Thursday 19 August 2021

#RPGaDAY2021 19: THEME

#RPGaDAY2021

19: THEME

All games have themes, conscious and stated or otherwise. Like genre, mood, tone and other factors, theme will be there. I tend to start with a mood more than a theme but I’ll lean into something the game does, and with time a specific theme might emerge that wasn’t intended at the start.

The Watch House was always sort of about the core Buffy theme of responsibility versus freedom emphasised by the college setting, but came to be about growing responsibility and leadership.

Do my games have theme tunes? Usually.

Bonus round:

Storm - I don’t use the weather as much as I might considering the British preoccupation. It tends to rain in World Of Darkness cities (though not all the time) and be snowy around Christmas.

Style - Every GM, player and table has a style, which interacts with everybody else involved and with the game to some extent, in most cases anyway.

Patron - The Traveller term for ship-hiring questgiver was taken from the Renaissance term for people who pay for artists to work with or without a specific commission, now swinging back to that online. I give regular little monthly donations to a number of artists including game designers.

No comments:

Post a Comment