I 've recently pondered starting a new rpg. Our Hyborian adventure Kingdoms in Flames is eventually going to come to an end  and I would like to start some face-to-face gaming stuff in Helsinki too. I've got two ideas that I'll discuss later, but for now I'm gonna thnk about what should be decided by the gaming group before starting the game. This of course is a reaction to my own ponderings on the successes and failures in the Hyborian game.

The other influence was a conversation with a friend on my on the drive to our friend's summer cottage (and back). He was thinking of a new game of his and looked for me on advice to construct (or choose) a working system for it. After the conversation I spotted the following written by Marshall Burns on Story Games (http://www.story-games.com/forums/?CommentID=150542) paraphrasing Vincent Baker on Forge and Anyway:

"I love the way that Vincent has broken down System, on the Forge and (mostly) on Anyway, to the way that you answer two questions:

• What should I contribute to the game?
• How should I treat my fellow players' contributions?

When everyone knows the answers to those questions for THIS group, for THIS game, for THIS session, then you've got a real type of thing goin' down."

This is kind of the basic level of the system. More specifically, in planning a game, I (should) look also at these kinds of questions (which are of course related to the previous ones):

• What is the theme of the story?
• What is the style of the story?
• What is the general structure of the story we are going to create?

• for example, the kinds of scenes, sessions and production seasons in PTA

In my opinion, all of these have to be clear and unambiguous within the group before starting the game. The GM does not have to decide all of them by himself, but in our group(s) it seems best that he lays down most of the restrictions.

The article is only in Finnish. In it I challenge my comic expert friends to recommend me the best of the contemporary comics to buy.