Kobold Guide To Game Design 3 - Tools and Techniques
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TM
presents
TM T
The
Guide to
Game Design Volume III : Tools & Techniques
Kobold...welcomes the best and the brightest of the industry “Te Kobold...welcomes industr y to share their knowledge of game design.” Jeff Grubb, Grubb, F F R designer designer
by Wolfgang Wolfgang Baur, Baur, Monte Cook, Ed Greenwood, Rob Heinsoo, and Colin McComb
The KOBOLD Guide to Game Design Volume III : Tools & Techniques
Essays by
Wolfgang Baur, Monte Cook, Ed Greenwood, Rob Heinsoo, and Colin McComb Edited by Janna Silverstein Cover by Jonathan Hodgson
The KOBOLD Guide to Game Design Volume 3: Tools & Techniques © 2010 Open Design LLC Edited by Janna Silverstein Cover art by Jonathan Hodgson All Rights Reserved. Reserved. Reproduction of of this book in any manner manner without express permission from the publisher is prohibited.
OPEN DESIGN LLC P.O. Box 2811 Kirkland, WA 98083 WWW.KOBOLDQUARTERLY.COM
Most product names are trademarks owned by the companies that publish those products. Use of the name of any product without mention of trademark status should not be construed as a challenge to such status. Open Design, Kobold Quarterly, and the KQ logo are trademarks of Open Design LLC.
ools & echniqu echniques es ii — Volume III : ools
Contents Foreword
v
1. What is Design? by Wolfgang Wolfgang Baur 2. Design Designing ing RPGs: Compute Computerr and abletop by Colin McComb 3. Te Process of Creative Tought by Wolfgang Wolfgang Baur 4. Creative Mania & Design Despair by Wolfgang Wolfgang Baur 5. Sei Seize ze the Hook by Rob Heinsoo 6. Basic Combat Sys Systems tems for abletop Games by Colin McComb 7. Crafting a Dastardly Plot by Ed Greenwood 8. Location as a Fulcrum for Superior Design
1 13 18 24 29 41 51 58
by Wolfgang Wolfgang Baur 9. Myths & Realities of Game Balance by Monte Cook
64
10. Buckets in the Sandbox: Non-Linear and Event-Driven Design by Wolfgang Wolfgang Baur
69
Te K K Guide to Game Design — iii
11. Collaboration and Design by Wolfgang Wolfgang Baur 12. Failure and Recove Recovery ry by Wolfgang Wolfgang Baur Contributor Biographies
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76 82
86
Foreword
Chimeras
he design o roleplaying games is a relatively new art as these things are measured, and it is i s one ounded on a undamen undamental tal tension.
Most games are creatures entirely of rules: turns, sequence, resources, playing pieces, luck and probability, tactics. In extreme cases, such designs are matters of pure geometry geome try and skill, such as chess or go. One mind is pitted against another, and a victory victor y determined. Roleplaying games (RPGs) sort of mess up that neat definition of game design. No one “wins.” RPGs are entertainments, enter tainments, closer to films and novels than to chess or go. A roleplaying roleplaying game is, in fact, a chimera of rules elements and story elements, with both necessary to its character. In this third volume of the K OBOLD OBOLD GUIDE TO TO G AME DESIGN, we hear fromWhat masters of both rulesgame and tick? story,What and examine spacerules in and between. makes a basic were thethe ground foundational decisions of the newest edition of D D? More than that, this volume digs at the intersection of the two pillars of roleplaying design. When we add story elements to our games of pure tactics and mechanics, that matter of Gygaxian invention when wargaming met the f reeform story play of David Wesely Wesely and Dave Arneson’s Braunstein—well, what then? How does one design mechanics for something as liquid and protean as story? How can rules be made to jump out of cases and be tools for creative play without victory conditions? Frankly, what works in story, and what works in rules? Good RPG designers can do both, though most specialize in one pillar or the other. York imes -bestselling Te answers are here, f rom New York -bestselling author Ed Greenwood, from F E D D lead design Rob Heinsoo, from E D D D lead designer Monte Cook, and from P: T ORMENT ORMENT video video game designer Colin McComb, as well as from f rom yours truly. truly. Let Let’’s open up the seamy underbelly of this strange beast, neither book nor game, and yet popular for going on 40 years now. now.
Wolfgang Baur April, 2010
K Guide to Game Design — v Te K v
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1
What W hat is Design? Wolfga olfgang ng Ba Baur ur
he most obvious question when it comes time to think about game design is not, as you might expect, “What is design?”
Te question I get most ofen is how to design, in particular how to approach the mathematical and mechanical elements o design. Some o that is addressed elsewhere in this volume.
Te second most-common questions have to do with how to go about pitching design to a publisher, how to rene and playtest a ailed design, desig n, and so orth. Prior volumes o the K Guides to Game Design have addressed the practical elements. elements. o my mind, the rst question—dening game design—is maybe less practical but is clearly more important to understanding what it means to design well and what it means to create novelty, excite gamers, and publish a breakthrough game or setting. I the work you do on design is entirely a matter o mechanical renement, reneme nt, pitching, and playtest, you can be a successul game designer. You You can be even e ven more successul i you think about the underlying nature nature o design. I might go so ar as to say that newcomers wonder about how, but veterans dwell on what and why, especially in those cases where the why seems to be changing as gaming culture changes. So, I’ve I ’ve come back to the question o what constitutes constitutes design more and more over the last year. I pretend to no particularly amazing insight into the universal K Guide to Game Design — 1 Te K
human impulse or games, human g ames, but I’ve had certain lessons brought home to me through thro ugh sheer repetition and observation. obser vation. I think I’m nally ready to make a stab at it.
Defining Work Defining Our Our Work When we sit down as game designers designers and think about about the work work we do, there there are a ew things going on. We We are imagining a particular audience with a particular set o expectations, rom the reading level required to the style o game we’re considering. We think about commercial elements and audience appeal: What will draw players in? And we think think about immersion immersion and replay replay value: What victory conditions or encount encounter er descriptions descriptions are most most compelling? When I am designing designing a game, I am thinking thinking about what what set o rules will create create an engaging experience o play or the intended audience in a new or existing mode or style o play. Desig De sig n is is . . . Design is its own discipline, but it always borrows and builds on other modes of creative work. Design is: • • • • • • • • • •
art mathematics and probability literature and language geography and history the building of a field of play the encouragement of repeated patterns of behavior iterative rule-making to improve player competition rule-making to require player cooperation a fusion of exploratory play and mastery over time the study of player psychology and the conscious manipulation of behavior
The nature of game design is that it requires understanding understanding many related fields. It’s both a matter of syncretic thought and analytical or reductive thought. That’s part of the appeal; in some games your work is a matter of pure geometry and probability and event timing, such as the creation of board game rules or arcade game rules where the shape of the play area and the appearance of resources and objects must be precisely calibrated to retain player attention, provide frequent stimulus, and permit a variety of successful strategies. In other game types, you must explain victory conditions, customs, landscapes, tools, and characters. These are less about timing and geometry and more about engaging a sense of wonder and discovery as the player uncovers layers of the setting and new challenges in the game. If you find yourself wondering whether you are solving the right problems, consider the list here and see what other approaches to the problem might cut through to improve the heart of the play experience.
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1. What is Design?
Design is the creation o play experiences at a remove rom play itsel. Tat is, as the designer, your work enables new experiences in play or others. I you are doing it exceptionally well, you are inventing inventing new game genres and new play styles; that is, entirely entirely new methods, methods, styles, and systems o o play. play. You You use technology, art, and your own vision o what it means to play to create that new game. Design includes the creation o new spaces to explore, and the creatio creationn o new rules and systems to govern play. Each type o design—new rules, new experiences, and even new modes or play styles—requires a separate set o skills.
New Rules New Rules Tis is the simplest and most important element element o game design: What are the rules o the game? game ? What tactics do they enable? What odds do they set? set ? What behavior do they promote or discourage? discourage ? What emergent properties derive derive rom the rules? Are the rules extensible? Are the rules complete and sel-contained? Can the rules be summarized? summarized? Can they be programmed? What victory conditions do they require? What are the consequences o ailure? How do they encourage repeated play? Most o all, do they reward the player or skill, skill, or mastery? mastery ? Or are they essentially essent ially unctions o time and money spent? Both approaches approaches may be correct or different audiences; not every design need be a game o skill, as games on Facebook so amply demonstrate.
New Experiences New Experiences Games allow us to imagine the impossible or at least the exotic, so antasy and other genre games should enable new experiences: dragon riding, inters interstellar tellar trade with hostile species, assassinations assassinations in the Middle Ages, or the seduction o a Bond babeaincomplete Montee Carlo. Mont Even o a relatively straightorward driving game needs ne eds to provide experience spee d, control, speed, and competition. Tis property o game design is especially crucial or ranchise games that derive most o their attraction attraction over time: sports games, g ames, new editions edi tions o existing titles. It’s vital that a designer can do “same but different” to keep a well-loved series, setting, or property resh and engaging.
New of Play Play New Modes Modes of New modes require an ability to imagine new styles o play: alternate reality games (ARGs), rst-person shooters, roleplaying without a dungeon master (DM). New rules and systems are required to support those new styles o play— but or the most part, these new systems are variations on existing systems. It’s rare that a truly original rule rul e shows up, such as the deck construction rules that K Guide to Game Design — 3 Te K
made M: G (MtG) a breakout hit. Te other rules o MtG (resource management and attack/deense) were mostly variations on existing rules in other game styles. I you can generate an idea on the level o MG, rene it, and bring it to market, mark et, I’ve certainly got nothing to teach you. On the other hand, most o role playing and massively massively multiplayer multiplayer online (MMO) game design is something something else: the creation playlevel experiences an existing rulesI’ve ramework anyears, existing game engine.oTat o design desig nwithin is an area o the craf practicedoror nding the pivot points within a complex body o rules and the richest veins o exploration explorat ion and story potential in a setting. Tis is what makes denitions o designn so diffi cult desig cult;; it’s it’s many different types typ es o work. o me, design is less about engagement and immersion than it is ultimately about play. play. Te time spent making decisions beore, during, and afer the game is only partly immersive. Certainly game design desig n assists a player’ player’ss immersion through the careul choice o rules and componen components, ts, art or game boards and game pieces, pi eces, cards, animations, avor text. But in many games the visual and tactile elements are little more than set dressing. For example, the European style o game design (and the Hasbro style or card and roleplaying games, to a lesser degree) ocuses primarily on rules design; art, graphics, and avor are added later and may be airly arbitrary. Tat approach works extremely well or board games and card games, less so or story games g ames and roleplaying games.
“Game design is a function of human attention: getting it, directing directing it, and keeping it.”
Design is aa Bit Bit Like Design is Like Mind Mind Control Control Design is the conscious work done to manipulate the behavior o the game’s players. Tis sounds sounds worse than than it is. You’ You’re re trying to design choices and how those choicesisare theanplayers. A more realistic wordingit,might be that game design a unction presented unction otohuman hum attention: attention: g etting getting it, directing and keeping it. A well-designed game g ame commands the player’s player’s attention at requent intervals, directs that attention to turns or events, and keeps that attention through various means such as social reinorcement, reward systems such as experience points (XP) and leveling, le veling, and even the timely appearance o in-game resources resources and materials mater ials (spawning or video games, the retur returnn o daily dail y powers in 4th edition edi tion D&D). Te better you understand the mindset o players and DMs, the easier it is or them to engage with your design. Te more esoteric or niche your design, in other words, the the less players will will react as your design might expect expect them to. Tis is the the natur nature e o RP Gs: RPGs: o id, a minority o gamers, still scratch anniche itch that goesthey deeptickle intothe theancy human to the reptilian drivebut tothey conquer,
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1. What is Design?
Amat A mateur eur and Pr Prof ofess essii on al Desi Des i gn Game design is work done at a remove, that is, at a layer of abstraction away from simply sitting down and playing a game yourself. In particular, the work of design needs to consider the needs of the audience, rather than your own needs as a gamer,, to be successful. Sometimes these two will overlap gamer heavily —that’s certainly certainly the case for DMs and many many freelancers in roleplaying game design—but it’s not always the case. And the more you cater to your your own needs as a gamer rather than to the needs of your audience, the less professional and generally more “indie” your design will be. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with indie game design, but it proceeds from an assumption that the audience is the niche player. When you no longer see yourself as DM or audience, but design with them in mind rather than purely for yourself, you’ve reached a certain turning point in your career. Some game studios see this as a failing, and assume that if you are not a member of the target audience you can never understand that audience. This is patent nonsense; most of the great video game designers today are not playing twitch games, but this does not stop them from designing such games. I had been designing professionally for several years before I figured out this distinction between audience and designer, designer, and I’m not sure I could date it or show you the product difference. But at that point, I stopped arguing over trivial points of personal preference (well, mostly) and started looking for techniques to hold two audiences (DM and player) instead of one (myself as a DM).
control, and master the world around us, to derive status and overcome enemies, to nd ood and resources or our tribe and amily. Killing things and taking their treasure is—to my mind—a gaming variation on the hunter-gatherer culture that dened human existence or 99% o our species’ existence. No wonder it’s so compelling; it is bred in the bone.
Setting plus Mechanics Mechanics Setting plus Let’s consider the value o setting and mechanics or tabletop roleplaying games. Let’s Te two are ofen discussed as i they were at odds, as i a player or a DM D M should avor “crunch” “crunch” over “uff ” (both rather misleading terms) or—more litera literally— lly— rules over avor and story elements. Tis is a tragic mistake, because good design is not about choosing a single design dimension and pursuing it until even the most hardcore ans grow bored; it’s about striking a balance between competing needs or an enjoyable play experience or different audiences. Design in this sense is about making the right trade-offs. In terms term s o the RPG RI’ audiences (and ting mosta satisying designers and alike agree agor reethese that there are several), I ’dPG argue that generating genera playans experience K Guide to Game Design — 5 Te K
types o games g ames requires design o the rules and the setting in parallel. Games that that ail to generate g enerate a sufficiently compelling compel ling setting will wil l attract tactical gamers g amers and home brewers, but will not engage engag e a wider audience that is interested interested in exploring a setting, specic character tropes, and telling long-orm heroic tales. Games that enjoy a rich setting but ail to deliver rules that appeal to mechanical tinkerers, tweakers, and tacticians will likewise limit their audience, and urthermore urthermore will make it difficult to support suppor t the setting with expanded rules r ules material. material . Doing both well delivers del ivers the experience players want, want, but many designs ail on one leg or the other. other. I you can use an existing and well-supported rules set, you save yoursel yoursel a great deal o trouble trouble at the the possible expense o ne-tuning ne-tuning the mechanics to suit your story and setting needs. I you decide to build out rules rst and oremost . . . Well, that’s the subject o another essay in this collection. colle ction. It can certainly certainly be done, but it weakens the end result result i your mechanics need to cover everything rom horses to spaceships and psionics to demon summoning summoning and gigawatt lasers. Most successul RPGs specialize speciali ze in certain time periods or genres, and indie games in some cases specialize special ize in a particular plot line l ine (operatic (operatic drama, zombie survival, or religious orthodoxy) or assumed a particular cast o characters (Dr. Frankenstein’s servants, or mice). Why is that? that? Because part o design is knowing knowing to what what degree you’ll you’ll need to integrate setting setting and rules. I you already assume zombie survival as the deault setting trope, trope, you need weapons and survival gear rules, but the characters probably won’t won’t spend a ton o o time using using diplomacy skills. You You can spend spend your design time more protably protably outlining the the stages o zombie inection inection or variant chainsaw rules. Different games demand different different emphases. emphases. Board games are at one end o a spectrum where rules carry the burden o play, card games are somewhere on the rules-heavy side but with story-driven exceptions like L F R, and miniatures gaming, MMOs, and roleplaying games lean urther into the setting side o things. Failure to provide enough quests andshort, backstory unorgivable in a roleplaying-hea roleplaying-heavy vy styleinoa play. play . Failuree to Failur provide crisp,isand complete mechanics is unorgivable board game. What style style o play your audience avors avors decides how much much time you spend spend on the core rules and how much time you spend developing the setting.
Defining Players Defining the the Boundaries, Boundaries, Choosing Choosing Your Your Players All too ofen, roleplaying game designs try to do ar too much, and or years the industry largely abandoned the introductory book or box set that can be read and implemented by a new player. (It’s making a comeback with the D A RPG boxed b oxed set and the 2010 D&D red box series.) Tose books set up the principles o gaming or people pe ople who knew nothing about roleplaying rolepl aying;; their “what is design” core goal goa l was to make difficult games g ames
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1. What is Design?
accessib le and to provide some accessible som e sense o mastery to newbies. ne wbies. Tat’s a very difficult design task and depends on a sharp eye or what carries a player into the game, engages them, and moves them on to master the next elements quickly. Dening the boundaries is crucial: crucial : You You need to provide enough material or a player to get started while providing enough depth so that a veteran player isn’t bored. I’d argue the task is largely impossible. Te P RPG I’d RPG is 500+ pages long;; it’s long it’s newbie-hostile, and largely assumes that that you have already master mastered ed basic roleplaying concepts. Te 4 E D&D rules set requires requ ires that that you subscribe to a paywall Web Web site to keep up up with new releases releases and to have have a decent character generator. Most players learn these games rom someone who already knows them. Te contradiction and the tragedy o it is that most veteran gamers disdain the idea o teaching newbies, and the intr introo boxes certainly assume that both the DM and players are novices. Certain war games and board games g ames assume the same level o mastery: I you don’t don’t already have prior rules sets and components, you’ll never understand the advanced version or expansion o the game. So the rst thing to do with a design is gure out who you want as your player. Tat single decision will wil l inorm all others afer it, rom the components components o the game to the complexity and length o the rules set to the likely elements in an introductory adventure. I you can deliver what your player base wants, your design’s odds o success increase hugely. Ignore the hardcore audience i your target audience is newbies, and vice versa.
Victory! Victory! One element we rarely consider consciously in roleplaying game design is the victory condition, though it is the the single most important important rule in almost every other type o game design. Without a well-dened victory condition, a game is not a game—and yet roleplaying games violate this cardinal principle. Or do they? I’d argue that one way to strengthen an RPG design is by creating a set o victory or advancement advancement conditions conditions that that reward reward continued continued or requent play play. D & D isn’t remembered or this element o design, but it has exactly this element: It grants levels to player characters. And there’s a general goal o advancement advancement in every e very RPG. RP G. I’ I ’d take this urther and say that good adventu adventures res and setting all make implicit promises o what victory looks like. It’s ofen no better than “stop the drow and save the kingdom” or “prevent Doomsday,” but that’s certainly a goal. Even i your game has requent rewards rather than a single overarching victory condition, I’d recommend that ndimpossible those reward moments and make them clearer, brighter, and shinier. It isyour almost to reward players too much K Guide to Game Design — 7 Te K
or too ofen in video vide o games (positive ( positive reinorcement reinorcement works). Use Use it in RPGs, not just in the the orm o gold and magic, but in the orm o status, status, prestige, prestige, unique treasures, courtesans and admirers, and a sense that the heroes matter. What’s the point o deeating deeating dragons i you still still can’t can’t get a beer at the pub? Make Make sure that that heroes are acclaimed and rewarded both in and out o character.
Y Your our Invisible Your Invisible Ally Ally in in Game Game Design Design
In RPGs, game design is broader than in tabletop board games g ames or even than in video games, because b ecause as a designer you must also enlist the DM as your ally. Tere’s no RPG without a DM willing to run your system or your scenario, so you need to succeed in inspiring inspiring those who who will spend the money money on the system system and setting, spend the time on mastering world world and rules rul es material, and spend the effort to construct and tell their own stories in collaboration with a gaming group. Not to mention cleaning up the house and putting out the cheese and drinks every week. Tis is why writing dull-but-effective dull-but-effective mechanics is a airly big ailure o design. I you lavish care on the mechanical elements to the exclusion o avor, no one will bother to wade wade through through your case-style rules to actually actually play the game. Not Not all DMs, but most, will be looking or an implied setting at the very least, and most preer a rules set that explicitly supports a particular world and/or style o play.. play Likewise, i you worry only about the avor and setting setting and ail to bulletproo your mechanics and and rules, you may well inspire inspire someone to play play it, but disaster will ensue as soon as the the game hits the table. table. As soon as the the ludic experience o actual play alls apart around them, they will (rightully) abandon your game system or house rule the worthwhile worthwhile bits into another set o mechanics. Go too ar in either direction, and you risk indifference on the one hand, and an unplayable morass on the other. What makes makes a roleplaying roleplaying design work, work, then? I I I knew the answer and and could make it plain I’d be a very wealthy man. Te answer is complicated, and depends on three actors: audience expectation, surprise and originality, and what I will call heightened play.
Audience Expectations Audience Expectations o absolutely no one’s surprise, gamers are a diverse and rowdy lot who want a lot o conicting things in their games: simplicity and play depth, great setting and easy customization, novelty and the comort o amiliar, amil iar, conservative assumptions assumptions about the nature o high antasy, SF, or the like. For the most part, you should ignore audience expectations.
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You heard me. As a game designer desig ner,, you will wil l be asked ofen and loudly to deliver “same but different” game designs. Tat’s ne i you are starting out, or i you are getting a toehold in the eld. But i you really reall y want to make a name or yoursel, yoursel, you’ll ail to impress impress by just just meeting audience audience expectations. expectations. Tis is clearest when when you look at the career career arc o most most o the the major pen-and-pa pen-and-paper per designers, but it’s also true or video game and board game designers. Expanding on an existing design is a good way to keep Marketing happy, provide sales or a publisher, and cater to a an base. It is not, in and o itsel, a bad thing at all, all , and I’ve done plenty o such projects over the years, some o which I’m quite proud o. Te projects that really get you recognized recognize d as a designer, though, are the ones that don’t cater to expectations, and that get you out in ront o what an audience asks or. No one asked Luke Crane, “Hey, give us an RPG about sentient mice with a sense sense o honor!” And And yet the Mouse Mouse Guard Guard RPG was the entirely entirely deserving winner o major accolades and a lot o an enthusiasm enthusiasm in 2009, and the game has been a huge success by indie standar standards. ds. Likewise most other hits or smaller publishers. Creating Creating a core setting setting and a set o mechanics mechanics that that supports it is the way to go. Go big i you can.
