Welcome to this week’s blog club. This week we are looking at “The Natural Mutations of a Campaign” from 2009 by Trollsmyth.
Next week we’ll take a look at “On System” by Jeff Rients (Jeff’s Gameblog).
You can see a list of previous blog club posts here.
I hadn’t come across this post before and I really enjoyed it.
In todays indie gaming landscape there are no shortage of options for games covering a broad swath of genres and intended play styles. As a human with anxiety, sometimes i put a little too much pressure on myself when GMing a particular system to convey it ‘authentically’. Am I doing it wrong if my Cloud Empress party have acted like warmongers? If my Shadowdark group just wants to get into hijinks at a fight club rather than exploring the jungle? But this ignores the reality that both players and GMs are partners in determining the scope of the game and the expression of play. I think its a beautiful thing that two groups can make two entirely different types of campaigns out of the exact same adventure materials. These campaign mutations should be celebrated if they result in enjoyable play experiences, even if they will leave casual observers reading the play reports scratching their heads in confusion.
I’ve always been happy to have games mutate at the table. That comes with a caveat: I only GM stuff I enjoy. If the players want to have their PCs engage in something that I’ve no interest in playing (say, starting a trading post), then they can do all that without me. I don’t offer to run a game at my table that doesn’t interest me, so I don’t do it.
This post reminds me a bit of the expression “Your Glorantha Will Vary” for Runequest though in this case applying to the game rather than the setting. I wouldn’t set out to start a romance focused campaign with D&D, (there are systems better suited for it) but I would adapt to my players’ interests. That said, every group can do what they want at their own tables. It’s one of the things I like about the hobby.
Also, there’s some link rot to the grimmhaus blog; it looks like the Internet Archive doesn’t have it either.
Not much to disagree with this post, campaign play will always pretty much be a back and forth development be among the various players and referee, and will ebb and flow to acclimate to the various interests.
I would say this is an uncontentious idea, at least in the wider adventure gaming communities, but it definitely stands in contrast to the more “design-intent”, Nixonian perspective on play that says games are only about the actions that generate explicit rewards, and that deviation from the intended purpose is to play a “different game.”
I personally hate games ontology so I have no concern for the taxonomy that makes a game the same as another or not, but the post follows along with similar progressions I’ve seen through my gaming life.