Design Review: Understanding what makes 5e, 5e

Earlier this year I did an in-depth review of SMRPF (Simple Modifiable Role-Playing Framework), an in-development game by Grey Rocket, which focuses on bringing the feeling of Dungeons & Dragons 5e to a more adaptable generic version for Grey Rocket to build and adapt to his own needs. What was delivered was one of the cleanest in-development game documents I have read to date. If you would like to see the in-development game, you can grab it at: https://greyrocket.itch.io/.

We have all had this dream at some point or another: what if I could make 5e better fit my needs? So, let’s first look into how Grey decided to tackle this by starting where all design reviews start, the game’s pillars.

1. As simple as possible but as defined as possible.

2. “A generic system similar to 5e, but simpler, from which I can easily homebrew into any setting.”

3. Designed to attract players who are new to the ttrpg hobby.

4.  To keep players experienced with SMRPF interested in playing

Keep it Simple

For the first goal, “as simple as possible…”, remember how I said this was a clean document? The game does this really well overall. There are a few cases I encountered that felt more like suggestions, but that can be cleaned up with language. The rules are laid out systematically and tied well into each other for the core loop of the game. You will need to read the book to actually see what I mean here. As much as I enjoyed reading SMRPF, I think it highlights some of the challenges of trying to base your game off D&D 5e and still preserve the character of 5e. throughout this review I will go over some of the things I think were done poorly in an otherwise great pre-release document, why that might have happened, and what we, as designers, can learn from those mistakes.

Explain When to Roll
While the Skill Checks section in SMRPF was relatively clear cut, the first sentence left the act of “when to use Skill Check” undefined. Here is what is written: “When a character tries to do something, the GM may use a Skill Check to determine if the character succeeds or fails." The use of the words tries and may here leaves a very undefined situation. Rules books should attempt to better define exactly when a mechanic should be used, because the frequency the mechanics are used, shape the feel of the game. 

Determining the pace of calling for a roll is how a designer can control the narrative of how your game is played. Clear indications of when mechanics are used helps ensure the game is played the way it’s meant to be played, as to highlight the themes the designer had in mind. A horror ttrpg might call for dice rolls rarely (because it carries a severe penalty of failure) while ttrpgs where activating character abilities are tied to dice results might call for frequent dice rolls to provoke interesting events. You are the game designer, so you create the framework of fun for the players to explore around or within that mechanical framework. If the text says nothing about when to roll, then the GM and players might over-roll or under-roll based on their assumptions, which might contradict the game’s themes or design goals. Without clear and complete rules on when to make a Skill Check, the game cannot stand on its own. It requires experience playing another game to cover the rules it cannot. In this way SMRPF fails in its goal of being suitable as someone’s first ttrpg. 

Define the Player Characters

The section that really needed more definition in SMRPF was the Character Creation section. The first mechanical sentence: “To create your character, give them a name, a description, any languages they know, their species, their backstory, their allies, and anything unique about them” left me confused with no clear way to resolve it. When I read the above sentence, I would expect the next few sections to explain each of the listed requirements to be explained, instead I found no such explanation for the underlined sections anywhere in the book. While this leads me to believe this is all narrative—without mechanical reinforcement or clearer definition, but, there should still be a description of each explaining such. It’s fine for these aspects to be loosely defined, many ttrpgs do that successfully, but without any understanding of usage, SMRPF needs to rely on other ttrpg rulebooks to support play. For players coming from D&D 5e where these very aspects are more rigidly defined just creates confusion for a SMRPF player.

Examples Reflect Play Expectations

The third thing I want to bring up is a play example in SMRPF. It reads: “Example: A PC wants to jump over a large puddle…” Examples should be representative of what the players will do in the game that would require the mechanic. So, unless jumping over puddles is an exciting and challenging task to the players, skip past them instead. Having representative examples in a rulebook does not just help guide players on what they will be doing, or how to use the rules, it also informs them of appropriate situations to use the rules. So, in the case of the puddle example, and especially since when to call for Skill Checks was so vaguely defined, players are taught to do a Skill Check for all tasks as ordinary as jumping over puddles, and should expect to roll for things of puddle jumping difficulty or greater. 

How Close Should An Adaptation Be?

Dungeons & Dragons 5e is not popular for its raw mechanics. In my experience, players generally do not find it engaging for these aspects in comparison with other systems. D&D 5e’s biggest draw is its holistic approach to exploration. Exploring the unique monsters, reading and imagining the class and race combinations to make your character, and discovering new items that appear in your games. Naturally, any game can have these things, but by copying 5e without capturing what I feel is the character of the game, SMRPF becomes less of an adaptation of D&D 5e and more of a game of its own based on D&D 5e.

Players new to tabletop roleplaying games do not play a game for mechanics. This comes from my experience developing a generic system. They play because of friends playing, because of interesting stories or worlds, or because they can be something really interesting. That is why 5e is really good at attracting new players, because it has a lot of friends already playing. It has a brand of fantasy that is mainstream to understand. A system that is based on 5e hopes to carry over the built-in audience, but if it deviates too far from 5e’s play principals it risks alienating players by defying their expectations of what 5e’s character is. There is nothing wrong with taking your system in its own direction, but you’d need to be aware that you lose the built-in popularity, and instead need to highlight the strength of your mechanics and the potential unique stories that can be told with your system beyond the reach of D&D 5e. It would then be the GMs’ role to attract new players, rather than relying on the built-in audience of D&D 5e.

