One of the games most consistently talked about on most boards I hit has been Sprit of the Century, by Rob Donoghue and friends from Evil Hat Productions. Spirit of the Century is a pulp roleplaying game, but to this reviewer, there seems to be a lot more to it than just that. If the gaming intelligentsia has any legitimacy it is some larger quantifiable success. Spirit of the Century offers an excellent roleplaying experience, and it also brings some awesome “indie” goodness to the masses, as it were.
Pulp has long held a special place in the hearts of RPG designers. Lands of Mystery, Hollow World, Cadillacs & Dinosaurs, TORG’s The Nile Empire, Buck Rogers, Trinity, and Pulp Hero – the setting and its tropes have been revisited many times, and many of those games make an appearance in the bibliography for Spirit of the Century.
Still, none of the pulp RPGs has ever had a true commercial success. Some ride a wave of popularity from time to time. They occasionally enjoy resurgence or a new edition. Yet none of them enjoy the status of D&D, Traveller, Champions, Cyberpunk, or the other seminal genre games.
So why does Spirit of the Century seems to be breaking the mold? While not a commercial success on the level of D&D or Champions, it is developing not only a loyal following for the core game, but also a very loyal community that is developing the rules for use in other genres. I decided to go straight to the source and speak to Rob Donoghue directly and get some answers.
#1. I have any number of friends who will ply you with free food and liquor to try and convince you not to write a new game. What made you decide to ignore the trend and write your own?
Blame the Internet.One of the first things I did when I had my first web page, hosted on a friends was try to figure out what to put up there, and the answer that jumped to mind was "my gaming notes." There's kind of a slippery slope from there when you start working in Fudge, putting up half-games and variants and whatnot. We ended up making a bunch of changes to Fudge for a specific game, and writing them up in a word doc which at one point we looked at and just went, "Y'know, this is kind of a thing."
It took some work to carry it forward from there, but the real rub is that it wasn't too far off from accidental. You do something you enjoy, and sometimes the shape of it only becomes visible in hindsight.
#2. Describe in your words what Sprit of the Century does that FATE and Fudge don’t do, or won’t do?
The biggest thing it does is take a mix of ideas and says, "Ok, given those building blocks, you can make this!"But practically it peels off a layer that usually separates the idea of the game from play, and couches as many ideas as possible in explicit, practical, play-centric ways. Fate hints at these things, but Spirit pulls out a stick and whacks the reader with it. Look at skills for example - the presentation of skills is pretty odd by normal standards, but that's because there's a little about what the skill can do but much more on how using this skill can make a player cool, and how the GM can create situations for a player who picked that skill. I'm not sure we succeed at hitting it that cleanly for the entire book, but I think we nail it often enough to consider it a real signature.
#3. Was there an “a hah” or “eureka” moment for you during the development, and why do you think that is?
There were numerous such moments, but they all had something in common - they came when we were playing. We'd run a session and we'd hit a situation I didn't have a rule for (or I couldn't remember the rule for) and I'd make something up. Afterwards we'd look at that and try to figure out why the hell I'd done it, and whether it had worked. This was incredibly fruitful because it always came back to what was fun to play and at the same time it weeded out a lot of unnecessary or burdensome rules.
#4. People have spent time and energy applying Sprit of the Century to other genres or games. What are a few of your favorites, or what were you particularly surprised by?
Exalted catches most of my interest because we tried to do it to. It made for the best character generation I can imagine for Exalted, but the charms were a total pain, so I'm always curious to see what other people do to solve those problems. The Sons of Kryos Spirit of Sharn game makes me go and pull down my Eberron books every time I hear about it. That is entirely a can of awesome.
#5. What is your all-time favorite RPG, and why?
Mean question! But gun to my head, I'd say Over The Edge. The rules are my baseline for light, playable, flavorful rules, the setting is amazing, and the overall presentation makes it the best game in the world to hand to someone who knows a lot of systems and a lot of rules to watch a light go on as they realize how much they can do with a character sheet that fits on a business card.
#6. Are there any supplements planned for Spirit of the Century?
In our heads, SOTC was the first leg of a trilogy we were never going to produce. Shadow of the Century took place during the 80's, and was shaped by the action-adventure movies and TV of the era. The A Team, MacGuyver, Big Trouble in Little China, all that stuff. The Shadows had won, the Centurions (and the next generation, born from the 50's in response to the deaths of many Centurions). And it was the 80s, full of Cold War tension, atomic waste and so on. After that was Spirit of the Millennium, which was near future (2020s) as sort of high-spirited cyberpunk. That said, there was no real expectation to ever do anything with these ideas, and there probably still isn't. Still, it's amusing to have imaginary supplements.To our surprise, other people seem interested in doing real supplements. Bruce Baugh and Gareth Michael Skarka notably are kicking around some really interesting supplement ideas. All to say nothing about things using the SOTC OGL like Starblazers. The idea boggles my mind, but absolutely excites me.
