A few weeks ago, my tabletop gaming group finally got back together and started Session 0 for a Celtic-themed game of good ol’ 5e D&D. A week later, we learned of a scheduling conflict that would force that game to be run every other week, so I volunteered to run something in the off weeks. We’d still have a party of 3 or 4, which is perfect for a lot of systems. So the question became what system?
I took a look at the systems I usually work in and realized something; the games I play and run have a bit of a legacy. D&D is a decades-old stalwart. Shadowrun is over 30 (though our group prefers the 20th Anniversary 4th Edition). World of Darkness just hit 30 this year, and even the version that became Chronicles started back in 2004. While it’s not exactly a problem that every system I’m used to is older than me, it’s a sign that I could be exploring more recent design ideas. After a few days of reading forum posts, blogs, and reviews, I ended up with a bunch of excellent options, but decided on Rowan, Rook, and Decard’s Spire: The City Must Fall. I bought a hard copy (along with a copy of Heart, a more dungeon-crawly experience set in the same world) and ran Sessions 0 and 1 tonight.
It was a blast.
My biggest worry was that my players had been trained too hard by more mechanically intensive systems, and would be some kind of confused or put off by the simpler, more collaborative and improvisational playstyle. After a little bit of assurance that, yes, character creation is actually that easy, I ended up with a quiet and sneaky Bound, a greedy and pious Azurite, and a flashy poser Idol who hammed it up in the RP. Through a couple hours of play, they met up, learned about the high elves’ strange combination of hedonism and malice, and took control of a propaganda printing press through a combination of quiet infiltration and a large sudden party in The Works — which is notably the exact opposite of a quiet infiltration. I think we used about 3 sentences of the ~2 pages I prepped, but that’s probably because I had been trained to plan out much more than I needed to. As a GM/Storyteller that is prone to improvisation, Spire fits like a glove. The world is fantastic, in that it’s exactly as serious, grim, or wild as it needs to be at any given time. The mechanics are simple and workable enough to fit any genre your drow revolutionaries are interested in playing in. My players were surprised what even the Low Advances (special abilities determined by class, religion, or participation in any number of groups/gangs) could do. “Summon a party” is something that would eat up pages of a D&D book, but it gets a small paragraph in Spire and makes perfect sense to all involved. I’m at a crossroads; I want to get a bunch of things written up for the next session, but tonight’s experience dictates that I don’t really have to. All I need is a hook and some ideas of where it could go. The players are doing more world building than me just by interacting.
I’ve got the bug again. It’s a bug I thought I lost after a game of Hunter: the Vigil I ran that depressingly petered out. That wonderful GM bug. I’m all in on Spire for now. Running it feels great. I really enjoy having to roll with the curveballs that character abilities can throw. It’s a somewhat reactive style of GMing, and that resonates with me a lot more than spending a stretch of time looking up Challenge Ratings or doing a bunch of bookwork. I’ve got no problem playing 5e, but running it seems far less satisfying compared to the feeling of tonight’s Spire session.
The success I had tonight is driving me to further explore the other newer systems that stood out to me in my research: Massif Press’ mechtastic Lancer and Cavalry Games’ tragic horror Ten Candles. Both of them serve very different functions, but I’m learning that my players’ tastes are more eclectic than I’d given them credit for, and I think they’ll really enjoy trying them out at some point. Not this point.
Because right now, at this point, we’re playing Spire. And we’re gonna change Spire for the better, one wild party at a time.
PS: Shoutout to Spire’s Appendix 4: Rumoured Goats of Spire. That single page made 2/3 of my group immediately buy into everything else the system could have to offer.