When making your own games, try to remember these points, so you can ensure your understanding of what makes your favorite game magical is not missed in your development. Especially remember this advice if you, like me, are making a generic system.

This is my second time with the new format so let me know if you like it. If you want more/less depth, examples, or whatever in the comments below. If you like my work, join my mailing list for my own system. Or you can give me a follow on Twitter @c22system or @PagodaGamesLLC on Facebook/Instagram. Also, please go check out the rest of Grey Rocket’s work on his itch.io page: https://greyrocket.itch.io/.

Design Review: Consistency across pages

I had a busy few months but I am back with a vengeance   a need for more cowbell   the inability to write a proper opening.  I have a few blog posts lined up to keep consistent posting again once a month.  I wanted to change the format of my design reviews to allow me to dive deeper into the RPG and provide more examples we can all learn from when making our own.

Late 2022 and early 2023 I took an in depth look at Ruins of Past Glory, a tabletop RPG about the thrill of survival and the power of relationships developed by Elo Lewis. Right off the bat I liked the first page.  It had a clear format and appropriately set my expectations for the rest of the book.

Looking at the image on the right. We can see the game pillars right in the first paragraph.  Then we have framing for the world below on the left.  That is followed by what dice and tools we need clearly listed with the structural framing on the right.

While this framing stayed at this level consistently for each page, the connection across pages and the flow from page to page needed some clarifications. I can see that the skeleton for what Elo wants is there, but I am missing understanding of how some of the mechanics interact together.  Examples would go a long way. From the first sentences we can easily see the goals of Ruins of Past Glory. 

“Ruins of Past Glory is a speculative fiction storytelling game about people taking risks, forging bonds, and turning trauma into strength. Play as relatable people in tense and uncertain situations.”

From that sentence we see the goals are threefold: Encouraging people to take risks, Bonding with other characters, turning trauma into strength.

The first and the third tie well together. There is a system of failure that rewards trying something and grants strength, but I want it to be clearer. Scattered in three sections of the book, we have the explanation of Stress, which creates Experience when you roll under your current Stress, Experience, which can be spent to gain power (from improved Approaches) or learn new Lessons, Potentials which limit your growth and force your character to retire.  The connection between these three mechanics is not explicitly stated nor is an example provided.  It took me a few reads to completely understand the implications of the mechanics and how they work together.  Since this “trauma into strength” is such an important aspect of the game, it should be clearer. Also maybe Stress should just be called Trauma to help the reader make that connection better. 

---

Now touching on the “Encourage people to take risks'' goal.  The previously discussed reward of failure is encouraging and makes failures not a bad thing. Without playing the game, I do think that the chance of failure is a bit too high in some cases. MATH ALERT. 

This is a roll under system where you roll equal to or under your approach. Everyone starts at 1 in every approach, gets 2 in 8, and 3 and 3 of them. The core mechanic has you rolling 1d6 so in 16/27 approaches you have an 18% chance to succeed, In 8/27 approaches you have a 33% chance and in 3, you have a 50% chance. With the goals of characters cycling in and out of a campaign, a lot of time will be spent in this mathematical state.  How often would you want to attempt actions that you only have a 18% chance to succeed? 33%? 50%?  Rarely, Not too often, and sometimes, in that order. 

My general suggestion would be to change everything to a 2d6 system, keep the same setup but start everyone at a 5 with the same approach leveling up mechanic.  This would change your success rates to 27.5% for most approaches, 41.5% for your skilled approaches, and 58.5% for your expert approaches. Still similar, but the untrained approaches are significantly higher which should make them more encouraging to use. This also has the benefit of granting slightly more growth opportunities and a more interesting growth curve (+1 -> 72.5%, +2 -> 83.5%). This change has not been adopted and ultimately Elo knows more about his system and what he wants out of it than I do.

[Math alert ends]

---

For the second goal, bonding with other characters, I had a similar issue of not having enough information to completely understand this mechanic. So here is a reminder for everyone.  If the mechanic is one of your pillars, make sure its use and importance is clear throughout the rules. Regarding this particular mechanic, there is exactly one paragraph for the player describing Bonds.  I copied it below for your viewing understanding.

There is an entire section about the use of bonds through interactions, buried within another section, but I am left with the question of what is a bond?  How does it advance?  How many can I have? I think the entire bond section could be given another paragraph explaining this, and then referencing the interactions section later by stating that is how you use bonds.  I believe some formatting changes and layout changes were made that made Bonds much more prevalent in the book.

---

Ultimately what we can learn from this game, for our own, is the importance of including the right amount of depth and prevalence of our core mechanics throughout the book.  For Bonds in Ruins of Past Glory, we only have it listed in a few places and the rules for it in its main section are not sufficient. For anything that is your core pillar, give it its own page, discuss it in detail, and provide some examples.  Next we can understand the importance of flow between sections.  There is a simple thing you can do to check for this, read across sections and pages when editing.  Make sure you have the right concluding paragraphs with appropriate transitions and you are good to go.

Some of the suggestions above will take some time for Elo to implement, large structural changes are not easy, but the goal should be to get the game ready for players as soon as possible so, the fastest method to that end would be to add a few examples.  Examples were severely lacking in Ruins of Past Glory but would greatly help readers connect the various mechanics across different pages. Once you and other players are playing the game, major system changes sometimes cause section to be removed so it is just more efficient to make major structural changes after major playtesting.

