Mechanics have feelings too: Dice, part 1

There are a numerous and varied amount of core conflict resolution mechanics in tabletop roleplaying games and each has a unique effect on its game. Let’s start with the most common resolution mechanic, dice, by comparing two of the ttrpg industry giants: the 2d6 and the d20.

Dice are a big topic with a lot of supporting mechanics that impact how they are perceived in the game. In this article we will solely focus on the feelings provoked by the act of rolling dice. We are going to work with a few assumptions for this article. 

1. Dice are used to resolve a conflict in the narrative where the results are unknown.

2. The dice results have a narrative significance to everyone in the game.

3. The cause of the conflict is summed into one number, the target number.

4. To resolve the conflict in a way favorable to the player, the result on the rolled dice must be greater than the target number.

We should start with, “When and why do dice provoke feelings in games?” Before we roll a die, there is an anticipation for the result. This anticipation is created by the stakes from the narrative. We cannot control this with different dice types and configurations.

While we are rolling the die, there is the effort we put forth in the act. This effort is mildly dependent on the number of dice rolled—but for this article we will consider that difference insignificant. (We will come back to it in a later article.)

Then, the appearance of the die result brings the predefined stakes to life. This we can emotionally manipulate by shifting the target number and dice results meaning, which is influenced by our choice of standard dice.

Before all of this there is the choice to roll, which usually involves both the motivation to act, and an assessment of the risk.

All of these pieces together create an emotional adventure every time a dice is rolled. It is a simple process to tie the random result to a narrative meaning, and that’s what makes dice work so well at provoking feelings in our ttrpg games.

The two things we can control most in the design process with our choice of dice is risk assessment, and the appearance of the result. We control the challenges we face by weighing the expected difficulty (target number), the expected dice results, and the stakes (narrative and mechanical benefits, and consequences). This is our risk assessment. The appearance of the result is where we make real the stakes based on the chance of success (expected dice results vs. expected difficulty). In both cases, our choice of dice and the target number—in this analysis we’re going over the d20 and 2d6 as the most common types—evoke different feelings in games.

To look at this more in-depth, we need a way to convert the expected dice results vs. the target number to in-game feelings. For simplicity, I will focus on these five feelings:

1. I expect to succeed

2. I will probably succeed

3. I hope I succeed

4. I will probably fail

5. I expect to fail.

Then, during the second aspect, we need to convert actual dice results compared against a target number, to in-game feelings. I will focus on four feelings for simplicity’s sake:

1. I greatly succeeded

2. I barely succeeded

3. I barely failed

4. I greatly failed

Then, we will take both sets of these feelings, see when we experience them with each die, and why that matters.

d20 Basics

From a math perspective this die is a simple 5% chance for each number. So, to create our five target emotional states for expected results we would need to roll against the following target numbers. 

• Target 2 is a 90% success chance; our “I expect to succeed.”

• Target 6 is a 70% success chance; our “I will probably succeed.”

• Target 10 is a 50% success chance; our “I hope I succeed.”

•  Target 14 is a 30% success chance; our “I will probably fail.”

• Target 18 is a 10% success chance; our “I expect to fail.”

2d6 Basics

Math is less simple here because with two dice the middle numbers (6,7,8) of the range show up a lot more than the ends (2, 12). With 7, our most common number, appearing 17% of the time and the 6 and 8 both appearing 14%, nearly half of the time you roll you will see one of those 3 numbers. For our target states, we can see how that differs from the d20 as well.

• Target 3 is a 91.5%; our “I expect to succeed.”

• Target 5 is an 72.5%; our “I will probably succeed.”

• Target 6 is an 55.5%; our “I hope I succeed.”

• Target 8 is an 27.5%; our “I will probably fail.”

• Target 10 is an 8.5%; our “I expect to fail.”

Simply, our chances of getting each number are the following: 2, 12 - 3%, 3, 11 - 5.5%, 4,10 - 8%, 5, 9 - 11%, 6, 8 - 14%, 7 - 17%.

A d20’s Feelings

The d20, like all single dice, is mathematically easy to understand due to the linearity of the results. The incremental increase is the same for each mechanical step, but each step feels noticeable enough to feel some type of narrative progress with numerical increase. While I have provided some general numbers and feelings, due to the granularity of the d20, the feelings exist more in bands of numbers than just single points. In other words, the “I hope I succeed” feeling exists from 7/8 to 12/13 depending on a player’s optimism.

What a 2d6 feels like

The bell curve has a cool effect on our probability where each number in the center translates to an amount we can feel and imagine. Moreover, each number further from the center provides less and less gains when we improve our characters. In a way the dice naturally transition between hope tiers.

What that means for the narrative

A lot of what I have said so far is not unique to ttrpgs, but all games that use these dice. The unique aspect of ttrpgs are the narrative stakes that are attached to the dice’s results. Focusing on how the results inform the narrative, we need to see how both phases we outlined earlier impact the narrative. In the narrative we are controlling characters that encounter obstacles that must be resolved to advance the narrative. In dice terms, the expected results are a comparison of the character’s perceived chance (expected dice result) to resolve an obstacle (target number). Once the results are cast, the characters actions (actual result) are used to resolve the obstacle (target number) to advance the narrative to either a pass, fail, or any other narrative progressing state. So in short, the dice result is directly how our characters perform. The target number is how difficult the obstacle is. 

When we check the values above, encountering an obstacle in a game with a target number of 14 in a d20 system we as characters, expect to fail. The narrative is informing us this is something difficult for us to do. We then weigh the rewards against the consequences and decide what to do from there. If the consequence of not opening the locked door is to be eaten by a Grue, then 30% chance seems pretty good and we try to open the door.

The actual results then inform the narrative of what actually occurred. Using the 2d6 as an example, we roll a 9 against the target number of 8, our “I expect to fail” obstacle, and successfully open the door. Our characters look competent and we feel like we accomplished the task well. On the other side, we roll a 7, a perfectly common and acceptable result, but the door is just too tough and we do not have enough time. Our character proves to be inadequate and we feel like we failed even if only barely and given the difficulty, we come out a bit optimistic since we did so well in face of such a difficult challenge.

We can see from the example above, that both dice can similarly evoke feelings of anticipation for expected results, and GMs can control those feelings with the actual narrative consequences. In this situation these two dice systems are similar in many ways, but mathematically the key differences are in the consistency and the granularity. 

The d20’s linear scale and wider range gives it more granularity, allowing the GM to express a wider range of obstacles. This comes at the cost of two things: less impact per number since we need a number difference of 4 to move between expectation changes, and more inconsistencies in expected character performance and actual (the further the number is away from the target number, the worse the result).

The 2d6’s bell curve and smaller number ranges do not have the same issues. These two effects combined create a system that means each number increase is an impactful change to narrative obstacle difficulty. The cost is that mathematically, the exact change and value of each number is harder to understand, see the percentages above for more details.

