Cheating — in a pen-and-paper RPG? For real?

I ran across an offhanded reference recently to cheating in RPGs that stopped me dead in my tracks.

Cheating? In a pen-and-paper RPG? For realz? This is only, like, the complete antithesis of roleplaying itself.

I’m not talking about GMs fudging a few numbers here and there. That’s part of the social buy-in that we all sign up for at the outset of the game. No, I’m talking about a player changing the damage bonus on his sword, or neglecting to keep track of ammo in games where that matters, or “misremembering” his toughness save during the heat of the battle. Does this stuff happen?

Bringing the party together: the odd-man-out approach

As GMs, we’ve all spent countless hours trying to devise clever ways to bring the party together at the start of the game. Characters are individuals by nature, and even if you foist some story framework onto them — they’re all from the same village, for example, or they’re the children of a well-known noble — there’s still a good chance the first session will revolve around the characters sizing each other up, forging alliances and generally exchanging basic game information. Sometimes this is a great avenue for storytelling, but other times you just want to the get the story moving!

I had an idea recently that I’ll call the “Odd Man Out” model. In this scenario, all the characters are connected in a simple, convenient way — except for one PC, an outsider who sticks out like a sore thumb. With this setup, it’s possible to co-opt players’ suspicious tendencies by casting one particular character as an obvious interloper.

For that one outsider character (who should be [a] a volunteer and [b] one of the more experienced roleplayers in the group) the first session will be spent explaining himself, integrating himself into the group and leaking important game information (via the GM) to the players. For the other players, they’ll instantly be able to bond over this outsider. They are on one side of the story; he is on the other. Oh sure, they’ll probably be suspicious — but not of each other. What’s more, as they introduce themselves to the new character, they’ll inevitably divulge important details about their own characters — info the players themselves almost certainly don’t know, but must needs share to kick-start the game’s common narrative.

Granted, there’s no guarantee that the game will go down this way, but it’s certainly an interesting thought experiment for GMs to mull over.

Just a bunch of guys, hangin' out and playin' some games

My comrade Sam has been pushing the idea of a weekly board game night recently. In my mind, this is a good thing, because it really tempts our large, nebulous group of gamers to coalesce around an informal weekly engagement.

There are at least 10 of us floating around out there, some of whom have never met one another, who would really benefit from a weekly meetup. Whether or not this becomes a regular thing I cannot say. All I know is that we all could do with a dose of regular, casual gaming outside the trappings of our various ongoing RPGs (which are legion).

How diverse is your gaming group?

Mr. noisms over at Monsters & Manuals wrote up an interesting response to an ongoing discussion about race in D&D, and how the industry as a whole tends to default to the well-muscled white male human fighter -- despite the fact that we're playing a game that lets us pretend to be all kinds of much-more-interesting stuff: elves, Norse gods, well-intentioned aliens...heck, even grammar-school kids!

It got me thinking about the various gaming groups I've been a part of since 2000, when I started college and my gaming career began in earnest. I first fell in with a group of very creative and successful game publishers, who had recently collaborated on several acclaimed gaming projects. They were all about 7 or 8 years older than me, and they really helped give me a boost into the hobby. Looking back, they were -- quite literally -- the "Old Boys Club" of that small college town. That's the phrase my friend (himself a member of the club) used when reflecting on these inspiring fellows.

Fast-forward to Chicago. As I mentioned over at Monsters & Manuals, my most recent Mutants & Masterminds group was composed of one white dude, one white Jewish dude, one white chick, two Puerto Rican dudes and one black dude. Pretty much nothing was off-limits, and the mirth around the gaming table could get pretty raunchy at times. It was a slice of pure Americana, I think.

How about you guys? Can you top my group in terms of sheer diversity? Surely there's someone out there who's had Russians, Inuits and Sumo wrestlers rolling dice around the same table...