#45: Playing Full Metal Alchemist
I. Dear Reader,
Over the last two weeks or so, I have been enjoying some of my favourite art of 2021 - the anime series, Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood. In 2020, I found most of my favourite art in books (How To Lose the Time War and A Stranger in Olondria, for example) so this is a nice change of pace. I don’t think I’ve ever really loved an anime before - not since I was a kid at least. And I think the fact that FMA is based on a manga written by a woman, Hiromu Arakawa, has something to do with it.
Watching Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood, I can’t help but imagine it as a RPG campaign. And this is what I’ve got:
It’s a game with a GM. The stakes ramp up in a way that almost only happens when the GM has a plot building in the background. She probably used Fronts and Clocks a lot.
There are only 2 player characters - Edward and Alphonse, the Elric brothers. They had a masterstroke of a hook into the story: Alphonse is a soul trapped in a suit of armor and they need to find a way to get his body back. Edward thinks it’s all his fault and swears to set it right.
This theme about bodies is going to come back again and again. The whole table leans into it in great ways.
But there’s a lot of story that doesn’t feature the brothers. Which tells me that the players sometimes play sessions as different characters - maybe as one shots or small arcs. Maybe it’s when their friends are free and want to join. Maybe it’s when they are rotating who’s the GM.
They did most of their worldbuilding on the fly - using characters to flesh out places, rather than the GM writing lore and narrating it.
At some point, they got busy and took a break from the campaign. Later, they got back together to just play the climax. They probably used a completely different system - something GM-less, so they could use this huge cast of PCs and NPCs that they had developed. This makes the ending feel different but they get that sense of scale and satisfaction that comes from zooming out and playing in broader strokes.
This is just a fun exercise - a byproduct of just not being able to turn some parts of your brain off. There’s a particular kind of warmth that you just simmer in after experiencing some kinds of art and that’s the space I’m in right now. It feels great.
Soaking it in,
Thomas
II. Media of the Week
On the RPG Internationale, a wonderful review of ARC which briefly touches on momatoes’ entire body of work. I love the earnestness and enthusiasm of these reviews!
Critical Hit is a mystery novel about tabletop RPGs and it sounds really cool. The writer, WM Akers, talks about the ongoing kickstarter and their other games on this podcast.
III. Links of the Week
Articles
I love a good list. Here’s 6 queer tabletop RPGs that everyone should play.
Storytelling games - especially GM-less ones - sometimes can feel vague and intimidatingly open. On his blog, Randy Lubin discusses the idea of “plot guides” - supplements for these games that help with playing a satisfying one shot.
A simple faction system that you can drop into your games
There’s a new review blog for adventures of the old school style mostly and the team of writers seem really cool.
Game Design
Jay Dragon provides a really interesting framework for how to design playbooks for games that need them.
A simple guide to publishing your first game on itch.io
The designers of Good Society wrote a short introduction to hacking their game and it’s good advice on hacking any game!
Misc
One More Multiverse are starting an open table / West Marches-style game of Blades in the Dark.
IV. Small Ads
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Hello, dear readers. This newsletter is written by me, Thomas Manuel. I’m half-man, half-beast, half-journalist, half-game designer.
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