Surprise Originality Surprise and and Originality So ne, perhaps I belabor the obvious when I tell you to give gamers what they don’t yet know they want. Underlying that, I believe that what gamers really want beyond a aithulness to a game’ g ame’ss premise is a sense o surprise and originality. Tere have been dozens i not hundreds o major RPG RP G systems in the last 35 years. Tere are are thousands thousands o board game designs. Why Why do another another one? Because sequels suck, and because there’s a chance that you’ll do it better than it’s ever been done. Originality and surpris surprisee can take many orms. Reskinning an existing rules set to serve a new master is one road to success; look at B R and the underlying T20 rules, or example, or the way that the C C rules set has been reskinned in novel ways to support B R, the E RPG, and others. And D certainly reinvented the way card games work by using the deck de ck construction o M: G with a non-trading-card-game non-t rading-card-game set o components. Originality may mean usion o two disparate elements. Alternately, you may nd a new mechanic that enables a whole new orm o roleplaying, or a central conceit o how the gameplay progresses around the table that leans more more in a particular direction toward story gaming, gaming , tactical gaming, gaming , or even amily gaming. g aming. Wonderul! Wonderul! Design your heart out, and I hope that gamers everywhere embrace the new paradigm. K Guide to Game Design — 9 Te K
Immersive Immersiv e Play Play There’s been a ton of discussion about immersion and its role in video games, from talking about flow (Everyone’s got a theory—a few with actual data to support them!) to more obscure discussion about related topics like reward ratios, reading saccades, Skinnerian response, interface design, you name it. For the purposes of our discussion of online and tabletop roleplaying games, immersion is the sense that a player is deeply invested in their character or part in the game, and that they are playing that role with a sense of connection. Immersion seems like a red herring. It’s different for every player, and as long as designers provide a wealth of options, and graphic designers and animators provide compelling images, gamers with powerful imaginations and even casual players will find a role they like and take to it. Immersion is important, but not central to design. Immersion is a consequence of good design practices at a different level: mechanical design, character design, and world design.
While on the one hand I do want want to encourage encourage designers, I have have to sound sound one pragmatic note note o caution caution as well: You You won’t won’t start off with with an opportunity opportunity to go big. Most publishers won’t won’t gamble everything on an unknown unknown with a neat idea i dea unless there’s very good evidence e vidence that you can carry it off. In board games, that means your game playtests insanely well. In RPGs, it usually means you’ve got a track record o smaller titles and achievements. In video games it usually means you’ll spend spend years supporting supporting senior designers designers beore you ever have have a chance chance to lead an A-list title. But watch or your chance, and keep notes or what you’ll do when and i an opportunity presents itsel. Chance avors the prepared mind, afer all, and there’s no reason you can’t can’t work on your rules design, setting design, board game rules set, or video-game video -game treatment treatment and story arcs even i there’s there’s no publisher in sight. Investing some o your time and energy into these sorts o “trunk projects” that you keep close to hand hand may pay pay off very handsomely handsomely when there’ there’ss an open call, a staff job, or just a hole in a publisher’ publisher’ss schedule. Maybe you can wow them with material material generated right right then (it does happen), happen), but think think how much much better prepared you’ll you’ll be i you have a notebook notebook or a hard hard drive crammed crammed with good material awaiting development.
Heightened Experience Heightened Play Play Experience Te part o design that I think is most undamental undamental is that o the heightened heig htened play experience. Tis is where I think good designers desig ners split rom great designers, where immersion, immersio n, story, mechanics, and originality all come together to lif a game g ame rom the glut o similar experiences to something special.
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1. What is Design?
And it’s it’s devilishly devilishl y hard to describe, but I think it boils down to concise language, escalation o conict, and super-saturated super-saturated style. Conciseness. Part o the heightened play experience is a matter o emphasis, o honing down the language, the backstory, and the character descriptions into just a ew key key details that can can be communicated communicated quickly by a DM to players. players. Te temptation or many beginning designers is to rattle on and on, and even many proessionals proession als are in love with with the sound sound o their own own keyboards keyboards clacking away away.. Resist the urge to just slather a design in text. Escalation. At the same time, a great encounter design and a great adventure design both need to make every ght, every e very roleplaying encounter encounter,, and every ever y trap and treasure matter. I it starts with a kidnapping, it had better end with mortal peril. I it starts starts with with a plague, that disease had had better be the ault o o a villain or demon who can be conronted. Escalation is a critical element el ement in gaming. I an adventure starts slowly (and it’s okay i it does), it still needs to gather momentum over time. Even throwaway encounters should increase tension and emphasize the mood. o design or this means that you are looking at every character and encounter and trying to nd a key element that is easy to communicate in the moment when the heroes encounter that element. Backstory is a waste o time or players in most antasy adventures. Meeting non-player characters (NPCs) is good—i that meeting increases the level o tension in the scenar scenario. io. Saturation or Pulp Roots. Tird and nal, every ever y single encounter should be in a super-saturated style. In photography and art generally, saturation reers to the depth or vividness o hues or pigments. Tey can be thin and watercolory, watercolory, or they can be thick, satura saturated ted pigments like oil paintings. As a game g ame designer, screw subtlety. It looks great on paper, but most o the time, it ails to translate across the medium o a DM to players. What you want is a richness o experience. Te green knight shouldn shouldn’t’t just be green; he should be wearing leay armor, and his helmet crowned with oak leaves, and his eyes e yes turn to acorns. Te demon
lord shouldn’t just have horns and re and claws; he should have horns o black poisonous smoke, smoke, with claws o adamant adamantium, ium, a whip o re, re, and his entire entire body an embodiment o coals and wrat wrath. h. Tis isn’t just a matter o description, though saturation in art usually is about the surace. For super-saturated, the depth o character, plot, and location should also be dialed dia led up. Villains V illains can twist moustaches, sure, sure, but what you really want is a villain vil lain who rages against the world or a reason, not just because he’s he’s evil. He hates the order o paladins. Evil should be specic, not generic. Locations should be lled lle d with devices or stunts stunts and action, not with bland urnitur urnituree and clichés. cli chés. Nobody goes adventuring adventuring to be bored.
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Yes, super-saturated design taken too ar is over-the-top pulp stupidity. But the risks are greater i you ail to provide enough meaty adventure than than i you provide too much. Consider or a moment the classic adventure D F F C : It invented the yuan-ti, the aboleth, and the tasloi, plus gave us a whole lost city in a volcano’s caldera. Over the top? Not really. Te monsters are so rich and classic cla ssic that they have survived our editions edi tions o D & D (well, not the tasloi), and the setting is one that works works time afer time. Te approach o pulp ction is that everything should stand out, that subtlety is wasted, and that that excitement excitement is preerred preerred over over introspection. introspection. Games Games are a vibrant, vibrant, participatory medium that that demands action and color; color; don’t don’t waste your your time trying to make them into something else.
Conclusion Conclusion o understand games, you must study and master both the avor and mechanical pillars o RPGs or your chosen chosen specialty. You You must pitch big ideas rather rather than incremental updates, because the incremental projects will keep your name out there, but will never gain g ain you a reputa reputation tion or big thinking. And o course, you must be prepared with a treasure treasure chest ull o design ideas or the day when a big opportunity presents itsel. Te basics o game design desig n are a variety o related areas o expertise, all used to create new rules, envision new play environments, and to generate entirely new modes o play in new gaming g aming genres. Within the RPG eld, make sure sure your your design supports concise concise rules and description, a planned escalation o tension, and a avorul, satura saturated ted environment that compels players to engage with the setting and oes.
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Designing RPGs: Compute Comp uterr and and able abletop top Colin McComb
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now, we’re y now, we’re all amiliar with the gamut gamut o computercomputer-based based role-playing games (CRPGs) (CRP Gs) even i we haven’t haven’t played them all: the U series, the F series, M, the various Innity Engine games, W W W and E, and many, many more. MMOs like W As the market or CRPGs swells and more designers leave or consider leaving the tabletop market or the computer game market, it’s worth considering the differences involved in designing the two media, med ia, what works, what doesn’t, doesn’t, and what could be improved. improved. Te primary reerence manual manual or the design o a computer game is called call ed the design document. Te design doc outlines your system’s rules, your game’s mechanics, lists and description descriptionss o places, creatures, and people. It also contains art requests, sound descriptions, and guides or game music to help the composer set the mood. Each and every e very eature o each and every area requires specic and detailed inorm inormation ation in order to create a playable game and an immersive atmosphere or the players. Unlike tabletop rulebooks, it is constantly changing and evolving as the game g ame development progresses. It It will not be nal until “eature lock,” the point at which the game’s producer decides that nothing else will be added to the game, and all resources resources come to bear on testing testing the soon-tosoon-tobe-nal product. K Guide to Game Design — 13 Te K
For tabletop tabletop designers, the best way to imagine this is that you are building all al l the components components o an RPG at once: rulebook, ruleb ook, player’s player’s guide, gui de, creature creature guides, gui des, and the campaign setting, combined in a single document. Te design document can requently run into into many hundreds hundreds o pages, especially or a game o any length or hef. It might appear that there is a vast difference in the design between the two media. In certain senses, senses, this is even true. However, However, in my experience, this difference can be summed up in two areas. Te rst is detail; detail ; the second is human intelligence and intuition.
First Answer: Detail Detail First Answer: “ You enter a 10-foot x 10-foot room here. Tere is an orc here. he re. It is guarding a treasure chest. chest.” ”
Tat’s pretty simple, right? In a tabletop game, sure. But i you try tr y to give g ive this description to an artist and a programmer, programmer, they’ll come back at you with a binder ull o questions. For For example, the artist will ask: • What’s the context? context? Is this in in a dungeon, a house, house, a tower? tower? • What does the the entrance entrance to the the room look like? Is it an an archway archway,, a gate, a curtain, or a door? I it’s a curtain or door, what what material is it made o ? • What does the the room look like? Is it made made o wood, stone, or or metal, or something else? What’s in the room? • What does the the orc look like? What is it wearing, wearing, how tall is it, how muscular? What weapons is it carrying, and what armor armor is it wearing? wearing ? • How does the orc attack? Are its movements uid and sweeping or broad, hacking attacks? I the artist has to animate attacks and movement, this inormation is required up ront. • What does the the treasure treasure chest look like? You’ll need to tell the programmer essential details as well. Tis assumes that you’vee already dened the game style (rst-perso you’v (rst-personn shooter, shooter, over-the-shoulder over-the-shoulder,, third-person thirdperson isometric RPG), and that you have previously established your basic game systems and monster stats in the design document. Te programmer will want to to know: • Are there any constraints on the player’s actions in the room? What are the clipping paths or the character—that is, where can the character move? • What articial articial intelligence (AI) set should the orc orc use: hostile, helpul, neutral?
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• Are there any variations in the orc’s routines? Does it have dialogues attached to it? Are there any action cues or the orc’s behavior? Does the orc move around the room in a pre-scripted or random sequence? • Can the treasure treasure chest be opened? How? How ? Does it require a key? I there’ there’ss a lock, can it be picked? What sort o container is it? What does it contain: Should the program consult a random table or is there a specic set o items inside? You get the idea—and this isn’t isn’t even all that they they’ll ’ll want to know. know. A computerr game designer compute desig ner must imagine the details a game master (GM) can invent on the y without the benet o a targeted group o players and under the supervision o the rest o the development team. Tis puts the designer at an immediate disadvantage. Te designer’s job is to get out o the way o the game—but rst: to create the story; story ; populate that story with riends, enemies, and other assorted creatures; creatures; assign treasures, treasures, quests, and keys; keys ; build the puzzles; and generate an internally internally coherent game system. In short, it’s similar to tabletop design, but it’s much more intricate and involved. Tere’s a reason we see huge designer teams on larger AAA computer/console titles: We have story and character designers, level designers, item/shop/placement item/shop/placem ent designers, mechanics/system designers, each o them ocusing on a very specic part o the game play. While they may step in to help other design teams, most have a specic core competency competency,, and they own that that part o the game. What sort sort o benet benet do we see rom this this attention attention to detail? • W Wee remove the necessity or a human human game master master,, allowing players to play games alone i necessary necessar y. • W Wee can run complex complex equations equations more quickly. quickly. No longer longer do we need to rely on a single die roll; roll ; we can build bui ld intricate character/att character/attack/deense ack/deense systems that combine a variety o traits and skills to create a more realistic experience. • W Wee can run combats combats that that might take take all night in a tabletop game in a matter o moments, and create immediately comprehensible tactical situations. On the other hand, we do see some serious drawbacks, and we as players have largely conditioned ourselves to ignore ig nore them or play around them. What are these behaviors, and what can we as designers do to improve them? AI is only as smart smart as its its inputs. inputs. Te antagonists, antagonists, though though careully and lovingly scripted, cannot act beyond be yond the bounds o that scripted behavior. behavior. Tey cannot change their tactics to react to a surprising use o a spell or item by a player and, in rst-person rst-person shooters, will requently requently not react at all. Te game may not even allow such deviation. Even i you want to do it, you just don’t have the option. In real lie, you can use a screwdriver, or example, to turn a screw, to deend yoursel, as a drumst dr umstick, ick, or to reverse it and use it as a hamme hammer, r, though Te K K Guide to Game Design — 15
these latter three three uses are not recommended. In a computer computer game, you generally have only one use or a tool: its designed use. Computer games require chokepoints and a way to create the illusi illusion on o ree will. I the players players o a computer computer game decide to ignore ignore the primary primary portion o the adventure, they’ll soon nd themselves with nothing to do. Further, they usually must gather keys, items, or complete puzzles in order to unlock other areas o, or instance, a town. Locking these areas makes a difference or character advancement, or tutorials to teach the player how to navigate the game system, and or game balance—not to mention the necessity o loading massive areas into the computer’s memory—but they are strictures that make little actual sense in terms o the game world.
Second Answer: Human Intelligence and Second Answer: Human Intelligence and Intuition Intuition “You enter a 10’ x 10’ room. Tere is an orc here. It is guarding a treasure chest.”
Sometimes it really is that simple. Do the players need nee d to know the texture o the wall? Do they need to understand the light source in the room? What i they want to know to w hy the orcor orc is guarding thgreat e chest? I they do, the GMgaming the will be is more than happy to why make it up them. Tethe advantage to tabletop that the depth o the answers to the questions depends on the imagination o the game master. You might call this “distributed design:” rather than spending precious words words outlining every possible scenario, the the designer can lay out out a basic ramework and trust in the game master to ll in the blanks in the manner that best ts each individual campaign. Tis allows the designer to write more, to ll the pages pag es with broader inormation and extend the reach o the adventure. Freeing up these pages opens the possibilities or serious and ar-reaching epics, with potential detours across the whole o the campaign world. Te tabletop designer’s job is to ensure that the adventure adheres to the rules laid out in the system, to create an entertaining story, and to provide the tools necessary or the game master to run the game. g ame. Yet our adventures still require us to create the illusion o choice or the players. I we want the game master to use our adventure, we need to outline plot hooks, story devices, and even mechanical inducemen inducements ts to lure the players into this web. I these ail, then at some point the the game master master may simply simply have to tell his players that that the direction direction they want want to go destroys destroys the adventu adventure re he has prepared. prepared. What benets benets accrue rom rom tabletop gaming? It provides provides a broader, broader, more more potentially interactive interactive experience. experience. Instead Instead o being orced into a single storyline, the players can scrap the idea o the adventure altogether and strike out in a new direction. Te game g ame master may choose to integrate portions o the published adventure necessary, butcreate the players have aromore choice in the ate o their characters.asTey can help the direction the story.
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abletop RPGs offer better b etter social aspects. Tough online gamers g amers can use headsets and communicate communicate directly via voice over IP (VOiP) ( VOiP) technology, the interaction is not the same. Computer games tend to require a sense o orward motion, a eeling that the players are making headway toward resolving their quest. In person, gamers are allowed to relax, rela x, to make jokes, to react to each other’s physical presence and share the joy o the hobby. Te game doesn’t end at a predetermined point, and the end o an adventure ows easily into next week’s session. Te players don’t need to wait 12-18 months or a sequel, i one ever arrives at all. Lastly, smaller audiences mean more material. It’s no secret that the computer game market dwars the tabletop market. Ironically, this rees up creators in tabletop gaming to try new ideas, test new mechanics, and imagine countless worlds—the worlds—t he bottom line is smaller, smaller, so the the reach can be greater greater.. By contrast, contrast, computerr games now routinely cost $10-25 million compute mil lion per title. With this much money involved, most developers can’t even touch the envelope, let alone push it. Te drawbacks to tabletop games are visible and glaring. Tey require a group o riends andbut a schedu scheduled led time; time ; it’sisrare andany diffitime cult the to have a pickup piis.ckup tabletop RPG session, a computer game ready player Te systems in most tabletop games are by necessity less powerul and less involved. Math, plotting, movemen movement,t, scoring, scoring , and other essential essential record-k record-keeping eeping can bog down a game g ame in no time i we designers aren’t aren’t careul—we need to keep the rules comparat comparatively ively light lig ht and the systems s ystems comparatively comparatively anemic i we’r we’ree to allow our players to make any progress at all. We have to We to rely on words words to paint our pictures, pictures, while computer computer developers have have teams o hugely talented artists to launch their ideas into ull-colored u ll-colored glory glor y. We have less We less reach and inuence inuence in the the broad market. market. A tabletop tabletop game that that sells 100,000 copies is a breakout success, while the same number at a computer computer development house might result in layoffs or the closure o the studio. As computers become more powerul, powerul, we will wil l likely see a growing ability in games to react to personal play styles and offer more open-ended adventures. adventures. Te MMO world has already begun beg un to replicate the social aspects o games, and while they cannot yet replace the actual physical presence o your riends, chances are good that someone’s working on that. Does this mean that tabletop designers should try to emulate computer-based designs to lure that market back to tabletop? Or should we make a more permanent move into the computer game industry? Ultimately, this is a decision that each designer will have to make or him- or hersel, but regardless o which segment seg ment o the industry we choose, we should ocus on delivering the single best positive gaming experience or our customers, to the best o our abilities. Te K K Guide to Game Design — 17
3
Te Process Process of Creative Tought Wolfga olfgang ng Ba Baur ur
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reativity is at the heart o good design, but it’s an overused and sometimes over-mystied word. Te work o creativity is different than analytical or physical work, but it’s it’s still a process that can be mastered. Here’s one take on it, based on my own experience and that o a rather different mind. Tis essay is aB summary and(Gotham interpretation David Kord2009), Murray’s B B Books,oNew York, which tries to systematize systemat ize and demyst demystiy iy creativ creativee thought or the engineering and technical proessions.s. In particular proession particular,, Murray Murray believes that creativ creativee thought can be taught and that you can become better at it with practice. I think almost any writer or game designer would agree; agree ; the proo is simply that creative creative work improves in quality over time. Tis is why, or instance, rst novels are held to a lower standard than later work. Here’s my take on what Murray’s approach means or game design, and especially adventure design. It’s airly densely packed, but I think there’s a process and an insight into creativity here that’s worth urther unpacking and discussion.
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Origin of aa Creative Creative Idea Idea Origin of Creativity never happens in a vacuum. Everyone Creativity Everyone builds on what came beore, and how you approach the work can make a huge difference in how good g ood the nal result is. For instance, some designers believe belie ve that creativity creativity is paramoun paramount,t, and pursue the the rue rue Weird Weird as their goal. Others Others nd value in expanding expanding the work work o prior designers through throu canonicalcreative worldbuilding. Tese aretypes. two wildly wildly different approaches. Both are gh generating work o different Here are the three stages that represent the origin o creative ideas.
1. Defining the problem. Te rst step is understanding what it is that you need to solve. For engineers and programmers, this is usually relatively straightorward: straightorward: Iden Identiy tiy the problem space, research it, understand it, and describe it. For game design and other less engineered pursuits, this stage is the creative brie. Tat is, what are you being asked to deliver, what audience will you address, what is the project outline, and what are are the design goals? In either case, you need to dene a vision o what you’re afer. Tis can be a commercial commer cial proposition as well as a creative one. For instance, you might be looking to address entry-level players with a high-action, low-roleplay set o basic mechanics, or you might be trying to engage an experienced audience with a story-rich capstone adventure that builds on prior work.
“T he core element of successful creative work “The work requires reframing your point of view to approach the original problem in a new way.” way.” Know what are you afer creatively and commercially, and dene it or yoursel at the start. Why? Because how you dene the problem determines how you will solve it. Knowing the problem is knowing the oundation o your creative process.
2. Borrowing ideas. I you think you operate in isolation rom other designers, gamers, and the culture cul ture at large, you’re mistaken. And worse, i you don’t look at similar problems and systems, you are undercutting your chances o a successul design. You can get creative raw materials this way because, or all creative work, your materials are ideas. Tis isn’t isn’t to say you swipe text and settings and so orth. Build up a library o resources that are both close and distant, and learn the options you have. When you look to use use ideas you nd useul, it’s best to borrow borrow rom distant sources; generally speaking, i you are writing a D & D adventure, then swiping rom other D&D adventures makes you a thie, whereas borrowing an element rom board games or MMOs makes you smart. Borrowing rom much more distant sources like theatre or history makes you a creative K Guide to Game Design — 19 Te K
genius. Research the eld, eld , and then go ar beyond that. I’d I’d like to say that Open Design does this better than anyone else; the well o inspiration that patrons bring to a project is global, global , comes rom all levels le vels o experience, and is simply much broader than than any single designer—even d esigner—even one at the top o his hi s game at Wizards o the the Coast—can hope hope to match. match. It’s worth mentioning here that creative work in this style goes back to an older ormulation o creativity. Tat is, I believe true creative work is not about the artist or the designer; that’s a modern aberration based on copyright maximalism and the notion o the auteur or the lone genius. o me, working with shared worlds and collaborative collaborative designs, this this equation o o creativity creativity with an individual is largely nonsen nonsense. se. Individuals are products o their times and their culture and, most o all, are heavily inuenced by their peers. I take an attitude a little closer to the sciences. Tat is, creative work is about the work, which must copy and improve on what has gone beore. Rules sets are a oundation. We build on them. Settings and shared universes are a culture that designers work within and build to improve. Te creation creation o a better b etter gaming experience is the goal, not the creation o artistic reputation. Finally, it’s worth saying that it’s best not to all in love with an idea or concept but to view the options airly dispassionately. Tis is not to say that you shouldn’t be passionate, but that there’s a stage where you have to set that passion aside. I you are blindly in love with with a particular idea or concept then then you’ve you’ve stopped being creativee with it, and it becomes locked in place. In my view, creativ view, you need nee d a certain critical disdain or at least objectivity toward ideas, an ability abilit y to abandon them.
3. Combining and connecting the borrowed ideas. Te real magic mag ic o creative work, to me, comes in the unexpected combination o the many notes, ideas, concepts, and materials you gathered in stage two. Tis is where you combine combine Hollywood-style Hollywood-style narrative narrative arcs with tax sofware (as In Intuit tuit did). Or you combine insights o and poker with economics (asdid). Proessor Nash Nash did). Combine geologythe with biology Malthus (as Darwin Or combine political science and network network analysis (as Christakis Christakis and and Farrow Farrow did). In each case, two differen di fferentt worlds at the start are indeed a single element o thought by the end. In the case o game design, nding such synergies might mig ht mean combining genre elements with non-genre non-genre elements, combining classical rhetoric with social skill challenges, or combining ancient saga plotlines with science antasy elements. In each case, the core element o successul creative work requires reraming your point o o view to approach approach the original original problem in a new new way: Reverse your encounter encoun ter,, change subgenre, combine history with pulp, etc. Brainsto Brainstorm rm and jam pieces together tothis make make themmeans t a narrative nartaking rativeall or the or to apply matrix matrix or triggers or to a sandbox. For me, usually notesarom stage two and puzzling how they they t together. together.
