Casting Shadows

Today is a bit of a challenge for me, which is nice. As I start this response, I’m still not sure if I will try to respond to the question or the prompt. The challenge doesn’t really lie in the question it is rooted in me. While I am sure that some or perhaps many of the interests that I have could be considered strange, such as my musical tastes, my thoughts on martial art, or how I cook, when I think that something is strange – for me – I don’t tend to pursue it. Weirdness is not a descriptor that has an allure for me. I have known plenty of people whose enjoyment of a thing was at least partially subject to how outré it was.

Day 11: What is the WEIRDEST game that you have played?

For this response, I will be defining weird as being completely outside my normal experience or expectations. We are a dog family with lots of them. It’s not a pejorative. It qualifies the relationship between things.

I guess we will go with the question. The game (system, really) that struck me as extremely weird at first and from time to time since, is Masterbook. I have come to like it, because I have played it. Prior to playing it, however, reading the rules kept having me file it under peculiar.

You might, especially if you haven’t read the rules, wonder What might cause this reaction. It’s simple. The game asks you to roll a die, a D20, where 10 and 20 are noteworthy, and you use the rolled number on a chart of modified results to determine the actual result. To roll a die to get a numerical result that you use to access a chart from which you will get a numerical result was, and remains, weird to me – as in, outside my experience or expectations.

This is not to say that the game is not fun. Masterbook games (and there are lots!) are a blast and have a lot going for them. This approach is certainly atypical, however.

For some, this roll procedure was not the strange element, it was the deck of cards. That aspect seemed innovative in implementation to me, but not weird. These cards, held by and deployed by the players in accordance with specific requirements, could add modifiers, or they could introduce plot elements or setting details. By that point in my gaming, that sort of thing was normal for my players to do. The cards just made it easier at a cost of being slightly random.

The rolling, though? That seemed W E I R D.