#RPGaDAY 18 2016 – RPG Groups Could Benefit Most From What Innovation?
It’s hard to say what innovation RPG groups could most benefit from, mainly because most of the best ideas I’ve heard of are no longer innovations. Nevertheless, I really like the concept from the Apocalypse World games of having to create bonds (history or Hx in the game) between players. It’s something that went on before that game, but strong ties between the player characters only adds to the party cohesion. It helps explain why everyone is together and maybe adds a group dynamic of tension to the scene. It’s something that should be part of all games in one form or another.
However, that being said, there’s better and worse ways of implementing it. Having set questions or possible bonds helps make it easier than coming up with a bond, but I think the most fun way of setting up bonds that I have seen yet is using Fiasco playsets. It’s something I haven’t actually tried yet, but I am tempted to try out.
Justin Schmid
Justin started tabletop gaming in 1983 with Basic D&D (red box) and never looked back. He runs and plays in a wide variety of games, including Savage Worlds, Dungeon World, Trail of Cthulhu and many, many more.
He also writes professionally for role-playing games, including writing and creating Night's Edge an Alternate Reality Universe for Cyberpunk 2020. He went on to write eight more adventures and sourcebooks in the Night's Edge line, adding vampires and other supernatural perils to the already dangerous world of Cyberpunk.
As a freelance writer, he wrote The Bermuda Triangle for Call of Cthulhu, Shadows of the Mind, and Psi Wars for Conspiracy X and contributed to Last Unicorn's Star Trek RPG, as well as to Cybergeneration sourcebooks, and many other games.
When he's not creating imaginary worlds for his daughter, he's running games for his friends and writing new adventures or designing new game systems. He currently lives in Vancouver, B.C., Canada.