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Evolution of aa Creative Idea Evolution of Creativee Idea Creativ While creativity creativity requires posing a problem, problem, gathering gathering ideas, and putting putting those those ideas in unusual juxtapositions, it also requires time to erment and time or your own own take on on the material material to gestate. gestate. o o me, the raw raw materials materials ofen seem like insoluble lumps at rst—u rst—until ntil suddenly they don’ don’t.t. Suddenly they seem like pieces o a whole. Tat incubation, judgment, judgment, and iteration o your creative approach—the nextrequires three steps.
4. Incubation. Puzzling with the elements doesn’t always get you very ar. ake some time to allow combinations to settle into a solution. Te rst three elements o creative thought are about the inputs to your subconscious, but it’s oolish to try to orce everything to snap together in a massive rush. It might happen, certainly, but ofen it won’ won’t.t. You might think o this as a creative block, but pushing the design process too quickly leads to errors that that later need to be torn out. I nd it i t more valuable to pause in your design process, to sleep on it, and sometimes to put it aside or weeks. Te extreme extreme case o this is Isaac Isaac Newton, Newton, who waited 15 years years between the time he ramed the problem beore he came back to the calculus. But that’s the pace o subconscious thought. I nd that the best solutions are the ideas that spring to mind when I’m hal-sleeping, or are the result o the classic shower inspiration—which is odd when you consider it. Why is creative thought advanced when you are ocused on the mundane?
“If something about a design bother botherss you, figure out why.” why.” It’s an element o the psycholog y o creativity; It’ creativity ; this is how your subconscious brings up possible ideas and solutions. In the early stages you are jamming ideas and possible solutions intooyour mind. Te output requires you to turn turn off the stream stream conscious thought thought androm let other otthe hersubconscious thoughts through— thoughts through— daydreaming thoughts. Sometimes that process is the ash o an instant, and sometimes that process is very long. It can, however, be helped, in an unusual way. You can create opportunities or creative output by turning off your hurry and work and activity. alk a long walk and give it a think. Get rid o V, radio, your avorite avorite MMO, or anything anything that that requires conscious conscious thought. thought. Ideal activities activities are the ones that rely on muscle memory or at least no conscious effort, such as biking, knitting, knitting , meditation, or driving. It only looks like laziness; in act, you’ll nd some o your biggest breakthroughs happen this way. It sounds a bit woo woo and New New Agey, but I swear to you that that time time spent away away rom hamme hammering ring the keyboard can be time very well spent. K Guide to Game Design — 21 Te K
5. Judging Jud ging Te Work. Having a ash o insight is terric (and it eels Having e els so good!), g ood!), but it’s it’s not nearly enough. You You need to get really real ly critical o the results o that insight, and hold it up to comparison and discrimination against alternative solutions. Tat is, your stage o creative judgment should identiy both the strengths strengths and weaknesses o a solution. Brainstorms are a start in the earlier stages o combining, but you need to winno winnow w out the best elements and discriminate between the viable and the oolish. Have a Steve-Jobs-level mania or what’s strong and what’s weak. I something about a design bothers you, gure out why. Strong opinion and ego in design play in here; you will Strong wil l disagree with others, others, and that’s normal. o win those disagreements, you need to identiy not just that a given element is good, but why. why. How does it play into the whole? How does it solve a design problem? How How does it improve the play experience? Or worse, how does it destro destroyy the play experience? Te creative process isn’t isn’t about accept/reject based on your opinion. It’s a debate. I’d say that the Open Design discussions suss out weakness and nd sources o design strength better than current publishing methods that rely on a small group o designer, developer, and editor, or even small teams o designers, desig ners, writers, writers, and quality assura a ssurance. nce. Te weight o many minds ocused on results—or even e ven just the knowledge o impending peer review—mak review—makes es or sharper design because be cause it nds more o the weaknesses and addresses them rom many angles.
6. Enhancing. Te last stage is enhancing and iterating iterating on the design solution you have. At this point, you eliminate eliminate the weak spots spots and enhance enhance the strong strong through through development development and editing, ideally based on playtest results rom the judging stage. Remember that creative creative thinking is about risk-taking risk-taking;; doing the same stuff will look the same as everything beore.
“Every person comes up with ideas differently and works with them differently differently.” .” A creative work will look a little odd; odd ; don’t don’t sand down all those corners, corners, but nd ways to enhance them and make sure that the novelty is still accessible to gamers who haven’t seen it beore. Your goal is recombining, re-borrowing, restructuring. Iterate until the nal is a seamless whole. For designers, this approach offers several advant advantages. ages. It means you can talk about creative creative design in stages, and you can be sel-aware enough to realize you haven’ haven’tt even gured out what what problem problem you are solving solving , or you are circling circling around and around in the research/borrowing stage without ever moving on to combination and incubation. It means that in collaboration you separate out stages; you can narrow the ocus to a discussion o the central problem or a
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discussion o what approaches to borrow, or you can brainstorm to combine and resort ideas. Tey are all al l separate things. Likewise, particular parts o the process can be judgment meetings where the results o brainstorm and incubation incubation are explicitly weighed weighe d and kept or discarded. Same with playtest discussions and sharpening the design. By then, it’s clear that it is too late to introduce new raw materials or recombining unless you want to iterate the whole design process again (which you might).
Making Making the the Creative Creat ive Process Creative Process Work Work for f or You for You You Every person comes up with ideas differently and works with them differently, but these stages o creativity are undamental. For my own part, I’ve ound it useul to consider these stages with my most recent project, C S F . It’s a way to time your progress. (“Have I hit the problem statement cleanly? Maybe it’s time to start borrowing ideas.”) In the borrowing ideas phase this time out, I busily stacked up elements rom F E AD&D, rom demons and ey in mythology mytholog y, rom 17th century rhetoric, rom operatic history, history, and even rom theatrical staging/scene trickery—I cast a broader net than usual, and ound my own creativity creativity pumped up as a result when I moved into recombining, recombining , outlining, and juxtapos juxtaposing ing elements. And though I’ve been be en through the muddle in the middle many times, it never hurts to know that it’s a normal stage o creativee work. At this writing, I’m in the enhancing stage, drawing connections creativ connections out between previously unrelated encounters encounters to maximize shock value, to draw out the themes o the adventure—and just to make the whole as epic as it can possibly be. I’ve ound it helpul to consider my roadmap to the creative mind, some o it obvious, other bits less so. What’s important about it is that identiying the stages helps you make a realistic schedule or your design work, helps you ocus on what design problems or resources resources are most helpul at the beginning, beginning , middle, and end, and helps you consider what stages o the project you might mi ght want to spend extra time on to get the results you want. Writers and designers can spend hours talking about their process (instead o applying seat o pants to seat o chair and writingg !), and I’ve done my writin my share o procrasti procrastinatin nating. g. Now I have a better name or that—incubation—and I have a better sense o when it might be most useul: afer borrowing borrowing ideas, beore judging the work work and enhancing it. I’m certainly glad o the results I’ve seen in my own work, and I hope that by ordering your own work into a sequence like that, you’ll nd your design work is aster, more more organized, and more powerully original.
K Guide to Game Design — 23 Te K
4
Creative Mania & Design Despair Wolfga olfgang ng Ba Baur ur
M
ost o the time, design is about rather concrete elements o mathematics, level geometry, narrative arcs, area descriptions, and player character character rewards. rewards. In this essay I’m I’m addressing addressing a part o the the work that’ that’s a bit squishier than than usual, but I think it’s it’s an important important topic. Namely Namely,, how does a designer deal with the ups and downs o working on a manuscript or an extended period, especially especi ally when the work doesn’t doesn’t go well?
Te Feirst Phases of of Design First First Phases Design Perhaps it’s different or other designers, but I know my own pattern really well. Te initial idea or a project gets g ets me all charged up and on re—that’ re—that’s a time o pure mania. mania. I want to work work on the the manuscript manuscript all the time, time, one idea seems to to lead naturally to another, and progress is easy. Tis is partly because be cause there there are no hard choices to make yet, and partly because everything is resh. Every designer loves new terrain; relatively ew grognards survive long as proessional proessional designers, because . . . Well, grognards are lled with a shining love or what has already al ready been, or revisiting the old terrain, and or the rosy glow o the past. I’m I ’m ond o past designs, the games o my youth, and
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certainly or the highlights highlig hts o the eld by other designers. But the job o design is about creating creating new game-play g ame-play experiences, experiences, new settings, new rules and character archetypes, and new spins on old ideas, as discussed in the What is Design? essay essay (pagee 1). As a designer (pag desig ner,, you need nee d to understand understand the past so you can build on top o it. Give me something new to play with, and I’ll be delighted. My advice to all designers is to ride that early high as long and as hard as possible. Work Work late, get up earlier, earlier, burn burn lunch hours, hours, unplug unplug your cable, and and stop wasting time on Xbox Xbox and Facebook. Facebook. Seriously, this this is a window o opportunity when you are are itchy to create create wonderul wonderul new things. Do that. that. You’ll You’ll lose that that honeymoon glow soon enough, trust me, so take advantage o the enthusiasm that makes makes it easy eas y to get g et ahead, to build outlines and crunch numbers, and makes the work seem effortless. Wasting this period while waiting or a response rom an editor, rom a patron poll, or rom anyone, really, is just a waste. You won’t recapture the sense o lightning in a bottle later in the project, no matter how cool the twists and modications make it. Te second phase is what I call the grind—the grind—the period when contradictions start to show up in the adventure ow, or the math o the new subsystem alls apart during playtesting. Novelists call this the “muddle in the middle,” and it is the part o creating creating a text text or system that just just sucks. You You have gone past the section that was pure un, you’ve done all the bits that bring you joy, and now it’s at the level o craf, iteration, renement, renement, and expansion o all the cool, sexy ideas o the rst stage. At this point, odd as it may sound, you realize real ize that you have a relationship with the manuscript, and sometimes that relationship rel ationship is i s going goi ng to be difficult. You’ ou’re re going to have to make trade-offs. It’s a bit like dating: new love is wonderul, but at some point you either get g et serious or you drif apart. Getting serious means limiting other dating opportunities; making design desig n choices restr restricts icts uture options. Your manuscript is an extension o your creativity, and that means it demands attention, honesty, and devotion. You might say it’s a one-sided sort o relationship: What does it give back, afer all? Tat’s missing the next step, though—the turn-over to development and editing. And that’s where my overextended metaphor breaks down.
Beyond Ideas to to the the Work Work Beyond Ideas In any any case, once the design gets balky the hard choices phase is upon you. Tis is where the best designers earn their reputations. reputations. Some designers desig ners never get this: this : It’s not enough to have great ideas, you also need to have great execution, rening those ideas into something more than “wouldn’ “wouldn’tt it be cool i ?” brainstorming. Tat isn’t to denigrate brainstorming. It’s just that this stage culls the dilettantes and amateurs out o the herd, because the work required here is hard. It’s drudgery. I you are in this stage, you’re earning your keep and, emotionally, the K Guide to Game Design — 25 Te K
manuscript seems less a source o joy and more a source o (perectly manuscript ( perectly natural) loathing. You are writing material that you don’t love but that the design needs to unction. Te goal in this phase is to maintain enough love or the project that you can keep up momentum until until the end is in sight. Maybe you save some juicy sections to write at the very end. Maybe you have a character you reintroduce late in an adventure, or a particularly sharp set o dragon stats and templates that you set aside to reward yoursel with when you see the end approaching. Different writers use different tricks. Te problem here is that the joy o phase one has met reality—and realit y—and or writing and design, reality is sitting at a keyboard trying to pour your brain onto the page in a way that will reach your audience. Why is this hard? hard? wo wo reasons: reasons: 1) A premise is always always easier to create create than than all the maniold logical logica l consequences o that premise, premise, and 2) you need nee d to think through the impact o your design decisions de cisions on your audience. For most designers, that means evaluating the worth o playtest reports, rst readers, editors, oritdevelopers. de velopers. Foreven collaborative design like Open projects, means having more people offeapproaches offering ring their their opinions andDesign and critiques beore a project is gelled, outlined, or written. (I’ll talk more about the challenges o collaboration in another essay.) You need to have a strong enough sense o the design goal to ignore the junk or snark, a strong enough enough design sense to maintain cohesion in the mechanics and logic o the game, and a strong enough enough set o writing chops to convey both the avor and the mechanics in a pleasing and accessible way.
New Demands New Demands You must respond to new demands rom the clay o the design itsel. Te project ts into into some molds that that you could could oresee and some that that you couldn’t. couldn’t. Because your understanding understanding o the game design deepens over the course o the work, at one point or another another you must must abandon some o the the things you love about the project. In Open Design, this happens sooner and meets the needs o the audience better because criticism starts immediately, immediately, like it or not. I think that makes makes Open Design projects a bit o a shock to designers desig ners used to working in isolation, but also makes it perectly natural to younger designers who collaborate as a matter o course. Tat is, reaction to massive eedback ee dback super-early is partly generational. But this transition to abandoning some elements o a game design happens in all orms o design, not just RPGs. For instance, I started T H M K with the sense thasections; that t it wouldthebebrie a very traditional delving big Moria.” monsters monste rsBut andthe combat I used to pitchdwarven it to patrons waswith “a new
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brainstorm or the project made it clear that the theme o greed (which I pitched brainstorm as a secondary theme) was popular enough enough to become be come the main theme. Te idea o a tradition traditional al set o monster monsterss ell away when the number number o actions grew to include actions within the dwarves, a cult, and some derro. Te adventure adventure became event-dr e vent-driven iven pretty quickly qui ckly.. I had to throw away some o the original assumptions. assump tions. Te eedback on the pitches made us thro throw w away even more. In the end, we had a much stronger idea o what H was about, but it was also a less traditional traditional dwarven dwarven adventure. adventure. Tat’s good; there’s there’s no point in rehashing old approaches and stale, “beginner” “beg inner” material material or an advanced audience like Open Design patrons. Te resulting premise means that the enemies were still deadly and combat was still a primary actor, but my understanding o what the audience wanted changed. And the dream o a Moria-style adventure had to be abandoned pretty quickly to accommodate accommodate other cool ideas, like a Masonicstyle secret brotherhood, a corrupt gold dragon, and cursed gold g old that served Mammon’s ends.
Closing Down With With Ease Ease or or Rage Rage Closing It It Down Finally, i you are persistent and don’t let anything stop you, the muddle in the middle does come to an end. Te end phase o a project is either a time o hope or rage or me. When I leave a manuscript manuscript hopeul, I’ve I ’ve had plenty o time with it, I eel all al l the elements are in place, and I think it really is ready or another set o hands. I may be a bit wistul, tinkering with strands o it but, rankly, I’ve grown a little tired o having the manuscript around. Sometimes this convinces me to make a turnover early, because I’m just done with it. Tese are the times it is easier to close out a project. Tings oat gently to a conclusion. Te deadline seems generous. All is well with the project. Tat happens less ofen than I’d like, but it does happen. More ofen, ofen, the end stage is more about rage. I wish I had more time! Te project deserves another another month, month, at least! Yes, Yes, usually the deadline is killing killing me, and I’m ghting very hard to keep everything together, to ll in all the “XX” “X X” place markers markers and all the “BD” or “NAME “NAME HERE” stopgaps that that I used earlier as shortcuts. Sometimes it’s not the deadline but the word count. Tere’s either too much or too little space to do what I want to do. And so I slash and burn sections away to make room or something vital, or I ll out a section that I know the editor will want more o. It’s a stage o everything coming home to roost, which is especially the case or really large designs (say (say, over 40,000 words words or so, so, and certainly anything over 60,000). It’s impossible or me to keep everything in my head or a 60,000-word manuscript (this is why I love outlines), o utlines), so at the end there’ there’ss some shuffl ing and struggle to get it all together tog ether in a orm I like, much less one I love. Tis is when I recall that someone said that manuscripts aren’t nished but abandoned. Large K Guide to Game Design — 27 Te K
projects are harder harder to bring to the the stage where everything interlocks smoothly smoothly with everything else. And very very large projects always involve involve a certain amount amount o rustration rustra tion because it is so very hard to achieve the level o quality qualit y I want through through an entire design beyond a certain size. Tat upper limit has grown or me over the years (20,000 words used to intimidate me, but no longer), but there’s still a realistic limit as to how big a design can be beore it becomes utterly unwieldy. unwieldy. I suspect that the sheer diffi di fficult cultyy o marshalling all a ll elements is what delays delay s all larger creative works. Tey’re not just a linear string o text; i the work is any good at all, it has emergent properties, resonances, resonances, themes, and layers. In other words, the the design has become a set o intercon interconnected nected systems, reerences, reerences, and dependencies.
urnover urnover and Turnover and Acceptance Acceptance Te end stage is letting go, committing to saying, “Here’s the manuscript. I’ve worked work ed hard and given it everything everything I know. know. Someone else needs to carry it the rest o the way to publication.” It’s a tough stage or some writers because you’re turning over something like a child to others. You hope they love it as much as you do, though inevitably you know know in your your heart o hearts that you you have given more o yoursel to it, more hours, more devotion, than others others ever can or will. wil l. But you trust the editor, the graphic designers, the company you’re working with. And so you let it go, because time has run out, because there’s nothing more you can do, because you have grown to think there’s nothing else you can give to make it better. Oddly enough, turning over a manuscript to others always leaves me with a case o creativ creativee depression. My thoughts are generally morose or gloomy at this stage. I could have done it so much better! I had to compromise because o the word count! Te rules in that section are way too complicated—I should have streamlined the bookkeeping somehow, or written a new subsystem. Te playtesters/editor/DMs just don’t don’t underst understand and the vision vision I was aiming or or.. I am a pathetic Gloomy Gus. For about a week or two. Ten, some bright, new, shining, wonderul idea will catch my eye, or I’ll go through my big notebook ull o ideas. One o those ideas seems to be so ull o promise, so glorious, that surely surely it will be the shining, shining , perect sourcebook/ adventure/article that I have always wanted it to be. And the mania returns. . . .
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Seize the Hook Rob Heinsoo
g ames. Since his essay discusses principles I apply when I design new games. the ocus o this volume is on roleplaying game design, most o my examples are rom roleplaying games I love. I was the lead designer o the F E D & D , so the examples will ofen go into considerably more detail when they relate to ourth edition (4). But in my experience, I’ve ound that that these principles apply well to most types o game design: card games, g ames, board games, miniatures games, roleplaying games, and even video and computer computer games i you’r you’ree lucky enough to get in on early design. I’mto concer concerned nedmost withother o game design . Iphysical theysical gameoryou want tomost design is like othe thermechanics games, it will have design. have a theme, ph digital components, componen ts, and written rules. Te game’ game’ss mechanics will consist o a set o careully dened gameplay actions, component interactions, and inormation structures outlined by your rules. You can approach each game mechanic on its own, as something to be tinkered with and improved, or approach a mechanic as as it interacts with all the other mechanics, the theme, and the components. I’ve broken the essay into three nuggets o advice that more-or-less apply to the beginning, middle, and end o the design process. First, design a game you want to play but can’t can’t because no one else has designed designe d it yet.
K Guide to Game Design — 29 Te K
Second, don’t be satised with your design until you’ve ound the key mechanical hook that captures the game’s theme, creating an experience that’s something like the experience being portrayed by your game. Tird, understand and ollow through on the ull implications o your game’s game’s mechanical hook.
1. Design a game you want to play but can’t because no one else has designed it yet. Corporations design products around what they think will sell. So do some Corporations writers and and some extremely extremely talented talented game designers. Tat may may be a savvy move, particularly when you’ you’re re deservedly condent in your your creative creative powers powers and your ability to overcome designer’s designer’s block and the obstacles that surace surace within every ever y design. I you’re starting out, or i you are more strongly motivated by internal creative pressure than business sense, you may be better off paying attention to the moments when you think about a game you want to play but realize that the game does not exist. Tat moment may come while you’re playing a game you love, then realize that it would be a better game i it had a different setting, setting, differen differentt victory conditions, or had been designed desi gned or several se veral players play ers instead o only two. Tis T is process o riffi ng on what’s already good is what I call the “Rolling Stones approach” to innovation, afer the manner manner in which Keith Richards and Mick Jagger used to write songs together.. Richards would start by picking out a tune they knew and liked, together l iked, then they changed the song until they came up with something that sent them on a new path. Te Rolling Stones approach can work but, or me, moments o innovation come more ofen when I’m thinking about a particular group o people I want to play a game with. I get a clear vision o the game g ame we would have the most un playing together. together. Ten I realize that that the game I’m I’m picturing picturing doesn’t doesn’t exist. It’ It’ss a good eeling: Now I can design it! Tis social ramework or your design vision can be a valuable tool. Writers learn to consider their audience, to think about the people p eople they are writing writing or as i they are reading their work aloud to that chosen audience. As a game g ame designer, you may be a just just a bit luckier than a writer writer,, because nearly all games are already group efforts or social experiences. It’s a bit easier to know exactly who you are creatingg your game or: creatin or : you and some riends who enjoy playing games with you. Phrasing your goal in this manner is more important than it may sound. Our subconscious minds and insecurities trick most o us into giving up on creat creative ive projects too easily. easily. Unless Unless you’re you’re entir entirely ely certain o your abilities, that that ear o ailure can get worse when you envision your new game as a published product. Unconscious comparisons comparisons between your developing work and the published games you already love may erode your enthusiasm or your work. You’re less
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likely to get derailed i your immediate goal is to create a specic game you’ll be able to enjoy with your riends. You’ll be able to gure out how your game can step out into public later. When you’re starting, ocus on capturing the joy you elt when you realized realize d that the game you wanted to play with your riends was something you would have to design yoursel.
2. Don’t be Don’t be hook satisfied your the your design until you’vecreating you’ve found the th mechanical thatwith captures game’s theme, ane key experience that’s something like the experience being portrayed by your game. game. Let’s unpack this advice one piece Let’s pie ce at a time beore analyzing some examples o mechanical hooks that worked. worked.
Te Key Mechanic Te key mechanic is the most important element o a game design, the piece that sets the game apart rom other games. In the best-case scenario, scenario, this mechanical hook ties so directly into the game’s theme that it helps evoke a thrill (or other emotion) related to the experience that emotion) that the game is based on. Differentt genres o games have varying amoun Differen amounts ts o access to this best-pos b est-possible sible version o the the mechanical hook. Some great board games, like like chess, poker, poker, and and Reiner Kneizi Kneiziaa’s I, a color-tile playing game, aren’t about anything other than than their mechanics. But most o the best roleplaying games marry theme and the mechanical hook. hook . Te roleplaying experience lets players create a compelling story together tog ether.. Te shared experience becomes truly memorable when the mechanics perectly reinorce the game’s core story.
“Don’tt be satisfied, “Don’ satisfied,”” he says say s . . . Heree is the good news: Once you start really worki Her working ng at designing games, T to you’ you’re re going to come uG p withD playable ,material. playable mater Reall y. Igot Really you you’r ’ree reading K G up you’veial.probably enough experience come up with ideas that will hang together well enough or dice to roll and pieces to move.
