Yesterday a friend tagged me into a post on Facebook on probably the best and friendliest board gaming forum on that platform the Board Game Trading and Chat UK group.
The post I was tagged in was about an RPG that my friend said he would be interested in playing. He did point out in his comment tagging me that only last Wednesday at the Monthly Meet Up that RPGs did not appeal to him. And this took out the sting of any mockery and banter I could have thought up.
My friend had also tagged in another of our friends who he thought would also find the post interesting (which they did, and have already printed off the rules etc).
The post itself was about a members experience playing a home brewed RPG based on Jurassic Park.
The poster kind of put me off this home brew RPG. The use of coin tosses to determine outcomes was a major switch off. It just didn’t appeal to me. You can firmly place me in the dice rolling camp on this front.
Another thing said was that there is a high player death count during play. When a player died they took over an npc and continued playing. This didn’t sit right with me. Potentially it might at a stretch be ok in a one shot. But what about campaign play? This definitely doesn’t allow players to get into playing their character and develop them. Or what’s the point of a characters backstory when you know they will die easily?
I suppose when it comes to something like this I get confused as to why the original creator of the home brew RPG came up with their own system or using a mechanic very few RPGs use. There are some pretty good generic systems out there, Genesys, W.O.I.N. (Now) or Fate that come to mind.
The poster said that game is predominantly narrative. Which definitely systems like Genesys and Fate are suited for. Granted these systems may be more complicated than the simple one created/chosen by the creator. But these systems have already done the majority of the heavy lifting mechanics wise.
If I wanted to run a one shot or mini campaign in the Jurassic Park universe my gut is telling me go with the Genesys system, with a modern setting. The main bit of work I’d have to do is create adversaries stats for the dinosaurs.
Luckily over on Wikipedia there is an entry that lists which dinosaurs appeared in which movies and also the books (here). So to keep the amount of work down I’d chose a subset of them, keeping the iconic ones like the T-Rex.
As an aside D&D 5th edition already has stat blocks for dinosaurs, and has used them in the D&D Tomb of Annihilation campaign book. Plus there is the Ixalan Planes Shift setting that has them. So it’s possible to run a Jurassic Park inspired adventure with a fantasy theme if that appeals.
I’d want to move away from the high player body count (this isn’t paranoia), and concentrate more on the themes of the books and movies. Such as ‘Man vs Nature’, ‘Technology’, and ‘Power’. Plus look at building suspense and that feeling of being hunted.
I almost like borrowing the mechanic from the Strahd campaign book where at the start of the campaign the DM does a ‘reading’ to decide where certain key items are located and a location Strahd will appear. This could be used to decide key locations in the adventure that the players need to visit before they can escape, and when the big bad will surprise them before the climatic final confrontation.
There is also usually a double cross or traitor in the books/movie. So that is something I’d also like to try and include. Which would involve working with one of the players without the rest of the party knowing.
I really do like the idea of running a one shot in the Jurassic Park universe. It’s just I don’t think this home brew is the solution for me.
For those remotely interested in the home brew RPG here are the links that the original poster shared.