That wraps up this review. Let me know if you like the new format more, if you want more/less depth, examples, or whatever in the comments below. If you like my work, join my discord(https://discord.gg/VQ3UM36Bjp), or join my mailing list for my own system. Or you can give me a follow on Twitter @c22system or @PagodaGamesLLC on Facebook/Instagram.

Design Review: Highlight your strong points

This month I reviewed Thaumaturge by Austin, a game of player-generated spells in the Thaumetic Age. You are probably wondering when the Thaumetic Age was and if you missed it.  Do not worry, I will cover that and you did not miss it, you would have noticed.

Thaumaturgy is just a fancy word for magic -- angel granted magic. Thematically, player-made spells are “psalms”. Pretty thematic right? So now we are all caught up.  Here is what I found reading this game from the perspective of a new player. The document was missing some of the core chapters that make up the “why would I want to play this game”. This does not mean that this game is bad, it just did not highlight its strong points.

When I say “Why would I want to play this game” sections, I mean the introductory 1-2 pages/paragraphs of why the game is great and unique and the “what I will be doing during a game” sections.  Also known as, “how do I string together skill checks to make a game”?  Often, the abilities that are selected during character creation are enough to indicate what the characters will be doing. Because of this, the “why should I play this game” sections can be easy to miss. This can be especially if you are making something similar to the industry giants like D&D or Pathfinder. I think this boils down to the fact that dungeon crawling and loot gathering in fantasy times seems to be the norm, so it often times feels like you do not need to write down that information. Do not skip it, it is a great opportunity to explain the cool and unique points of your game within the familiar framework of RPG “norms”.

The last part I noticed a lot in this read through was confusion in rules due to poor word order. Austin told me that some players struggled understanding how combat works. My first read through of the combat section made this apparent. Often a lot of work is needed to fix issues like this, but sometimes, proper word order is all that is needed. This was the case here for combat, and in the section on psalms later on. The fix was actually rather simple, explain the rules in the order they are encountered in the game when resolving an action. In Thaumaturge, Wounds and Damage was before Making an attack for example. So my advice for this is while some rules may seem more important, thus making you want to explain them sooner, the order at which the rules are introduced greatly helps in the understanding of the how the rules are used. The updated order for combat that I suggested was the following: Overview of combat, Making an Attack (also mentioning how attacks are initiated), wounds and damage, reacting to an attack, Turn of Attack, Healing, Death, Abnormal statuses. 

When writing a book as dense as an RPG, little things like this often get overlooked since you, as the creator, know everything.  This prevents you from seeing when rules are out of order, even if the individual pieces themselves are explained well.  I know I am guilty of having this problem when writing my games. The easiest way to solve this, is by having new players read your book and then you asking them to explain how to do something.

Let me know if this was helpful, if you like the content, or any questions you have about your own creations. You can let me know on Twitter (@c22system) or join the discord (https://discord.gg/VQ3UM36Bjp)

Design Review: Adding structure to your ideas

This month I review Conjured Outcasts by Kitsunefourtail (@Kitsunefourtail).  Its a setting agnostic rpg system packed full of creative parts representing a large array of different systems and pieces to fit the exact setting you create.

I want to apologize for the lack of posts these last 2 months, life got in the way, if you follow my other works, you’ll know why.  This month I reviewed Conjured Outcasts and I am finally getting around to posting my thoughts. This is my first setting agnostic system to review so I am excited to be able to apply a bit of what I learned when making C22. For those of you who have been following along with my reviews, Kitsunefourtail requested that I review this system as if I was a player looking at it for the first time.

I started by reading the major sections, character creation, combat, and skill checks, though admittedly I missed the skill check section the first time through.  Once I made my first pass through the book to determine what it was about, I was not particularly sure.  I felt like the game is about delving into dungeons and fighting things but for some reason, the items in my bedroom matter. So, let us start this review where the book starts, in the bedroom.

Character creation’s goal was to be simple and quick, so you as a player think about your bedroom and pick two things, which give you different bonuses. For example, Door grants you the ability to leave combat without taking the disengage action. The Window ability gives you +30 perception. I’ll admit, it is an interesting mechanic and it is fast. Here is my problem with the system and its implementation in the game. This system sets my frame of mind to the real world, to my person, so now I am thinking modern day setting and low power; the rest of this book feels high power fantasy. So now there is a mismatch between what I am expecting and what I am reading. This is the very first thing I see as a reader, so it sets me off on the wrong foot from the get-go. Speaking of the first thing I see, that is where my second problem lies. The very first abilities listed are, in order: Wall, Window, Door, Some form of communication, Books. So, if I grab the first two things I see in my room and on the list, I am making a very boring character, based on the common structural components of my room. Instead, I suggested that the game focuses on a forcing the unique and push the reader to “think of the two most unique items in their room and find the closest representations on the list. This would make the characters and players feel more closely aligned. A character built from a photo of the reader with grandma in Paris and ice skates would be more unique than a character built from a wall and a door.” I left a few more suggestions for this section that might make my above suggestion unnecessary, but no need to cover the nitty gritty here.

I found, as a reader, the book is filled with creative ideas, but finding the right information to understand how to use the ideas is a chore. So, I focused this review on structuring the document and tying everything together. While I have done this for books in the past, this book is a bit different, so I suggested a different structure for the game.

