Most of us have run role play games. We know how much work they are. We know how hard it is to run a really good game. We know how frustrating poor role playing on the part of the players is. We know how hard it is to stay on top of one's form when running a game over months (let alone years!) What I've always wondered is how we figured all of this out? When I started working on Matrix Games I first looked at all the rules books I had and checked to see what they actually said. Did their words tell you how to play the game? What I found was startling. Most games really made very little sense when looked at too closely. They all relied on preexisting knowledge of how "games" are played to be able to understand them. Which works fine when one is building on existing game ideas but death when something new comes along. Something like role playing. One would think that Dungeons and Dragons would have had to been a very elegant set of rules to spark off a twenty-five year gaming craze. One would think that...and you would be dead wrong! The original D+D rules books don't actually say anywhere in them how to role play. But clearly people knew. When I started gaming in 1976, my brother Nate got D+D and ran our first game. We had a great time. I bought the books but when I stop and think what "taught" me how to run the game...It was Nate. I learned by example. I've been fortunate to meet a lot of people in gaming. One of the people I've enjoyed the most is Dave Arneson (co-author of D+D). Dave told me that he thinks good RPG game masters are born and not made. The time was right for a bunch of highly creative improv-theater actors (game masters) to spread the art of role play gaming around the world. It did not matter that the rules did not tell people how to do it because they had to already know anyway to be able to do it. Role playing then, starts off with a basic weakness. EVERYTHING RESTS ON THE GAME MASTER In face to face games this works. Running a game is draining, but as any actor can tell you – the audience gives you energy. So though refereeing burns people out over the long run it is fun to do. What happens when new communications technologies are added? Role playing can be done over the telephone. But having more than three or four people on the line makes this medium fall apart. Then computers came along. First there were the arcade like move and shoot games. Personally I don't think of these as RPGs. There is not acting in them. As a player, I have not freedom of action. Soon text games were added to the mix. Text games had been around before in book form – and again I don't really see them as RPGs. Which left email. Email RPGs have been going on since the late 1970's. They seem to be run like face to face RPGs only the pace of the game is much slower. MUCH MUCH SLOWER!!!!!!! I never did computer RPGs but I did play in ran a number of play by mail games. I learned a few lessons. 1. Never run a PBM! 2. Unless your insane. Don't run a PBM! And 3. Don't help someone else run a PBM unless you know they won't dump it on your lap! The trouble is that when computers/typing becomes the means of communicating, the weakness of RPGs (ie the referee) causes the system to break down. Consider the following graph. The player feed info to the referee who processes it and feeds info back to the players, Seven Players, One Referee The players can dedicate all their energy to their own action. The referee has to divide his energy between seven players. If this involves speaking – well everyone can listen. If it involves writing reports for individual players then the referee is quickly burned out – or the game happens very slowly. Slowness kills the dynamic quality of improve that for me is the reason to do role play games. I could not think of a way to save RPGs from this basic weakness. I still can't. Matrix Games may seem like a solution – but they do so only be abandoning most of the core principles of RPGs. One player one character goes away – because people can argue from anyone's perspective and change the next turn. RPGs follow chronological time. Not so MGs – where flashback arguments can happen. RPG referee's "know" what is happening in their worlds. The old joke about GOD standing for "Game Operations Director" is true. MG referee's do not have this knowledge. In murder mystery MGs the referee is as ignorant as the players as to how did the crime. The players will make that up in their arguments. So if RPGs are sooooo weak, why have they done so well? One explanation is that the time was ripe for them. And I for one think this is likely. For years now the time has not been right for the Matrix Game. Why? Because RPGs do as good or a better job in running face to face games. But MGs may soon find a home on the internet in a way that role playing has never been able to really do. Why? Because the players share the work. I still play RPGs. I guess I always will. But not on the computer. For that I look to Matrix Games. Back to Table of Contents -- Matrix Gamer #14 To Matrix Gamer List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2000 by Chris Engle. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com