This discussion is far from over, and the details listed above are only the start of fully understanding how the choice of dice affects a game. So far we have only covered the anticipation and actualization of the dice results to some dice systems we know. Next time, we need to see how modifiers affect the feelings our dice evoke.

This article is part of the Indie Game Developer Network’s blog series. The content of this article reflects the views of but one member of the IGDN. This IGDN blog article is brought to you by Brandon Gutowski of the C22 System. If you want to get in touch with the contributor he can be reached on Twitter at @c22system, on Facebook @PagodaGamesLLC, or visit their website at www.c22system.com.

Mechanics Have Feelings Too: Bennies

Bennies, tokens, freebies, hero cookies—or whatever you call them—they're one of the most homebrewed mechanics in rpgs. Some systems have these in their rules in one form or another. Some GMs add them to every game, regardless of the rules, while others remove them from every game. At their very essence, they are a player-facing token you trade for in-game value. So, why do simple tokens warrant their own post? Because there are a lot of feelings wrapped up in these simple tokens. How they are implemented changes the game drastically.

Mechanically, what are bennies?

A benny mechanic is made up of three things: quantity, replenishment, and value. There are additional complexities if the GM can use them as well. I will not touch on the implications and feelings associated with GM facing bennies in this post. Today we’re focusing on the player side of bennies.

Quantity of Bennies

Quantity is simply the number of bennies you have at a time. When you have more, you can act more risky as you have a safety net, when you have fewer, you use them more sparingly.

Replenishment of Bennies

Replenishment is simply how you get more. This also includes a limit of how many you can have at once, and the circumstances where there is no replenishment.

Value of Bennies

Value is the most complex of the three mechanical aspects of a benny and where most of the design work for implementing a benny in a game comes in. Too much value, and the benny is only rarely used, too little and the benny is ignored. Furthermore, if the benny has multiple uses and there is a huge disparity between the perceived value of the options, the benny is only ever used for the option with the perceived highest value. In such cases, the value of the benny is the value of the strongest option.

For example, if you are playing an item-based post-apocalyptic survival game and your benny options are to re-roll a skill check, blink as a free action, or to prevent death. The third option has the highest perceived value. While it is true that re-rolling a skill check would almost always be the way to prevent death, it is not guaranteed. The way the benny value is written to prevent death itself has the highest perceived value. The players will almost always play to their optimal advantage, so in this case bennies held becomes the number of extra lives the players have.

This looks like it gives us three knobs to adjust in design, but quantity and replenishment are really just two sides of the same thing. While “how the bennies are replenished” is an interesting design space, it ultimately results in more quantity.

Value vs Quantity

As true in game design as it is in life, the plentiful things are worth less than scarce things. But let’s look at why by looking at the four cases: high qty and high value, low qty and low value, high qty and low value, and low qty and low value.

High Qty + High Value

High quantity and high value means that you have a large number of impactful actions you can take. This results in your roleplaying game being about spending bennies. It takes on a more board game type feeling with limited resources. This is not necessarily a bad thing. This can work very well for unique mechanics in one-shots or to codify when a player can make a significant world-level change in a story game. Use this setup if you want your game to mechanically have a benny-centric feeling. Whatever mechanics you have assigned to the benny takes the main stage with this setup.

Low Qty + Low Value

Low quantity and low value means that you have a very limited amount of nearly insignificant actions. This results in your benny being forgotten. I do not recommend this set up for roleplaying games as this would be a sign of feature creep or mechanics bloat.

High Qty + Low Value

High quantity and low value means that you can take a lot of actions of low impact. This frees the player to spend the bennies as they know they will have more, but also keeps their impact manageable. This feels freeing to the player without being stressful to the GM. Let’s look at a few examples to better understand this setup.

In a traditional dungeon delving game, say a benny grants players the ability to describe something in a scene. While the game is mostly about combat and problem solving, this can work to give players a codified signal to contribute to the narrative as well. In a game about high school teens looking to remove the local gang’s influence from their school, say a benny allows them to pause the narrative to take an in-character moment based on their character’s traits. In both of these cases, we can see how to nurture this freedom while encouraging shared roleplay, just with bennies.

Low Qty + High Value

Low quantity and high value means you can take one or two high impact actions. This is a classic setup for traditional games. This makes the player feel powerful and gives them another resource to consider while limiting the stress on the GM to only a few moments. Often this is used for re-rolls or threat resolutions. This setup is used in Savage Worlds, Fate, Deadlands, and Genesys to re-roll dice, soak damage, encourage roleplay, or use special powers. It feels classic and is easier to balance than any of the other setups due to the easily tweakable numerical quantity aspect.

Types of Replenishment

We saw how important quantity is to the mechanics of bennies so naturally, how that quantity is achieved is equally important. This is where you can get creative with the quantity aspect of bennies. There is one important thing to remember: guaranteed replenishment frees players to spend bennies more, thus using your mechanics more.

I want to look at three classic methods: session start, subjective milestones, and mechanical milestones.

Session Start

Session start is a simple way to control quantity, Savage Worlds, Fate, and Genesys all do this. You get a set number of bennies to spend at the start of a session allowing players to interact with the mechanic right away. It encourages players to spend them throughout a session because they know they will get more the next time. The shorter the session, the stronger this effect is.This also creates a bit of urgency or sense of loss in the player for those that did not spend their bennies at the end as it feels like a waste of potential when not used.

Subjective Milestones

Subjective milestones are rewards for good roleplaying during a session. FATE and Genesys both use this method. This can encourage people to branch out and roleplay more who would not often roleplay, but can sometimes feel like a popularity contest or can just devolve into a “who said the funniest thing” depending on the group.

Mechanical Milestones

Mechanical milestones are rewards for story objectives or personal character goals. Genesys uses this method. This encourages players to keep moving the narrative along and can be good to help focus groups that tend to get distracted. This can end up as a win more mechanic since you are often already winning when you complete an objective. Another result can be a poorly paced power infusion if the objectives are significantly varying in their efforts to complete.

In each case of milestones, the replenishment trigger is used to encourage player behavior. Yeah, it feels weird to compare us all to Pavlov’s dog when it comes to bennies, but be honest with yourself, you’ve been salivating every time I have said the word benny. Benny, benny, benny.

Summary

For a simple token there is still a lot of design space to be explored. When looking at the dichotomy of quantity vs value you have three classic cases to consider. Your classic low quantity vs high value is the simplest and easiest to implement and feels right at home in many roleplaying games. The rarer high quality vs low value can be tricky to implement right but can add a sense of lightness and low stress encouragement for the players and GM. Finally, the high quantity and high value case can work to emphasize a mechanic and plays well in one-shots.