Since Conjured Outcasts is a setting-agnostic game at its core, but filled with many different setting specific systems, the structure I envision that would work best would be a core with branches that connect to the various systems that can be used in various settings. This is similar to how a system has a core rule book and then splat books or setting books to tell specific stories.  The difference here is we want to advise systems that work well together or in different settings to ease players into the game but once they have a game’s worth of experience, they can mix systems to create interesting games and settings.

The first step in this is the same first step I suggest everyone takes with their game, write a table of contents, it does not need to be for the reader, it is for you. This is to help you visualize everything in the game. If you are writing your own system or homebrew, feel free to follow along and see how this differs from your system’s structuring process.

Second, separate everything that needs to be in every game, a.k.a., create the core. In this game I expect the core to be rather small: Character Creation and progression, Skills Checks, Character Statuses.  This is, incidentally, what would be included in a quick start along with an adventure.

Thirdly, streamline the core into an order that slowly introduces more and more information, but the reader will either understand the new terms and concepts as presented, immediately learn about them after, or know where they will learn more about them. This is standard writing practices, but with new concepts like those introduced and taught in tabletop roleplaying games. You will want to find problem points where people do not understand and find out how to explain them.  Sometimes you do not need to explain something in detail at first, just enough to continue reading.

When a book has a slightly different setup like this, I think a section is necessary at the beginning just to talk about how to use the book most effectively.  Covering how the core rules are necessary and then how the reader will construct their game with the systems you provide.

Once the core is done, for this particular book we can start working on the connecting structure. To help readers understand, do a beginning section for the optional systems talking about different combinations or giving a quick sentence or two selling each system and why and when you should use it.  Then same as step three, apply the same process to each system to streamline the information, working from more general to more specific and from more basic to more technical as the reader learns more and more.

I think writing a clear tabletop roleplaying game book is a hard thing to do and you will always run into a player that just does not understand something. Our goals as writers is to reduce this confusion the best we can by trying to put ourselves in the mindset of the reader.  Another way to help with this is to have a friend read through the book a first time and mark every point they were confused about something.  Processes like this can get you a new perspective.  I am by no means a expert of words or technical writing, just someone who wants everyone to be able to make the games they envision. If you have any other suggestions for clear writing let me know in the comments below.

If you like what I am doing let me know and please give me a follow @c22system, or join my discord (https://discord.gg/gAJpjZXuYq ), or what would be super great is if you back my Kickstarter for Freelancer’s Guide coming Feb 22, 2022.

Design Review: The concept of Try Again

This week I reviewed the in development TRPG Spelunk by Mike Head. Exploration is at the heart of Spelunk, while combat is the structure that holds it together. With just those two tidbits you may write this off as another Dungeons and Dragons clone, but there is a third part to this game. “Explore. Die. Try Again”

Art by Amalia Bowens and Aaron Mills

I apologize for the absence from posting these. I got caught up with my computer arriving and then rewriting the rules of my game for the QuickStart coming in November. Onto the review.

After talking with the designer about the core intent of the game, I confirmed that the three pillars of the game are exploration, combat, and persistence/rewards for dying and making a new character aka “Try Again”.  These are the important points that I will touch on in this review.  For those that have followed along with the other reviews, I am looking at this game with a Player focus, so it is getting ready for external play testers.

Let’s start with “Explore”.  Spelunk delivers on the exploration mainly in character options.  The races are very well narratively expressed through their mechanics and the classes have a deep array of options.  A bestiary will be coming soon which will really add to the depth of the exploration. (Note: If you want to see me write more about delivering exploration in TRPGs message me; I have ideas)

“Die” is the next pillar.  I was expecting a bit more here when I read the section.  The basics are you lose stamina, then gain wounds.  Each wound gained increases the chances you will face mortality.  The game seems a bit slightly more on the deadly side than the heroic side, but I wont know for sure unless I can see it in game.

The last pillar “Try Again” felt unfulfilled in the parts that I read.  My talks with the designer revealed that the goal was the character creation was supposed to be quick so that it would encourage players to quickly get back into playing.  The problem I have is that usually a player’s first or second character is the class and race combination they want to play the most.  While there are numerous combinations in Spelunk that can support wanting to try many different characters, the magic a player experiences playing their 5th character is much different than their first.  I brought up more constructive advice with the designer so instead I want to use the rest of this blog post to talk about ways to implement the “Try Again” aspect for any reader that might be interested in that for their games.

What kind of ideas do you expect when you hear “Try Again”?  For me, it is roguelike games, Groundhog Day, a new body but the same character.  In all of these examples I imagine a progression system that either comes from death or is persistent through death.  Sure, everything related to your character is lost when they die, but maybe now you know more skills than before, or you know the piece of the puzzle you didn’t before.  For C22 I would approach this by making the deck reset and items lost on death, but skill points would carry over between characters.  The passing of experience but the resetting of the body.  For Spelunk, I would probably award more karma for each death, and expand the karma system to allow it to be used in character creation to buy extra skills or Attributes. Furthermore, I would explore some death related progression as well. Maybe depending on how you died, I would give unique skills or passive abilities that would help you on all subsequent characters.  That would fulfill the exploration pillars as well by giving a way to explore “dying”.  As long as the ways that you die, and the benefits they grant are not known to players beforehand.

Narratively, how would we represent this ability to “Try Again”? I think of spirits, a resurrection cycle, or remote-controlled robots.  In this fantasy setting, the character’s spirit could be bound to a place and resurrected after each death.  Or the character’s spirit might just be able to leave the dying body and inhabit another somewhere else.  Another example, you could have a dungeon that you must complete within a day and or be killed or kicked out. In this way the players that did not die and those that did, would be able to retry each day.  If the game was more futuristic, you could skip the actual “death” aspect all together and just have the players be controlling machines that when they die, you grab a new machine body instead.  What are some of the things you envision for “Try Again”?

