my favourite game

Shut Up & Sit Down’s Tom Brewster tells us why Oath: Chronicles of Empire and Exile is the storytelling game for him

I’ve never really enjoyed a ‘proper’ roleplaying game. Being a teenager and cracking out Pathfinder or Savage Worlds, I got frustrated getting the systems ‘right’. Fiasco involved too much acting, Paranoia created tension that spilled out of the game, and the contemplative cartography RPG The Quiet Year tickled the bit of my brain that wanted to draw rather than game.

I get why people enjoy roleplaying, but only because I’ve watched that enjoyment from a nearby bush with a hefty set of binoculars, furiously taking notes like a studious pervert. My problems stem from two of my inadequacies as a player and as a GM. As a player, I don’t know what’s allowed within the system – what’s ‘pushing it’ – and so I retreat into being a bystander. As the GM, I feel like I’m ‘working’ – pouring emotional labour into making sure everyone is feeling good in a way that leaves me utterly drained. I thought I would never find a roleplaying game I enjoyed. Then I played Oath. That’s a bit cliché, isn’t it? It’s a stretch, too – calling Oath a roleplaying game is a hell of a misnomer, but let me tempt you into my palace of inaccuracy. If the goal of roleplaying games is to create ‘systems driven stories’ then Oath is a slam dunk. It might not bear the fibrous personal tales that pour from people’s characters, but instead offers political stories. It tempts boardgamers in with its board, cards, and resources, but swiftly pulls back the curtain to reveal a sticky dancefloor of negotiation and player interdependence. The game is GM-less, but still dummies the tentpole features of having one through its whiffs of setting, its story beats, and cast of characters; and so, players take seats at the table not as themselves, but as great leaders who rally troops and conquer land, sickly princes lurking in the shadows of a high council, or wizened old fools cast out onto distant shores.