Whichever of the three dichotomies it is, the benny is more than a piece of plastic that sits in front of you, it is an impactful addition to how players experience the game. Take time to consider how that value and quantity pushes your decision-making in your favorite games. Then, tell me about it in the comments below!

This article is part of the Indie Game Developer Network’s blog series. The content of this article reflects the views of but one member of the IGDN. This IGDN blog article is brought to you by Brandon Gutowski of the C22 System. If you want to get in touch with the contributor he can be reached on Twitter at @c22system, on Facebook @PagodaGamesLLC, or visit their website at www.c22system.com.

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/.

Mechanics have feelings too: Health vs Wounds

In tabletop roleplaying games, there are many different ways to track when a character fails, each giving their own mechanical feelings to our games. Today I want to look at two more combat-focused game design tools: Health and Wounds. Then after reading this article, you can better decide which of these concepts are right for your ttrpg.

Health Definition

For the sake of today’s post, Health is a numerical representation of a character’s wellbeing. Here are our assumptions:

• The lower the number, the closer they are to failure in the encounter/game.

• The character’s performance is nearly the same at full Health and low Health.

• Health is lost or gained in small, medium, and large events (single attacks, sliding on pavement, etc.)

Wound Definition

For this argument, Wounds are a milestone representation of a character’s well-being.

Here are our assumptions:

• The more Wounds a character has, the closer they are to failure in the encounter/game.

• Wounds are incurred only by significant events (big damage, large stresses).

• When a Wound is incurred, a penalty is incurred and the character’s strength decreases.

What Health Feels Like

From a player perspective, Health is a clear indicator of how your character is doing and feeling. When your character has 5/20 Health remaining, you can quickly tell that you are in a dangerous spot. You know to trigger a change in tactics.

How the game approaches healing (the restoration of Health) changes the tactics you might adopt. For example, a game with easy access to healing in an encounter might only encourage you to take a quick break from the action, to increase your health. In a game where healing can only happen rarely outside of an encounter, you will might up more defensive actions for the rest of the encounter.

In either case, the measure of Health acts as a warning to players of the state of their character, assuming that when your Health reaches zero, your character can no longer function, and therefore the player can no longer play. From that perspective, Health is a measure of how far away the player is from not being able to play the game.

What Wounds Feel Like

A Wound is a condition placed on the character that makes playing them more difficult. From a player perspective, they can stand their character taking damage to a certain point, but even a single Wound is something to be avoided. Each instance of a Wound carries a weight; the implication of making your character play worse, and more susceptible to gaining another Wound in the future. When a system has Wounds it leads to more cautious play, especially when getting a Wound makes it easier to get more, creating a “death spiral type effect as each Wound makes getting the next Wound easier. So, if you failed the check without a Wound, you will certainly fail the check with one. Players understand the implications of how a Wound will affect play, and it influences how they approach situations in-game. 

On the opposite side, players will take more risks if they don’t think their actions could result in a Wound , creating a more superhero-feeling for the player. Those five bullets did no Wounds to me? “I just got shot five times and not even a scratch on me,” the player might say, and that becomes the narrative. This leads to a heroic, flashy, rule-of-cool style gameplay when you know there is little to no chance to acquire a Wound in an encounter, since the lack of mechanical consequences leads players to believe that there are no consequences at all. 

Design Space

Health is easy to quickly look at and understand. Number goes up, good. Number goes down, bad. Wounds have different requirements to determine when they are applied and what the consequence of getting a Wound is.

Player perception of Health changes drastically between 1 Health to 0 Health. This shift is unrealistic, and lends itself more to heroic games or systems about solving the system like a puzzle. Higher damage and lower Health values can shift the style away from a heroic feeling.

Wounds can have the design potential for both heroic and gritty games. The nature of Wounds not always being applied means that players feel heroic fighting peons but can feel more gritty when fighting bosses. So, the number of threatening enemies is how you can control the level of grittiness and heroicness.

Within a design space, Health is generally more granular, meaning designers can give more incremental rewards, relating to reducing Health more or having more Health, without those rewards being as game changing as systems with Wounds. But that does not mean Wounds are devoid of design space, as you can still tweak the threshold at which a Wound is applied and how to choose consequences, or even what those consequences are.

In summary, here are some considerations for when you are deciding between Health and Wounds, and which one (or both) will be right when designing your system.

Health

• Simpler and more intuitive

• Lends itself to heroic games

• Easier to create items and abilities

• Can lead to Health sponge situations when Health values get too large

Wounds

• Can be more realistic

• Can do gritty

• More design work needed

• More space to explore with consequences of wounds received

• Be careful of death spirals

Extensions

I wonder what other design spaces we can explore with the relationship between Health and Wounds. Can we expand Wound systems to break a death spiral, maybe making players not necessarily weaker, just different, with each Wound? Can we make Health feel less of a drastic change between 0 and 1 Health, or would that just be too heavy-handed in forcing players to change their tactics? How much of a grittier feeling would incremental Wounds along a Health track cause? Ultimately, you need to choose what’s right for your game and the kind of play-action you want to encourage in your players.

This article is part of the Indie Game Developer Network’s blog series. The content of this article reflects the views of but one member of the IGDN. This IGDN blog article is brought to you by Brandon Gutowski of the C22 System. If you want to get in touch with the contributor he can be reached on Twitter at @c22system, on Facebook @PagodaGamesLLC, or visit their website at www.c22system.com.

Role vs Roll and Why we disagree: Part 2

This is a continuation of a previous article on why we disagree about Role vs Roll and what we can learn from it https://c22system.com/design-insight/2ochsp6560a5obe87p7w0ndcgbvk1r. In the last post I talked about engagement and the flow state, then discussed two broad skills we as roleplayers use during tabletop roleplaying games; Roleplaying Skill and System Mastery, and their influence on that flow state. Today we will look at the other two aspects that should complete our understanding.

Creativity and What it Does

How do we enjoy a system that does not meet our system mastery needs and our roleplaying expression needs? As we get better at roleplaying games, does that doom us to enjoy less and less tabletop roleplaying games? No, because of creativity. 

Creativity allows us to create our own challenges or introduce our own variety to a tabletop roleplaying game. The ability to create our own challenges allows us to move along the chart, reaching flow in games and situations that do not challenge us. We can use the excess brain power to creatively expand upon the situations, keeping us entertained and even entertaining others at the table. 

These moments where our creativity entertains other players, we are often roleplaying. Since roleplaying moments more often involve other players, we more often see creativity shine alongside roleplaying skill. This creativity helps players of varying roleplaying skills interact while still being engaged. The biggest player in these interactions is the Game Master.