Spelunk is gearing up to be played soon, but unlike the other games I reviewed, this game will mainly remain a hobby project and does not intend to be released.  If you are very interested in playing it, I can try to connect you to the designer, just reach out to me.  If you like what I am doing or have any other game topics you want me to talk about.  I have three design subjects I want to touch on eventually: exploration in ttrgs, Role vs Roll, and a study on dice.

Message me in the comments, join my discord, or @c22system on Twitter.

Design Review: Pillars of Design

Starwrath is a campy dark humor space opera about honor, courage, and punching people so hard they explode.  The game definitely delivers on that premise and the designer has a great idea of what they want the game to be.

This week I reviewed the in development Starwrath by the designer hairyhobbittoes (@StarwrathR). If you are familiar with these posts, I looked at it from the lens of a Player, focusing on rules clarity and choices and decisions available to the player.

Starwrath is a very crunchy game with a book chalk full of options for the players.  The game has a plethora of character options to choose from with weapons, species, nations, lifepaths, and fighting styles all equally important as the standard stats/skills/talents that are found in most RPGs.  After reading about 100 pages, I can assure the game delivers on the core experience. It’s got campy covered with skills like Intimidating Slow Walk and moments specifically for banter baked into encounters.  It has metal covered with skills like Bleeding from the eyes and action to turn dead bodies into ammo.  Finally, you can punch enemies 10 different ways to Sunday with its unique fighting styles (there are 10 of them).

temporary art provided by hairyhobbittoes

Crunchy games are great, trust me, I’m making one, but there is a problem that arises with crunchy games and Starwrath doesn’t avoid it.  The more complex a game is the more difficult it is to explain.  Just remember from this point on, these are my opinions that the designer may not share. From my experience reading the game, I feel like the sheer number of options has diluted the core experience.  I feel that as a player I will be too concerned with which weapon and specific size each monster is and which of the 20 combat options I have to really appreciate the core experience of the game.

This is still in development so there is plenty of time to fix this. Now, I think there are at least two ways to handle this, the first can be with clear explanation and introducing mechanics gradually as to not overwhelm the reader. If you want to learn basics of that and technical writing, go read the section from my review of Shifting Tides.

The other way to handle this, while also working well in tandem with the first, is to take a look at the features and comparing them to the core experience and reevaluating if you really need them in the game. Let’s talk about a few design processes I know to help with this.  I will be using my advice to hairyhobbittoes as an example, but you can also use these processes for your games and homebrews as well.

First make sure you have clearly defined your pillars of design. You’ve probably heard this concept before but in case you haven’t, don’t worry, I’ll explain it again.  Pillars of design are like guiding posts for your design decisions.  They help you focus what you develop by providing concrete pillars to refer to.  A few examples made from my understanding of Starwrath would be the following:

• Campy – this game channels the energy of B movies and what makes them great.

• Space Opera - think Star Wars, Mass Effect, or Warhammer 40k.

• Heavy Metal - Punching people so hard they explode in a fireball.

• Martial Arts

Martial Arts Styles Tree

Once you have those set, get an idea of all the features and options you have for your characters and list them.  Then order that list from most important to least important based on what you value as the designer. Then compare each one to your Pillars, mark how many pillars they fulfil.  The ones that you ranked as most important should have higher numbers, as they fulfil more pillars than the ones lower on the list. If that is not the case, you should reevaluate your pillars.

After that, take a look at the features, especially the ones that don’t meet many of your pillars and see if you truly need them in the game. If you don’t, put them in another document as to remove them from the game. This allows you to reference them later and add them back if you change your mind. I find that this process makes it easier to remove features from the game because I can trick myself with the idea that it might be temporary. I am only moving them to this other document.

For the rest of the mechanics, see how many you can combine into similar sections. Maybe weapons can all be explained together, or explosions and knockback can be explained in a different, status effect only section. As for YOU reader, this process is very specific to your particular game and while I cannot give you examples directly related to your project, I can provide a few examples that may help.

Let’s say you have a long list of combat options, for example 20. Not all 20 of them would reasonably options at a single time in combat.  An experienced player will understand that and would quickly parse out which ones do not fit each particular situation. Take a look at when each of these may become good options, focus on grouping them into specific scenarios and then explain them during those scenarios.  In this way, you can do the work for the player, which would help newer players particularly.

Another example, for the first year of development for C22 I had players always draw two cards for magic and combat, and one card for skills.  This caused confusion because there would be one card for skills outside of combat but then two cards in combat, but then magic was always two cards.  Players would often ask how many cards they needed to draw for each situation. I changed the system so that out of combat, it was always one card, and inside encounters, it was always two cards. Streamlining the process and combining a few features to make them easier to understand.

You can also do this for your game and expand the mechanics outside of just character creation. I mostly read character creation for Starwrath so most of my comments were about that aspect, but you can cover your whole system.  What are the pillars of design for your project?  Have they changed as your game or homebrew developed? Let me know in the comments below.  If you like what I’m doing, let me know and follow me on Twitter (@c22system)

Design Review: Write Confidently

This week I took a look a COGS, a Collaborative One-shot, Generala System, made by Sage Beroff.  You can follow them and this game on Twitter @Scribblegs. COGS is a rules light universal role-playing game with a fun and unique dice mechanic that will keep each action exciting for a few seconds longer.