Te potentially harsher news is that that it could be a lot harder to get your wellthemed mechanical design to be actual un to play. Tere are a air number o published designs every year that are are clever, elegant, elegant, unny, unny, or beautiul. But But when you’re you’re done done appreciating appreciating their aesthetics or their touches touches o clever design, the problem is that they’re not that much un. Designers who sel-publish are probably most vulnerable to this problem, problem, since the glow o o getting a design to work can easily easily eclipse the act that that other people don’t don’t have as much much un playing the game as the designer does.
K Guide to Game Design — 31 Te K
Te single most common mistake is the same mistake writers writers make: getting g etting xated on an early idea or draf that seems to work so that you don’t look or possibilities that that might be better. better. It’ It’s not easy to stay stay open to the the possibility that a good, early idea is in truth holding you back. But that’ that’ss not the only angle you’vee got to cover. you’v cover. Tere’s also the chance chance that that ideas you’re you’re pretty pretty sure are are bad are somehow concealing worthwhile alternatives, alternatives, somewhere behind their ugly ug ly surace. As part o my creative process, I try to change my perspective about ideas I’m pleased with. I imagine that that I’m tapping tapping into into a view rom somewhere somewhere else in the multiverse. “Imagine I live in a world where this idea isn’t the best possible solution. What other solution could there be?” be ?” Or “Im “Imagine agine that this stupid piece o the game is somehow somehow a good idea. I that that were true, true, what would would the consequences be? What would have to be true to make this a good goo d idea?” When the trick works, new ideas that were eclipsed by earlier notions come out o hiding. Te husk o the old idea alls behind.
Match the Mechanics to the Experience and Vice Versa Despite your best efforts, there’s always a chance that the moment-to-moment xes you discover through playtesting lead your key mechanic away rom the original vision or theme o the game. Tis may not be a bad thing. I you’re serious about doing excellent game design rather than about designing the perect incarnation o one specic world or theme, it’s possible that your newly mutated key mechanic is worth saving saving and that your original vision needs nee ds to change. o use a blunt example, i your game about arena ghting ends up eeling bloodless and hyper-r hyper-rational, ational, you might mig ht have created a mechanic that suits battles between well-programmed AIs and their serially inhabited robotic armor. armor. I experienced this situation when I was working on the dice-and-cards di ce-and-cards system that became I-F. I was originally designing a gambling game that would be played in taverns taverns alongside T-D A. But that stopped making sense. Te mechanic started working when I realized it wasn’t just that the game was played in taverns, taverns, the game was also about people pe ople ghting in taverns. Much better.
Key Mechanics that Work: Setting the Characters’ Limits C C (CC)is not my avorite game. I may be the only ormer Chaosium employee to say that I’m no an o H.P. Lovecraf. But when I think o game mechanics that hook the players into the precise mindset o the characters they’re portraying, portraying, I think o CC’s Sanity check mechanics. Sanity starts high or most CC characters. Like the people in Lovecraf’s books, player characters
(PCs) start knowing little o the world’s true masters. But as characters encounter
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traces o the supernatural and creatures rom the Mythos, their Sanity steadily degrades, even i their “successul” “successul” checks prevent them rom going into catatonic shock or psychotic reactions. For a real world analogy, you can compare CC’s Sanity mechanics to a statistic stat istic I love l ove hearing quoted about veteran mountain mountain climbers. People speak as i the number o times a climber has summited Mount Everest without oxygen is a good thing. Let’s call it like it is: You don’t want to be on a climbing rope with a guy who has gone to the op o the World and sucked vacuum three times too many. Likewise, the longer a CC characte characterr manages to dodge dodg e the shoggoths, the more certain they are to break down and take everyone along with them. Tese aren’t the kind o hit points that come back. So what can CC’s sanity mechanic tell you about your own designs? First, it highlights highl ights the possibility that the themes o some games are best captured captured by limitations on the heroes. Most antasy/adventure games ocus on empowerment, but i the theme o your game is horror or nal despair, it’s possible that eneeblementt mechanics may be called or instead. Te trick is making sure that eneeblemen the game remains un to play. Te current current otilla o indie RPGs RP Gs requently dances along this tightrope. Some o its games nail desperate emotional emotional states with grinding-you-down mechanics. Tey’re not exactly the type o game you want to play ofen and that’s usually deliberate. Personally, Personally, I preer the indie game g ame AGON: C R A G G by John Harper. I mention AGON because it contains a subtle version o character limitation even though it’s about high powered Greek heroes heroes who slalom through through the monster monsterss and myths o the ancient world. I didn’t understand AGON when I rst read the rules. I noticed that as heroes took wounds in a given g iven combat, they got weaker and weaker, weaker, becoming less likely to be b e able to dig themselves out o that ght, a death-spiral effect that many games blunder into. What I didn’t pick up on right away is that there is a survival mechanism: A PC can climb cl imb out o mechanically hopeless situations by swearing oaths to the other characters and the gods. In other words, a Greek hero who wants wants to survive and conquer all enemies becomes be comes more and more obligated to other characters and competing mythological entities. Heroes don’t take permanent wounds; they take permanent obligations. It’s a mechanical hook that shows shows that heroes’ heroes’ careers will be complicated by demands they could not have oreseen, demands demands that may place them at the mercy o one or all al l o their comrades. As a roleplaying incentive incentive it captur captures es the complicated lives l ives o the Greek heroes wonderully. And it’s more un than going insane.
Te K K Guide to Game Design — 33
Key Mechanics that Work: Shaping the Game’s Reality Let’s look at a more conventional roleplaying game experience, a game that was mostly mostly (but as we’ll see, not entirely) entirely) about empowerm empowerment. ent. Steve Steve Perrin Perrin’’s R is the game that started the B R system that gave birth to C C. R (RQ) was a streamlined system that had at least three subtle but effective key mechanics that came together to portray Greg Stafford’s world o Glorantha, a world permeated by the magic o ancient and eternal gods. R started with the assumption that every player character was capable o magic. In the late 1970s gaming industry, dominated dominated by class-based systems in which most o the characters could only use swords and bows, RQ ’s battle magic system allowed every character to use points o Power Power to cast buff spells, minor or better-t b etter-thanhan-minor minor attack spells, and (praise ( praise be!) be! ) healing spells. In Glorantha, an adventurer who didn’t know any magic was a deliberately crippled roleplaying experiment.
As an adventurer grew into a Rune-level character worthy o initiation into the mysteries o the gods, they had to sacrice points o Power to gain rune spells. Magic wasn wasn’t’t just a ree gif—truly powerul magic mag ic demanded sacrice. Compared to the ever-escalating power curves o games like l ike AD&D, RQ demanded sacrice and cosmic responsibility as you rose in power.
he
And lastly, RQ modied modied its skill-based system with a groundbreaking book named C P that detailed the myths, rituals, and belies o the worshippers o a dozen o Gloranth Gloranthaa’s hundreds hundreds o gods. Alone, the myths myths and rituals would have made the book a wonderul work o alternate anthropolog anthropologyy, but each cult write-up included battle magic and rune magic that was was only available to worshippers o the gods. Suddenly RQ ’s’s skill-based system had something that unctioned like other games’ classes, but grounded in the game’s deep cosmology cosmolog y. Nowadays Nowadays it seems se ems like standard stuff, but in the late ’70s, Stafford’s C P was the rst RPG product to take this tack—it V: : created the player-oriented splat-book that came to dominate the V M line, the rest o the White Wol menagerie, and countless other games including both T and F E D&D. Roleplaying game splat books mix story and mechanical elements to give specic characters both powers that that are un to play and a heightened heig htened sense o their alternate alternate selves. Tat sounds an awul lot like my goal o the perect mechanical hook. In a sense, sense, RQ opened opened any game g ame that could support itsel with supplementary supplemen tary material to the possibility possibilit y that the mechanical hook could be repeatedly reinvented, reinvented, a ritual act o publishing publi shing that shapes shapes the industry and our game shelves.
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5. Seize the Hook
3. Understand and follow-through on the full implications of your game’s mechanical hook. hook. Sometimes a game’s game’s greatest strength strength is ultimately the reason it ails. A ew good g ood games might have been great games i they’ they’dd had the time and vision to grapple with the ull consequences consequences o their key mechanics. I’ll discuss three three opportunities that can become problems i you’re not careul.
Roleplaying Games Have wo ypes of Participants Roleplaying games have two types o participants: players and DMs. I all your effort goes into making a key mechanic that helps players have a great time but screws up the game master’s lie, you’re not likely to nd many groups playing your game. Unlike Unlike many many other games, RPGs may may require you to balance key mechanics aimed at players and key mechanics me chanics aimed at DMs. O course, mainstream games have usually ocused on the player’s experience. Few mainstream mainst ream RPGs have done much to provide key mechanics or DMs. Indie RPGs have recognized recognize d that hole and introduced any number o games that transorm the experience o both player and game master. In this respect, F E D&D acted more like an indie game. We wanted to create a game that offered offered new key mechanics mechanics or both the the players and the DM; innovating or one while ignoring the other wasn’t going to be enough. T E D&D’s key mechanics or players and DMs had set the table or us. T E’s most signicant advance was to treat both the player characters characters and the the DM’s DM’s monsters monsters with the the same mechanical rules. In In previous editions, only the the player characters characters had Strength Strength and Wisdom Wisdom attributes. attributes. Monsters were ad hoc creations o the game’s publisher, with very little advice or DMs who wanted to create their own monsters. “Wing it like we do” would have been accurate advice or previous editions. ed itions. E D&D (3) advanced the art by that PCs, that NP Cs, andT monsters could all be handled with (roughly) theshowing same system math.NPCs, DMs could spend their rainy-day-away-rom-the-table time by leveling up monsters and designing NPCs that were every bit as detailed as PCs. P Cs. It was an excellent excellent system, although a bit stran strange ge because be cause the arbitrary hit dice di ce and attack bonus assumptions assumptions o earlier editions hadn’t been revised; they’d just had a rational system o transormations applied. F E D&D took another look at what 3 had accomplished and decided that it was not necessary to treat PCs and monsters by exactly the same rules. Afer all, the PCs were the pillars at the center o the campaign, playing every week. New monsters showed up every encounter. I the PCs were doing their jobs right, ew monsters lasted more than one encounter. So the work that DMs and the Wizards o the Coast’s research and development (R&D) staff was K Guide to Game Design — 35 Te K
putting into getting monste monsters rs just right right with the detailed math o o 3 was in many respects wasted work. Tere was a type o simulation occurring, occurring, a simulation that appealed to many, but the game wasn’t necessarily beneting, and DMs were either suffering or intimidated. So 4 took the attitude that the DM’s role had to be easier. Te amount o inormation the DM needed to memorize or have on hand had to be cut down. Monster Monster stat blocks needed neede d to be simplied so that the DM didn’t didn’t have to sif between minutiae that hardly ever turned up and important game-play mechanics. For DMs, the key mechanic o 4 D&D might be summ summarized arized like so: Hit points and attack attack bonus bonus progressions progressions were were no longer arbitrary, arbitrary, so encoun encounters ters played somewhat predictably predictably at all levels; and role-based monster monster design helped DMs create un encounters and adventures much more quickly. I’m not going to get more detailed about the DM-package which, to an ever-incr ever-increasing easing extent, is backed up by the electronic resources available on the Dungeons & Dragons Insider Web Web site. then,controversial. o 4 players? Tetired Tey y were a key mechanic turned turned outSotowhat, be more I was ooffered my 3 experience, whenthat myhas avorite high-level Fighter turned out to be only as effective as his careul selection o magic items. Te spellcasters in the 3 system called the shots and, although the game’s storylines elt consistent, many campaigns stalled out about the time that the spellcasters’ increasing power made the other classes irrelevant. Tis could have been solved in many ways, ways, including a radical rebalancing o spells’ power levels. Te solution James Wyatt, Andy Collins, and I were excited about was to give every ever y PC an ongoing series o choices o interesting interesting powers. powers. Most every time you gain a level you select a new power p ower or a eat. Every Every combat round you have an interesting choice o which power or powers to use. Tis was my nirvana o gritty g ritty combat options created by exciting, except exceptions-based ions-based design. In my case, the vision owed a good deal to RQ and and to Robin Laws’ F S, another example example o a game g ame in which every player character character could be counted on to ght using interesting powers. Add exceptions-based design tricks learned rom M: G, S, and other trading card games. Add some lessons rom computer games on ensuring that every character has a role in the party, and you’ve got a air picture o 4’s major non-D&D inspirations.
Do Your Resources Meet Your Key Mechanic’s Ambitions? We would never have We have set out with with a design centering centering on 4’s key mechanics workingg or a company workin company smaller smaller than Wizards Wizards o the the Coast. Exceptions-based Exceptions-based designs take time and skill to design. Ten, they take time to playtest and develop into balanced options. As a rule, most RPG companies can’t can’t afford true mechanical development. Most companies pay something or game design,
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trust the designer to test the game as much as possible, then pay an editor to work things things out as best they they can while putting putting the nal nal book together. together. 4’s key mechanics wouldn’t have worked or a smaller company. One o my avorite games-that-didn’t-quite-work-out proves this point. Robin Laws’ R (no relation to R) published in 2000 by Atlas Games, is a brilliant brill iant design stunt hinging around a key mechanic in which players take turns creating deadly adventures with an exceptions-based points system. Each player is a deadly Viking warrior warrior,, the type o savage bastard bastard who becomes the the stuff o legends i he doesn’t become worm ood rst. Te game’s current game master isn’t just trying to help the other players have un; the game master tries to score points by doing doing as much damage damage to the PCs as possible. Tis picture o unbridled competition, an unapologetic contest between the players and the the DM, perectly embodies the grim worldview worldview o those those chilly Northerners. Does the game get major points or a key mechanic that evokes the theme? Oh yes, hell hel l yes! I love many styles o gaming. In one o them, them, I cherish buying powers with points and destroying my enemies. So I’m just the type o competitive player who grooved on the concept o an RPG R PG that alternated pitting players against the rest o the the group like Loki vs. the the rest o the the Asgardians. But there was no way that the game could be developed so that all those pointbased player and game master options actually make sense. R was playtested, but playtesting isn’t enough. I started marking up my copy o R with arrows pointing up up and down down or things that that I guessed needed cost revisions. Soon I just just couldn’t take it anymore: too many arrows up, a ew arrows down—there was no way was I going to be able to introduce introduce a game that that was was all about competitive competitive play and point-buys when the point-buys were broken. So the exact type o player who was going to love R because o its key mechanic couldn’t deal with the game because there was no way to deliver on the key mechanic’s promise. I your mechanical hook sounds great but you can’t pull it off, your game can only succeed as a s a work o game-literature. game-literature. A ew people pe ople may buy your game to have on their shelves because they think it sounds damn cool. But they’ll be disappointed when play isn’t isn’t as cool as the concept. But i you’re you’re a roleplaying game designer, the ironically good news, specically or you, is that you may not have to worry as much about ab out questions o balance and development as other types o game designers. desig ners. Most roleplaying games can afford to care less about balance than games like R or M: G because most roleplaying games allow al low players to cooperate. When one player character exceeds all others in a cooperative game, the others tend to rely on that character. Ten they come up with game-world reasons why that character or power is so much better than anyone else. Eventually, people write game world novels that assume the power imbalance is the natural order o that world, and so it goes, until until someone comes along and rebalances or re-imagines re-imagines Te K K Guide to Game Design — 37
the magical order. Obviously this isn’t ideal; you’d probably rather understand the implications o your mechanics rather than be surprised at the worlds that come out o them. But so long as your mechanics are un, RPGs are a slightly slig htly more orgiving medium where balance is concerned.
Know When to Moderate Even i your Even y our key mechanic is good, g ood, you may want to temper its impact on your game in cases where there are secondary play styles that could be allowed to coco exist with your primary player pattern. Perhaps this applies most to games that are revisions o earlier games. Tis may be on my mind because o my experience with 4, since I’m having trouble thinking o other game designs that have the same issue. Or maybe the principle is a lot easier to see in your own work than when you’re you’ re assessing assessing other other people’s people’s designs. Yes, I love the effect o the power choices offered to every 4 player. As a key mechanic, it did exactly what we’d we’d hoped or the game. But I regret that the original design didn’ d idn’tt manage to implement a simpler class, or two, so that a ew players could play a game that that didn’t didn’t require require them to choose choose between lists o interesting powers. Tere are D&D players who don’t care much about the ull list o interesting powers that are available to them. Sometimes they’re just into the roleplaying. Tey’re denitely into joining their riends at the table, rolling some dice, cracking good jokes, and still making a positive contribution to the party’ss survival. A simpler class, or piece o a class, would give those players party’ players the ability to join the table and roll the d20 without caring about which power power they were using. using. Given that D&D is endlessly renewed by the publication o player-oriented splat-books, splatbooks, the smart money is on the likelihood li kelihood that someone will address this gap in player-experience some day.
Know WhenouttoasCut You’re starting a designer. You’ve got a design career ahead o you. You don’t have to pack all don’t al l your good ideas into one design, or even into three designs. Tis matters even more when your your key mechanic needs space to ex its wings and your other other ideas hinder the the key mechanic rom taking ight. You You may have have to dial down aspects o your game that arguably could have been just as good as the ocus material that supports the key mechanic. Again, D&D offers an example that’s ready to hand. Once upon a time, early in 4 design, the powers PCs acquired rom their character class were only part o the equatio e quation. n. Racial R acial powers were supposed to match character character class powers p owers or impact on your character and the game world. Trow in more powers in the paragon path character and advantages and advant ages that characters characters gained through through eats, and and you had an overcrowded sheet.
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As we eshed out the character class powers, we recognized that class was capable o handling all the heavy lifing. Class powers mattered mattered and made sense as the principal way that players thought about their characters. Racial powers still worked, work ed, but it turned out that they could still have a big impact on the the game i each PC had only a single singl e exciting racial power. power. Fair enough. But not all o us had accepted the biggest bigg est consequence o the move to interesting character powers. Te major source o 3 character power that had to be severely pruned in 4 was magic items. We We had some good g ood ideas or how magic item i tem powers might work: Tey work worked ed too well! Yes, Yes, magic items D&D, raming many adventurers’ aspirations, allowing are an important part o D&D players to ne-tune ne-tune their characters, characters, and pumping pumping up the the sense o the world’ world’ss antastic history. But the character classes were already doing a great job o throwing around awesome magic. When every character has the choice o dozens o interesting powers, there isn’t room or magic items’ powers to compete with character class powers.
“Cutting good ideas doesn’t dispel them forever.” I’d never been a an o the way in which non-spellcasters in 3 could end up dened as composites o their magical items. And since I knew the choice was between compelling character powers powers and a ull arsenal o magic item powers, I ocused on making character class power compelling. Cutting good ideas doesn’t dispel them orever. I you keep track o your drafs and ag worthwhile ideas that have to be cut, you’ll ofen be able to use the ideas in a later design. Cutt Cutting ing a good idea can pay off when it is competing with too many other good ideas. Give all the elements o your design the amount o attention attent ion they deserve deser ve and you’ll have several designs to your name instead o one overstuffed curiosity.
A Strong Hook and Strong Follow-Trough Follow-Trough
Find a mechanical hook that thrills you. It may come to you in a bolt o inspiration. It may come to you afer many alse starts. Either way, keep searching until you nd something that you suspect will set your y our game apart rom all others.
Ten ollow through with the hard work that provides your hook with a ull game to live in. Yes, even with the best mechanical hook, it’s going to take a lot o work to nish a game. Te good g ood news is that i your hook really is good, it’ it’ss likely to make your work easier, opening new approaches and ideas that keep you entertained. entertained. I you end up eeling like you’r you’ree doing drudge work, you should ask yoursel whether the work is necessary, or whether the audience will also al so be bored.
K Guide to Game Design — 39 Te K
I the nished game ends up sitting on your shel, scarcely played, you probably didn’t succeed. I the game turns out to be something you and your riends play ofen, even with simply playtest components, you’re you’re either a skillul game designer or (much less likely!) likely !) a charismatic demagogue. Either way, way, you’ve got potential. Every design will teach you new tricks. Like writers who return Every return ofen to pivotal themes, successul game designers have a way envisioning new ways o using key mechanical hooks; what worked worked once can work again, i phrased in a way that the audience perceives as new new.. Te worst outcome is that you give up beore you nish your game. You learn less this way. Te best possible outcome is that you will design a great game, then manage to launch it out into the wider world. I you enjoy that best possible outcome, guess what happens happens next? next? Pretty much the same same thing that that happens happens i your game design doesn’t quite work out: You start your next design, taking what you’ve learned and doing your best. I you’re having un, keep designing. Te world continually surprises itsel by its need or great new games. g ames. With a good hook and some hard work, work, you’ll help.
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6
Basic Combat Systems for abl ableto etop p Gam Games es Colin McComb
N
g ame you’ll play has a dispute resolution early every game resolution system. Dominoes uses a simple numerical comparison; Rock-Paper-Scissors has an elementary element ary mat matrix; rix; checkers and chess ollow prescribed rules to determine who takes what piece and how. For role-playing games, chances are that you’re you’ re looking or or something something with a little more more hef. time yousystem createtoa system, create you’reshould keep end g oal in mind: goal mind : What do youAny want your do? I you’re you looking looking or your speed, a quick-and-dirty quick-an d-dirty combat system is or you—but you’ll have to accept that rules lawyers will nd loopholes and exceptions. Naturally, you’ll want to minimize those holes, but i you spend your time designing designing a system that that closes off every workaround workaround you can imagine, you’vee just removed you’v removed “quick-and “quick-and-dirty” -dirty” rom the equation, equation, and are instead instead creating creating a real combat simulator—and simulator—and that’s well beyond the scope o this article. Likewise, i your y our preerred preerred combat includes a battle map, detailed movement, and careul placement o miniatures, you’re looking or a more representative combat system. You’ll want to add a variety o rules supporting movement types and how they relate to combat, and you’ll want to have more detailed discussions o deense, combat and damage. In short, you’re looking or a way to create an attacks, engagingarmor, and in-depth system. K Guide to Game Design — 41 Te K 41
For either route, route, you’ll need to create some basic parameters. I’ve included an example system at the end o this article. Feel ree to use it, modiy modi y it, and write to let us know how you’ve tweaked it. Comments are welcome at the Open Design orums at www.koboldquarterly.com; you’d be surprised at how ofen designers drop by to respond personally. Your rst concern is meshing your dispute resolution with the rest o your game system, to make sure it ows naturally and smoothly. I you use dominoes as your character character generator generator and skill checks, you should seriously seriously consider consider the use o o dominoes as your combat resolution as well. Having ve different ways to resolve issues may be entertaining to design, but it’s a nightmare to play (unless you’re playing Calvinball, Calvinball, in which case all bets are off ). You may want to design the combat rst and generate the rest o your rules around your combat system; that’s ne, but be aware that you will need to test, re-test, and smooth your gameplay with each new addition to the rules you create. Your elegant system may turn into a lumbering monstrosity i you don’t exercise caution; every variable you introduce has the potential potential to thro throw w the whole thing out o whack, and bolting b olting new pieces on to address those unbalancing issues introduce issues o their own.