The Game Master

<Body> The Game Master’s creativity can have a large impact in being able to adjust the difficulty for the table’s enjoyment. Just as we discussed in the last post, the GM’s choice in unique factors can vary the difficulty without changing the difficulty of the challenge itself. Additionally, the GM’s creativity can allow a game to exist at different difficulties for different players. For example, a player with less system mastery can rely on their creativity to come up with unique solutions to solve problems. The GM then aids the player’s suggestion with their system mastery and creativity to keep the game flowing. This is not a super secret skill, all GMs do it. Yes that also includes you that one time you GM'd.

Another note, this also manifests itself in system hacks and homebrewing.  The creativity you add with your unique homebrews can shift the difficulty of the challenge itself.

So we know that different challenges require different skills to maintain engagement and we have split this into two different skills: Roleplaying Skill, and System Mastery. We know that creativity allows us to stay engaged during games that have a lower difficulty than our skills. We know that the GM’s creativity plays a larger role in adjusting the difficulty to maintain engagement. So, with creativity in the mix, I think we can finally determine why we disagree and how we can find the best games for us.

There is a bit of a stigma that less creative people need complex systems to support them, while more creative people can then enjoy simpler systems because their creativity is less restricted. There is some truth to this stigma, but the correlation is not as strong as you would think. The major contributing factor is the experience a player has with tabletop roleplaying games. The more you play tabletop rpgs, the better you get at them, because you are training your creativity.

According to a paper published by Arne Dietrich in 2004, creativity moments can be aligned along two scales:

• Spontaneous and Deliberate

• Cognitive and Emotional

Most creative moments align somewhere along both scales, being more Spontaneous than Deliberate and more Cognitive than Emotional, for example. I want to use the extremes here to broaden our understanding of how these types of creativity play different roles in tabletop roleplaying games. 

Creative moments that are Spontaneous are classified by being mainly handled by your unconscious. They work best when you are not thinking about something, letting your unconscious do the work, like when you get an epiphany in the shower. I believe this type of creativity is more based on the genetic lottery, so I won’t go into them in this post. The good news is that they are not used as often during tabletop roleplay game sessions. I do not know how many of you are relying on shower epiphanies during your gaming sessions, but they seem very unreliable. 

Creative moments that are Deliberate come from the moments you collect a lot of knowledge in your brain and mix and match it to create something new. You could be weighing all the options of what is in a dungeon versus other expectations you would have from 1100th century architecture to create a new option for your team. You could be recalling a mix of emotions that occurred when you were elated to determine how best to react when another character comes back from the dead. I believe these moments make up a vast majority of the creativity seen in roleplaying games, specifically those seen in GM preparation. 

I want to focus on the two extremes of Deliberate and Emotional creativity and Deliberate and Cognitive creativity. Deliberate and Emotional creativity comes from feelings and emotions on a subject. It is the feelings and emotions that ignite this creativity. Like when another player’s action resonates with your character and causes you to create something new. You latch onto the feelings you currently have, mix it with the situations you know, and create a new roleplaying moment with the other players. Deliberate and Cognitive creativity comes from understanding the rules and applying them in new or unusual ways. The important part here is that it requires you to understand the rules beforehand and have existing knowledge. It requires time, which is directly proportional to the complexity of the system. More complex systems take more time, but when you are searching for creativity, you have more pieces for your brain to play with. 

From our understanding of roleplaying skill and the system mastery it appears that as you develop these skills, you would enjoy roleplaying games less and less, but then how is it we can play such vastly different encounters and systems and still have fun? This is where creativity comes in. As I mentioned before, I believe that our individual creativity can allow us to flex this preferred flow area of complexity. 

While the encounter might just be talking to a guard to convince him to let you in a gate, an encounter you have played twenty times before, your creativity allows you to create new aspects to this encounter generating additional enjoyment. You do this by considering all of the rules, then what ways to create something unique to your character, within those rules. In this way, your Cognitive creativity allows you to shift your flow area to a less difficult area of the channel, thus keeping you engaged. Another example: in a highly tactical fight involving another goblin ambush, you decide this time, you are going to try to kill them with a boulder rolling down the hill, you use your knowledge and mastery of the system to add additional challenges to make this less engaging encounter be more engaging for you.

I believe Emotional creativity allows you to flex your flow area higher along the channel as you live in the moment and build off other players, you create based on what you are feeling from the game. You think passionately in the moment and create something new from your anxiety. For example, the guard’s lack of proper equipment is a reportable offense. The guard’s equipment was never mentioned, but now you brought it into the game with your knowledge from outside the game and your feeling in the moment. So, that is the power of creativity, our creative skills allow us to move along the flow channel of our system mastery and roleplaying skills.

Playing tabletop roleplaying games will train both of these types of creativity in different ways but it is their differences that will help us understand why we disagree on Role vs Roll. As we gain more emotional knowledge from interacting with other players, we can increase our Deliberate and Emotional creativity, as we learn the system and interact more with the mechanics, we train our Deliberate and Cognitive creativity.

 What That Means for the Argument

<Body> I think that gives us enough to bring it all together and really break down where that disagreement comes from. Players who have only played a few roleplaying games, or have only played a few types of roleplaying games, will rely more on their innate roleplaying skill, System Mastery, and Emotional creative skill, and Cognitive creative skill. So, looking at these types of players individually, we can get a better idea of where they side.

I do not think initial System Mastery and Roleplaying Skill trend toward one game type or the other, I think initial creative skills are the main driving factor. Players with more Emotional creativity, be it Deliberate or Spontaneous, will gravitate more toward “Role” games. This emotional creativity allows these players to be able to roleplay out of situations that have a higher difficulty of system mastery through the interactions with the other players. This then leads to a perception that the “Roll” is not necessary since the “Role” can resolve the issue.

Players with more Cognitive creativity, be it Deliberate or Spontaneous, will gravitate more toward “Roll” games. This cognitive creativity allows these players to be able to explain their way out of more difficult roleplay encounters by using their game knowledge to move the difficulty closer to their roleplaying skill level. This then leads to a perception that the ”Roll” informs the “Role”, thus making it superior.

Do not get me wrong, both of these methods are equally creative and create equally excellent moments in roleplaying games that should only ever be celebrated. But here is where our disagreement lies. Those with differing levels of natural Cognitive or Emotional creativity.

No matter which side you tend to favor, you can learn something from the other side that will improve your preferred type of game. “Role” favored players, the goal of the game rules should be to get out of the way of roleplaying, sure, but try to use those rules to springboard your own creativity and trigger more roleplaying moments. You can continue to push your “Roll” knowledge by trying more and more complex rules or rules combinations. “Roll” favored players, sometimes too many rules can hinder roleplaying, instead embrace adding new things to the encounter without checking to see if a rule supports it. Run with what you decided and build new rules or consequences based on that change. You can continue to push your “Role” knowledge by trying to add more things without needing to confirm they fit the rules exactly.

