In the midst of all the other gaming that I’ve been doing recently, I’ve also begun the promised playtest of Robots and Rapiers, the forthcoming game from Ralph Mazza’s imprint, Ramshead Publishing.  (That’s the new site location, which is currently under construction but has a link to the old site as well.)  The Hollywood pitch for this game is “It’s Three Musketeers crossed with Westworld, except you’re the robots!”  I’ve been watching Ralph develop this game over the past four years or so, and it’s shaping up to be a fine game.  And, while I know that short runs of the game have been played elsewhere, I’m pretty sure that this is the first full-blown campaign of the game.

Role Score

I haven’t been keeping AP notes, though, since I’ve been struggling to master the game.  This isn’t really because the game is horribly complicated.  It’s quite possibly the most approachable “crunchy” RPG that I’ve ever played.  Rather, it’s because the game calls upon habits of play that I’ve been busy stamping out in myself.  In Robots and Rapiers, the GM should railroad the PCs.  That’s actually part of the game.  The game even gives the GM a mechanical tool to force railroading, called the Role score.  This lets the GM insist that a robot be played “in character”, keeping him running down the pre-ordained path of the adventure.  However, as a robot advances, he can erode his Role by increasing his Self-Awareness, allowing him to direct the course of his own adventures.

If you’re not seeing the metaphor here, then you’re not looking closely enough.

The game compensates a robot for being railroaded by giving him Inspiration when the GM uses Role to force the robot to take a certain action.  And therein lies my problem.  I keep forgetting to be cruel to my players.  They say, “I do this!” and I’m used to responding, “Yeah, cool!”.  When, instead, it’s actually better for my players if I say, “No!  You do this!” and place the thumb of my GMness on them.

Ralph suggested that I lay out tokens on the table that I “spend” each time I force a Role check.  That way I remember to do it.  I’ll be giving that a try tonight and see how it goes.

Rising Tensions

A lot of the “cool” that I’m getting from the game is on the macro level.  Individual adventures are interesting, but they are mostly an arena for the budding robot personalities to manifest themselves.  The standard rule is that the GM pregenerates and assigns characters.  So I put together a group with the Dashing Hero, the Loyal Sidekick, and a couple of redshirts along for the ride.  Then, as the players get annoyed with their assigned roles, they begin working to break out of them.  For example, Gabrielle is playing Gerard, the grizzled sergeant.  He started off as a folksy, down-to-earth sergeant.  Now, he has discovered that all his fighting has been fake, but he also is starting to figure out how to fight for real.  Last session, he dove into a scrum, ripped the arms off an enemy robot, and bludgeoned it to “death” with its arms.

Or try this.  Keith is playing Xavier, the loyal sidekick to Achille, the dashing hero.  Except that Xavier is starting to get fed up with living in Achille’s shadow.  Traits like “I’m the Hero” or “I’m the brains” are beginning to appear on Xavier’s character sheet.  Suddenly, all kinds of interpersonal (interrobotic?) conflicts are manifesting in the party.  It’s very cool.

Also, the game features a system that tracks the overall situation of the world and the major political factions.  Slowly but surely, the world is falling apart, transforming from a theme park into…something else.  Ralph tweaked the pacing on this, since it was going too slowly.  Now, we are beginning to teeter on the knife’s edge of disaster.  One false move, and the house of cards will begin crashing down.

Some closing thoughts

There’s a dearth of crunchy indie roleplaying games, so I’m glad to see Robots and Rapiers take the field.  Honestly, I think that Robots and Rapiers will stand nicely next to Burning Wheel as a strong entry in the field.  At the same time, I don’t think that it is too hard or complex for someone who is into hippy storygaming.  In conversation about the time, a couple of the players have commented that Robots and Rapiers lets you make up your own crunch, which is very true.  Add to this the long-term unfolding of character interactions, set against a backdrop of Dumas-style intrigue and an approaching cataclysm, and you have a recipe for an awesome game.

I will try to do better about posting AP in the future.  Robots and Rapiers has been a long time coming, but I think that it will blow people away when it gets here.

Seth,

The Inspiration gain from being forced into the Role seems to be a carrot for players to propose dramatically anti-Role actions. Are the players pushing against the roles strongly enough? What direction is there for delineating what is Role and not Role?

Considering the repeatative nature of the adventures in the source material, could it make sense to telegraph or even fully announce the path of the adventure? After all, part of the reason to struggle agains the role is the foreknowledge of what will happen.

  - Mendel S.

Wormwood wrote:
The Inspiration gain from being forced into the Role seems to be a carrot for players to propose dramatically anti-Role actions. Are the players pushing against the roles strongly enough? What direction is there for delineating what is Role and not Role?

Considering the repeatative nature of the adventures in the source material, could it make sense to telegraph or even fully announce the path of the adventure? After all, part of the reason to struggle agains the role is the foreknowledge of what will happen.