Attack Attack System System With all that that said, here’s here’s a checklist to help you generate your your own basic basic combat rules set. First, you’ll need to establish how to hit. • Determine your resolution system. D uses poker chips and playing cards. D & Ds uses a d20. A uses uses storytelling and ranking comparisons. S uses dice pools with target numbers, with players rolling large numbers o dice to match or beat a 5. What’s your method? Remember that you want your combat system to be portable across across your design, so pick something something that that has broad broad applicability. Is this an opposed check? Tat is, do both the attacker and the deender take part, or is the attack attacker er the only active active participant or each check? • Figure out your probabilities and outcomes. You don’t need to be a mathematics genius to know basic statistics. You do need to know the basic probabilities o your chosen resolution. For example, do you know the average roll on a d6? What about a d10? What about ipping a coin? (Answers: 3.5, 5.5, and 1:1. You should also know that probabilities and odds are two entirely different creatures. See the sidebar.) Once you’ve gured out the probability or your system, make the average your base chance. • Your base chance is an attempt by an average person using average weaponry
to hit another average person with average deenses. Tis number may go up or down in your system depending on the modiers mod iers you choose or this
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number—but remember that the more modiers you include, the slower your system system will run. I you want want your your characters characters to be superheroes, superheroes, your your chance or success will rise—say, to 60/40. Conversely, i you want a grim system where ailure is expected (such as C C), or a system with requent requent lethal hits (such as B), turn the success rate down to 45/55 or even 40/60. • Pick your modiers (i you want to include any). Your modiers can be either positive or negative, and can include:
- Character traits, such as strength, speed, wits, prociencies, skills, and experience level. - Attack Attack types, including ranged, melee, armed, unarmed, to subdue, or to harm. Weapon modiers, including reach or range, damage type (or damage - Weapon type as a s compared to specic armors, since certain weapons are more effective against certain types o deenses; d eenses; note that that damage type typ e in this instance is used purely or calculating to-hit modiers), magical or technological bonus, or size.
- Target’s protection, including magical, armor, speed or agility, or natural protection. You You may also consider consider deensive deensive modiers, such as Parries Parries or Dodges in the B R S as part o your combat system; this is a great g reat way to include the deender in an opposed check, i you so desire. - Movement/mounted modiers, such as horseback, rom a car, or in ight. - Other modiers, such as concealmen concealment, t, surprise attacks, terrain type t ype, or any other modiers that you think would be appropriate to your system. I you’re you’re aiming or a level o signicant detail, you may also choose to provide a modier to target limbs and extremit extremities. ies. • Test it! Make sure that the system can scale as your players become more procient,t, and that procien that more skilled skilled characters can hit more requently requently or more more accurately than less skilled characters. Odds and Probabilities Odds are measured as chances against compared to chances for; probability is total chances compared to chances for. For example, let’s say you have six cards. Five of these cards are black and one of them is red. You have five chances of drawing a black card and one chance to draw a red card. Thus, your odds of drawing the red card are 5:1 against (or 1:5 for). To calculate probability, probability, you simply take the entire pool of cards (6), and ask how many red cards are in that pool. Thus, your probability of drawing the red card is 6:1
Te K K Guide to Game Design — 43 43
iming Sy stem Timing System System Next, determine your timing system. Tat is, who attacks, and when? • What is the unit unit of time? time? How long does each segment o attack/deense last? iming determines how much action each player can realistically take in his or her turn. Make this time too long and you’ll have players
complaining tha t they could so time muchtomore than an thisaction. this in real lie; l ie; make it too short andthat they won’t havedoany complete • How much much action will you allow? allow ? When do players players declare their actions, and what sort o actions can they perorm? What proportion o each time segment do you allot or each action? F E D & D allows a minor action, a move action, a ree action, and a standard action. You can create something similar, or allot action points with a set cost cost or each action action the character character wants wants to perorm: reloading, movement,t, dropping an item, drawing a weapon, speaking, spell casting, movemen whatever.. I you choose whatever choose to use action action points, you’ll you’ll need to include Action Point expenditures or each action the characters might undertake. You can generate your own system as well, but be b e sure not to overload it with possible p ossible actions: create broader broader categories so you can generalize specic actions into those categories. • How do you determine the order of action? Do you require an initiative roll? Random R andom draw rom a deck or stack? Choose a method that is similar to your resolution resolution system. system. Again, you can choose modiers rom rom the list above above or appropriate appropriate action modiers: speed, magical magica l or technological bonuses, luck, experience level o the characters, and so on. • Outline the order of actions. Do you require players to announce announce their action beore or afer the order o attack? Do certain actions (such as speech) take precedence over all others, or do they depend on the player’s player’s order in the order o action? Tis is a judgment call you’ll have to make depending on
the style o play you want or your combat system. • Test again. Make sure the action ows the way you want it to ow, and make sure that your testers enjoy it as well. ake notes and iterate your system as necessary.
Attack Scale, Duration, Attack Scale, Duration, and and Defense Defense Now that you’ve determined your dispute resolution system and your timing system, it’s it’s time to begin the action: shots red, spells cast, melee engaged, enemies grappled, or disengagement and ight rom the oe. Tis is where you nd out i your system works in dealing and returning re—but beore you can dish out the consequences o this action, you’ll y ou’ll need to determine a ew other actors about the sort o attacks the players are making.
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• Area of effect attacks: attacks: Tese attacks cover a broad area and can potentially damage more than one person. Is this splash damage, with the damage reducing the urther one is rom the center o the attack, or does it deal dea l damage equally across the area? A reball rom D & D covers a set area, while a lightning l ightning bolt rom the same system travels travels in a straight line; those standing to the side o its effect receive no damage.
• Personal attacks: Does this attack affect only one person or thing, thing , regardless o who else is nearby? Any melee attack with an ordinary ordinary weapon would all under this umbrella, though certain attacks with larger pole arms or swords might hit more than one target. • Combined Combined effects: effects : Can the attackers combine their attacks or lend support to each other to improve the damage, such as with the stances in 3 D&D and later? I you allow this, you need to make sure that these these abilities do not chain together to create an unstoppable team—aiding a comrade in combat should come at a cost to the helper, whether in speed, his hi s own deenses, or his turn to attack. • Defenses: Does the target have an additional chance (beyond ( beyond the dispute
resolution system) to evade damage or reduce the damage? resolution damage ? For example, are they allowed saving throws against a breath weapon? GURPS allows or “Active “Active Deenses” Deense s” like Dodge, Dodg e, Parry, and Block, Block , and the diffi d ifficult cultyy o the check has nothing to do with the success o the attack. You could go this route, or you could choose to have an active opposition. Tat is, the attacker rolls to hit, and the deender rolls a deense, and the person who succeeds by a greater margin wins that particular contest. You might also consider an attack matrix, matrix, as used in E G!, in which the players plot out attack routines and then cross-reerence against each other’s attacks to determine the outcome. • Duration of the effect: How long does this attack deal damage? damage ? For example, is it like an acid attack, that keeps eating away at the target, and when does it stop stop dealing this damage damage?? I damage damage is ongoing, it might affect the target’s target’s attacks, spellcasting, urther deenses, or even incapacitate the target altogether. altogether. Te effects effe cts you choose can have undue inuence on the course o combat, and players may ocus on weaponry that emphasizes ongoing damage to the exclusion o all others i you do not limit the effects.
Consequences Combat Consequences of of Combat Finally, you’ll create the results and consequences o the action. Tis portion Finally, will mesh closely with your your character character generation generation and equipment equipment rules, because it corresponds closely with what your characters do and carry, and how much damage o any sort they can sustain beore they die, all al l unconscious, automatically autom atically surrender, surrender, or otherwise end the ght. Some considerat considerations ions include: Te K K Guide to Game Design — 45 45
• Permanent damage. Tis is damage that will take time to heal, absent magical or advanced medical techniques. Tis is damage intended to maim, kill, or otherwise cripple the target. Most weapon damage alls into this category: I you hit someone with an axe in W W FRP, you are most likely attempting attempting to end their lie, l ie, and the damage you do reects that. • Temporary damage. Tis damage is o the blunt weapon, unarmed unarmed combat, and subdual variety. Te target can shake it off, heal within a ew e w hours, and be otherwise unctional without the aid o additional healing. Grappling, Grappling , punching, striking, and kicking by non-expert martial martial artists, or or striking striking with the at o a blade or a sap, generally results in temporary damage. You may want to to create your system in a way that that each attack attack that that deals temporary temporary damage also adds a small amount o permanent permanent damage. A shot with a blackjack still has the potential to cause brain damage. • Character Character modiers. Certain types o damage may target character traits: weakeningg , disorienting, weakenin disorienting, making it harder harder or the character character to attack targets. Use Use this damage type careully, careul ly, and explain thoroughly whether it is permanent or temporary. Te effects o a knock to the head can ade,
while damage is signicantly signicant ly harder tperiod, o heal. Likewise, a pulled musclebrain can slow a person down or a shortto while a knie to theleg Achilles tendon does longer-te longer-term rm damage. Both T and F E D & D provide or “conditions, “conditions,” effects that that limit movement, open vulnerabilities, vu lnerabilities, or create penalties on various attack, deense, or skill rolls. • Movement modiers. Speaking o knives to the Achilles, your damage may include ways to cripple or slow opponents. Some damage will be permane permanent, nt, as noted above; some might be as simple as caltrops in the boots, requiring opponents to take off their ootgear or suffer a movement penalty. Tis kind o damage segues into equipment damage. • Equipment damage. Sometimes characters will want to target their enemy’s equipment, or a piece o machinery, or a door, or some other inanimate A D D & D D is a object. Te rust monster rom A classic example. You may want to include a summary o how equipment and inorganic material suffers damage, and how to repair or replace it. Again, this may generate too great an encumbrance on your rules, slowing them down, which is why I come come back to the the next step. step. • Test! You want to be sure that all o your damage is consistent with the style o play you want. Do you want quick and atal combats, with potential potential oneshot kills, as in R ? Tis is ne i your character generation is not a long and laborious process; however however,, i you expect your y our players to become involved and invested in their characters, you will want to ensure that they
have at least a decent chance o survivability in a combat appropriate appropriate to their
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experience level. Remember that all combat requires record-k record-keeping, eeping, and the more caveats, caveats, modiers, and damages you include, the slower your combat system will run. Your consequences should include instructions on recovering rom each specic damage type. I the target cannot recover rom this damage, or the damage requires extensive rest, recovery, or repairs, it’s essential that you outline this as well. Te most important goal o your system is the reliable entertainment entertainment o your players. Your Your combats combats shouldn’t shouldn’t be punctuated punctuated with cries o “But “But that’ that’s not how it works!” or “Tat could never happen!” happen!” Your Your players should be so engrossed engrossed in the game that they are willing to overlook the occasional hitch and bump; i you’ you’ve ve managed that, then you’ve you’ve done a good g ood thing. Congratulat Congratulations, ions, and good luck.
Our System In the interest interest o ull ul l disclosure, I note that I’ve violated the cardinal rule o this essay: haveonly not thoroughly thisI created rule system. Howeve However, as an example and Iusing this essay astested a guide, gui de, this system inr,under a day. I you’re planning on putting a system together or widespread public use as the base o your RPG, RP G, you really should put more time into it.
Goal Our goal is i s to create a moderately involved combat system or a near-uture campaign setting with increasing but not automatic lethality. We want something we can play relatively quickly—that is, a single combat won’t eat game night—but not so quickly that we have to invent the actions and the outcomes ourselves; we want some guidance. We also don’t want to keep exact track o all the locations o the characters.
Dispute Resolution Our basic system uses d100 (2d10) so that we can correlate the results o any attempted action with a percentage chance. We can also roll d10s to generate smaller increments o actions, skill traits, and so orth. Using rearms, attackers attack ers must roll above 55 (th (that at is, a 45% chance), modied, or their attack to have a chance o hitting. I the target is wearing armor or moving, the rate o success drops dramatically. Unarmed or melee combat requires an opposed roll, reerencing the appropriate appropr iate melee/unarmed skill, with a base (unskilled) chance o 40%; whoever succeeds by the greatest greatest margin wins wins that contest.
Te K K Guide to Game Design — 47 47
Attack System Because we’re using d100, our average roll will be 50.5. We want an opposed check only or close-in combat, with both the attacker attacker and the deender taking part. We We will offer combat modiers or the ollowing: ollowing :
rait bonuses Our character is a point-buy on an scores averageabove 50 ability, with thegenerator players using points andsystem, swaps based to generate average. We’ll offer non-cumulative bonuses to unarmed combat or an Agility trait 60 and above (reserving the damage bonus or Strength Strength 60 or above). We’ll also offer bonuses or ranged combat with the Reexes trait above 60. • • • • •
60-69: +5 70-79: +10 80-89: +15 90-99: +20 100+: +25
Improved Skills
We offer three We three different different levels o skills. Our skills include attack attack and deense modiers. Our list o skills includes but is not limited to: uick Draw, Pistols, Long Arms, Submachine Guns, Karate, Judo, Wrestling, and Bareknuckle Brawling. Brawling. Our unarmed unarmed combat skills will allow deense rolls as well as attack rolls. Characters must purchase purchase skills, and then may purchase ranks ranks in those skills. skills. • Procient: Procient: +5 to roll • Skilled: +10 to roll • Expert: +15 to roll
Armor
Armor includes Kevlar Vests and Body Armor. Kevlar grants a +15 to deense against rearms, and -5 to movement checks. Body Armor is +25 vs. rearms rearms and -15 movement. movement. As noted above, we will allow the target deense against unarmed and melee attacks by using the various unarmed skill styles. Movement Moveme nt modiers include: include : • On-oot: - W Walking alking:: -5 - Jogging Jogging:: -10 - Running: -15 • Moun Mounted ted (bicycle, (bic ycle, motorcycle, horseback)
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• In-vehicle - Speed 10-30 mph: -10 - 30-60 mph: -25 - 60 mph+: -40 Range modiers will depend on the weapon; long arms will have a better modier or distance shooting range than pistols, and pistols and shotguns will be ar superior in close quarters.
iming System Our system will use a ten second action round, and characters will have a number o Action Points Points (AP) that equal (Reexes + Agility)/100, Ag ility)/100, rounded to the nearest 10. Actions will have an AP cost ranging rom 1-10 AP, and may be reduced by certain skills or traits. Unarmed Unarmed attacks cost 2 to 4 AP AP each; using a gun 3-6 AP; movement 1 AP per 10 eet. We want to We to keep our our combat uid, so we don’ don’tt require the players players to announce what they’re going to do ahead o time. Instead, they have a chance to react to what the other players are doing. Te combat round works on the countdown method. Tat is, at the beginning o each combat round, every participant announces announces the actions he wants to take, rolls a d10, and adds his AP and any surprise or initiative modiers he might have. Tis number is called the Action Score. Te highest scorer goes rst (a tie goes to the higher hig her Reexes), perorms perorms his action, and subtracts the AP expenditure rom that action. I his Action Score is still higher than the others, others, he can go again; otherwise, the highest remaining Action Score takes a turn, subtracts the AP cost or a new Action Score, and play continues continues in this ashion.
Attack Scale, Duration, and Defense Defense A variety o damage is available or attacks. We’ll have grenades and rockets available, which will cover diminishing splash damage in a radius. We’ll We’ll have personal attacks, attacks, both armed armed and unarmed. unarmed. We We will not allow combining effects or combat c ombat except or melee combat—w combat—when, hen, or instance, two attackers attack ers combine to hold and then hit their target. Our system considers most kinds o aid like this to be more disruptive than than helpul (i (i someone is trying to wrap bandages around your arm or inject you with a stimpack, it’s going to throw off your attack). As mentioned above, we will have active deenses or unarmed unarmed combat, and a chance or the target to dodge, parry, or block unarmed unarmed or melee attacks with an opposed roll; roll ; the person who rolls the greatest margin over their chance o success wins that contest. We’ll add damage bonuses or high Strength with these kinds o attacks. K Guide to Game Design — 49 Te K 49
We will also allow appropriate We appropriate deenses deenses against area effect effect damage, requiring modied checks against a gainst Reexes (e.g., to duck out o the way o shrapnel), Agility (e.g., to dodge behind cover), Fortitude (e.g., to resist acid or poison gas), and so orth. Tese deenses and the durations durations o their effects will be specically outlined in our equipment equipment lists.
Consequences
We will be including the various We various orms orms o damage damage outlined above in our our system. We want to be able to beat enemies unconscious, to blow up their cars and their houses, to cause damage in all its myriad orms. o do so, we need to establish what it takes to bring a person down. Our system relies on Health Points. Each character starts with a base o 30 HP, with a bonus derived rom the character’s Fortitude score. She can buy additional points with skill points. Characters have both temporary and permanent HP, and they are equal to one another. Te character’s temporary HP can only be as high as the permanent permane nt pool; i a character has only 5 HP lef due to gunshot gunshot wounds, wounds, he can take only 5 HP o temporary damage beore alling al ling unconscious. Any time a character reaches 0 HP, he alls unconscious. Any permanent damage below -10 HP causes death, and temporary damage below -20 HP is also atal (people (p eople can be beaten to death). Our “one shot” mechanic works like this: Any time a character causes damage, he rolls the dice as indicted by his h is equipment or unarmed unarmed skill. I he rolls a 10 on one o the dice, di ce, he rolls or damage with that that die again ag ain and adds that number to his damage; this continues or every 10 he rolls. We’re doing this in order to reect lucky shots; we want to our players to recognize recog nize that every combat could be atal. Rest and healing are the surest routes to recovery. emporary damage heals quickly: within 1d10 minutes, the character regains 1d10 HP. HP. Every ten minutes thereafer thereafer,, the player rolls 1d10 again. Rest, icepacks, and bandages can all restore additional additional temporary damage. Permanentt damage requires Permanen requ ires rst aid kits, medical medica l care or the Doctor Do ctor skill, and rest. It returns at the rate o 1 point per ten minutes, and may be hastened by articial means as well.
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7
Crafting a Dastardly Plot Ed Greenwood
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roleplaying campaigns can be like the lives o drifing, ometimes, roleplaying drifing , directionless teenagers: Tis adventure (purchased by the DM rom a gaming company) happens to the players, and then that one (also bought) bealls them, giving g iving them until until the next gaming session to prepare or, or, yes, yet another ready-bought adventure. So brave adventurers get hit with X and then with unrelated Y and then with also-unrelated also-unrelat ed Z. Z. All o which hardly seems much o a recreatio recreational nal getaway rom one-darnedthing-afer-another thing-afer-anot her real lie, does it? Nor is it really much o a “campaign,” which in its older, military (and tabletop military gaming) g aming) sense, meant a series o battles battles and skirmishes that that made up the same unolding conict in a particular country or “theater.”
Te of of Adventuring Whys e Whys Adventuring o put it another way, a heroic lie—an adventurer’s lie—has direction, meaning, and purpose. Mere warriors may just ght to resist whatever the world hurls at them, but adventurers set out to remake (or at least inuence) the world around them by striving, through battle and diplomacy and other deeds, to Change Tings. Tat is, to alter the land they’re in, and perhaps the region around it, by what they they do. K Guide to Game Design — 51 Te K
So adventuring Player Characters, i they seek to be heroes—or tyrants or criminal kingpins, or that matter—seek to be agents o change. Change, that is, they hope to cont control rol or at least steer, to reach goals they nd desirable (as opposed to overthrowing kings only to end up transorming several happy, prosperous prosper ous neighboring realms realms into a vast lawless lawless and devastated devastated bandit territory, territory, roamed by opportunist opportunistic ic monsters and inhabited only by the desperate who are unable to ee the area).
Awash In A A Sea Sea of of Plots Plots Awash In Enter plot. Which can be said, in its simplest orm, to be the script or outline o a story. A bestselling novel, unless it is gang-written by a group o writers all playing tug-o-war with each other, will probably have a single plot. It may be convoluted, and it may be estooned with subplots and diversions, but a proessor examining the nished tale should be able to discern and write down “the” “the” plot o the book. Which can ofen ofen be reduced to a string string o statemen statements ts ollowing this rough model: “Pro “Protagonist tagonist (major or viewpoint vie wpoint character), nding sel in this situation situation// dilemma/challenge, seeks to do or achieve X, but aces Y, so Z happens.” Tough there may be several protagonists (or a major character character set against ag ainst several minor ones) at work in the same story, and much conict between them, a plot can be derived rom rom all the narrative narrative sound sound and ury. ury. Tis is not necessarily the case in roleplaying adventures, where many plots may collide. Every Player Character can be a major protagonist, and ollow—or try to ollow—their ollow—their own plot. Some o them may make things up as they go along, al ong, rather than devoting much time to strategies or tactics, but i they’re pushing or specic things, what each o them does can be labeled labele d a plot. Not to mention the metaplot, or over-arching situation and chain o unolding events (these countries are at war, World War II in particular, and “as our story begins, the Allied All ied orces have just been swept rom the ace o Europe, Europe, and—”) described by the DM D M when providing the background setting, and the various dark and devious plots o the Non-Player Non-Player Character Character villains (also played by the DM) seeking to rustrate the PC heroes.
Shackled Shackled By By Story Story Unlike a novel or short story, where the goal is to entertain but there’s only one ringmaster (the writer) choosing the road to that un that the tale takes, roleplaying sessions sessions should allow al low and encourage the players to shape the unolding story. Teir entertainment is lessened when DM-provided carrots and sticks are too obvious, and slain—or at least orced into gasping, staggering lie support—when the sequence o events eels “railroaded.”
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Tere’s momentary satisaction in smashing down a door, nding the Lost Gem, or nally shoving your sword through through the Dread Deathheaded Dragonmage, but lasting satisaction satisaction in roleplaying is elt by players when they achieve something meaningul, when they change the world in some small way, way, or take a clear, gloat-worthy step toward achieving an ambition. Players want to have an important important or even dominant hand hand in the storytelling, storytelling , and how a DM structures unolding play should give player characte structures characters rs choices and something important—that eels important, even i it’s not saving the entire world, every time—to do.
“Bring on the railway track with the bound captive, the mustache to twirl, and the scheme to endanger enda nger the World As We Know It.” Until a DM knows the motivations o individual players very well, player characters are rarely going to do what a DM wants them to do. Novice DMs may write out endless “ow charts” o “i players get the gem, then this, but i they don’t, then that” possibilities, but it’s more un or everyone (ever seen a sports made upwild o teams haven’t together Ofen chaotic,game but usually un) tothat keep that topracticed a minimum. I thebeorehand? metaplot a DM has worked out absolutely must reach a particular outcome (this king dies, that castle gets destroyed), the DM should work out three ways this outcome can happen beore play begins, and i PC actions look likely to prevent that outcome, adjust matters so the PCs are distracted or pinned down doing something major and important (so players don’t don’t eel cheated) in one place or with one NPC while the outcome occurs in another place. In short, ction plots end up “set,” but roleplaying plots must stay exible, and are best kept hidden, so the players either know or eel as i their characters characters are determining the plot. Ofen by oiling the dastardly plots o other characters.
