The topic of games ending has come up in this webspace before (here, if not also elsewhere). I always experience some sense of sadness when I have a game conclude (as opposed to simply stopping, which happens, unfortunately, and has its own issues), and this is certainly true for the most recent game in which I’ve played: Nakahama.

An adventure in another Legend of the Five Rings campaign, the game centered on a single province of a sort of resort planet–so, magical samurai in space. It was my first adventure in the campaign, so I entered it late; there’s a fair amount of history behind it, assumptions in play that I didn’t necessarily catch onto at first but managed to come abreast of soon enough. I’m more or less content with how my character turned out, although there’re always things I’d do differently than I did and thing’s I did do that I wouldn’t again.

It was instructive for me. In earlier comments about forum-based RPGs (like those referenced above), I remark on event design. I’ve discussed as much from time to time since, probably not at the level of depth or with the focus I ought to’ve, but I’ll note that Nakahama was perhaps the single best game for that that I’ve played. There was the kind of straightforward primary metagame mechanic that is to be expected–each “session,” make a particular roll for particular results, racking up those results across the whole game for in-milieu rewards and changes–and that was welcome in its familiarity. More engaging was a series of in-game events that each contributed towards the primary metagame while stretching players’ and characters’ abilities and understandings, each of which seemed to contribute to a Tolkienian “inner consistency of reality” and impression that the milieu exists outside of what players and their characters see. Too, the overall design was not locked into one character type or another, as often happens, but had something for most character types (I say “most” because “all” cannot really be addressed). I’ll definitely be taking some lessons from it, moving forward.

And, yes, it’s “moving forward.” I will be running games of my own, after all, and not only Hanlon (but, happily, Hanlon). I have ideas for a Legend of the Five Rings campaign that’ve been bouncing around for a good long while, now, and I should probably put some more effort into polishing them up. This is the kind of thing that sweetens the bitterness of a good game ending, the promise of a new one that takes lessons taught from it and hopes to expand upon them, making things better for everybody involved.

I’d be pleased to put together work for your games, tabletop or forum-based. Reach out through the form below to get yours started!

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