Humanist Tabletop RPGs Manifesto

-Less games about emulating specific novels/movies/tv shows, more games about exploring facets of reality and the human experience. Pull fewer ideas from fiction and more ideas from psychology, anthropology and philosophy. Read and watch more nonfiction. 

-More sex in games. We have Christian fascists dominating our government and so being a perverted freak is a moral imperative!!

-Focus on PC relationships, both with each other and with NPCs. Make them messy. People aren't vending machines that you put a friendship coin into and get whatever you want. People can be both kind and cruel, overconfident and insecure, mercurial and predictable. They can both hate you and also want to fuck you. Lean into these contradictions.

-Related to the point above, think about the motivations of your NPCs. Humans are generally motived by the same things: immediate survival (food/water/shelter/etc), comfort, social status, sex, etc. Ideology and morality are often distant runners-up to these other considerations. True believers are rare, which means the ones who do exist are incredibly dangerous. Humans are endlessly creative in cooking up justifications for the horrible shit they do.

-Interpersonal relationships and individual psychology are of course still influenced by culture, norms, economics, religion, etc. Rugged individualism is a fairy tale and the social structures governing day to day life are nearly inescapable. To put it simply: factions are fun and you should be using them in your games!

-Magic is cool but mysticism is cooler. Augury is more interesting than magic missile. Gods are more compelling when you don't have proof that they're real. Explore people's beliefs in religion and the supernatural. More than half of Americans believe in ghosts!

-Abstraction is unavoidable but it should be reduced whenever possible. Your first aid kit isn't a magic bag from which you can pull any medical-themed item, its a kit containing a pressure bandage, hemostatic wound-packing gauze, trauma shears, latex gloves, and a tourniquet. Granularity is good. Granularity isn't the same thing as crunch.

-"Oh but that problem with that kind of granularity is that I don't have the same knowledge or skills as my character" then start learning that knowledge asap, bitch!! Learning shit is fun and good! 

-Combat should be infrequent, short, gory, and dangerous. Dangerous doesn't necessarily mean deadly. When your character dies, you make a new one. When your character has a shattered limb, you have to adapt around that consequence. Lean into injury tables, minimize hit points. To quote David Cronenberg, "when we talk about violence, we're talking about the destruction of the human body." Think less about weapon damage and armor class, think more about doors and corners. Study real combat. Better yet, actually do some training. Go to a gun range. Take a free trial class at a boxing or Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu gym. 

-I don't want to have to choose between OSR-style problem solving and PbtA-style touchy-feely interpersonal drama emotions stuff. I'm greedy, I want them both!