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Ninefox Gambit Q9: The RPG question
How could you use this book for your gaming? What other stories could you tell in this universe? What elements of the setting could you reuse in your own games? Does this inspire you to run a military RPG?
Lee, the author, is writing an RPG for this setting (link to his site about it). He claims it to be based on Fate and Dog Eat Dog. The latter is a game of colonisation and assimilation. How do you think these ideas will reflect the themes of the book?
Comments
I have written and published many military RPGs. This book had the feel of the military with very little actual substance, as if written by a grunt who understood everything on a magical level - it you do this, this will happen - so that nothing is understood on a cause and effect basis.
I lack much of the relevant experience to answer this properly, but yes, it felt like you just had to have the right magical device (=weapon with funky name) and you'd either annihilate your enemy or be annihilated next turn - kind of Russian Roulette where you take turns.
I don't think any part of this really says 'gaming' to me. I'm not very interested in the setting. The events were not interesting enough (or specific enough) to steal, nor were the characters. Themes like conformity/loyalty/discipline are timeless, but I wouldn't look to this book as an example of how to develop them. This novel definitely doesn't inspire me to run a military RPG because it doesn't have anything to say about the military (as the first 3 Sharpe novels might, for a counter-example).
The setting, if fleshed out, could be interesting to game in. You could do something interesting with the force of formation instinct and calendrical conformity. Perhaps that's where the Dog Eat Dog element is coming from: in that game, players gain or lose resources depending on whether they follow or violate social rules. But this book isn't about colonisation and assimilation, so it's unclear what he's drawing on that game.
I think Clash is right that this doesn't really inspire a keen desire to play the military aspects of the setting.