Now, before we start, I need to admit some biases.  Rules light games are generally not my jam, as I usually finish reading the systems wondering “where is the rest of the game?” Keep that in mind when you read this post. While reading COGS, I was not left wondering where the rest of the game was, but I was still left wanting more defined.  Therefore, based on what I said earlier, COGS is definitively a rules light system.

At only 4 pages of core rules and 2 pages of optional rules, this game is small, but has a good core to work around. The core resolution mechanic involves rolling 5 6-sided dice and forming poker hand like combinations, with less probable configurations granting a better success on the check. The players define their traits and items that make up their character, then they can invoke these traits and items when relevant to reroll any number of dice.  That is it. I think it is simple and unique and makes this a worthwhile game to try out for your next one shot. 

My only concern system-wise, is that rules light systems traditionally pride themselves on “getting out of the way of the story”, while this resolution system is pretty involved; it will not be getting out of anyone’s way. Not to say that is a bad thing, breaking tradition is sometimes necessary for innovation.

Now, for game designers, let’s talk about the main feedback I had for the system and what we can all learn as we continue to make our games: confidence. While reading COGS I was confronted with unclear rules, especially in the first two pages.  They were unclear because they lacked confidence.  When you write your game, remember, you are the game designer.  This means you tell me how your game is played, not what you suggest might be kinda good and ok to use with your game, if the players feel like it.  You might say that it is actually the GM’s game or the players’ game, or it belongs to everyone. Did they write all the rules? No, you did.  Confidence in your writing will translate to their table in clarity for how the game is meant to be run, then when they have confidence in your system, they can make the change necessary to make it fit their style.  Without that initial confidence, they will never know if they are playing the game right in the first place.

So, let’s talk about some ways we can write more confidently.  While we all understand that the game at the ruling on the table is ultimately up to the GM and the players, it is important to clearly state what the rule is. Try to avoid language that suggests alternate ways of playing the game without mentioning those ways of playing are optional or alternate.  Keep suggestions for alternate or additional ways of playing to a minimum in the core rules. Finally, be clear in what you state as necessary aspects of your game.

What are some things you have seen in games you have read or games you are making that was confidently and clearly written?  Did that help you understand the game better? As always, if you like what I am doing, follow me on Twitter @c22system or join my Discord (https://discord.gg/gAJpjZXuYq).

Design Review: Do the boring work too

Simplex Sky’s End is a tabletop adaptation of the game series Shin Megami Tensei. If you do not know what Shin Megami Tensei is do not worry, neither did I.  It is a game where you play a Japanese high school student who gets pulled into another world to fight demons.  Combat is typical team based rpg combat against various monsters.

I do not own this image it is property of Atlus

              Simplex Sky’s End is in the early phases of development and is the first game I have been able to review this early on in the process. I want to take a brief moment to talk about what that means for my reviews.  For each developer, I ask them, through what lens or perspective they want me to look at their game with each lens being more critical than the last.

1.       Design Concept Review: the game is not yet complete, but I look at the core experience for the whole system if possible.

2.       Feature Complete Review: the whole system is there but it is missing a few of the bells and whistles, like not all the feats are made, or there needs to be more classes, monsters, etc.      

3.       Player Perspective Review: I pretend I am a player looking at it for the first time.

4.       Everything is fair game: I look at everything I can as a whole.

So, I was asked to review this game from a Player Perspective (3).  The conclusion is that this game is not ready for players, I later changed my perspective to a Design Concept Review (1) because some major core aspects were still missing from the system.  There was combat and how stats and magic works, and how the players level up.  All very important systems to a JRPG style game and they do feel like a JRPG. Unfortunately, that is where the good news stops, so instead of harping on what is missing, I wanted to talk about the fun vs boring parts of writing an RPG system.

              RPG development is fun.  You can build a whole world, imagine different monsters or crazy stories and interesting experiences. But it is not all fun. There are always boring tasks with any creative work you do, and RPG development is no different.  You have rules that you already know but need to type up and wording to adjust and lines to make sure they hit are the exact right length as to not run into a picture.

              I can tell that the designer of Simplex Sky’s End is passionate about this project.  There is a lot of thought and detail put into the fun parts of the game.  How their magic works with elements, not too dissimilar to the Pokémon element table, or what progression and loot will look like for the players, which is crucial to many JRPGs. The problem here is that they forgot to do the boring work. It was assumed I knew exactly what Shin Megami Tensei was before reading the rules, which was necessary to understanding them.

              So, what can we do as new designers when we have the passion to write a new game idea to help make sure we are explaining everything we need to? If it is your first RPG, I think you should just start writing the ideas down, organize your thoughts as best you can and just go for it, write down everything you can while the passion is there. But eventually you are going to need to fill in all the additional information.  It is at this point that I recommend the following:

              “Good Artists create, Great Artists steal” – Somebody who I am now stealing from cause I am a great artist.

              In this context, what this means is that you can learn from other RPG writers, start with the book structure they have, with the sections for the boring rules and all.  Then from there make it your own; fit it to your game. So, if this is your first RPG, make sure you read three to five other RPG books, paying particular attention to the sections they have, and the words they use to help write your own boring parts of your new RPG.

              What books do you draw inspiration from?  What made you start the project you are currently working on?  Let me know in the comments below.  As always, if you like what I am doing, follow me on Twitter @c22system.

