Modifying one variable

Simon Burley (@squadronuk.bsky.social) has been posing some really interesting questions on BlueSky. Erin alerted me to this one...

 

 

 

 

 ...naturally this one really got my interest because it plays into the 3-way tension model, because it's keeping certain elements of the game fixed, while playing with variables in other parts of the session's ecosystem. We're basically looking at a situation where the diegetic information and elements of the scenario/system, and the GM/Narrator remain constant. While the players change and the non-diegetic elements of the system are replaced. It really wouldn't be possible to change this tohave a new system and the same players, because even with the same players we'd have a circumstance where the first time the players proceeded through the scenario they'd have little prior knowledge of how the game was meant to unfold, and a second time where they'd have meta-knowledge about the scenario and could easily be expected to use that meta-knowledge to their advantage when playing the session a second time. My gut reaction says that philosophically and psychologically impossible to have the same players repeating the session, but that might just be a factor of the way I run game sessions. I don't run pre-written scenarios, but I have overheard (and seen people post online) "We're going to play Curse of Strahd again", and in a lot of these cases players will be just as familiar with the meta-story of the scenario on the first play-through as they'll be on the second or third... I live for the surprises, and a degree of agency among the characters rather than the predefined destiny of a published linear module. (Yeah, my prejudices are showing here)

In my experience, I've been a part of comparative situations where...

...there are different players, system, and GM. (This has happened during different sessions at conventions, and at varous gaming clubs/stores)\

...there are different players and GM, same system. (Often also at conventions where two different GMs might be running "Call of Cthulhu", sometime even running the same Call of Cthulhu scenario at different cons).

...there are different GMs and systems, but the same players (When a team of players registers for a range of different games at a convention)

...there are different systems and players, but the same GM (I've had different groups of friends at different conventions, often going to the same GM because they know the way this person runs a game by reputation and they like it)

...there are different players, but the same GM and systems (This has typically happened when I have been running the same scenario with different groups of players at a convention, or in those times when I've been playtesting one of my own games)

...there are different GMs but the same systems and players (I don't know how well I've actually encountered this option, the closest I can think is when I've been a part of a group who played Paranoia under two different GMs.)

...there are different systems, but the same players and GM (This is where the original post starts to get close to what we're looking at. I've certainly been a part of groups that have played very different games and systems, in home environments, games clubs and at conventions. However, the original post is another twist entirely).\

A variant on what is being described is standard playtesting of a game. I've done this plenty of times. The same scenario is used, sometimes with the same players ad sometimes with new groups of players, but with the systems tweaked based on feedback. In some cases the entire system is ripped apart and rebuilt from the ground up to see if it provides a different experience with the intended story beats.

In a couple of cases, I've taken scenarios that I've run at conventions under well known published systems (often Cthulhu or Vampire the Masquerade), then put my own systems through their paces to see how they did things differently with other groups of players who I hadn't previously run the sessions with. I even experimented back in the late 90s, using the GURPS versions of the World of Darkness rules to replay some scenarios that had worked well under the Storyteller System...they didn't work as well, but I'm not sure if that was the players or the modified system. It's hard to tell when there are multiple variables at play.

One of the only options I've wanted to do, but haven't had a chance to experiment with is the Savage Worlds version of Rifts. In the 1990s, Rifts was one of my jams, I loved the richness of the setting, even if I do think it's all a bit "kitchen sink" these days. I'd love to re-run some of my old scenarios and environments using a neater and more elegant system. Maybe one day...


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