“Blind” play role-playing is a form of the game that I feel has genuine potential.
Blind play is a different take on role playing, one closer to original role playing, with its roots in free-form make believe, or original story telling. It just uses a strong frame work of RPG rules to make it work from a gaming perspective.
I am not a control freak, well I am a little, but in this particular case it is not about control. It is about players immersing themselves in their character rather than the governing system.
My earlier article on Blind role playing was a while ago so let’s look at the benefits.
The “other” version is also ok for this form of play, but the 5e compatible option is less rigid and better tiered for GM control and d20 also a cleaner fit for blind play.
For the player, they have a character description, not a character stat sheet. This sheet will have all of the stated skills and abilities noted and a deep, but number devoid decription of the character relative to their environment (there is room here for the GM to mislead the player, bth for character portrayal and story needs). They will know (roughly) how they rate physically, mentally and personally, what skill sets they can call on and their special abilities, but no set measures.
There will be no numerical values assigned to these on this sheet.
Players will roll their own dice, but only know if they have succeeded or failed, not specifically by how much. This removes gamesmanship and number crunching, allowing the player to (only) view their character as an alternative persona to themselves, with the same level of self perception we all share (relative, using educated guess work).
The GM holds the mechanical information at hand on their own work sheet.
This gives the GM several responsibilites, but less systemic transparency and some benefits.
Play is 100% story telling, no number crunching. There can be no min-maxing, no rules lawyering, no player manipulation of the math.
Rolls are used for tests, but the characters ability to know the odds is gone, so fudging, deliberately miss-leading and gently nudging are all invisible mechanics to the player.
Two massive campaigns just waiting to be completed.
The GM cannnot abuse this or the whole thing becomes an “us against the cruel world” thing, but if all are on board, play becomes effectively system agnostic from a players perspective. It could even be theoretically possible for a GM to switch systems mid campaign with little player awareness beyond new dice mechanics being employed. Even experienced players quickly divorce their need to control elements of the game from the role they are playing. The dynamic is the same, guestimation and trial and error, just coming from a less knowledgable base.
The first step as always, is character generation.
From the players end this is simple and as involving;
Think up a character concept.
Interact with the GM to cement these ideas in place (the GM makes the mechanical calculations).
Characteristics are rolled in secret or a fixed set used, but assigned in the players pre-stated order
Class/careers and a suite of extra abilities are offerred by name and description.
Plan an ongoing development path so that the GM and player can work logically towards improvement within story context.
Interaction is key. The GM has to share options in terms of life skills, natural abilites and class/career proficiencies, using real, not game terminology and the player for their part has to be clear about their ideas.
Some systems lend themselves to this style of play, others not so much.
One of the best systems I have at hand is Adventure In Middle Earth, or Tolkein’s world for D&D 5e. I am on record as saying I do not love D&D in any edition, which must seem from someone who has over 40 years of role-playing under their belt, to be a bit of a contradiction, but to be clear, D&D is not the be all and end all of RPG’s, just one of the the biggest/oldest kids on the block, well tested and enjoying a revival. People say D&D like they used to say “Hoover” meaning all vaccuum cleaners.
Why AIME?
AIME has several elements that lend themselves to Blind play.
Character generation is simple and well directed.
Roll characteristics based on a priority list from the player of Strong, Fast, Tough, Smart, Wise or Charismatic.
Choose a culture (race and sub race) and a cultural virtue and you are half way there.
Then a class is selected. The player must be offerred a list of proficiencies either overtly or as devined by the GM from the characters wishes as well as a choice of class abilities, but on the whole, choices are logical and tests are based on characteristic values.
At this point, the characters player sheet may look like a cross between a resume and diary. The first pages of a legendary story unfolding.
The GM’s sheets on the other hand are all math and stat values, unclutterred by niceties or fluff. Such is the lot of the mediator. The full group can be amalgamated into combat, travel and other interaction sheets.
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Life is not a set of chance based values spelled out in front of us. We all have our own perceptions of our selves and our relative place in the world, but nothing is set in hard values. As we attempt different tasks success or failure may come, but when do we get any mathematical feedback of how much we missed by? Repeated poor showing in combat may be down to relatively poor kills (which may be inflated in the player characters view), or a run of bad luck, just like in life.
It comes down to this.
Would you rather this interaction;
“The beast turns to you and charges. You need a 17 to hit.” “Ok I got a 12 +3 for Strength so 15. I swung and missed, but was close. Can I add something to the roll to get me over the line?”. If you want to spend a Hope point we can make it work, but if you had rolled lower it would be a stretch”. “Cool, I will do that then”.
or
“The beast is huge and comes at you”. “I swing with all my might, which is great as I am usually the strongest person in the room” (player rolls medium-high, which has in previous fights been enough). “The blade slides off its hide, taking chips off as it runs down its side, but not embedding”. “We need this thing to go down or the party is in real danger and I am all that is standing in the way”. “Desperate times call for desperate measures”. “I dig deep and thrust back up in a loop from the missed blow, does it work?”. Yes, you find something more and change the miss into an upper cut and catch it from below” (the GM marks off a Hope point).
If you answered “B”, then Blind play may be worth your trying.
Other e lements of AIME that work are Virtues, Hope and Shadow points.
Virtues are almost automatic abilities, that are inherent to the character. Mechanically they are nearly irrelevant, so they play perfectly in this space. The GM may insist on a roll, then decide, based on that or not, to change the outcome. This is a good example where added fog of war can help the GM control story outcome.
Hope points allow the character to dig deep if the GM leaves the door open.
Shadow will allow the GM to force actions on the player that they may not naturally be going to role-play. Boromir loosing control, Frodo fighting the Ring etc. can become a tug of war between character and GM, one that both have mechanical in-put into, even if the player may feel frustrated.
Why not The One Ring?
The main reason for using AIME and not TOR is system cosistency.
Apart from the easier and more familiar system, AIME is a lot more consistent at this point in system and information roll-out.
TOR is also a little difficult to get a handle on, with mixed releases and sub-editions coming in a bit of a flurry, some replacing parts or all of others. Throw in the new second edition and a slight shift in time line and it all gets a little squiffy. This is less of an issue with blind play, but still less clean than AIME.
AIME on the other hand, coming in mid-stream, is a tight set of books, coherent and clean. It is also a conversion to an extensively tested existing set, not a newly developed set of rules, built from the ground up.
You get the Players Guide, which, in patnership with the free 5e basic rules, is all a player needs to create a character and play.
The GM’s Guide in turn give a GM all they need to start things up, again with the “how to play” section of the Basic rules.
Wilderland Adventures takes the players from levels 1-6 and links in well with the Mirkwood Campaign.
The Mirkwood Campaign is a full ride from around level 5 to as high as you want, in yearly doses with Eriador Adventures filling in the middle levels with a set of adventures on the “other side” of the mountains.
My intention is to start with Wilderland, blend it with low end Mirkwood, then do a cross-over set of lower level adventures in Eriadore, return to Mirkwood (getting the feel for the coming changes), back to Eriadore for the Gibbet King linked adventures and back to Mirkwood for the end game.
Each side of the mountain also gets a guide book that allows a GM to fill in and populate these adventures books with a “sandbox” tool kit. The full adversary and ally list with these two, the adventures and the GM guide are plenty.
Could not be clearer.
There are a couple of books I missed, choosing not to bother with them (for TOR or AIME) and a map set, that I already had for TOR. Apart from a re-purposed 5e GM screen, that is all she wrote.