The Beautiful Game (Your RPG Isn’t the World Cup)

How can a sports game that ends 0-0 be exciting? Explaining RPGs to a non-gamer can be a similar struggle. The similarities, and the differences, can help us appreciate what makes for great RPG campaigns.

Competitive vs Collaborative

Soccer is a chess match due to a number of factors, including the very large field of play. Competitive between teams and collaborative within teams, each team strives to win according to their strengths and the opponent’s weaknesses. Every offensive move calls for a defensive one. If one team gets close to the goal, the other collapses defensively. A team retreats on purpose, trying to draw midfielders to their end while hoping for an opportunity to surge forward before the defense next collapses.

RPGs are collaborative, even between players and DM, including in tactical games like Draw Steel. The DM is running opponents, sure, but with the goal of this being equally fun for DM and players. In this way, RPGs are very different from sports. Purely collaborative play transforms RPGs. The DM might adjust on the fly to make things easier or more challenging, might suggest the players should retreat, or might let it all play out – whichever will be the most fun for the table.

Lesson: In RPGs, the best GMs place “fun” as their goal and spend years perfecting how to achieve that goal best. Collaborative play drives accomplishment, so we want a great group where everyone contributes to creating a great experience.

Winning

Soccer’s competitive nature and large field mean it’s really hard to score. And if your team isn’t one of the best, you might lose a lot of games. Some of the countries that are strongest at soccer haven’t won the world cup in over a decade.

Most RPG encounters are meant to be defeated and just about all are meant to be fun. Even if an individual PC goes unconscious or dies, the party likely wins. Unlike sports, the win-loss record of the PCs is something like 50-1-1 (wins, ties, losses) across a campaign! And that’s fun!

Lesson: Enjoyment and engagement don’t solely hinge on having a challenge. Because winning is expected and fun, we want to be skilled as a GM at providing sources of enjoyment beyond the challenge. Players want chances to showcase their strengths, play off their backstory, make choices with consequences, and engage in fun teamwork.

Key Plays

A game like soccer has many enjoyable moves (crisp passes, attempts on goal, defensive steals) but the majority don’t change the score. In RPGs, key plays happen often (the clutch heal, the crit, the cool skill check to reach the artifact) and they absolutely feel like they make a difference and lead to the win.

Lesson: Lean into those key plays. When we create scenes with fun payoff, players feel amazing.

A Narrow League

Have you ever run a campaign where the PCs sat at the tavern while a different group faced the big bad? Probably not! Even in complex campaigns, the party is the focus. Factions, allies, and villains may all make moves, but the party always climbs the “leader board” and ends up at the thrilling “championship” battle.

Sports like soccer and basketball have conferences or leagues, and fans derive pleasure as their team inches up the standings. It’s possible to mimic this in RPGs, but in general, the player characters are truly in a league all to their own.

Lesson: The spotlight is on the heroes. The rest of the world is important, but what NPCs and factions and villains do all comes back to highlight the heroes.

Story and Pacing

Sports are unpredictable. Cabo Verde and Egypt can come within inches of defeating the defending world cup champion.  The New York Knicks can overcome three quarters of terrible basketball to achieve victory.

While the D20 statistically results in tables at times being hot or cold, of far more importance in RPGs is the ongoing story and the choices made by heroes. Do you ally with one villain to take down a tougher one or confront them both? Dungeon Masters prove their mastery with clever use of pacing. That slow start may help the heroes get to know each other or might set up a surprising and exciting moment. The string of easy combats might be followed by an “Empire Strikes Back” arc where everything seems to go against the heroes. And, of course, the players are a huge part of the story. Clever and foolhardy decisions can equally send a campaign into delightfully unexpected territory.

Lesson: Learning how to use story and pacing is advanced DMing, but makes a huge difference in your game! Start by asking yourself as DM what the purpose of a scene is and make sure the tenor and theme matches that purpose. As you work on adventures and campaigns, vary the pacing and level of excitement to create different experiences, ideally matching the desired emotional resonance. (Hmm… maybe this should be a blog post.)

Leaning Into the Contrast

I highlight all of these differences because it’s helpful to recall why RPGs are special. They offer GM and players unique experiences you don’t find in competitive sports. It’s helpful to look over these differences and lean into them. Good fun campaigns have these qualities. We can break against the expectation to jolt our players a bit, but a good campaign quickly leans right back into these aspects!