What Dastardl What Is Is A A Dastardly Dastardlyy Plot? Plot? So “what the villains are up to” make up the “dastardly plots” that provide resistance to PCs in most antasy roleplaying campaigns, orcing them into adventures, and are the plots that concern us there. Yes (cackle), bring on the railway track with bound captive, the mustache to twirl, and the scheme to endanger the World As We Know It. Tose sort o dastardly plots. Any scheme hatched hatched by a villain, villa in, rom a ruse to rame PCs or a petty p etty crime and take them awaysame romvillain, blundering into, or stopping, other schemes beingsoenacted by that is a “dastardly plot.” Something as smallalready as a as K Guide to Game Design — 53 Te K
secret, unwritten agreement among trade rivals not to price-war with each other at a village villag e market, or something as great as treason against a wizard-emperor who is to be not only deposed, but slain, destroying the stability stability o magic over hal a world and unleashing unleashing long-bound long-bound (and thereore thereore ravenously ravenously hungry) hungry) dragons rom their lairs. Tose greater plots last longer and have more inuence on play. Tey mean more, present stiffer stiffer challenges, and o necessity are more complicated and take more time to uncover and (try to) thwart. As a result, they are what most people mean by “dastardly” “dastardly” plots. Te “silent “silent no-compete over the melon cart” may be just as nasty nasty or protable, protable, but it’s it’s just not not in the same same world-shaking world-shaking league. Yet merely dening dastardly plots is hardly the point. We need to get at what makes makes any any plot juicy and memorable, what what makes makes it bring a campaign to thrilling lie and get players excited and eager eag er to either join and urther the plot (overthrow (overthrow the hated hated monster tyrant, tyrant, and ree all the human human slaves!) or to uncover and shatter it (the rebels are really shapechanged monsters, and i they overthrow overthrow the king, they’ll they ’ll eat us all in the bloody civil war that that inevitably ollows!). So we’r we’ree afer the desired element elementss o a truly dastardly plot.
“In any robust fantasy roleplaying campaign, the DM will arrange arrange to have at least two, and usually four or more, plots on the the go all at once.” Tat is, the eatures o the sort o plot we want to create—i we’re the DM or players in an intrigue-lled intrigue-lled campaign whose characters characters are are trying to craf their own plot—i we want to have some lasting un and build some memories o real achievement, by either ollowing and successully carrying out our plot, or expose and destroy a oul plot and take care o the dastardly villains behind it. Tere is, mind you, no perect plot, no single truly dastardly plot. I there was, everyone would know it, it would already have been done over and over again until the ew survivors arranged arranged things to guard g uard against it ever happening again, and it would thereor thereoree provide us with almost al most no entertainment entertainment at all. So you’ll nd no Perect Recipe here. What you will nd is how to stock a kitchen with juicy ingredients to craf your own own killer plots.
Te Dastardly P lot Plot eruly Truly Dastardly Plot A truly dastardly plot has both mystery and menace. It must imperil and challenge the PCs (or the PC oes, i PCs P Cs are behind the plot), and it must surprise or attempt to mislead them or at least have unknowns they must gure out (by invest investigations igations that will inevitably draw them into adventures adventures most people would preer to avoid, the traps traps and encounte encounters rs that that are the meat meat and drink o o the ghting side o a roleplaying game).
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A dastardly plot shouldn’t be easy to gure out. I it’s obvious due to the situation (the (the very elderly king is dying, dying , and six actions all vie to grab the throne, throne, each led by, or controlling controlling as a puppet, someone o royal blood who has a claim on the crown), then it should incorporate some Plan B and Plan C contingencies, allbacks to be put into operation when things go wrong. (I the dying king anoints one royal as a heir, and it’s not the royal o your action, kidnap and hide that heir right away, keeping them incommunicado and powerless and spreading rumors o their death the moment the king dies—but keeping them to use i “your” royal gets killed in the strie that that ollows.) Tese contingencies should all have been arranged beorehand by someone who thinks deeply or deviously enough enough to impress impress the players players (once those those players begin to see what’s happening), and more importantly to enable the plot to survive collisions with the hostile plots o others. Oh, yes, other hostile plots galore. ga lore. In any robust antasy antasy roleplaying campaign, a DM will arrange to have have at least two, and usually our or more, plots on the go all at once, even beore any PC plots get hatched and going. Tere’s nothing wrongeverything plunging intoona bewildered where their they thought they knew e with verything that players was going in the happystate kingdom characters have grown up in, but realize that skirmishes, battles, disappearances, robberies, and monster sightings are suddenly occurrin occurringg all aroun aroundd them with bewildering rapidity and in astonishing numbers, and they haven’t a clue why, what triggered triggered all o this, and which way way to jump jump and swing swords next, next, to try to restore order. Or even to try to gure out who’s a riend, and who’s just a smiling oe. A superior dastardly plot—obvious or not—should also a lso involve some conspirators whose identity or whereabouts are unknown, and perhaps some impostors (so when PCs trium triumphant phantly ly kill the Pirate Lord, they discover the next morning that the real Pirate Lord is laughing at them just as triumphantly rom halway across the kingdom, and they’ve really killed some poor wretch— perhaps the realm’ realm’s Chie Justice, Justice, or a kindly kindly noble who has has long sponsored sponsored the PCs—who was magically transormed to look like the Pirate Lord). Look at the number o Shakespeare plays that involve mistaken identity and impostors. Look at why so many o his hi s characters pretend pretend to be someone else. Some o the reasons are silly, but some can readily be re-used. Tese sort o deceptions—or any deceptions—tend deceptions—tend to make plots last a lot longer, lead to lots o conusion and running around/adventu around/adventuring ring possibilities, and orce players to think or speculate as well as hack at whatever’s nearest.
Te K K Guide to Game Design — 55
Don’t Forget to to Spice Spice Tings Up Don’’t Forget Don ings Up Which brings us to the the specialized ingredients in our plot plot kitchen; the spices, spices, i you will. (No, this isn’ isn’tt the “sex” “sex” chapter; chapter; this time, we’re we’re talking a different sort o seasoning.) DMs, know thy players. Players planning on spinning plots o their own, know the NPCs or other players you want to deceive or deeat. What do they they nd irresistible? irresistible? Do D o they like—or hate—puzzles? hate—puzzles? Being rightened? Can or can’t they resist chasing anyone who runs away, or hacking at any slithering tentacled monster they see lurking in shadows? Maybe they long to be accepted as truly noble by the snooty nobles, or have the princess say “yes” to their entreaties. Perhaps they want to swim in rooms ull o gold coins, or have the power to control all the merchants in a kingdom, to set ashions or “own “o wn”” powerul locals so those powerul people leap to obey their every ever y calmlymurmured command. Find their buttons, then craf plots that push those buttons. Or as an aunt o mine once put it, “Make those marionettes dance!” ailor your plots to what your players or in-game in-game oes want more more o, or can’ can’tt resist. Tat doesn’t just go or the lures that will drag others into your plots; that goes or the rewards the plots should yield them along the way. Like a movie director, you’re trying to arrange things so the action will arrive at moments when the players around the gaming table shout in triumph, or sit back grinning in satisaction. satisaction. When they solve the riddle, or nally catch and kill the marauding bandit, or (please orgive the cliché—things are clichés because b ecause they work, over and and over again, remember) remember) rescue the the princess. It’ It’ss your campaign, campaign, afer all. Te only people you have to please are your players (or ellow players). When they get bored with with rescuing princesses, princesses, it’s time to stop. stop. (And be sure sure to slap them with a ew double-crosses along the way, such as discovering the hard way that, that, unlike the the others, others, this particular princess princess is a megalomaniacal tyrant, tyrant, and “rescuing” “rescuing” her has set her ree again to terro terrorize rize the world and everything ever ything in it, and it’s all your ault.) Te important thing is to know what your players—all o them, because tastes may vary widely rom one end o a gaming table to the other—will other—will nd to be satisying rewards. Give them those rewards. Not too easily or too ofen, but ofen enough that they want to come back or more battering each gaming session. You are, afer all, doing this or them (it is to be hoped).
When We Grow We When We Grow Mighty Mighty Yet when we have triumphed again and again in adventures, and risen to become the meanest you-know-whats in the valley, what then? I no Masked error o a oe can ever hope to match us, what plots will then seem dastardly?
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Te easy—and so, too ofen used—solution is to build a super-monster, a godlike colossus o a Leviathan Uberdragon, so we go toe-to-toe against ag ainst someone simply stronger. Tis orces us to get allies, or trick the Uber-Foe into a situation where we can collapse the the castle onto onto it. However, there are two less popular and thereore more attractive alternatives. One theusemptation whereAn weemperorship?). the successul acet may something that temispts tempts into olly (godhood? (gPlot, odhood? emperor ship?). veteran A lure that tha ool us into overreaching, overreaching, so longtime long time oes can rush in and crush us when we all or are made weak. Te other is the mirror o how we must ght the Uber-Foe. It might be called the Uber-Conspiracy, or Fighting Many iny Foes. It’s when many nobles, or merchants, or monsters in an area all work together to be rid o us, and we nd ourselves betrayed betrayed by those we thought were our allies, or too weak to ever dare to challenge us, or whose numbers we never thought we’d we’d ever ace in seemingly endless succession. Te time when we must either nd some brilliant brilli ant new road to victory, or learn learn the old, old lesson rom beore we were mighty: it’s it’s time to run run away, i we would live to ght day. again, (Whenalone Conan more loses it all and ees into another land to another start all over andonce coinless.)
What We All We All Want Want Want What We In lie, everyone searches or meaning to it all, or some guidance or some sign that we’re doing the “right” things, or what’s right or us. We want to succeed, and we want want things to make make sense. o o have a plot. Yep, we want lie—and the lives o antasy characters we play—to have plots. Yet easy and clear isn’t satisying. o have some real sense o achievement, we must clear up doubt, solve mystery mystery,, and overcome some stiff challenges. Wee have to W to struggle against dastardly plots—and plots—and win. So our truly dastardly plots can’t be hopeless, unsolvable, or unbeatable. Yet they must be ormidable. Tey Te y should have twists and surpris surprises, es, misdirections, and blind alleys, alle ys, and yet offer clear moral choices (so the characters involved, involved, and the players behind them, can eel right about what they choose to do) and tactical choices (we can’t be everywhere at once, so we have to choose to rush to the deserted castle or the dockside tavern—which is the Masked error more likely to visit?). Tis lets some ailures along the way not be all our ault, yet lets us own the successes because we chose to go up against the Masked error at all. And because the world needs someone to go up against Masked errors, and they seem in all too plentiul supply, supply, choosing to do so can never be bad.
K Guide to Game Design — 57 Te K
8
Location as a Fulcrum for Superior Design Wolfga olfgang ng Ba Baur ur
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ome adventures start with a villain, some start with a monster list, or a big event meant to Change Everything about the campaign. Tose are all a ll ne ways to start design or a setting and a story, and I’d say they work or ction superlatively. But or RPGs on the tabletop or on the screen, sometimes those elements are second. Yes, the ingredient or me to design a worthwhile adventure is a worthw worthwhile hilemain location.
Why L ocation? Location? Why Locatio L ocation? n? Tere’s a simple reason that location matters so much in an adventure design: It’s the only story element that a game designer really controls. Te heroes o the story are controlled by the players; they can go and do anything, do everything out o sequence, ght all the roleplay encounters, encounters, and talk their way out o all the ghts. Tey probably won’t. But the players are denitely out o the adventure designer’s control. Tey lead the adventure plot points through their decisions, but they aren’t aren’t something you need to consider at the highest level. le vel.
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Te DM, by contrast, controls all the non-player characters and monsters, a cast o characters that you as the designer have a lot o say over. Te villain, the henchmen, henchme n, their motives, their stats, and their locations are all determined by your design. But I’d say that that rom my own own experience, experience, many many Dungeon Masters Masters don’tt run them as written. Tey improvise. Tey tweak, they mold and renam don’ renamee to match their own home game, to shoehorn it in. Tat’s ne—well, that’s great, actually—they’re making the experience better or the players. But the voice, the actually—they’re impersonation, imperson ation, the details o all those characters, characters, even their tactics, stand or all based on how the DM eels e els about them. Sometimes he’ll run them by the book, sometimes he won’t. Te setting, though—well, that’s different. As the game designer, you control the maps, the area descriptions, the ow rom one encounter to the next. Te dialogue, the choices o plot by PC and villain—those aren’t aren’t yours to command. command. But the sequence, the map, and the locations are all elements that are the oundation o an adventure, and that most DMs rarely change. (Why buy a cool castle or dungeon with a map i you need to redraw the map?) map?) So, how can a designer make the most o this control over setting? In three ways: the ideal adventuring adventuring location must must be exotic, exotic, it must be plausible, and and it must be worthy o heroic investigations.
Exotic Lands Exotic Lands Having proposed the case or the importance o location, here’s the rst o my three critical ingredients: an exotic setting. Damn ew gamers want to see the wide-open prairie grasses or the well-kept crops o a peaceul kingdom in their antasy game world. Tey’ Te y’dd rather brave the etid Last Swamp, a place inused with the ghosts o a slaughtered army, or perhaps ght their way way up the Snowy Snowy Mountains, Mountains, a chill chill place with towering towering cliffs where heroes can leap rom cloud to cloud on their way to the giant’s castle. Going someplace where normal people would ear to tread does two things rom the gameplay perspective: 1) it proves their character’s heroism by daring to go somewhere diffi d ifficult, and 2) 2 ) it gives the whole whol e venture, in the end, an air o accomplishment. Now, I’d argue that the accomplishment is almost entirely illusory; do any but the most anal-retentive and novice o Dungeon Masters bother to track every pack o rations and enorce enorce every penalty o climate, disease, and terrain? Probably not—there are monsters to throw at the players! But having strange scenery does provide some degree o heroics in those who venture venture there, and it makes it easy or the DM to increase the threat level with lava, l ava, avalanches, and other location-based elements.
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Choosing a locale with some style is a smart design choice. It’s loaded with peril and totally subjective, but I think it’s air to say that making your antasy setting bold and brash pays off in what it implies later: the cover art, the combat setups, setups, the terrain effects, and even the sense o a journey and exploration o the rontier or the wilderness—all great themes.
Exotic People Exotic People
Now, exotic locales are much more than just geography, o course: Different cultures, different different classes, and differen d ifferentt lieorms can all lend an air o the exotic ar more effectively than the desert climate or the Fire Swamps o Bajor. For instance, modern gamers certainly preer the exotic over the homegrown, and designers tend to place modern-da modern-dayy adventures in exotic exotic lands as well. Tat is, a gang g ang o Masonic elders and redneck mercen mercenary ary PCs P Cs might enjoy Vegas Vegas or Cairo more than Muncie or suburban Dallas. Yes, it might be un to add vampires to your hometown and play that out, or nuke Miami and see what sort o mutant apocalyptic landscape your players might enjoy, but those are exceptions. Most players would rather rather visit Victorian Victorian London, Communist Communist China China in the the Cold War War,, or the Incan Empire at its height. Go big in the real world. And do the same in antasy. Te heights o the Elven Court, the mysteries o the dwarven Cantons, the world o cloud pirates, or an empire ruled rule d by vampires—there’ vampires— there’s no reason that that antasy antasy shouldn’t shouldn’t immediately grasp hold o strange cultures, customs, languages, and people. pe ople. Yes, Yes, the scenery is un to describe, but this is smart design or other reasons as well. It provides incentive to explore, to ask questions, to learn the ways o this new place, to not make too many assumptions. An exotic environment rewards players who are curious, not just those those who have have optimized their damage per strike. strike. A player can can be both a tactical mastermind mastermind and inten intensely sely curious why the haling empire has never been be en conquered rom without. Provide both elements as a designer, and the DM is grateul and the players are enthralled with the setting.
Plausible Plausible While I’ve just nished praising praising the exotic, exotic, I’ll now contradict mysel. mysel. Te exotic exotic is a tool, but it is so very easy to abuse. Fantasy has stereotypes stereotypes or a reason: Tose stereotypes work, they are grounded g rounded in the antasy traditions o literature literature and gaming, and they are accessible to newcomers. Yes, Yes, dwarves love beer be er and elves drink wine, dwarves are smiths and elves are archers and work mithral and ancient magics equally well. Te trouble many designers get into is an overemphasis overemphasis on weird or the the sake o weird. weird. Tere’s a point where where ights o antasy antasy turn turn into Alice-in-Wonderland oddities that are . . . disturbing? Hard to describe, certainly. Now, i you’re going to cut against the grain on those stereotypes as a designer,
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more power to you. But I’d offer two cautions to anyone discarding stereotypes in order to make the adventure more exotic. First, the urther away you move rom the tropes o your genre, the more original you are, then afer a certain point, the less anyone will care about your wild originality. Te audience will ollow you to new and wonderul; most will stop at the border o weird. Indeed, Indeed, antasy gamers are inherently conservative in their antasy tastes.
“The ideal adventuring location must be exotic, plausible, and worthy worthy of heroic investigation.” investigation.” Humans in general and gamers in particular want “same but different” rather than “wildly original” in their stories and entertainment, and roleplaying games are no exception. Te most original creations may be more acceptable to your audience i you give them a new name and a standalone role in your world: deryni rather than psionicists, kender rather than childlike kleptomaniacal halings. Afer a certain point—and as the designer must know where that point is—your dwarves aren’t dwarves anymore, they are uvandir (see Kobold uarterly uarterly #12). ever y city every a shining wonder o or magic and pure eldritch power, power, theLikewise, DM williwonder whyishe paid good g ood money a boring b oring utopia utopia o mega-magic. You need to change up the scenery in an adventure to keep it interesting. Slums can be exotic and exciting, ull o their own customs, their own hierarchy, their own ability to make noble, well-ed adventurers adventurers eel like sh out o water. Or i the PCs are all al l gutter g utter urchins, urchins, perhaps a visit to the harsh, orderly orderly orphanage o the Knights o Undying Undying Light Lig ht will change things around; being asked to stand vigil all night nig ht certainly will play havoc havoc with a young guttersnipe’ guttersnipe’ss usual nocturnal nocturnal habits. Te idea or all these directions is simple. Give the Dungeon Master someplace someplace new, someplace that must exist in a antasy world, and do a better job o describing works and who its world peopleaare andowhat want than the DM could how do onit his own. Give that sense boththey strangeness to make it exciting and a sense o amiliarity to keep it accessible—greed, amilial loyalty, loyalt y, and the urge to power are universal constants, or example. Tis is what I mean by plausibility in setting. It It must be simultaneously simultaneously different, different, and yet not so so strange strange that the players cannot come to grips with it. A setting built on the customs o Mesoamerica Mesoame rica may be b e ascinat a scinating ing (see E P T, or an example), but it will never be a mass market market success, and the audience able to appreciate will always be a small one. Make your story universal enough that everyone sees their own lie reected in it. Even i the orphan is a gnome and the city is gold rush camp in the ruins ru ins o a dwarven settlement, the collision o a child without anyone in the world and a place driven purely by money should still connect with DMs and players who have seen something o the world. K Guide to Game Design — 61 Te K
Te role o setting can ground the larger issues. Te orphan isn’t in trouble unless the environment itsel is hostile—so make sure that it is visibly hostile. Te more you emphasize two t wo or three elements o the setting—th setting—through rough read-aloud text, through maps, and through NPC or area descriptions—the more likely it is that the DM will pick up those elements and relay them to the players. A ew short details can make all the difference to bring the setting alive.
W Worthy orthy Worthy Finally, there’s the matter o worthy settings. What the heck do I mean by “worthy” “worth y” locations? Tis one’s one’s the hardest to dene, but let me see i i I can sharpen up the concept. Heroes only get so many chances to go on an adventure. Many characters in RPGs die horribly horribly,, and even in a game with Raise Dead D ead and Resurrection as everyday occurrences, there are still disintegrations, dragon’s acid blasts, and lava pits that that leave nothing nothing to raise. And And gamers only have have so many many hours to spend spend gaming so, as the designer, it is incumbent on you not to waste either heroic lives or player time. Make those settings count. A dragon’s dragon’s lair should be eared or miles around, not unknown and unremarked. A dark lord should live in a kingdom or at least a edom o his own, because his evil e vil seeps into everything around him. Hiding a dark lord in a dank basement somewhere is just . . . an underwhelming milieu. milieu . Tink Hollywood, in other words. I you’re planning a nale or an adventure, consider your setting the way a Hollywood location scout would consider it. What’s most effective or the adventur adventuree you’re you’re trying trying to tell: the squalid tavern down along the moldering docks, or a charred jungle ull o the haunting cries o ghostly parrots, or a madcap estival o halings, hal-besotted and hal-stuffed with ood while devils scheme around around them? them? Any o those might be the right right setting or a different type o adventure. Tink about where you’d set the nal scene—and then go one better. Here’s where worthy become a little tricky, as location bleeds into plot and character. I your villain is ound at the top o a crumbling keep, then make sure that keep has connections available or the DM to hook into his party. Perhaps they ound an earlier clue that one member o the party is related to the bloodline that built the place. Perhaps the wizard’s skill with the arcane revealed that the site is metaphysically dangerous: oo much magic here may release something buried under the castle walls, something ancient and worse than their present oe. Perhaps Per haps the castle is where the paladin or his squire ought to deend his order against overwhelming odds, and lost. In other words, an ideal location has some connection to things greater than the characters themselves: to their amily, their institutions, religions, history, and even their place in the metaphysical world. Tis is why Joseph Campbell goes on
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about the hero leaving civilization behind, going into darkness, and returning triumphant. Te place the heroes go must be worthy at that mythic level: It must be where ancient blood was spilled, spill ed, sacrices were made in a great cause, where the gods themselves reached down and changed the course o war and the course o history. Tat sort o setting is a rame worthy o the deeds o the current player characters—and character s—and i you’ve designed it right and the DM is on the ball, that sort o setting creates a rame worthy o new heroic tales. Make that setting rich, and deep, and you’ll be surprised at how DMs and players respond. Never think o location as just window dressing, or just a sequence o squares and elds o re. Never design it as an aferthought. Make it worthy, and the adventure itsel will resonate with some o that sense o depth and importance and heroic story. Tat’s location’s role in design.