Design Review: Where do you start designing?

This week I took a look at a completely different type of game from my traditional tabletop RPG.  Witchway Wars is a miniatures tactics game where you play wizards battling for control of leylines you place yourself, creating a constantly changing battlefield. This game is still early in development, so a lot might change once it hits the table for the first time as very few games survive their first playtest completely intact.

I have very little experience with miniature tactics games outside of some Warhammer when I was a teenager, so I learned a bit about miniature design here as well. From my readthrough, the core rule set of Witchway Wars is solid. Each player controls 1 to 3 wizards and a number of acolytes and minions.  You draw cards from a tarot deck and use those cards to issue commands to your minions, channel leylines, and cast spells. The only rules I did not get to review were the specific spells created from each of the Major Arcana of the Tarot cards.

Since this game is early in the design phase, there are a lot of neat mechanics, let’s talk a bit more about some of them in detail. I really like how cards are drawn, how the suits matter, and how the map changes over time.

              You draw one card for every card your opponent plays.  I like this mechanic because it always ensures the game is progressing.  For every action performed, the enemy how has an additional action they can perform. In a two-player game, this means that you are both progressing the other forward with your actions, but it a 3 or 4 player game, there is a disparity between who draws how many cards as each player will force a different player to draw cards. I think this is interesting as it means there is an additional cost for your attacks and spells, the opponent gets a card that may be better than the one you just used.

The suits of the tarot cards matter. As someone who is making a ttrpg system with playing cards, the suit mattering is important to me as it adds strategic depth to the cards. Witchway wars makes suit matter by having each action for minions have a trump suit. Because actions are contested, where the opponent can play a card to counter an action you take, trump guarantees that low number cards are useful when used correctly. This gives strategic depth to the contests where you can time using lower numbered trump cards to counter the actions of certain types or use them on the offensive instead.  Additionally, this gives each of the normal cards additional flavor by associating certain cards with certain actions, helping further guide your actions if need be.

Finally, a very unique mechanic comes from the fact you can mark leylines on the map as an action, and then any interaction between the leylines on the map create a resource that can be gathered, spent, and then used to cast a spell.  This means that as new leylines are created and old ones destroyed, these important resources will move around the map, forcing the players to constantly change tactics and positions. This is the most interesting mechanic to me, and I am interested to see how it does in playtest.

I really like where this design is going, and a lot of the choices made allow for an interesting and dynamic game.  There are still many design decisions left to be made, especially with the spells not being defined, so the complete game may be more or less fun than what I have described here. If the spells are too game warping, then luck in which arcana you draw would be too important and other actions may become trivial.  If the spells are not powerful enough, then the leyline mechanics can just be ignored and this game just becomes any other miniatures tactics game.    

When you start a design of your own, what do you work on first? What parts of a new design do you flesh out before others?Let me know in the comments below.As always, if you like what I’m doing, follow me on Twitter @c22system.

Design Review: Define your core experience

Ashen Lands is a post-apocalyptic tabletop rpg where the players play those brave enough to venture into the unforgiving remnants of the freshly ruined world. A world where every new area wants you dead, too much magic will drive you insane, and whenever you roll doubles, the world moves itself that much closer to your complete demise.

This week I reviewed fellow game designer Seamus Allen’s game Ashen Lands. A post-apocalyptic survival tabletop RPG. The game is ready for players to read and playtest but these suggestions and analysis are to help fix some of the missing information.

I will not be making comments on the combat encounter specific mechanics as it was being rewritten during my review. I looked through Character Creation, exploration specific mechanics, social specific mechanics, downtime, crafting, and spellcasting.

The first thing I want to bring attention, because I saw this in my previous design review on Shifting Tides, is the lack of a strong “What is this game about”. In both games, I feel that there is not enough emphasis on what makes these games unique. So, if you are working on a game, setting, or campaign of your own. Take another look at your pitch and what makes this game unique section. If it is a game, did you capture the mechanics you are proud of? A campaign, is there a hook in the pitch and will it sink in deep enough when someone reads it?

Along the same lines, I felt the text could better inform the theme throughout the book. Mechanics certainly inform the setting and feel of the game, but not every player gets the feeling of the system through its mechanics. So, I want to take the time to highlight some of the more interesting and defining mechanics of Ashen Lands that really reveal the setting: Scars, exploration, and spellcasting.

All characters have scars, these are the marks they got from the apocaypse or inherited from their parents. This is the first step of character creation and the most defining aspect of a character. An example would be a banished character found that they were forced out of the world during the apocalypse. They are only partly in the world and appear ghostly like as a result. Some features could be reduce carrying capacity and the ability to let some attacks pass right through you.

The exploration mechanics show us a dangerous and unforgiving world, where each zone we pass through could kill if we aren’t prepared. The game adds mechanics for travel and inflicts toll on the characters representing their exhaustion. Toll is spent to look ahead to be prepared for the dangers they may face or gather more food when they run out. The more toll you have, the lower your maximum health. Exploration and travel is an increasingly dangerous activity as you can see from the mechanics.

The Spellcasting mechanics also show a cost for power and knowledge. Each spell you know costs you 1 Sanity, and characters with low sanity find it increasingly difficult to stay in control. Minus 4 Sanity being character death effectively, each spell you learn should be considered carefully.

So now that we understand some of the themes we can move on to the takeaway points.

