[Games Anatomy] - Guess Who's Back?

As you walk south, the buildings appear more closely packed. Rows of high, narrow houses loom to either side of you. You can hear birdsong, somewhere, and there is a heavy smell in the air - either curry, industrial pollution on an unimagined scale, or dirty laundry. Possibly all three.

You come to a green space, bounded on all sides by a narrow road, with a knot of trees in the middle. Among the trees is a large cube, the colour of bone; a six-sided die, dropped perhaps from some celestial game and lost amidst the foliage. Atop the die sits a man with a beard. At your approach, he yawns, looks down from his perch, and intones in tones of remarkable smugness "Ah. There you are. I've got something to tell you."

Do you:
- turn back, certain you'll gain nothing of use from this oddball?
- press on, and see what he has to say?

art by Trampier

Well, here we all are again. My thanks, once more, to Lauby and Frontline for the enlightening conversation they've had in my absence - it's good stuff and if you haven't been reading it, you've missed out. Anyway, I've just about finished moving house, settling in, and playing WoW for a week while I pretend to be working engaging in vital practical research in the field of experiential game narratives, and it's probably past time to start posting thoughts on RPGs on Saturday mornings again.

Things are going to be a bit different this time. The Von Show was a delicate meander through RPG-land, an attempt to feel out the big issues that you, the beloved HoP-reading public, wanted to talk about in terms of how RPG is formed. This time we're going into individual games. I'm going to take on some of the most enduring and popular RPGs and get inside them, talk you around the core features, the things without which the game wouldn't be itself.

What do I hope to achieve by it? Well, if you now know that a d4 isn't to be inserted nasally, and are interested in putting it to its intended purpose, but aren't quite sure where you'd start, hopefully you'll have some idea of which RPG you'd like to play. Meanwhile, the old grogs among you, fingers scarred with a thousand paper cuts from a thousand errantly-placed character sheets... you guys might find something to interest you about a system you've never played before, or some point of cross-reference about the games you love.

That's the plan, anyway. We start next week with the d20 system, as per SinSynn's request; after that, the Storyteller System, Call of Cthulhu, Advanced Fighting Fantasy and Savage Worlds; and after that, it'll be very much up to you. Let me know if there's an RPG you've always wanted to thrash out and discuss in public, or one you're interested in but aren't sure you want to buy into and play, and I'll do what I can to assist.