Te K K Guide to Game Design — 63
9
Myths & Realities of Game Balance Monte Mon te Cook
G
ame balance is one o those things that game designers, aspiring game designers, and hard-core players talk a lot about. In many ways, it’s easy to see it like the Holy Grail, anelorn, or some other quest object that heroes strive strive or but ew ever reach. Like L ike such quests, it may be that the value is in the quest itsel rather than the end goal. In other words, it’s the journey and not the destination that counts. I we’re going to examine game balance in a roleplaying game, however, the rst question that that needs to be raised must be, is i s game balance even e ven possible? Is there such a thing? thing ? I think i we’re going to examine this topic honestly honestly,, the answer is, actually,, no. (Or rather actually rather,, yes, but not in the way that most people mean—I’ll get to that in a bit.) Tat’s right. I’ll I ’ll say it: In the sense o roleplaying game rule ru le design, game balance is a myth. But how can I, a game designer with more than 20 years experience, write such sacrilegious words? Let’s really look at what we mean. Say that the most brilliant o all game designers put together a game with the goal o true game balance. He’s smart, so he keeps it simple. He careully designs desig ns every class/eat/skill/ superpower/whatever superpowe r/whatever in the game so that it is perectly balanced with every other
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class/eat/skill/superpower/whatever. He still has the problem o the game being out o his control. Some players are “min-maxers” and will simply take what he’s created and nd the loopholes that others won’t, creating unbalanced options and characters that are better than others. OK, let’ l et’ss assume the game designer is so talented that he closes up every loophole and plugs every e very hole, so whether you’re you’re a newbie or a talented rulesexploiter, there’s no combination o options that’s better or worse than any others. (In effect, the designer’s designer’s made it so that all choices result in virtually the same character.) character .) Now the game is truly balanced, right? Except—it’s still a roleplaying game. It’s still open-ended, based on the players’ imaginations and the GM’s prerogatives. What the characters choose to do is not going to be balanced. Some will choose to ignore ig nore their combat options options and ocus on their character backgrounds while others use their abilities to their ullest. Even i everyone e veryone around the table had exactly the same character, how the characters are played will be b e ultimately unbalanced. Worse, Worse, a GM might (accidentally or intentionally) intentionally) allow one player special privileges that unbalance the game. Or even i the PCs P Cs are all more or less equal, he might throw challenges against the players that are so insurmountable or so easily overcome that the game isn’t un. It doesn’t even hold the players’ interest. Tere’s no amount o game mechanic balancing that can overcome such problems.
But is Game Game Balance? But What What is Balance? At this point, some readers may be thinking that I’m being pedantic, just arguing semantics. seman tics. But since the game is meant to be played, ignoring ig noring how players use rules when striving or game balance is an exercise in utility. When people talk about balance in in game design, they are ofen talking about about two airly different things. Te rst is balance between characters. Te idea is that all o the characters should should be “balanced” “ balanced” with each other; every character has equal power. Te second is balance between the characters and the rest o the game. A character charac ter who gets an ability abil ity that allows all ows him to overcome difficult—or impossible—challenges easily makes the game unbalanced. Likewise, the reverse:: A game with challenges reverse chal lenges that are ar too diffi cult or the characters charact ers is also unbalanced. Te rst could be considered a measure o airness and the second a measure o un. Te rst case—character vs. character balance—can be boiled boile d down to how much one player (not character) can do in comparison to other players. Te ultimate currency in a roleplaying game is “time to shine.” A character designed to be terror r in melee gets toskilled shine when hisand character cleavesshines through through a number o oesa terro in battle. A character at locks other devices when he opens K Guide to Game Design — 65 Te K
a locked door or disables the mechanism me chanism that that closes walls in on everyone. ever yone. And so on. One could certainly argue, then, that a game that’s balanced gives g ives every player/character player/char acter a moment moment to shine and and that that these moments moments are are about equal in time, importance, and un. A common mistake, then, is to balance characters based on a single option— combat prowess, prowess, or example. I all characte characters rs have to be equally e qually good at the same thing, you end up with characters that are mostly the same. Tis is ne, but you risk a certain kind o dynamism with that approach. Since you’re you’ re only ocusing on on one aspect, you’re you’re not not really balancing the the game. You’ You’re re balancing one aspect o the game. Nevertheless, most games make certain options ar more interesting Nevertheless, interesting , appealing, appealing , or exciting than than other options. Tis could be b e considered unbalanced. I’ll I ’ll start by pointing the nger directly at mysel. Te Tird Edition o D & D made combat exciting through a number o different options and mechanical subsystems. A player could devote a lot o time developing characters good at certain aspects and not others, and nding new and intriguing options. A player interested interested in locks and mechanisms mech anisms essentially essentially hadmoment two skills skills ocusmight on,ht both using the same mechanic. While the melee ghter’s mome nt totoshine mig last an hour or more with involved round-by-round detail, the lock expert makes a roll or two and is done. O course, this was intentional. We knew that most players were interested in combat, and combat makes it easy to produce exciting action sequences that that are challenging and engaging or a whole group o people p eople around the table—much more so than picking picking a lock. lock . I we had decided to make every ever y activity as involved as combat, it would have made the game cumbersome. Still, this all means that as game designers we intentionally “unbalanced” the game in avor o combat. We lef it up to the GM and the players to balance combat with non-combat activities activities as they wished. For some, the game would be nearly 100% ghting. For others, interacting with NPCs, with the environment, or with each other would equal or even outshine battles, but that wasn’t a matter o balance or the rules. Te second type o balance, dealing with characters and challenges, may seem related, having to do with characters being either too powerul or not powerul enough. At its core, though, such balance is a differen d ifferentt issue because it has less to do with the players and more to do with the GM. Afer all, it’ it’ss the GM who is responsible or providing challenges or the characters—and character s—and the GM has no boundaries or limitations. When GMs complain about unbalanced characters running roughshod over their campaign and how that’s the ault o the game, there is a misunderstanding o the role o the GM. You don’t six bring a knie to a gunght. theaPCs wipe the oor with the vrock, give them vrocks to ght next time.IOr naleshnee.
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No, it really is that simple. For every spell, there’s a counter. For every monster, there’s a tougher monster. I the players raise the ante by creating characters who are too powerul, the GM can simply use the sliding sli ding power scale o the game (which has no upper limit) to bring things back into balance. What’s more, the the GM is also the arbiter o the rules at the the table and can disallow options. Ultimately, it’s the GM who truly understands what’s going on at the table, not some game designer thousands o miles away. No matter what the designer does or doesn’t do to balance the game, it’s a moot point. An illusion at best. It’s what the GM does that provides the balance.
Te Social Contract Gamers’ e Gamers’ Social Soci al Contract So here’s here’s the real secret o game balance: ba lance: Tere is such a thing, but it has very little to do with rules and game designers. It emerges rom the cooperation o the people sitting around around the table. table. It It comes rom rom the players and, in particular, particular, the GM. It all has to do with mutual trust. When people sit down down at my game table, table, I expect two things rom them. Te rst is that responsible ora making th e game un al l involved. all second is toeveryone trust theisGM to provide un andthe un balanced playor experience. TisTe is the gamers’ social cont contract: ract: the agreement that everyone makes, consciously or unconsciously unconsciou sly,, at the beginning b eginning o every game session. With the idea that the the two axes upon which which the wheel o balance turns turns are are time to shine and reasonable challenges, the GM G M can provide both in a way that the rules never could. A really good GM can run a balanced game where one player is a 20th level demigod demig od and another is a 1st level armer. All he has to do is make sure that each player has un and each character has something interesting and challenging to do. I’m not contending that it’s easy—on the contrary, it’s very diffi cult. Tat’s why good game gam e designers desig ners try to provide p rovide tools tool s or GMs to make running a air, balanced game easier ea sier.. Well-designed Well-designed rules ru les make it easier or the GM to judge what he should and shouldn’t shouldn’t do, and maybe even protect him so that when he makes a mistake, the game doesn’t go wildly off the rails. For the GM to provide a airly stable play environment, however, the players have to trust him and have to agree not to use their own position at the table to undermine or circumvent his actions or otherwise spoil the game or others. So it’s not just about the GM. It’s about the entire group. Getting players and GMs to understand the social contract is the key to true game balance. Te rst rule o every RPG R PG should be, b e, “Don’t “Don’t be a jerk. jerk .” Tis rule, i adhered to perectly perectly,, would likely l ikely eliminate almost all balance problems o any stripe. Te players should trust the GM to ensure that no matter what happens and no be matter whtrust what at choices they make, thetogame will be air un. Te Ggame, M should able to that no one’s going intentionally tryand to break theGM K Guide to Game Design — 67 Te K
and i the GM determines that something is going to undermine the airness and un, he can overrule it. A roleplaying game, sitting on a shel, is a rudderless ship. It’s not until a GM and players use it and inject their own balance that the ship can be steered to go where it needs to go.
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10
Buckets in the Sandbox: Non-Linear Non-Lin ear and Event-Driven Event-Driven Design Wolfga olfgang ng Ba Baur ur
B
lame it on G T A’s wide-open playspace, pl ayspace, or blame it on the advent o mega-dungeons mega- dungeons and meandering plots, but the buzzword or adventure design the last ew years has been “sandbox design.” Tis seems like a straightorward concept: Te action is determined almost entirely by the players, because the setting is just a sandbox ull o toys, enemies, and interesting locations. Tere’s no need to create a plot arc. It’s the opposite o running an adventure adventure on the rails—telling the story in a linear ashion—because it’ss all up to the players to decide what needs doing. Let them gure out how to it’ approach the end boss, or or that matter, let them gure out who the end boss is. Well, W ell, not so ast. Just because an adventur Just adventuree has an open open structure structure doesn’t doesn’t mean mean it has no structure. structur e. All too ofen, a game designer will plop down a bunch o locations, throw thro w some missions or quests on top, and call it a sandbox design. I can say with some condence that’s nonsense. Tat’s just lazy design. A more successul approach to sandbox design offers hidden structure that is never imposed on the players, but that does provide crucial tools and inormation inormation to the DM. Don’t let “sandbox” be a synonym or “lazy.”
K Guide to Game Design — 69 Te K
Structure Structure in in aa Sandbox Sandbox A good sandbox design may appear haphazard and reeorm to the player, player, but i it is designed well, it still has structure and design intent behind it. Tough there’s no plot arc or linear encounter encounter sequence to plan out, the work still needs to hang together to make a satisying game g ame experience, whether you are talking about G T A or the most recent underdark campaign. In my experience, experience, designers use at least three orms o structure in a sandbox, each o which can be used to varying degrees by a clever designer: non-linear structure, bucket structures, and event triggers.
Non-linear Structure Non-linear structure is the traditional approach to sandbox design: You work to make a whole experience or the players, but that whole is not dependent on sequencing. Te NPCs NP Cs do what they do while the players wander around, around, acquiring clues, treasures, and inormation about where to go next. Tis orm o design is ideal or embedded mysteries, dungeon adventures, adventures, and lost cities, all o which are wide open areas that should at the very least provide an illusion o elastic, exible story—and more ofen, should actually provide that elastic story element somewhere under the surace. In a non-linear structure, the adventure can be completed in any sequence, as the PCs nd elements scattered around the area (or even elements ound in several loosely linked geographic areas), and then decide how to proceed based Branching Branch ing Structure Once a path is chosen, it becomes harder to go to another path. The ultimate example of such adventures are pick-a-path books, but the idea applies to any situation where some player choices are irreversible. If you save the orphan, she’s grateful for the rest of the adventure; if you let the slavers carry her off and there are witnesses, your character’s reputation is stained and your character is not trusted by street urchins for the rest of the adventure. The players have choices at every stage, but ultimately may reach wildly different conclusions regarding what the adventure is about. This is a variant of the triggered structure, but can be built as a set of linked choices that each affect the state of the sandbox until a final choice sets up the finale. The more general case of triggered or event-driven structure isn’t as tightly linked; it can be a set of completely independent events or triggers that only affect subsections of your adventure area. The tightly-knit branching structure is really just a railroad adventure with two or three tracks that tend to weave back on themselves, rather than a true set of tree-like branches, which would rapidly become unwieldy.
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on the inormation they have. Te key design element is that sequence doesn’t matter; i there are our our clues, the PCs need ne ed all our to get the solution right (or three three and a lucky guess!). g uess!). I the adventure adventure requires them to visit a ew sites, they can do so in any order and expect that the challenges will still make sense. Another way to think o non-linear adventures is that they are essentially the same as the plot coupon approach discussed in K G G D, V V 1. In a certain sense, what this means is that you need to design each encounter as an independen independentt mini-adventure, each not depending too heavily on anything outside itsel. Each encounter encounter needs to have a clear beginning, beg inning, conict, and hooks or urther action. In a true sandbox, some encoun encounters ters might be repeated, so you may want to design or that possibility explicitly, with rst and second visits offering offering elements elements that that change over over time. Another Another option option (i your sandbox is more about exploring time time than geography) might be to set a schedule or the inhabitants inhabitan ts o a place—as place—a s was done with G’ L , an introductory adventure I wrote that describes the inhabitants o a border castle and where they might be ound day, evening, and night. nig ht.
I you design the non-linear structure with a heavy emphasis on character reactions,, I’ reactions I ’d argue you are creating an event-triggered event-triggered design (see (se e page 38). Some might say event-driven adventures aren’t sandboxes at all, but they clearly share the element o wide-open player options; those options are merely constrained rom time to time when player actions trigger some event. Tus, many o the same principles apply, apply, even though an event-driven event-driven adventu adventure re might be more plotheavy and less player-driven than other approaches.
Bucket Structure Te bucket is a style o limited sandbox, i you like. Rather than a single large play environment, the adventure is designed with two or more such environments. At certain points, the action shifs rom one such environment to another: the bucket, in other words, is poured out into another bucket. Tought o another way,, the sandbox is scooped up into two or three way three buckets, or two or three three smaller sandboxes. Tis is tipping-point design, which I used in my design or C S F . Te idea here is that the environment exists in one orm until the players, an NPC, or a timed event event changes everything. It’ It’s similar to triggered triggered structures structur es discussed above, though I think o bucket structure as the extre extreme me case o triggered structu structure. re. Tat is, a triggered structure is a character-level design approach: In a sandbox this might mean that you’ve made an enemy, or oiled an assassin, or learned the location o a crucial clue, triggering a chase sequence. But in a bucket structure, theIt’s relationship or the understanding o the playersit’s thatnot ips. the wholebetween nature ocharacters the sandbox. Te K Guide to Game Design — 71 Te K
whole adventure adventure suddenly suddenly changes when when a zombie invasion invasion hits the the sandbox, or when all gang members members are wiped out overnight overnight and the the PCs are hunted, hunted, or when the dragon in the dungeon nally wakes up and every e very creature or miles around panics. It’ It’s a change o state state or the entire entire environm environment; ent; the sandbox sandbox has ipped out o the rying pan and into the smelter. Tis structure addresses two problems with a simpler sandbox: the paradox o choice and the lack o closure. I’ll get to the closure element in the “Sandbox Pitalls” sidebar, but let’s discuss the paradox o choice or a moment. Te problem that that some groups groups and DMs have when when given a sandbox adventu adventure re is that, that, while there are are plenty o monsters monsters to kill and strange strange realms to explore, explore, there there are actually too many NPCs and too many areas to choose rom. I given a choice, they don’t know where to start or what to rate as most promising. It all starts to eel either completely arbitrary (“Let’s (“Let’s roll a d8 to choose which tunnel to explore!”) or overwhelming (“How big is this city anyway? Where the heck are those ereeti lords we were warned about?”). I the party is expected to explore every element o a sandbox, things can drag. drag . One way to limit this is through these orced transitions I call buckets, but there’s an older name or them as well: levels. le vels. Dungeons with one-way one-way doors and sliding passages essentially essentially do the same thing thing as a bucket design. design. You You can’t can’t go back back to the old state once you’ve slide down the slimy tunnel, and you can’t go back to the pre-zombie-invasion pre-zombie-in vasion state state without without rst completing completing the adventu adventure re either. either. The Classic Sandbox Pitfall Pit fall Though some gamers might consider railroad or linear adventure designs less desirable than sandbox or open-frame designs, the sandbox style is not without its own problem. From the design perspective, the greatest trap is concentrating too much on a locale’s or NPC’s backstory and history, rather than on elements visible or discoverable to the players. This is a natural tendency; if you can’t really talk about plot elements in a concise way, some designers will talk about how a place or character came to be. Resist this urge. The elements of a sandbox that matter are those that players see and interact with. The backstory or history may be important, but rarely is it important enough to rate more than a paragraph of description. NPC action and motivation with respect to the heroes are valuable; their inner life, their past, and their relationship with their minions should be considered skeptically. Focus on the here-and-now of the adventure and the action, and your design will provide more and stronger tools for the DM to use in actual play.
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riggered Structure Te PCs are ree to wander the sandbox as they will, poking p oking at creatures creatures and characters. characte rs. Tis approach is ideal or city cit y and castle political and intr intrigue igue adventures, in which NPC reactions are the main driver o the action. Who knows what and when is the crucial design element that you need to prepare or the DM. Lists o rumors, gossip, and inormation as well as red herrings need to be tracked in some ashion—and the easier you make the drop-in pieces or triggers or the DM to use, the more successul your design will be. In most most cases, a triggered design desig n can be more-or-less linear or at least can lead up to a climax—t climax—these hese are not sandboxe sandboxess at all, but rather triggered event-driven plots. However, triggers However, triggers can be “sandboxy” “sandboxy” just as easily as they can be linked to plot elements. Te decision is yours as a designer. I the results o triggering a certain event are that the plot advances, and the only way to succeed in the adventure is to advance the plot in a particular sequence, well, well , you’ve designed a linear adventure adventu re (not always a bad thing; many excellent excellent games are built bui lt this way). I each event or trigger affects only a particular character or location instead o the meta-plot, then then the triggers can be part o a sandbox. Te party may have made made an enemy, they may have rescued a grateul henchman, they may have destroyed a tool they might mig ht need later. None None o these need to advance the plot. Some triggers—the bucket ones discussed below—do move the character rom one location to another, or rom one social class to another, or otherwise change the setting and conditions o the adventure. So, the linear element el ement o triggers is not absolute; various event triggers triggers can release mayhem or a short time but not affect the adventure’s ultimate goals. As a designer you should weigh careully how big each event e vent is and how much it changes the setting. setting. Big changes are un (“I’ll ood the whole dungeon!”), but they can start to eel e el arbitrary or unair i the players don’t don’t see the trigger as a consequence o their action. For this reason, timers and chronologically-driven adventures adventu res are (rightly) derided as linear and railroad-ish. Some scenarios make this work wonderully, wonderully, with a sense o impending doom and a clear cl ear message to players about what they they need to do to avert catastr catastrophe. ophe. But these sorts o timed triggers have little place in a pure sandbox, where events should unold at a pace o the players’ choosing. Ultimately, the sandbox triggers will eel more “natural” i the party’s actions always trigger a collapse or setback or plot advance. From a design perspective, you must decide how how many many NPCs or bits o inormat inormation ion they need to nd the the boss or move to the nale. And this leads to one o the paradoxes o the sandbox approach: though driven by player choices, your nales are ofen predetermined, even i nothing else about the adventure adventure is. K Guide to Game Design — 73 Te K
Te Pieces of of a Sandbox Saandbox Set e Set Pieces Sandbox Although a sandbox is all about providing maximum player options, it doesn’t get a designer off the hook or preparing preparing both excellent set pieces to get the ball rolling, as well as a satisying nale. Sandbox design ofen stumbles stumbles in providing adventures with closure, because with so many plot threads, characters, and hooks dangling overelements the place,are inelef inevitably vitably players willend noto pick ever y element. every Inevitablyallsome lyingthe around at the theup story. Let’s examine these problems in sequence. o start a sandbox adventure off, you need either a big bang that lures the party to the locale (“Look, an invasion/murder/gold invasion/murder/gold rush/revolution!”) rush/revolution!”) or you need a place that is simply boiling over with issues, issues, dangers, resentmen resentments, ts, and impending impending mayhem. Either approach works, and ideally you don’t just pick one or three hooks and develop them, but actually brainstorm dozens o possible hooks and bake them in throughout the descriptions o a city, or the NPC descriptions o a court, or the monster descriptions or a mega-dungeon. Te more hooks you have into side plots that are apparently unrelated, but that orm a larger pattern, the more chances the DM will have to see that his party picks up those clues over time-arrows and indicators that all point roughly in one direction or another. Te sandbox hooks should slowly lead the PCs P Cs to realize that, yes, they could slaughter everything in sight, sig ht, but there’s something bigger going g oing on as well. well . Tese hooks may be repeated and obvious (better or some play styles) or hidden and quite obscure (or more advanced groups or longer arcs). Frankly, Frankly, I’ve I ’ve had good success designing these very much as a list (events (events,, gossips, clues) and letting the DM sort out when and where to reveal them. Te pace at the table and the group’s play style should have some inuence on the speed at which the adventure progresses rom rom raw exploratio explorationn to a more ocused set o efforts efforts at a player-chosen player-chosen goal (but ( but likely one o a set o choices baked into the design). Tat is, you offer adventure hooks to get the action underway, and then you provide a huge huge variety o options options that that eventually narrow narrow down down to one, one, two, or maybe even three options or a nale. In some adventures, adventures, who the PCs P Cs align themselves with early on will determine who they ace ace in the nale. For instance, a sandbox adventure adventure in a city riven by dueling actions pretty much requires that the PCs make an alliance with one group and deeat the other in the end. Such a battle becomes the set piece o the nale. One o the dangers o a sandbox adventure adventure is that it can eel aimless, meanderingg , and ultimately dull, meanderin dull , because there’s there’s too little going on below the surace. Experienced players are remarkably remarkably quick at picking up clues and hints. Anyone with a sense o narrative knows “how this goes”—but in a sandbox, it’s up to them to play along al ong with that expectation, expectation, or not. As the designer, you should probably plan or one most likely likely contingency, contingency, or example, example, a raid on a gang boss’ boss’s
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house, as well as a secondary contingency, such as the party aligning itsel with that boss to take down a rival. In either case, the details o how that scene play out will be determined by the player and the DM—bu D M—butt a good g ood adventure design provides the key statistics, statistics, maps, maps, descriptions, descriptions, and grace notes notes that that make that that nale memorable. In music, grace notes are accents or ourishes beyond the main melody. In game design it’s the same way—throwaway bits o dialogue that sound badass (but establish the villain’s character), a nasty bit o necromancy that shows the villain’s black heart, or even a dramat dramatic ic reading o the the villain’s monologue—while minions move in rom every ever y side to ank the heroes. Tose are the elements that a DM needs to properly deliver the nale. Provide those keystone elements, elements, and the sandbox adventure adventure will end on a high note. Ass A ss um umpt pt i on ons s i n a Sandb San db ox Some might say that it’s wrong to assume certain actions on the part of the players, that this is somehow linear storytelling. This is nonsense. Good design always presupposes that player actions in a game are at least 80% predictable; most groups will try to take the t he treasure, most groups will try to rescue the princess. Just because some groups don’t is no excuse for not supporting the many DMs whose groups do follow the most common sequences of events. Most players do play good characters, and most players do want a D&D game filled with action and adventure. As long as the scenario supports that, you as the designer are supporting the DM in delivering maximum play value for their hard-earned dollar. Frankly, if a DM’s group never takes the bait for a hook and never follows the predicted path for most heroes, the group likely has bigger problems than a badly-designe badly-designed d sandbox scenario.