Ashen Lands’ rules explanations are clear and generally easy to understand, so I only had a few minor changes like standardizing language. What the book really needs is help making it easier and more enjoyable to read. Tabletop RPG books sit in a weird spot in writing in that they need to be clear and easy to understand like a well written textbook, but they also need to be entertaining and fun to read. Sometimes that entertainment is added later, with images and quotes to break up the text, but in development RPGs don’t get that luxury. We have to do it slightly differently. A simple ways to do this is with examples. You can introduce the setting to the readers before they even start playing by using examples to help explain your rules.

Therefore, looking back at the major themes from the book, we can make sure to highlight the dangers of the environment, the fact that the apocalypse left visible scars on everything, and the sanity has a cost for knowledge. Knowing what the unique aspects of our system, help us further create and paint the setting within the rules explanations.

How can you do this for your games? Or what games do you know that merge rules and setting well? Let me know below and make sure to follow me on twitter (@c22system)or join the discord(https://discord.gg/hFTqEDX) if you like this type of content.

Design Review: Technical Writing Basics

The Shifting Tides is a game where you play scavengers surviving on a strange, dangerous world. The game is currently in development by Unox Powered Games(@UnoxPoweredGame). The setting captures the weird of Numenera but feels a lot more focused, honing in on an intriguing mix of psionic entities and sentient machines.

This week I did a design review of a fellow RPG designer’s game. I reviewed the game, focusing on how the mechanics delivered on the core experience, and the clarity of many of the rules. I ignored spelling and grammar and knew that there were incomplete sections in terms of character options, items, spells, etcetera. All of my thoughts have already been provided to Unox Powered Games and I just wanted to point out the highlights here and talk about a few things that you might be able to apply when developing your games as well.

In Shifting Tides I looked at the Character creation, Combat, Statuses, Skill Checks, Crafting, progression and psionics sections. This first major comprehension issue arose when I got to the Combat section, because combat was introduced first, I did not know how the dice worked; there was no context for me to understand how to mechanically perform any of the steps described. Furthermore, when I began to read the section, I struggled with the order by which the information was introduced. Yes it makes sense in a way to start by introducing initiative, seeing as that is the first step of any combat, but pay attention to how other books write their rules, they have something before they describe initiative, the summary of what they are going to talk about in the chapter. So what I wanted to focus on here, and what I want you to be able to learn from this, is some important aspects of technical writing that will help with the flow of your document and teaching your player new rules.

Your goal is to make sure the reader understands everything you are writing, and if they do not, you will be teaching them within the next few lines. So when you start a chapter, give an overview of what you will be talking about; think of this like an outline of your major sections in this chapter. You start by being more general, and then go more specific. Using Shifting Tides as an example.

Combat in Shifting Tides is broken into rounds, but before the first round you need to determine the turn order using initiative. During a round each character has 3 Major Actions and 2 Triggered Actions.

So using the example I wrote above, we now know what we need to talk about. We need to introduce rounds, then talk about initiative, then Major actions, and finally Triggered Actions. You now have the 4 major sections of your chapter. Within each section you will apply the same process. if you have something more specific to talk about, you will give an overview of all the pieces and then talk in detail about those sections. For Major Actions for example, we could have Movement, Attacking, Using Items, and Martial Technique. Movement would have a few subsections as well. This should provide a basic overview of how to go about laying out and general flow of your chapters. If you would like to hear me talk in more detail about technical writing, specifically in RPGs, let me know and I can do a more detailed blog post.

---

Getting back to the review of Shifting Tides. While the technical writing aspect was something I felt I could help with, it is not the major point where I think the designer needs to focus. This is the core experience as explained in the book.

Shifting Tides is a game focused on adventure and exploration of a forgotten and dangerous planet. Set on Galphrea, you are tasked with scavenging the Ancient’s ruins for valuable technology. Traps, dangerous enemies and riches all await you in Shifting Tides.

I feel the sentence above falls a bit flat for what the setting and world offer. The sentence above doesn’t give me indication of the psionic hive creatures you can play, or the nomadic machine tribes. It doesn’t give me indication that the resources are limited and more times that not, scraps are move valuable than credits. So my closing thoughts to the designer are as follows

I think you need to focus more on adding and defining the sections that will deliver on your core experience. Furthermore, you need to better define/convey what that core experience is. You have an interesting world here, and I think you want to continue to embrace the psionics and machine aspects going on. I would even focus your skills to better deliver on those aspects. I got Numernera vibes from the system, but a lot more focused, which is a good thing. I think you can continue to keep that focus and better refine it. Right now it feels like you have a lot of little systems but they all seem like they can all exist in a vacuum. What I think you need to focus on:

1. Define your core better, work on your “What is Shifting Tides all About” section to strengthen the core experience you plan to deliver.

2. Define the Renown earning system. Maybe provide examples of ways to earn renown.

   1. The first time you gain 500 credits you get 1 renown, second at 1000 credits

   2. Killing certain monsters harassing a settlement grant renown

   3. Write needs and wants on the character sheets. When one Is completed, cross it off and grant a renown.

   4. Delving into the deeps to scavenge grants a renown.

3. Once you determine what grants renown, write more about how each of those missions and adventures might run, challenges that might happen on how to resolve them. This should be a chapter that comes before your combat chapter and ties many of your current chapters together, skill checks, crafting, travel, etc.

4. Re-evaluate skill list to make sure it matches the new systems that tie everything together.

5. Read other books to see how they word their sections to better work on some of the explanation sections to improve the flow of your mechanical explanations.