Learning New Games

I know some bloggers have written that they blog more when they aren't playing; for me, it seems to be the exact opposite. I haven't been gaming much and neither have I been blogging all that much. What gaming writing I have been doing has been mostly working on a Gamer ADD project that isn't ready for the blogosphere yet.

I've decided to put that aside for the moment and try to return to actually gaming. Primarily, that means finally getting that Pendragon game going with my gaming group, but I may also try Google+ ConstantCon gaming. It would be really fun to be a player again.

When I referee, one of the attitudes I have is that I don't require system mastery of my players (this seems to work better with Old School games, so far as I can tell). This, plus the fact that I tend to heavily house-rule, means that I tend to write up booklets for my players that distill the information they need to know. (Unfortunately, enough of those booklets is copyrighted - and not just OGL either - that I don't think I can share them online.)

I've found myself doing the same thing with Pendragon, except that grasping the way the system works has replaced house-ruling as my second motive. Today I went through the character generation section with an index card and wrote out an outline of character generation while I was waiting for a friend to finish physical therapy. When I got home, I typed it into the computer and now I just need to copy the tables and lists over to have a finished character generation booklet for my players. I feel much more comfortable with character generation and the character sheet (well, at least the front of it) than I used to, even though I've read through it multiple times before.

When you begin to play with a new game system, what strategies do you use to learn it? Do you read it through multiple times? Give it one long, thorough read? Only look at what seems most important for now and figure you'll learn the rest when it's actually needed? Re-state it for yourself to make sure you grasp it, like I do? What other strategies do you have for learning a new game?

Some Pendragon Questions

My Swords & Wizardry game has been on hiatus now for something like two months. I just wasn't able to keep mapping at the rate my players were exploring my megadungeon. Gary was right- map three whole levels before you let your players in.

I'm giving Swords & Wizardry a break for a while. I'll always love it; it's the easiest system to hack and home-brew that I've yet seen, but there are other games to play too. I'll surely return to Swords & Wizardry again.

What our Skype gaming group will turn to next is in question. I sent everyone an email today asking what they wanted to do for the next few months and suggesting Traveller, Tunnels & Trolls, Risus and, above all, Pendragon.

Playing a Pendragon game is my first choice of the four; some of the very first books that got me into fantasy were Ladybird childrens' adaptations of Arthurian legend. I've also got The Great Pendragon Campaign and The Grey Knight, so I won't be lacking for adventures and prep can be a lot less than it would be if I were mapping out a megadungeon.

I've got some questions for those who are knowledgable about Pendragon, though:

1) I own the first edition of Pendragon; it was surprisingly low-priced on Amazon when I bought it. If you were me, would you look into any other editions of Pendragon, or one of the supplements? How difficult do you think it will be to run stuff from the GPC, which is (at least my copy is) written for fifth edition?

2) The first edition has about four pages on running female characters; is that, in your opinion, enough? Do you have any particular advice for refereeing a game with a mix of PC genders?

3) Pendragon has a system of personality traits. It seems like it would be easy for a beginner like me to use this in ways that force PCs to do what the dice say instead of what players want them to do, or else ignore the traits system all-together. The former seems to me like it would be anathema to the Old School, which is confusing to me, since Pendragon is certainly an Old School game, while the latter would be leaving out a huge part of Pendragon. How do you handle traits? How do you know when to let a player decide what a PC does and when to have the player roll? Does this really conflict with the OSR vision of player-controlled PCs, of "role-playing over roll-playing," to borrow that controversial phrase?

4) Another grognardling-who-is-still-learning-the-Old-Ways-and-isn't-sure-how-Pendragon-fits-with-the-gaming-philosophy-he-learned-which-was-about-Dungeons-&-Dragons question: Would sand-boxing be feasible with Pendragon, do you think? I mean, technically, yeah, you can sandbox with any game system, but would sandboxing Pendragon work against the feel that Pendragon is going for?

5) Do you have any other advice for running Pendragon? Is there anything I should know or try or avoid? (I'm familiar with, and have poked around on, Greg Stafford's Pendragon Page and I've been following Sir Larkins' Solo GPC reports for a good while now.)