Gaming family

Tonight we manged to play a session in a campaign started by a friend of mine when I was still living in Canada. He had told me I was welcome to join when I moved here, and now I did. Gaming is my hobby, and even though this campaign seemed to be quite different from what I like most, it is still gaming.

There were six of us, and each of us had some kind of family among the NPCs. Many of the other players had been developing relations with the villagers and I think that some are even engaged to be married. I guess you can tell that this is not a game about exploring the world, but playing a social game.

While it's kind of a waste not to go out and explore the world (our game master is a very good world builder, and I'd like to go out and see what he has invented!), it do work as a backdrop and fuels some of the intrigue and social interplay. But, what really struck me as interesting was the logistics of having a shipload of NPCs.

Imagine a village with 5 or so main families, and 5 or so members of each. Now imagine that those are the people you grew up with and have strong feelings about. It's quite a feat to just keep them all in the head, and even more to remember whom you should play a dislike for. Add to that the craftsmen, leaders and factions of leadership. How on earth do you run such a game! I wonder if I could. Frankly, I wonder if I really like people enough to care about them all. Quite different for me, this game.