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11
Collaboration and Design Wolfga olfgang ng Ba Baur ur
I
’ve done a lot o design collaborations over the years, some with success, some without. Te Te rst I can remember was was working working with Steven Steven Kurtz Kurtz on “A “A Rose or alakara” or Dungeon Magazine #25. It was a big hit and generated a lot o an mail. About 8 years later, the collaboration with Monte Cook on D*M was was quite differen different,t, but seems to have generated a lot o positive attention attent ion as well. And now I’ve collaborated in different ways ways and to differing d iffering degrees on the various Open Design projects. Each o those projects gave me insight into what works and what doesn’t. Here are seven hard-won lessons that will help you improve your chances o completing a successul project.
1. Pick aa Dictator 1. Pick Dictator Te design collaboration coll aboration process is many ne things, but democratic is generally not one o them. In the video game world, the dictator is usually a design lead or senior designer, and the collaborator just a regular designer designer,, junior designer, or level designer. In RPGs, the distinct di stinction ion is ofen between bet ween the in-house designer (who always has nal say) and a reelancer (who always draws the short straw). Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how you set up the roles so long as someone has the authority authority to 1) stop discussion, 2) enorce decisions once they are made, and 3) veto creative dead-ends. I’ve worked on at least one project with multiple designers all treat treated ed as peers, and it was horrible. No one could override anyone
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else. Everyone elt their approach was best. No matter what was proposed, the others tore it down. Te project ended in a creative stalemate stalemate and did not produce publishable work. Tere’s a reason that species develop de velop hierarchies as they evolve more and more social traits. Without hierarchy, too much effort is wasted in inghting and duplicate effort. Having one dictator, benevolent wise elder, or the boss’s nephew making decisions deci sions is ar more efficient. I’m I ’m a an o democracy in politics, pol itics, but not in the creative world.
2. Maintain Forward Forward Momentum Momentum 2. Maintain In general, orward momentum is critical in collaborations. Dithering and delay will lead you out o the the golden honeymoon period without without much getting done (see the chapter on “Creative Mania and Depression”), and one or more o the collaborators into growing g rowing dissatisaction. dissatisaction. My general sense o collaborative design ailures is that projects collapse when decisions are allowed to be revisited over and over, over, when decisions aren’t aren’t made in aduring timelyplay way,instead and when muchusable time isdesign spent elements. on minutiae or material invisible o intoo creating Tese are all ailures o collaboration, when one designer is trying tr ying to have it all their way. way. So when I doubt, I err on the side o pushing ahead. Attempting Attempting to nail every ever y decision perectly is a recipe or creative creative stalling stalling (“Te perect is the enemy enemy o the good,” as Voltaire reminded us). Stalling is what leads collaborations into slow waters. You need to keep surng the rapids to reach a rst draf. Tis is why that dictator is vital. Even i the leader’s decisions are horribly wrong, good game design includes iterative processes processes that that will nd and correct correct the ailure. Development, prototyping, inter internal nal playtesting, and user testing all nd bad design. Te price o xing it in a later stage is lower l ower than than the price o never reaching that later stage stage at all. Putting an imperect rules set or story arc out or review in a beta orm is always preerable to thrashing around beore reaching a beta stage. Given a choice, always emphasize daily and weekly progress, rather than complete agreement on all points.
3. 3. Minimize Minimize Creative Creative Differences Differences and and Shut Shut Down Down Attention Hogs Attention Hogs Tat requirement requirement or progress is, o course, where things can go seriously wrong. Collaborators who disagree don’t want to move on, even i they are outvoted and their arguments go nowhere. Tis is where jealousy, sabotage, and general ill eelings can arise. No one likes to eel ignored. ig nored. No one likes to see their darlings shot down. K Guide to Game Design — 77 Te K
Unortunately, designers can’t afford to have too much ego invested in a particular approach, approach, or they’ll never survive a teamwork teamwork-based -based project. It’ It’ss a paradox. Designers need ego to craf rules and worlds, and need to have immense immense condence to put those materials materials up or the bashing typically typicall y inicted by testers, developers, editors, and managers. Everyone Everyone wants to leave their mark and claim credit or the good ideas. i deas. Ego is required to propose and deend novel solutions, new genres, and new mechanics that overturn orthodoxy. At the same time, designers who ght hard hard or bad ideas are doomed as proessionals. proession als. I you can’t can’t let go o the midnight ight-o-ancy that that everyone else hates and that even your boss at the design studio smirks at . . . well, you turn into a crank: “Oh, that Frank, Frank, he’s he’s always trying to push FL ships into every space game,” or what have you. Designers need to be a lot more exible than that, and never more so than in collaborations where your charming and lovable quirks run headlong into your collaborator’s lovable eccentricities and ancies. My advice is to ght hard or your ideas with the best data you have, the most stirring rhetoric you can muster, and the most Machiavellian deployment o politics and avors you can pull together tog ether.. I exaggerate exagg erate slightly on the last point: Machiavelli Machiavelli would probably not recommend recommend collaboration collaboration but, rather rather,, extermination extermin ation or isolation, and you should not lie to or deceive your ellow collaborators. However, However, I would urge you to consider the reactions and alliances you can orm around a design that is the work work o many many hands. Simply put, put, collaborative design does include some o the same stresses and problem as politics in other environ environments. ments. I I your efforts efforts ail to win the day, day, quit. Tere’ Tere’ss no sense being a damn ool about it. i t. Remember: Tere are more game design ideas in the world than there are hours in a lietime to work on them. I one doesn’t pan out, abandon it ruthlessly and commit yoursel wholeheartedly wholeheartedly (not grudgingly grud gingly or with silent sabotage!) sabotage! ) to the new direction. You’ll You’ll be hailed a man o reason, you’ll win riends, and you’ll even be able to say later, “Well, we went with your idea back in the utorial, so hear me out or this part. . . .” A little humility among game designers is a virtue that that can pay powerul dividends.
4. Know When 4. Know When to to Fire Fire aa Collaborator Collaborator While humility and a little careul careul advocacy can work wonders wonders in collaboration, collaboration, the more requent problem is that o designer ego sabotaging the collaboration entirely entir ely.. Some designers desig ners are convinced they should take the design desig n lead position p osition and that their take on issues is the correct one. One session o playtesting or user testing is usually enough to convince the designer in question that that this is not the case, but some egos don’t don’t even agree when the playtesters all balk. ba lk. Tat’s when someone needs to have a heart-to-heart with that massive ego, and either talk them into working collaboratively with others, or re them rom the
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project. I a collaborator can’ can’tt or won’t won’t take eedback and cannot cannot take “no “no”” or an answer, then they don’t have the right temperament or collaboration and would be better served workin workingg on their own. Maybe the resulting resulting game will be b e heralded as genius. Maybe it will wil l ade into obscurity. obscurity. In either case, it will stand or all without impeding impeding the progress progress o large, collaborative, collaborative, team-based work. work. I you nd you can’t work with someone, ask the dictator to shrink the group. Most lone-wol designers will be happier to strike out on their own, and your group will move toward a nished design aster i you aren’t always wrestling with a “never wrong” team member.
5. Know Your Your Design Design Strengths Style 5. Know Strengths and and Style Not everyone has the temperament temperament or collaboration. col laboration. And even those who do may choose only to collaborate coll aborate rarely; it requires sharing ideas and accepting that that some o your proposals may be rejected. Likewise, it requires you to establish good reasons or rejecting the proposals o others. Tis creative seesaw (when it works) results in stronger work or everyone. In really powerul, long-term collaborations, you’ll nd there’s a division o labor into types. In musical collaborations, you’d see this in the division o songwriting into melody and lyrics. In game design or RPG R PG adventures, you might see one collaborator working working on the avor avor,, characters, dialogue, dialog ue, and story/quests, and the other working working mostly on tactics, mechanics, me chanics, and rules-based rul es-based triggers or action. Or you might see one designer working working mostly on level design and maps, while another works on monster design, and a third on treasures and equipment. Tis works best i you already know and agree on what your strengths strengths and weaknesses are. Collaboration Collaboration teaches you at at least as much about about yoursel as it does about your partners in crime. Tey will certainly point out your aws, gently or otherwise.
6. U rust: Lo rust: Love ve ruth, ruth, But orgive Error 6. Build Build Up Upp Trust: Love Truth, But F Forgive Error Te Internet style o amewar and attack is anathema to collaboration; such attacks in a close collaboration are entirely destructive. Yes, you want to ght hard or your ideas and deend them, but winning the argument by savagely deconstructing a partner’s design pitch or rules sketch weakens their condence in their abilities (and remember—condence and ego are vital to a successul designer) while reducing their trust in you. In collaborations, you need to nd a communication style that works or both sides. One partner may love rough-and-tumble critique o anything and everything,, while the other preers only to offer constructive everything constructive suggestions and never cutsanloose with a at-out stinksareand here’sor why.” may nd equilibrium i both“that partners looking one.Tat Butcollaboration you have to K Guide to Game Design — 79 Te K
be watching or what reactions you get, and this is why collaboration is easier in person or at at least by phone—you phone—you get more tone, inection, inection, and body language to work with, with, so you know know when your your critique has has gone too ar. ar. Be kind at rst, rst, and as you build bui ld up a rapport and sense o trust, see how your collaborators respond. You always want to be kind in your critique, o course, but sometimes the kindest critique is to say, “I think this idea doesn’t work.” In other words, ramp up your level o honesty over time, as you learn to trust your design partner’s instincts and your own ability to understand what arguments and design theories matter to others on the project. I you nd yoursel unable to accept any o the ideas put orward by others, consider that perhaps you are best off designing on your own rather than in collaboration—or at least, better off with other design partners.
7. W ith Kindness, Revise Ruthlessly Ruthlessly 7. Critique Critique With With Kindness, Revise Ruthlessl y In the end, collaboration depends on your ability to both give and take criticism. Tere’s no way around it, because two or our or ten brains working on a single problem need to align all sorts o elements elements to orge a better whole. I I you can’t can’t offer critique in a way that other collaborators can hear and accept, i your style is either too abrasive or too shy and passive, your collaboration collaboration will ail. ai l. So there’s a ne line. You must be honest in your critique, without throwing amebait. Compassionate critique is what I’d advocate. Keep the discussion on what the the text says, says, how the rules unction, what what the math math or the playtest data data shows. Never, ever descend into personal attacks. Likewise, when you are hearing critiques or reviewing a marked-up document as you try to uniy a design, try not to take it personally. Your work can be improved. Even Even a awed critique will deepen your understanding, understanding, as you will wil l have to put together the reasoning or why the critique is awed. ry to accept criticism with good grace, and i you can’t, step away rom the keyboard or an hour or overnight beore responding.
Why Bother to to Collaborate? Collaborate? Why Bother Te golden rule certainly applies in collaboration, and beginning designers may nd the prospect o seeing their work shot down ofen (or being asked to justiy their modications o a collaborator’s design) intimidating. Part o the joy o tabletop RPG design d esign is the pure un o having no limits, o doing whatever one likes with a clean slate and no CGI budget to worry about. So why would anyone ever limit that? Because when things go right, the end design will be richer, the workload workload will be reduced, reduced , and you’ll provide stronger, stronger, better material to the audience. A great developer or editor ed itor sometimes provides this level o added adde d effort, but that’s that’s not
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their main unction. Designers should bring strong ideas and sharper game play; play ; the competitiveness that develops as people try to top one another’s best is where collaboration takes takes ight. Design ego orces you to do your best or else admit that your collaborator collaborator is pulling more o the the weight. Tat’ Tat’ss powerul incentive incentive to really deliver. A collaboration that is really ticking is one that allows you to improve on your partner’s weak points, while while they help you cover your your own. own. When you read the result, you’ll see that it is greater than the sum o its creators alone.
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12
Failure and Recovery Wolfga olfgang ng Ba Baur ur
he le is corrupted. Your pitch was shot down—hard. Your project was completed, but cancelled and never printed. You You designed it and they printed it, but . . . well, well, it sucks, and everyone tells you so all day long.
Welcome W elcome to being a successul successul game designer. designer.
With any any public project produced under under deadline to high standards, standards, the odds are you won’t always get it right. I certainly haven’t. Tere are several projects I regret because the realities o publishing meant they went to the publisher at a level I wasn’t happy with, the publisher didn’t deliver the playtesting or map resources I hoped or, the ans just hated what I did with part o the setting, or the editor changed my avorite sentence sentence to suck all the joy out o it. As the designer, you think you have control control over a game g ame design project—and you do have a lot o control control over the the oundations oundations and the execution. execution. But you don’ don’tt have complete control. control. Sometimes a project is judged on element elements—like s—like art, a graphics rendering engine, or an index—that you don’t control at all. No matter why the project might be considered a ailure, it’s still your name on the cover, and you need to deend that work or move past it. It’s okay to ail, o course. Everyone does. But you can’t do it ofen and stay a reelancer because no one will hire you again.
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Fail early in the process i you can. Fail ofen i you must, and deend the ailures you can’t change. But don’t accept ailure in your work or excuse it. Here’s how to reduce the risks o ailure and become the designer with the golden gol den touch.
Fail Early Fail Early I at all possible, ail in your game designs when they haven haven’t’t even gone to an editor yet. Fail at the in-house playtest. Fail in ront o patrons in Open Design. Fail with your rst readers and a ew trusted, sharp minds who review the project beore it goes anywhere. Fail Fail beore it matter matterss much. Tis is by ar the easiest ailure to x. Yes, you are perhaps somewhat embarrassed in ront o colleagues, riends, or amily, but that’s nothing compared to being embarrassed by the same ailure a ilure in the wider public world. Some designers resist ailure. Tey become so committed to an idea that they can’t see it won’t work, or they reuse to listen to the rst readers, playtesters, developers, editors, or anyone else. You You need to have enough perspective to know when you have have a good, original, workable idea that that other other people will appreciate once you’v you’ve polished components and all al l the edges edg es no tucked in value, neatly—or when you have a shiny turde got withitbeautiul but replay no sizzle, and nohave spark o originality originalit y. Don’t assume that those who criticize you are trying to thwart your dreams. Tey may be saving you rom a horrible, ace-planting disaster.
Defend It Defend It Let’s say that the design ailure Let’s ail ure gets past everyone ever yone and makes it into a nished game or system. You’re going to have to own that ailure in mechanics or worldbuilding. Tis is the part o ailure ailure that may make make you grit your teeth. teeth. I believe that deending deending a mistake in worldbuilding or setting design is much more painul than it need be or mechanical mechanical or rules ailures. Here’ Here’ss why. why. Te skill challenge mechanic in 4 was pretty much a mess when the new edition o D&D shipped; players and DMs didn’t understand it, and the math was all wrong. Te initial response response rom Wizards Wizards o the the Coast (WotC) (WotC) (as I remember it) was, “Oh, that’s the way it’s supposed to work.” Te rules were perhaps comprehe comprehensible nsible to someone who who had taken taken part in all the hard hard work work and in-house playtests and discussion at WotC. But the act that they met with widespread conusion, conusion, rejection, and and immediate house house rules was a pretty pretty clear sign that they didn’t work or the wider world. Te assumptions behind those rules—and as it later turned out, the math underpinning the mechanics—were awed. Declaring, “It’s ne, really,” is not necessarily the best move when a mechanic is truly broken, but at least it started a conversation conversation that led to wholesale revision K Guide to Game Design — 83 Te K
and errata, changing all the numbers associated with those rules. In addition, the company launched an online column devoted more or less entirely to showing the WotC assumptions and methods or using skill challenges. Te mechanic was xed in later printings o the core rules and the rules subsystem is stro stronger nger now than it was at launch. Te initial ailure o the mechanics has largely been be en orgiven and orgotten, and gamers are pleased that new system works or their purposes. Te worse example o deending ailure is in cases where something can’t be xed. Te most recent F R reset upset a lot o long-time ans and got a lot o bad press, but there’s just no way that Hasbro could admit ault and say, “We didn’t mean it. No Spell Plague; we’ll put it back a better way.” Tey took a creative risk by advancing the timeline and killing kill ing off popular characters, but once they took the risk they owned it, success or ailure. In a shared world setting, ailures are painul because you have to live with the ailure and take the heat rom ans, sometimes or years, beore the next reset allows you y ou to x it. And in the case o the F R and other setting changes, it’s arguable that the company’s goal o making the setting more accessible was achieved, even e ven i it came at the price o long-term ans. Every shared world has times when it needs to annoy the ans or its own long-term health. What is considered a ailure by the audience may still be mark marked ed a success by the publisher.
Setting Failures ilures Setting Fa Failures Fa ilures When you commit commit to a setting, setting, it’ i t’ss impossible to x x it. Tis is why antasy antasy RPG settings are inherently inherently conservative; any change will be considered a mistake by some member o the anbase. Te saest course or a large corporation to manage its intellectual property is i s to offer a lot o action and adventure—but adventure—but like a V V comedy, to make sure none o that changes the deault premises o the setting. So, what do you do? Move past it and learn rom it. Tose are really your two most proessional options. Moving past it may mean creating errata, ignoring canon elements or regions o a setting that aren’t working, workin g, or updating the timeline timeline with urther urther material material in a novel novel or later adventure.
Te of of Hard Knocks School e School Hard Knocks Learning rom ailure is the obvious lesson here. When designers are burned by mechanical ailures, most tend not to repeat their errors. Tere’s not much you can do about art ailures, ai lures, editing, mark marketing eting or other elements, other than being sure to provide ull support to those groups when asked. Learn to provide the best core design you can, and then learn to let go so that graphic designers, editors, and others can do their work.
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I you don’t don’t move past it or learn rom it, there is a third road: Blame everyone else and accept no responsibility—learn nothing. nothing. Tis is i s also reerred to as “Leaving the RPG eld,” because it is proessional suicide. I don’t recommend it. Tere’s one last option to x really large, larg e, systemic ailures o the rules: note the problem in your your design records and make sure sure to x it in the the next edition. Tat’ Tat’ss how you build a career rather than merely merely designing a single game. Failure is a discouragement, certainly, and never un. Remember the happiness Failure o a successul design, a good review, and an mail. Some setbacks are inevitable in even the most exciting, rewarding orms orms o work, and most o those setbacks are great opportunities to grow as a designer desig ner,, to learn where a piece went wrong, and add new tools to your design toolbox. It’s a small price to pay or doing what we love.
K Guide to Game Design — 85 Te K
Contributor Biographies W Wolfgang olfgang Baur... Baur... Baur... Wolfgang ...is the publisher and ounder o Open Design, the collaborative game design company. He has edited K , D, and D magazines, and the publisher o the K G G D series. He is the author o dozens o award-winning adventures or A A , C C, P , and our editions o D&D, as well as a handul o short stories, two card games, many magazine articles, and several campaign settings, including the modern conspiracy setting D*M with Monte Monte Cook. He worked worked with with Colin McComb on the the original P line at SR. Wolgang is the winner o the Diana Jones Award or Excellence in Gaming, and writes requently on games and roleplaying at koboldquarterly.com.
Monte Cook... Monte Cook... ...was one o the three principal designers o T E D&D and the d20 system. His d20 design studio, Malhavoc Press, produced award-winning award-winning products like M C’ A E, P, and the B E M. Monte has worked worked in the game industry since 1988 on D&D, C, R , and more. He also created HC, D20 C C, and M C’ W D. He lives in Wisconsin with his wie Sue, a talented and respected editor o game products and ction. Monte has published two novels, numerous short stories, countless countless articles, and a comic book series or Marvel. He is a graduate o the Clarion West Writer’s Workshop and his recent nonction book is A S’ G C, and his current game-related work can be ound at dungeonaday.com.
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Contributor Biogrphies
Ed Ed Greenwood... Greenwood... Greenw ood... ...is the creator o the Forgotten Realms antasy world-setting, an award winning game designer, and and a New York York imes imes-bestselling author whose antasy novels have sold millions o copies worldwide in more than thirty languages. A well-padded, white-bearded white-bearded librarian ofen mistaken or Santa Santa Claus, Ed was was once hailed as “the Canadian o the great American novel,” and shares an old armhouse with more than thaauthor n 80,000 books. Right now, he’s at work on several Open Design projects, and writing his usual three novels at once. Currently, look or E M D! rom Wizards o the Coast.
Rob Rob Heinsoo... Heinsoo... ...designs roleplaying games, card games, board games and miniatures games. He led the design o the ourth edition o D & D and wrote or led the design o many many o its sourcebooks, sourcebooks, including D P , the F R P G, P P , and P A. Other recent designs include the card games T-D A, T-D A: E’ G, I-F, the D&D M game and its rst nine expansion sets, and co-design co-desig n o the D miniatures game.
In the 90s, Rob worked at Daedalus Entertainment, Chaosium, and A-Sharp on designs including S, F S, and the computer game K D P. Rob blogs at robheinsoo.livejou robheinsoo.livejournal.com rnal.com
Colin McComb... ... Colin McComb McComb... ...has been a proessional game designer since 1991. He has won two Origins Awards or his work with S E D & D, worked extensively extensive ly on the Planescape line, and helped create the campaign setting o Birthright. He lef SR to work at Interplay/Black Isle Studios, where he helped design the cult classic computer RPG P: T, the postapocalyptic classic F 2, and other games. Since then, he has worked with a variety o companies including Paizo, Malhavoc Press, and Planetwide Games, creating walkthroughs, mission scripts, story design, and more. He recently advised Wayne State University on establishing a game/interactive game/interactive media. He now teaches game design at a local college in Michigan. Michig an. He is an independent game developer and co-owner co- owner o 3lb Games (http://www.3lbgames.com), where he creates mobile application applicationss or kids. He’s currently at work on a strategy game or the iPad.
K Guide to Game Design — 87 Te K
The Ultimate GAME DESIGNER’S Handbook
Story, combat, plot, setting: Roleplaying games are ar more than just rolling dice and moving pieces around a board. For imaginative adventure in your living room, there’s nothing like it. But how do game designers create the quests and challenges that have excited players or 40 years? T K G G D, V V III: & gets into the nitty gritty o game design: • Creating dynamic combat systems • In Invent venting ing compelling game mechanics •• W Imagining Im aginingwell ascinating ascinatin g settings Working orking with collaborators with • Understanding the differences between tabletop and video game design • Much, much more Learn the craf rom award-winning award-winning designers who have worked worked on some o the most enduring games in the eld, including D & D, F R, C C, and so many more. Discover their tools and techniques, then embark on your own adventure, creating the next generation o roleplaying games!
What is O D? Patrons commission Open Design adventur adventures es or their sole use. Tey are not sold in stores. Written W ritten with requent requent eedback and critique critique by the patrons, patrons, the adventu adventures res are not shaped shaped by a corporate branding strategy —they offer what players and DMs really want. Tat’s Open Design. To become a patron, please visit koboldquarterly.com. TM
Open Design is a trademark of Open Design LLC.
PRIN $18.95 PDF $14.95
ISBN 978-0-9843159-9 978-0-9843159-9-4 -4
51895 >
9 780984 315994
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