Hey all.
Medge here with my week 1 blog.
Today I'm going to talk a little about gaming philosophy, specifically focusing on my own philosophy with regards to gaming.
Ultimately, when we talk about gaming, we're talk about hobbies and so there's no right or wrong way to do things (despite what anyone says). People tend to disagree quite strongly, and occasionally things can get pretty heated, when discussing the way to do you hobby and I think this reflects the passion we all have for our hobbies; we all believe we're doing things the 'right way' and want to encourage people to follow our direction.
Anyone that knows me will tell you that I'm a story-teller, full of little anecdotes taken from my life, or my friends, and this definitely influences my gaming philosophy. I love good narrative, and anything with a good story will have me hooked, with Final Fantasy IX and Mass Effect 2 being two of my all time favourite games,
Both of these games, whilst having a great story element, also have very strong individual characters, and spend a great deal of time exploring both the character back stories and the characters interactions with one another and this is the element I love. Strong characters get me emotionally invested, and it's why I continue to play these games. I feel for the characters, and I want to see what happens to them. I'm there, on the journey with them, I'm part of the team and fighting for same goals.
This influences my tabletop hobby too. In my gaming community I'm always looking to get little campaigns going with an on-going narrative element and, often, some form of character development.
In the last 12 months I've run a Mutant Chronicles: Warzone Resurrection, a tabletop game by Prodos Games (http://prodosgames.com/), campaign which saw players build a custom Character and follow their rise to power as they fought others across a campaign zone.
I'm starting 2015 by kicking off a Batman Miniatures game (http://www.knightmodels.com/) Campaign where players take control of one of the gangs of Gotham, fighting against the police and other gangs for control of the city.
I also hope to be taking part in a campaign run by a good friend using the X-Wing gaming system (http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite.asp?eidm=174) where we each take a basic ship and, over the campaign, build our own Squadron around our character.
All three of these examples really play into one of my preferred styles of gaming, and I'm lucky enough to have a group of like-minded individuals around me to play like this.
And there's obvious advantages to this style of gaming. If we look at Games Workshop at the moment (http://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Home?_requestid=1672054), there's a massive drive in both Warhammer: Fantasy and Warhammer: 40,000 towards the narrative style of gaming, with both ranges releasing narrative source books, like The End Times and Shield of Baal, full of additional rules, characters and scenarios to let you re-live the story.
The forging of a story, either repeating a great battle from the fiction or exploring a new story yourself, is one of the greatest joys of gaming. It brings people together and lets you get more from the game than simply rolling some dice. By adding a narrative to your games they become interactive stories where every player is a contributing author, which gives players more reason to play than a normal game could. This can lead to some amazing games, and I'll talk a little bit more about how I like to add some extra spice to these kind of games in a later blog.
If you've not tried it, then definitely go for it!
And if it's not your cup of tea, then not to worry! Maybe next week will pique your interest, as I flip the table and talk a little about the narrative-free arena of competitive gaming.
Till then, happy hobby everybody.
Medge
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