Rather than fueling the debate, I hope to add methods of understanding because in the end, I just want us to have more fun playing roleplaying games.

Let me know if this aligns with your experiences. If you like what I am doing, or want me to write about something specific, let me know in a comment or by joining my discord. https://discord.gg/P6AnsmTxmK

Role vs Roll and Why we Disagree: Pt 1

In the tabletop roleplaying community, we often get caught up in the role vs roll debate—whether it is more important to embody the character than it is to object the rules of the game, or whether it is more important to work within the game (and “roll” the dice”), even at the expense of a cool idea, because that’s what the game is. Each side tries  to explain why one is more important than the other. Sure, we all agree that each game at each table is different and tabletop roleplaying games are mostly about creating the best experience for you, but this answer is a cop out. I want to understand why we disagree so we can play better games for ourselves by finding the perfect balance for our own table.

Why We Enjoy TTRPGs

Sure, joking and telling stories is fun, beating monsters is fun, and new gear is fun. What about other parts of games where your favorite NPC dies, or you are stuck on a derelict freighter surrounded by monsters staring at the Jenga tower you hope you never need to touch?. Those situations aren’t necessarily fun, but they are engaging. 

Engaging is what I am going to focus on as the goal of a roleplaying game. I am going to use the definition of the “flow state” as the optimal place to be for a good gaming session. The graph below is my favorite visualization of the flow state. Each game should aim to keep the players in the flow channel.

If the game is too challenging for the players, they get anxious or lose interest, like fighting the final boss at level 1 when it is presented as winnable. If the task is too easy, players get bored, like fighting off minions as a max-level character. The part that makes this task particularly difficult is that in a way the player skill is constantly moving to the right, so the challenge constantly needs to be increased to stay in “flow”. So naturally, the graph says that as you get better, you need more difficult challenges to stay engaged or in “flow”. 

Applying this to roleplaying games is rough. What constitutes difficulty in a tabletop rpg is hard to define. We could define system complexity as difficulty, therefore system mastery is skill. Conversely we could define character depth as difficulty, so that roleplaying skill, the player’s ability to use character-interactions to accurately represent a character and effectively charming the people at the table, is our skill axis. Neither of these accurately represent what keeps a player in the flow state. Someone with perfect mastery of a system could be a horrible roleplayer, and showstopping roleplayers can have very little knowledge of the system they’re playing. So let's take a step back to what we do when we as GMs want to challenge our players further.

Our players are getting better at the game, both in using their abilities, their wits, and have gained new, powerful items. Using a combat game as an example, we would naturally throw more complex enemies paired with more environmental hazards at them and that satisfies the increased challenge as the players have more factors to deal with. But that does not always work. If we continue to throw the same type of fight at the players, they are already skilled in this fight, so even with more complex enemies, the encounter is not engaging enough. To combat this, we change the tactics of the fight. Now it's a protection fight, or there is a timer, or now they cannot see. Each of these is a slightly different skill, we are slightly varying the “Skill” axis to keep fight strength similar and keep players engaged. Just using a combat focused game as an example, we know that there are many different skills involved in roleplay games, therefore we can expect there to be multiple flow graphs.

When we break tabletop roleplaying games into two skills like this, we can see where the disagreement occurs: those that require more complex characters and interactions, and those that need more system complexity and playing the game as a game.  Both groups look for different things in systems. Every player has a unique combination of system mastery skill for every system and roleplaying skill for every style of game. This is the origin of the disagreement. So now you're thinking we solved it. Those with higher system mastery and lower roleplaying skill like crunchy games or the "Roll" side of the argument. Those with higher roleplaying skill and lower system mastery prefer narrative games or "Role" side of the argument.

No. Bad. We've haven't solved anything yet, sit back down.

There is more to it than these two graphs, as they imply that those that are good roleplayers cannot play simple characters because then they would be bored. On the other side, those that are good at mastering systems need complex systems as they would find narrative games too boring. This isn't true. We know that players with both high roleplaying skill and system mastery enjoy playing games of all types and those two skills don't limit the players enjoyment of less difficult challenges. The why is what I want to discuss more here, but first we need to take a quick detour to the pinnacle of roleplaying.

The Pinnacle of Roleplaying

What many posts about this topic decide to mention as the pinnacle of the “Role” side of this argument is when the rules get out of the way of the narrative, the narrative should triumph out of the two. This is actually a great goal to reach for roleplaying games, because it means the rules have become second nature. Using basketball as an example, when you first start learning to play, you spend a lot of your time just thinking about dribbling the ball to allow you to walk across the court. It is not until you have built dribbling and walking into your muscle memory that you can focus on the broader aspects of the game. Then your thoughts during the game change. It is not until you can dribble without thinking that you can start thinking of the game in a different way, it's wider context; how do I get the ball past this defender to score, who else is open for a pass, etc. As you practice, the rules and basics become routine, and your thinking moves to the actual game.

So, as we achieve system mastery, we can handle more complex mechanical situations. As we get better at roleplaying, we can handle more complex roleplay situations. In either case, as we become more advanced in using these skills, our brain is freed up to handle more aspects of the game. This can lead to more opportunity to roleplay, or accept more complex systems. In roleplaying, you’ll see this manifest in character voices, deeper character emotional expression, or more interaction with other player characters. In system mastery, we see these manifest in more abilities being used effectively, complex items, unique monsters, and situational rules. In both cases, our skill in each allows us to open our focus to more of the plethora of things that happen in a tabletop roleplaying game, deepening our level of engagement.

For these same reasons, if a game does not meet your requirements we fall to the other sides of the flow state, frustration or boredom. Frustration comes when there are too many things to track, too much going on that you do not feel like you are performing the way you should be. This is seen in thoughts like “My character has too many abilities”, or “I think my character would lash out in anger over this but I can’t because that would cause a rift in the party, what do they do?” or “There are different rules for climbing ladders and climbing cliffs?!” or “My character does not care about this so they won’t go”.  These are all signs of frustration either caused by the mechanics or the roleplay that can indicate a system is not a good fit.  The boredom side comes when there are not enough things going on that are new and you’ve had a similar experience at least one too many times. This is seen in thoughts like “Yes of course the intimidated guard loses their backbone and gives into our every demand, they always do”  or “Why do I need the rules for this game, I can just do this the same without them?” or ”Oh yes, the GM has stolen my character’s prosthetic arm again so we must go get it back, third time's the charm” or “Clearly the enemy in the air is further than the one on the ground so it should be harder to hit him even if the game does not say so” .  These are all very specific signs of boredom, that indicate a system is not a good fit for you. Note: your own boredom will look different (unless you play characters with prosthetic arms a lot). 

