I assume, some of the forum members are already familiar with the term of “speedrun”, but for the rest:
"Speedrunning is when an individual attempts to beat part or all of a video game as quickly as possible. This can include individual levels, specific objectives, or unique limitations as decided by the community or player. " (Source: Speedrun.com )
Although not part of the definition, but mostly “speedrunners” achieve this by replaying such video games (often multiple times), which they have already finished, and by learning the rules and limitations of these games to bend them for their own purposes to “cut some corners”.
A lot of type of video games have been “ran” like this, even CRPG-s, like Baldur’s Gate.
However, so far such approach was used (as far as I know) only for video games, but not on table top games (the nearest example I’ve got in mind are escape rooms).
I was just thinking about it, whether such playing style could be applied to RPGs (even more importantly, would make any sense)?
Obviously not for every case (murder mysteries would be very boring by pointing out the murderers in the first minute), but what about dungeon based modules?
Would it be interesting for you to re-run a module which you might now already to experiment with things, you didn’t make then/haven’t had the chance for it?
Or having an experience with a module would ruin the game?
(like “oh, before passing the corner, I throw there a bomb because I remember, a guard used to stand there”)
it really depends … I htink “speedrunning” a scenario designed for it might be fun with a small group of like minded people
replaying a module i’ve already played for the purpose of “speedrunning” it? not so much, especially because the beauty of ttrpg’s is the freedom to do whatever and the roleplay, which both would suffer for the purpose of speedrunning
like a Timetraveler one-shot,
where the group runs the adventure on repeat to get it 2right-fast"
(e.g. they have to finish the dungeon in under 20min to finish it successfully, but have a limitless amount of attempts)
that being said … the groups I am currently playing with are rather on the “completionist” side ^^
It would work if you take speedrunning not in the term of “total playtime” but more a “total turns used”. In a dungeon crawl, trying to get through with the least amount of turns possible would be kinda fun! Try to get by encounters and finding the most creative and quickest solution to fulfill the objective of the floor sounds neat.
The nature of RTA runs (Real Time Attack) would make it better to talk less or just as fast as possible and that is kinda stressful in real life. I think measuring in ingame time (or more ingame turns) here like in Super Metroid would be the best solution.
BTW I do speedrun myself (I am not grinding for any world records or anything) and have a decent time in A Link to the Past and am currently learning Super Metroid
Some of us already have RPG Vienna T-Shirts (via @Siobhan) for semi-regularly attending to in-person tabletop RPG games without safety distance and FFP2 masks - beat that!
So, wait … you’re saying somebody should create a game specifically designed to compare different groups of players … in a dungeon setting … in which speed is a key factor … and which can be played in a single session.
Nah, can’t be done. :b
(If this entire thread was just a set-up leading to this, then well played, S_journ, well played. I still owe you one …)
Actually, now two (as we didn’t had one last year due to COVID-19). Plus a Traveller game (and still curious about the ending of the Meteorite Mystery). Have I missed anything?
