Put Roleplaying back into RPG's - The Pirates! Band of Misfits

I am thoroughly entertained by children's movies and am excited when I take my kids to one that looks fun. I was not disappointed when we went to see "The Pirates! Band of Misfits." After the movie I was standing at the obligatory restroom stop for the Mrs. & the Gang. While there I was reflecting on the movie and became excited about how the movie had some really great roleplaying elements that are wonderfully illustrated.

These antidotes offer really great ways to bring roleplaying back into your campaign. Here are a few points I wanted to touch on:

Don't take things too seriously:

The story never takes itself too seriously. The movie doesn't have a complicated plot or uber-serious content/ramifications, it's about the journey from place to place. The leader is guided by his supporting team & has an adventure to find glory.

Stick together and work together with a common thread:

The team is held together through a common thread, "Polly." The team stuck together in their goal because of a commonly favored NPC (non-playing character). This allowed everyone to participate in the adventure and would give the game master enough solidarity to manipulate an interesting story.

Interesting characters:

Good fun roleplaying characters don't need to be overly complicated or overplayed. One of the most fun characters was the "surprisingly curvaceous pirate." Every time he came on screen my children were screaming, "It's a girl!" It was a simple tool used to great effect to create an interesting character with entertaining situations.

Use the world around you to inspire:

The film was loosely based on "The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists" and also utilized elements from old paintings adding more detail & absurdity to them.

Some of the best campaigns are ones that contain as much fun as the characters and film crew were having in this movie.

My Role-Playing Game (RPG) Origins

As a boy I always looked forward to the end of the school year to escape. When summer hit I would grab my RPG (Role-Playing Game) books, dice and head over to one of two friends houses where we would joke, laugh, and entertain ourselves for hours playing RPG's. Their homes, unlike mine, had special areas where we could spread out our stuff, play and generally left to our own accord. Our RPG's seemed to revolve around fantasy, martial arts and mecha (giant human-like robots). Specifically, we seemed to always come back to "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons," Palladium's "Heroes Unlimited," Palladium's "Ninjas and Superspies" and Palladium's "Robotech" series. Our sessions ranged from serious and intense dice rolling bouts, to a completely ineffective ruckus of nonsense.

My Mother feared for my life, buying into all the hype of devil-worshiping & attempted suicides these games "caused." My father having had some knowledge of the subject, from his interaction from strategy games, encouraged me to play and kept my mother at bay. This was a wonderful escape for me and brings many wonderful memories of playing games with friends. In reality our sessions were frequently like this skit from the Dead Alewives: http://www.rpgmp3.com/downloads/data/av-deadalewives-dnd-part-1-stream.mp3

I was always enamored with the idea of playing the "Game Master." Usually the role was played by he who had the books. By the way, it was always exciting when somebody, anybody, got a new monster manual or RPG book. I eventually amassed a small collection of books and was able to take on the role of Game Master. I took my role a little too seriously and became easily agitated when the group wasn't focused; I remember when I struck somebody's character down with lightening because he was just too much of a distraction to my campaign.

Eventually I started into GURPS. Which, to me, was the holy grail of RPG's; a generic system in which you would create your own world with which you would play. Around this time I read J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings." This solidified the Fantasy genre for me & gave me an appetite to create my own RPG. By now however, the group that would get together every summer and played RPG's began to move on to other things and have other priorities.

In High School, I set aside my RPG's to play more physical games. I joined the high school water polo team and swim team. Those took many hours away from the free time I used to play RPG's. My friends schedules were also tied up in other activities; studying, video games, etc. I still enjoyed breaking out the RPG books and creating characters, but found little time to get large enough groups together and play.

Out of High School I dabbled with Vampire the Masquerade, Shadowrun and more AD&D (Advanced Dungeons and Dragons). I eventually got into design school, where I began to get cravings again to create. Specifically I wanted to write something, anything, but make it like an illuminated manuscript. Surrounded by so much creativity and energy I realized that I could create my own RPG as an illuminated manuscript. During the latter time in design school I began with a plan to create Peregrination RPG. It started with a sketch here or a note there, but it started becoming a reality.

Life got in the way of life. I got married... and had kids. With twin girls, I really needed that creative outlet and set out to finish what I started. However I realized what I had was merely a cut and paste of previous games. From that point on I made a conscious decision to scrap the rules that I had accumulated for Peregrination RPG and became determined not slap it together, but create something that which was not there before.