So there are a lot of factors here.  Your system mastery skill needs to align with the game’s system mastery in that small band that is not too boring or frustrating. On top of that, your roleplaying skill needs to align with the game and group’s role playing skill in that same small band that is not too boring or frustrating. Then there is the group and the schedule, it is a miracle that anyone can ever play tabletop roleplaying games at all. But when all these do align, you found the right game for you and that game will be different than the right game for someone else. 

That wraps everything up for us now doesn’t it? The best system is the one that provides enough crunch to allow you to roleplay in the way you feel most comfortable.

I’m not satisfied with this answer and neither should you. It only gives us insight into why “every player is different”.

We have a few issues with this flow model when applied to tabletop roleplaying games. The other aspect of this graph indicates that if our skill mastery and/or roleplaying skill is too high, there are games we cannot enjoy due to being too easy. We have seen plenty of examples of players with high skill enjoying less difficult games. This can most easily be seen with the system mastery skill. So that begs the question, why can someone with eight years of DnD 5e experience still enjoy a game of DnD with a group of beginners? 

The answer lies in two things: Creativity and the Game Master. Which I will discuss in detail in the next post.

This article is part of the Indie Game Developer Network’s blog series. The content of this article reflects the views of but one member of the IGDN. This IGDN blog article is brought to you by Brandon Gutowski of the C22 System. If you want to get in touch with the contributor he can be reached on Twitter at @c22system, on Facebook @PagodaGamesLLC, or visit their website at www.c22system.com.

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. 

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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]

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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.

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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.

What "Great Artists Steal" means for game development

“Good artists create. Great artists steal” is a quote I like to use a lot because I think it is valuable advice. You may remember from a previous post, in my journey to being a great artist, I stole the quote. therefore, I can now use it whenever.

So what does this mean for us, as ttrpg developers? It means we can draw upon the collective experience of the 30+ years of tabletop development. We have examples that rose out of dark to become super successful, we have examples that show that a new edition does not mean a better edition, and even examples that are fatally flawed designs. We can learn from other designer’s mistakes and steal their successful results to make our games even better.

There are a few layers to this: taking, experiencing, and extrapolating. The easiest and first step of this is simply taking the mechanics you like from games you play and putting them in your game. This is nice because you know the mechanics are already fun and you have determined you like them already. This method struggles because your game is different, and when you quickly and simply put a mechanic in your game without necessarily understanding why it is good, you can end up with an awkwardly fitting piece in your game.

Going beyond that, you can do a bit of research. You can read and experience a bunch of games to see how their mechanics work before putting them in your game. This will broaden your horizons as a designer, and expose you to many mechanics and combinations of mechanics that you can learn from. This is exactly what I mean when I say “great artists steal”. We have a huge bank of knowledge in already existing roleplaying games that we can experience to see how different designs work. By reading and experiencing how those game play, we can better understand if each mechanic fits our particular game.

The last layer of this theft of experience, is copying the design structures of similar types of games and using the successful ones in your game. This is the least fleshed out layer because we as a ttrpg design community do not have great design sharing methods; the internet and forums have helped improve this quite a bit in recent years. The basics of this process is looking at games and understanding their core design goals and experiences. Then matching the designs that deliver on these experiences. When you do that with enough games, you will see similar designs that emerge, EVEN IF THEIR MECHANICS ARE DIFFERENT. That is where you can start to explore and understand what designs you need to create, how they feel, and what mechanics create them. From this you can steal those designs that you like, and put them in your game. It is this step where I believe that true innovation in the ttrpg space happens.

Let me know if this was useful to you and what games you want to, or don’t want to steal from. If you like what I do, you can join the discord for my system, or follow me on facebook or twitter.

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)

Thank you 4e DnD

It does not matter if something feels like DnD when you do not know what DnD feels like. 4e was my first DnD, my first ttrpg. Let's go back 10+ years, to see me, sitting on my computer playing WoW, clutching my Magic cards, thinking, "Do I really want to play a game as nerdy as DnD?". I hope you see the irony, if not, maybe you've ascended to a plane where you do not see labels like "nerd".

Regardless of what plane you are on, I am glad that I choose to play that game of 4e with my friends. I rolled up a Ranger that played like Swashbuckler cause that was what I loved from Baldur's Gate 2. Then to spice up the character, I decided to be "quirky". I am glad my DM decided to play along when I wanted penguin that I "found" to teach it to fetch loot for me. :/

Even though I did not know how to RP and barely knew how to make a good character, the video game structure of 4e allowed me to ease into roleplaying games. I could relate to at-will, or once per encounter abilities in a way that fit how I understand RPGs from video games. The structure and video game familiarity allowed me to be slowly introduced to what makes ttrpgs special. The creativity, the unique problem solving, and the human interactions.

From there I explored some FATE and Savage Worlds, where I learned more about making good characters for a roleplaying party as well as different ways to play. More from Savage Worlds's Edges and Hinderances than anything. This was all just in time for 5e coming out.

5e is where it really took off and I realized, it was way more fun to just embrace being a nerd and do what I wanted, than worry about labels. So I DM'd for my first time, picking Lost Mines of Phandelver which transitioned into a homebrew story about a city stuck in a 10 day "groundhog day" style loop, then made my own system, got to be a 5e player again, made another system, went on some podcasts, watched some RPG streams. So now you can see I am chin deep in it with only one question, "Will I still be able to breath if I go forehead deep?".

So thank you 4e, for providing an easy, video game friendly approach, for a video game enthusiast who was afraid to be "DnD levels of nerdy".

A Map of Selsea, a city trapped in a timeloop

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.

Physical Representations for Complex Tasks Part 2: Time

I created two tools to provide something physical for your tabletop RPG scenes and I realized that they can be used for any system to help you run your games. So I wanted to talk about how you can do just that. Furthermore I will go into how you can use the mechanics, to help inspire your creativity to liven up complex tasks or add complications to encounters and scenes.

The first mechanic, named boards, track the progress of a complex task with cards being added or disappearing from the spread of cards. You can read more about it here from my first post about this topic.

The second mechanic I use to encapsulate a scene is a countdown clock with cards. This system is much simpler than boards. 

1. First an amount of time is set and everyone at the table is informed. 

2. Each round of actions lasts 1 minute and each player will say what their character is doing during that round.  The Dealer/GM will set the real time between each card pull and can pull a card whenever they feel an appropriate amount of time has been given to respond.  

3. When the Dealer feels it is time to pull a card, draw one card and reduce the time remaining depending on the suit:

   1. Diamonds or clubs, 1 minute passes, or 1 round

   2. Hearts or the Black Joker, 2 minutes pass, or 2 rounds

   3.  Spades or Red Joker, no time passes, or 0 rounds.

4. When all the time runs out, the scene is done and the danger presents itself. The players now have a new problem to deal with.

Here is an example of how this works in a game:

Emily, Jace, and Tasha sneak into a noble's house and just make it to the bedroom when they hear the front door open.  The Dealer decides a reasonable time until the action occurs and states it to the group.  The Dealer does not always need to state what will occur exactly, only that something will occur.  This builds tension as the clock ticks down.

