What? Are you mad? Giving an opinion on the internet!? Well if you’re reading this I’ve convinced myself that we’re all here to have fun with TTRPGs and it’s okay to prefer one thing over another.

So, I subscribe to Tegan J Gaming on YouTube having seen the channel look at Call of Cthulhu and go through an actual play game. Today I saw a vid asking What would your ideal TTRPG be? I don’t tend to analyse something too much if I’m enjoying it in positive way and Table Top Role-Playing Games tick the boxes for me. But in the video they looked a terms like “classless”, what is combat like, how’s the narrative style and this got me thinking.

Classes

There is a lot of fun progressing a character through levels having started off as X class and through game play and experience points you develop. It can also be really fun to explore the possibilities of what a character could be via the rule book. I remember Career progression in Warhammer Fantasy Role-playing as being great because if we wanted to be good in combat we’d want two attacks from being a duellist but also the extra movement point from being a runner was sought after! For me, in other systems I found levelling up got a point where my character was pretty much untouchable and not much fun to play anymore. By being classless, you develop through knowledge and skills which is also fun although I’ve found there can be little sense of achievement when you play a campaign for 18 month but your character’s Firearms skill only progresses from 70% to 74% because… dice rolls!

Fighting!

I’m a simple kind of person who likes simple rules for playing and that means straight forward “Rules-Light” combat suits me just fine. Today I also saw a video clip of a game where a person triumphantly delivered an attacked with this rule plus that modifier for an area effect of X which meant all the foes were defeated. Awesome for them! The time spent researching all of those rules and bringing them together for such spectacular delivery must have been very rewarding. I like being clever in a game an adding that rule to that rule is great but I much prefer a the simpler type of combat where you can defeat your opponent with what’s on you character sheet and not what’s in X book or that Y expansion. I’m mainly in the game for the story and the combat should serve that and build the plot where it can. I’m reminded of having to dive into an icy river to fetch a gun I’d fumbled into the water whilst fighting off a bear. The stakes of the story were raised as that combat encounter had ramifications for the characters.

Narrative

I’m taking some friends though an old scenario and this legendary module is just a collection of box text descriptions of the locations on the map and the monster to fight to get the treasure. Not very interesting! I’ve added a whole story and plot to these encounters as I like a good story. Over the years I’ve written short film scripts, radio plays, a feature film once even a comic so when a TTRPG game has a story I can get involved with, then I’m all in. You’ll see on this Blog “Game of the Year” where one of the primary factors in the selection is the story of the game and how my character fits in. I really can’t imagine an RPG game where it’s just encounter then combat, encounter then combat repeat etc.

So…? Answer the question already!

Well I already have an ideal TTRPG and that’s Call of Cthulhu with Pulp Cthulhu. Being slightly dyslexic, new rules are not fun to learn so I tend to stick to CoC.  It is a narrative driven game where the results of skill dice rolls increase the ease or difficulty of the mystery. This is backed up with combat that is as deadly for a character who just starting out as to one that has played multiple games. If you like classes then Pulp Cthulhu has you covered as there are Archetype which are character templates that shape your character but you progress via skill rolls without levels. Could CoC and Pulp be better? Again the Basic Role-Playing (BRP) system on which they are based provide all manner of expansions from what I call “Battle Magic” spells like fire ball all the way to cybernetic super powers for characters. What more do you need?

No go on, be imaginative!

Oh, alright but it’s not much. So you could start CoC or Pulp as the lowest of the low then travel the world battle the mythos, gaining knowledge from tomes, go mad and develop your skills. Unless you get input into your income (called Credit Rating) then your character who started off as a minimal wage worker might end up right back there after a few games / campaign. Great end of a story for them if you like ending that but what if they progress to 90% in First Aid or 80% in Psychology? Could they change their occupation and become a Back Street Doctor or Psychologist? A CoC / Pulp game where occupations change via increases in skills backed, up with the already solid game play, I think would be ideal. Sure, a Keeper can do Career progression themselves if they are imaginative but some a well thought occupation progression options as character gain skill points would be welcome addition to an already idea TTRPG!

What would your Ideal TTPG be? Let Tegan J Gaming know!