#7. Do you have any big secret projects you’d like to reveal here on Close to the Edit?
It's not hugely secret, but sometime after we finish Dresden (that’s the Dresden Files RPG listed as Coming Soon at EvilHat.com – Ross), I want to take a swing at historical RPG, and by that I mean a game that's interesting because history is interesting, without the crutches and training wheels that supernatural and similar elements provide. There's a good case that this is a formula for a product that is guaranteed to sell to my Mom and no one else. But the joy of historical projects is that the art budget tends to be pretty low.Specifically, I want to do an American swashbuckling game called "Faith and Credit". It takes place in the period between the end of the American Revolution and the signing of the Constitution, when America was under the Articles of Confederation. It's a great period - it's full of recognizable figures form history, but it's a period that even hardcore history nerds tend to just skip over, so it's recognizable but with a lot of flexibility. At the same time, you have all sorts of political factions, internal and external, struggling to define the fate of the nation, and you have a basically entirely illegal conspiracy to usurp the legitimate government in the form of the constitutional conventions. With fantastic authors like Joseph Ellis and David McCullough making the period very accessible, I know it's a game I'd love to play, and at the end of the day, I can't think of a better reason to write a game.
#8. If you had carte blanche to take over any RPG and make it your own – which would you choose and why?
The Amber Diceless RPG, in a hot second. It's a great game that needs to be retuned, and has had a lot of impact on my play over the years. But even more importantly, it has a community that is almost indescribably awesome. Collectively they are enthusiastic, experimental, mature and driven to have a hell of a lot of fun. Fate fans are my favorite, but the Amber fans are a close second.
#9. Spirit of the Century really relies on the collaborative aspects of roleplaying. How do you teach players, and more importantly GMs, to embrace those collaborative elements rather than the old adversarial model?
Is there really a difference? On paper, I know we talk about the classic killer GM, but even in classically adversarial games, everyone knows that GM is an ass. A good D&D (or Rolemaster, or whatever) GM has always been collaborative, even if he doesn't think of it that way. He's trying to create opposition and conflict that pushes the players in directions they'll enjoy, hitting notes they dig and keeping them excited.I think maybe we call that out a little more explicitly, and in doing so that opens up more possibilities to explore, but that's just a difference in focus and presentation rather than anything truly different in the nature of the game. If there's a virtue to it, it's in the fact that by explicitly pointing out the collaborative nature of the game, it can make someone stop and think and maybe clarify what their real priorities at the table are.
#10. Near the beginning of the game you characterize conflict as, "an interesting challenge with meaningful consequences". I think characterize is really the right word, because the act of conflict really becomes a character in the story. However you don't really define the terms interesting or meaningful. Can you explain a bit more deeply?
This is one hell of a question, so what follows is entirely your fault.So, the first chapter Of Lois McMaster Bujold's "The Warrior's Apprentice" is all about a very simple question - can Miles climb over a wall?
Pretty boring, at least with the information presented so far. In game terms, I roll a die, add my climb skill, if I roll high the answer is yes. If I roll low the answer is no. And no one in the universe, including me, cares.
But for all that, this is an incredibly powerful opening chapter, because she manages to turn that very dull challenge into an interesting challenge with meaningful consequences, and how she does that is fairly illustrative.
First, Miles has physical challenges to overcome. He's a cripple, and getting over the wall - which would be a simple challenge for a healthy man - is going to be pretty hard in and of itself. Now, by introducing difficulty, she introduces uncertainty, and by introducing uncertainty the question has become a little more interesting.
Second, he doesn't _have_ to climb the wall. He could go around it, take some points off his test, and hope he manages to do well enough on the rest. Of course, the rest of the test is going to be hard on him too, and he needs every point he can get. And the test is very public - from an emotional perspective, going around would be letting his limitations define him, and that would be a severe blow to his pride. So as hard as it is, he's put in this position through his own choices. Because it's his choice that puts him in this situation, that's definitely a reason to be interested, and the reasons the choice is made are the same reasons the choice is meaningful.