In this case the Dealer decides 4 minutes.  Emily searches the desk for the documents they need while Jace goes to check the hallway to see how much time they have left.  Tasha also begins her search starting with the bed, chest, and bedside tables.  The Dealer feels like these actions would take about a minute and draws a card: it’s hearts, meaning the group took 2 minutes and now only 2 minutes remain.  Tasha abandons her search and starts unlocking the window.  Emily finds the documents and begins copying the signature. Jace returns and pockets some jewelry. The Dealer draws again, this time clubs, 1 minute left.  Emily finishes her forging job and applies the noble house’s seal to complete the look.  Jace starts tossing the room to make it look like a regular burglary.  Tasha doesn't decide what to do in time and the Dealer draws again: spades, the team got lucky.  They all make a bolt through the window and begin the climb down.  The dealer draws the final card, clubs, and therefore the timer ends.  The noble enters the room, and the event is complete.

Now this system can be used for a variety of different time scales to match whatever your players are doing.  Here are a few example situations:

The wraith that has been plaguing the nearby town has an effigy somewhere in the nearby forest, the effigy is only visible in twilight or at night but the wraith appears every night. The players begin their search during sunset, and night begins 2 hours after.  Set each round to be about 30 minutes as they choose what to do to either search or prepare for the coming wraith.

The boat the heroes are on is heading straight for a whirlpool.  They just started escorting the few passengers onto a helicopter to escape.  They have 3 minutes and each round is 30 seconds.

The large stone doors of the temple are beginning to close at a cinematically slow pace.  The players have 30 seconds to reach the doors and dodge past all of the skeletal guards.  Each round is 6 seconds.

Health is not the only resource the players should lose. What are some other tools you use to build tension in a scene or encounter? Let me know in the comments or on reddit or @C22system. If you like what I am doing let me know and follow me @c22system or join my discord for C22(https://discord.gg/gAJpjZXuYq)

Physical Representations for Complex tasks Part 1: Boards

I created two tools to provide something physical for your tabletop RPG scenes and I realized that they can be used for any system to help you run your games. So I wanted to talk about how you can do just that. Furthermore I will go into how you can use the mechanics, to help inspire your creativity to liven up complex tasks or add complications to encounters and scenes.

The first mechanic I made, I named a board. If you have played Blades in the Dark, it works very similarly to clocks, but with a bit more depth. If you have not, do not worry.

A board represents a complex task, something that requires more than two Skill Checks to be completed. A board is constructed by first drawing 3 or more cards from the Dealer’s Event Deck, or a standard deck of playing cards for other systems, and placing them in a row. The Players start from the left and progress to their goal on the right.  The goal should be marked somehow, be it with a different card a bottle or your favorite figure.  This goal may shift, or remain stationary, it depends on the type of task being performed.

A character will perform Skill Checks to progress along the board. With each success, they place their successful card, or some other marker on the furthest open spot on the left side of the board.  If they fail a check, they place their card, or marker, face down on the furthest open slot on the right side of the board, preventing the character from reaching that level of success for this task.

When the character places a card on the goal spot or the last open spot, the complex task is completed, and the results are described.

Here is an example of a board in use within my system.

The Dealer sets up an small but difficult board of 4 in length with the goal card on the third slot.  This requires the Players to have 3 successes before two failures.  Emily starts by using Investigation – Mechanical Working and gets a 6 on the check, and she successfully identifies the trigger device. Next, she uses a Tinker Disable Device Check to try to cut the wire and gets a 5.  Her hand slips and she cuts the wrong wire. The bomb remains ticking but doesn’t explode. Her crew member Jake attempts to calm her down with a Persuasion Clam check to help her succeed.  Jake succeeds with an 8. Her other crewmate Chelsea attempts to repair the wire with Tinker Repair Skill, but she fails with a 3.  The wire touches part of the circuit board, triggering the explosion.  Their professor comes in the room an announces how they would all be dead had this not been a simulation. Better luck next time, Emily and team.

Using the cards to inspire your players

Since the board is a physical thing that can be touched and manipulated, it gives a reference to the Player’s actions. By marking which card your Skill Check was, you can see how you contributed, or did not, to the team’s efforts. Finally, it also allows the whole table to see what it would take to complete a task, it makes the goal visible, clear, and tangible.

I often use boards for preparation or to complete a scene. Lets say the party is setting up an ambush. I set out a board of 4 cards, with no goal, and ask the party to offer up Skills they would use to complete the task. This inspires the Players to offer the Skill checks and explain their reasoning, rather than me asking for a set of Skills. This has two effects, it allows the Players to be more involved in creating the world and the story since they decide what their ambush looks like, both narratively and mechanically. Secondly, it draws on the creativity of the table rather than just the GM.

To resolve the scene, take each Skill Check contributed as one of the cards for the board. You do not need to indicate whether each individual check was a pass or fail at this time, you will take the collection of all Skill Checks and their results and create a whole unique resolution based on the inputs of the players. In this way you can pull from the Player’s creativity to make the resolution description that much more unique.

Using the cards to inspire yourself

You’ve done 5 scenes already this session and you are running out of creative steam. Let the cards help.

Instead of having the cards face down, just representing spaces to be filled, you can play the cards face up and use the suits as a basis for your check. Here are some examples of how each suit can inspire you.

Diamonds is Power. Think about how mental or physical power can either cause or solve the problem. Maybe there is a rusted sewer grate blocking the way. The players could either use physical strength to rip the weakened gate apart or instead they use their mental power to devise a way to accelerate the rust, targeting the weak points so it falls off.

Spades is Flexibility. Think about how mental or physical flexibility can either cause or solve the problem. Perhaps a country has closed its borders due to worsening relations with the neighboring country. The players could use mental flexibility to talk and falsify a story to get past border patrol, or maybe they can use their physical flexibility to slip through less secure sections of the border.

Hearts is Resilience. Think about how mental or physical resilience can either cause or solve the problem. Perhaps the party is moving through a spider infested cave to clear it out. The walls are thick with spikes dripping with poisons but they use their physical resilience to endure any of the small scrapes they experience. Conversely, their mental resilience allows them keep their wits and not be afraid of the dangers that jump out of the dark.

Clubs is social. Think about how social presence or social charisma can either cause or solve the problem. Perhaps the party is investigating the testimonies of some street urchins when a gang comes up to mug the party. The party not being well armed, uses their social presence to appear tougher than they are and intimidate the gang off, or using their social charisma, they make friends with the gang to see why they are robbing people in the first place.

This is just one way you can use cards to spice up your tabletop games. In the next post, I will talk about how to use cards to make a countdown clock to drive tension in a scene.

