talking about, so I’ll refrain from many asides into basic definitions.  If you got this far and you’re still reading, you either have the basic required knowledge or your my mom or something.  In which case I promise I’ll come visit soon.  I suppose that if there’s any baffling jargon, you always have the option of leaving comments to as for clarification too.

So welcome, and if you’re reading this, I hope you find something interesting to take away from it.