Third, there's a lot riding on this. The wall is the first step of a test, which he's made a lot of sacrifices just to be able to take, and if he fails the test, he fails his family, he fails himself, and he's put years down the pipe for no good reason. Worse, part of his condition includes very fragile bones, so if he slips or misjudges the rate he goes up or down, he could break his legs, which has certain concrete problems over and above the fact that it will wash him out of the test. These consequences will change things - depending upon how this turns out, subsequent events will be greatly different - meaningfully different.
So look at those three elements: Uncertainty, choice, and genuinely different outcomes.
Interest comes as a result of wanting to know the outcome (uncertainty) and in caring about which outcome (genuinely different outcomes) will happen. It's also tempered by initial investment (choice).
Meaningful challenges are meaningful because there are genuinely different outcomes which have differing consequences (sic) and because they have player investment (choice).
Is that a formula guaranteed to jazz up any conflict? Probably not. But look at the difference between a challenge that exists for its own sake (There's a wall. There's pie on the other side) and a challenge, like the one Miles faces, that makes a story.
I want to thank Rob for taking the time to answer our questions.
To be sure Spirit of the Century is a great game, and I hope we have a lot to look forward to from him in the future.
There are some nagging things that drive me crazy in any RPG, and as good as Spirit of the Century is, it is not perfect. One of the things that drives me up a wall in this game, or any other obviously good game, is the constant reference to terms and ideas that are not yet explained. I had the discussion with my former wife on several occasions. It was one of the few things about RPG design that she and I agreed on fully. It is just a very sloppy way to write a book. Let me explain.
Writing an RPG book is a lot like writing a manual. Sure there is fluff and flavor strung throughout the book, but the true purpose is to teach people how to play. In order to communicate with the reader each piece of jargon or technical term has to be defined, the first time it is used. Without defining the term, within the context of the specific game, the meaning is either automatically lost, or completely misunderstood.
As an example, in RPG-X the term reflex is used to describe whole body muscle control and the term dexterity is used to determine muscular quickness. However in RPG-Y the terms are used in reverse. So if someone approaches either game after reading the other, their understanding of the terms will usually be wrong because they have only seen the term used in an incorrect context. Had each term been explained as it was introduced this confusion would not occur.
Now that I have completely gone off on a rant, we can come back to the discussion of Spirit of the Century more positively, and what people are doing with it. Anyone who has read my column for a time knows that I love Traveller. I have almost every version of the game to date and I think the setting, New Era excepted, is awesome. It isn’t terribly surprising to know that I am not alone, and some other Traveller fans are also fans of Spirit of the Century. They have created Spirit of the Far Future as a tribute to both.
Well, maybe tribute isn’t the right word. Actually I discovered by talking briefly with Brad Murray, one of the creators if Spirit of the Far Future, that they decided to do this because they felt that Traveller was antithetical to Spirit of the Century. When this reviewer played Traveller back in the dark ages we did not know enough to feel limited by the game system, so for me it never became an issue. Still I think it is a classic case of finding the awesome right there in your backyard. That could explain a lot about just how good Spirit of the Century really is.
Being pragmatic fans, Spirit of the Far Future takes a simple approach. They gradually replace the rules portions of the original Traveller Little Black Books with new-style crunch. This is a great way to approach the problems of developing a new game. It allows the players to use what works, and really keep a lot of the classic feel. As an example, the ship design rules remain exactly the same, but the resolution of ship-to-ship combat is different.
I wonder that maybe one of the big reasons that Spirit of the Century works for Traveller is that Traveller may well have always been a Pulp game in disguise. While I think the argument can be made, and I think there is even a lot of truth in it. That is not quite where the whole truth lies. There is something larger going on with the Pulp genre and roleplaying. Maybe the reason that Pulp genre has always been so popular is that in many ways all roleplaying games are Pulp adventures. Obviously there is a reason that the genre just keeps coming back. I think the GMs section of Spirit of the Century reinforces this.
The last half of the game, ostensibly the GMs section, is not so much that as it is a primer on how to run a roleplaying game. This is what really brought it home for me. So much of the advice presented here is useful for any RPG that it frames the discussion in almost inarguable terms. Spirit of the Century defines the Pulp genre completely. It hits all of the high and low notes without missing a beat. In the same ways the Pulp genre defines everything we do as roleplayers. So does this make Spirit of the Century the finest roleplaying game ever written?
Maybe only my nostalgia wants me to say no, but it is very tempting to say yes. Suffice it to say that Spirit of the Century is the best RPG in the history of Close to the Edit, and you need to buy it now.