Try these out and see how it enhances your game. Let me know how it went in your sessions if you do. Finally, if you find an improvement at your table, tell me about it! I would love to know more ways to enhance my gaming.

As always, thanks for reading and if you like what I am writing about, follow me on Twitter @c22system or join my discord for C22. If you want me to talk about a particular design topic let me know!

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)

Zones vs Grids and what that means for the game

Recently, I have wanted to add support for zones in my core rules as I have found they work better for Freelancer’s Guide than hexes do. Hexes are great for the steampunk/fantasy settings I use for testing, and hexes were what the game was originally made for, but zones perform better is certain types of encounters. Zones have their place; grids have their place. Now let’s talk about what that place is.

The difference between Zones and Grids comes down to granularity in the rules. Just so we are all clear with what I mean by granularity, it is the level of detail that the rules cover. You might be thinking, why wouldn’t you want to the rpg system to be detailed enough to cover any situation. Detail comes at a price. The more details you have, the more you need to think about, the more you need to process, and the longer the game takes. Putting it another way, there is a reason we do not roleplay every moment in a game, we skip the boring parts; we abstract out what we do not need.  There is a place for both and their have their strengths, so I want to talk about why I originally went with hexes for the core system, and after I’ll take about why zones work best for Freelancer’s Guide.

Hexes are tactical. I went with hexes in the core game because of the tactical aspects they bring to combat. The smaller steps in movement, and how well they work with maneuvers makes for some complex and engaging combat to play (check out Missfortunate Morning for a prime example).  The steampunk/fantasy setting works well for this because combat last 2 to 4 rounds so while each round and choice has weight, there is still enough time for tactics to be employed.

When I started playtesting Freelancer’s Guide, I would draw up hexes when we started an encounter so we could easily represent the movement.  While hexes were fine, they made the encounters feel too slow. I think is because of two parts. Because guns and longer range are involved in Freelancer’s guide, a lot of the encounters are about managing objectives over larger distances and also because the fights were faster and deadly, see guns again doing player health in damage by default.

When I switched to zones, the encounters became faster and more interesting because the players were deciding less, where will I step, and more, can I solve this problem and also help shoot the enemies, or do I only get to complete the objective.  Zones are less granular than hexes, therefore fewer micro decisions, therefore less time needs to be spent. That time spent is fine when the choices are meaningful and tactical, but since the combat would last 1-2 rounds, tactics were more in the setup of the fight or the pathing of the chase, than the mid fight tactics. So I am moving Freelancer’s Guide to a profit focused living to hexes and it will be better for it.

That does not mean the hexes are gone from the core system. No, I think they still add value to the system but I am making minor adjustments to the wording to accommodate both methods. They both have their place in the system and when applied correctly, make an encounter that much more exciting.  So, highlighting what this situations are, hexes are still going to be the default for combat with melee weapons and premodern adventures.  Zones come into play for encounters on larger scales in distance, for longer time periods between rounds, and modern and up settings.  The system can adapt to either with every 6m of movement being the ability to move one zone, and a few maneuvers and ranges explained slight differently, it will be a relatively simple transition that I think will make the system better.

In your games when do you like to use Zones, when do you like to use Grids?

Let me know what you think by commenting here or following me on twitter  @c22system or join my discord (https://discord.gg/gAJpjZXuYq)

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).

I need more stakes to justify guns

So this will be a bit more loose than other blog posts as it will be mostly some thoughts I am having about the current state of C22’s magic system and the upcoming Steampunk world I am making.

So when a friend and I first started making our steampunk world, we made these things called projectors. Cartridge based guns that will fire out magic in a concentrated attack. Magic was suppose to be difficult to harness and control so this was the leyman’s access to it. This was all fine when this was a Savage worlds homebrew.

Now the world I have made and the mechanics for C22 do not mesh. That is the problem. First we need to understand how magic works so we can understand why it makes the world not work.

In the current version of C22, magic and powers are just like any other skill check. You spend some time, you see if you got the right element and you can create even the smallest amount of magic. The only cost is your time and a card draw. Sometimes, in tense situations, you dont get the element you want so you cant cast the spell you want, but you can still cast a spell. Lets say you draw a hearts and a clubs but you needed a diamond card to cast your lightning magic. in tense situations, tough luck, no lightning. Out of combat it is a little bit different, you can always wait long enough to get the element you wanted.

So out of combat, magic doesnt really have a cost. The time is negligible and you can mitigate the unexpectedness by waiting. Now lets look at what I wanted for the technology of the world. I have steamtech and then the more recently developed cartridge based magic tech that is supposed to be the reliable form of magic casting. aka firing the blast of magic out of a gun. Why would magic be developed to be reliable if casting magic is already reliable out of combat and most people can do it without a cost? These questions made me need to rethink how magic will work, mechanically, in the Steampunk setting I am hoping to build.

I have a few options I can look at to make this work: I can gatekeep magic, I can make you spend a resource, or I can add stakes if you fail.

A similar solution is to gatekeep magic. Only certain people can even learn magic (Which is currently partially true, you need to know a style first), but this has a few problems in my mind. For player characters, why would you ever use a projector if you can just cast the magic yourself if it is easy to put skills in to.

I can make you spend a resource to cast magic, like vancian magic and spell slots or savage worlds and power points. Looking at C22 as it is right now, I can make magic cost health, which represents stressing the character with magic, but this has the problem of being able to be healed off with recovery actions, making the cost almost trivial at times. Now if I decide to do cards as a cost then that could have interesting ramifications. It doesnt directly contribute to the magic user’s health and immediate death, it just makes them slightly more susecptible to damage as it lowers their ability to soak damage. Also these cards only come back from resting, tying rest to recovery for magic users. Finally, it has the added benefit of gatekeeping magic slightly as what makes player characters unique is their ability to soak damage and keep fighting. This isn’t perfect as it makes magic have a finite number of casts between rests, which might not be the direction I want to take magic yet.

The adding stakes if you fail would also explain this as magic is both risky and dangerous, causing either a loss of cards, health, or inflicting a status on a failure would create an interesting balance and press your luck style of gameplay. This would also stop many people from getting or using it as it could result in serious injury if used incorrectly, thus making the use of projects an easy and reliable creation.

Right now I am most interested in having failed checks for magic and powers to require a card to be soaked. i think this would the most interesting of the combinations in my opinion. It might make magic take too long to recover from between heavy uses, as you can only recover 10 cards each long rest, so ill need to watch that.

Do you think there is a different approach I am missing? Something you do or have seen done to make magic have a cost?

What are ways you've added stakes to your homebrew items in your sessions that worked well? What have you done that hasn't worked well? Let me know in the comments below. As always if you like this type of content and want to see more of it, let me know either here or on Twitter (@c22system) or on my discord found on the home page of this site.

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.