Sometimes it's good to get away for a while, from both your comfortable corner of the world, where you know all the sidewalk cracks and routine faces like the back of your hand, and also from your complacent notions and assumptions, where those familiar mental avenues invariably lead you to your incontestable brilliance (in your mind's eye, at least). I have never claimed to know a lot; however, I can unquestionably at times get set in my ways. As I write this, I have spent nearly half a year "getting away for a while." I'm currently residing in South Korea, having left behind my carne asada burritos, delicious local IPAs, cozy brown recliner aside my shelf of gaming books only an arm's distance away, and my hilarious group of Labyrinth Lord and Dungeon Crawl Classics gaming buddies back in sunny Southern California. These magic items have been replaced by extreme weather (it's only a little after nine o'clock in the morning now, and I'm already sweating my nards off), spicy food creatively prepared from nearly every component of an animal's anatomy, watered-down beer or rice fermented alcohol, a mattress that might as well be made of stone, and a new group of fellow expatriate gamers who have introduced me to gaming systems and philosophies both foreign and intriguing. Sometime's it's good to get away for awhile.
Admittedly, this isn't the first time I've lived in this country (or abroad, even). This is actually my fourth year in South Korea--after a two-year hiatus back home in the US. Actually, I got my feet wet gaming here with 4th edition. It never really did that much for me, but it did lead me to the discovery of earlier editions of the game, and for that, I'll always be thankful. This is how I eventually found my niche with Basic D&D and AD&D, eventually leading me to Labyrinth Lord. While I have run a few sessions of LL here, I've spent more time playing in other people's games. So far I've played games of Burning Wheel, Mouse Guard, Apocalypse World, Call of Cthulhu, and most recently, Dungeon World. Some I've enjoyed, and some I've found overly complicated. But Dungeon World is a piece of pure brilliance in my opinion. Will I be a convert, completely changing my gaming system of choice? No. Will I take advantage of the neat quirks and mechanics and apply them to my own? You betcha. While the purpose of this blog is not about discussing travel and experiencing new cultures, I'd just like to say that it's inevitable that by doing so, you will change as a human being. You begin to lose your "frog in the well" mentality. And while I have had many real-life experiences running the gamut from mind-numbing frustration to holy-guacamole-this-is-amazeballs wonder--some days are reminiscent of a scene right out of Lost in Translation-- my experiences from a purely gaming perspective have not taken a back seat at all during this time, and have, in fact, run parallel with them. My only explanation for this is that while living abroad, one is almost forced to change one's mindset on a daily basis, allowing an influx of new ideas and influences to be absorbed into a mind that would normally eschew them.
"What's so great about Dungeon World, anyway," you ask? Well, a lot of things. But what I am really excited about borrowing and incorporating into my Labyrinth Lord and Dungeon Crawl Classics games has to do with the idea of 'failure', or rather, spicing things up a lot more when the dice rolls don't go your way, making 'failure' an interesting component to the game. I'm not going to go into detail about the mechanics but essentially, there is a target number needed to succeed in a skill or attack. When hitting the target number or above, you achieve your goal -- you stab the ogre, find the secret door, or seduce the busty barmaid. Rolling below that number, on the other hand, is where things get interesting; hitting a little below the mark grants you success. But not completely -- you hit the ogre, but damage your weapon; you find the secret door, but make a helluva lot of noise; you seduce the barmaid, but her big, hairy, and barrel-chested lover breaks down the door and comes after you with an axe, etc. Rolling really low, well, that's where you actually gain XP. Now I can't see myself incorporating that last bit. As we already know, most XP is gained from finding treasure (in Labyrinth Lord, at least), and I'd like to keep things that way. Nevertheless, I think I will start incorporating a similar mechanic in my games where a result of 1-3 -- or 4...or 5, if there's good beer flowing at the table -- below the target number for a skill check grants a success, but with an evil little twist. Fumbles will, of course, still only happen on critical failure -- a 'natural 1' in my games.
...Whew, are you still there? If you've made it this far, I applaud you. I'm aware that this is an awfully long post to explain one tiny little change I will apply to my own games, but I've been making a lot of subtle changes as of late (you can see a bunch of new editions to my list of House Rules here: http://ominousentries.blogspot.kr/2014/02/house-rules.html ), which got me thinking. These changes must stem from the fact that I've been taken out of my homespun surroundings, allowing me to add new and commoving constituents to a previously all-too-familiar homebrew. I can only await the changes to come in another six months time.
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