FreeRolePlaying is RolePlaying in the absence of a formal mechanism. It depends entirely on the GameMaster? for its realism, detail, etc - in short, it's quality.
Advantages:
- It prevents MunchKinism
- It can be played with less physical overhead (rulebooks, dice, maps, character sheets, etc - TomAnderson used to do FreeRolePlaying on the train to school every morning for years!)
- It can be much more creative and interesting; there are fewer dull mass dice-rolling episodes
Disadvantages:
- It is very dependent on having a good GM
- Disagree with this one. A well constructed freeform can actually be conducted with no GM at all. About 20 years ago I ran a freeform for 50 people based on the DamonRunyon Guys 'n' Dolls stories. Game mechanics were severely simplified (ie. no dice, and just 2 stats) so that players could figure out for themselves the result of a duel or a gang hit. Ran very well by itself for more than 4 hours, and all the GMing we did was to provide 5 guys to wander around being "lawyers" - interpreting rules in case of ambiguity. An extremely compelling experience! --PeterMerel.
- Research apparently showed that the less formalized a system, the less satisfaction players get from playing it; it's less like a game (this obviously varies between players, and with the style of the game; FreeRolePlaying is great for detective stories, rubbish for HackAndSlash)
- Again this wasn't my experience. The game I constructed was actually 3 games in one. Well, 4 if you count the craps being played in the back room. Game 1: kill or control the guys who get in your way. Game 2: collect rackets in major american cities. Game 3: control the McGuffin. All played with little chits that could only be held by one player at a time. The rules created side-effects between all the games so that no one could dominate the whole thing by holding just one or another chit.
- It's harder to scale, because the GM has to keep track of everything
- Scaled great because most of the time I didn't have the foggiest what was going on. It took weeks of interviewing the key players to figure it all out!
Hmm. Lightweight, works best in small groups, depends on individual skills - maybe it's really ExtremeRolePlaying
?!
Peter, although your system itself was simplified, the sheer number of people taking part in it provided enough complication to make it enjoyable. Do you imagine the same game with just 3-6 people?
But, with sufficient number of players, shifting the game mechanics from GM to the players does sound like a genial idea.
CategoryRole
Free Role Playing