Brent P. Newhall's Blog
Role-playing – Jan 2010

18 Jan 10 – Building Characters

One primary design goal for Gunwave is simplicity. I want players to be able to pick up the game and start playing very, very quickly — without needing hours to absorb the game's rules.

When I first wrote the Gunwave rule set, its D&D roots showed clearly — each player chose a Race and a Specialty, just like D&D's race and class. Each Race and Class came with a menu of powers, from which the players could select a certain number for their character.

Players enjoyed this process, but I discovered several problems:

So I built a number of archetypes, common character profiles with a simplified menu of powers. Players now had a smaller menu of powers to choose from, but each power was tailored specifically to that character's role and purpose in the game.

Did I succeed? No; I just lessened the above effects. Players still worried over their power choices, criticized "useless" powers, and wanted to swap powers.

So I pre-built a dozen characters. Early in the main game document, the players are presented with stats and powers for these characters, and are encouraged to use them for their initial sessions. Straight. The archetypes now reside in an appendix to the document.

This works extremely well for playtesting — players just choose a character and go. I've no idea how it'll work for regular players, though; will they appreciate this structure?

Either way, this solution satisfies my design goals, so I'm going to use it until it breaks. May seem counter-intuitive, but that's sometimes what happens with specific goals.

Now to try it out.

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10 Jan 10 – Design Stew

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Not long after D&D 4th Edition appeared, Saalon pointed out during a chat that the basic D&D 4E system would be ideal for an RPG simulating giant robot combat, like Gundam or Robotech. It could emulate the feel of those shows, with rapid action and cool powers.

This idea so inspired me that I grabbed my laptop and wrote a few pages of a system just like that. To my surprise, not only did I enjoy writing it, more material came easily. Soon enough, I had a player's guide several dozen pages long.

Fortunately, I also had a group of role-players who were interested in the system, and they were willing to playtest the game. So we played it, and I collected pages of notes.

And here's where things got dicey: I started incorporating those notes.

As I incorporated notes, the game diverged from D&D 4E. That helped the system insofar as it removed elements that didn't fit into a mecha war universe. However, D&D 4E's design is surprisingly tight. Rules reinforce other rules. Adding new elements—or removing existing ones—can easily unbalance the game.

It's like making a stew. Anyone can throw a lot of ingredients into a pot, but the results may taste terrible. Testing helps determine what works. But a knowledge of flavor balance ensures a good soup (and game) every time.

I don't have an easy answer to this. I'd like to think the key is a relentless focus on the kind of game one is trying to play. It's not that simple, though — some rules are more true to the mecha experience, but ruin other parts of the system.

Games must be very carefully designed. I'm realizing, increasingly, that there are no easy answers.

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4 Jan 10 – The Fire's Gone Out

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I subscribe to a bunch of role-playing blogs: Musings of the Chatty DM, NewbieDM, Some Space to Think, At Will, The Core Mechanic, Gnome Stew, Trollsmyth, and others.

I first started reading them in late 2008, when they were full of fire about role-playing. D&D 4th Edition had just come out and debates raged about its advantages and disadvantages compared to 3rd Edition. Cool indie games were getting attention, like Dogs in the Vineyard and Dread. Bloggers wrote about interesting subjects: how to adapt D&D concepts to other genres, how to get more players, how to organize one's materials, etc.

I'm still subscribed to all those blogs, but I realized today that I only glance at them every week or two. And I've been in that mode for several months now Partly, that's caused by my growth as an RPG player, runner, and designer; I need less hand-holding. On the other hand, the content of those blogs has begun to pale.

Much of the recent blogging in the RPG community has been very inwardly focused. "Here's what I want to accomplish in the RPG industry." "Here's the kind of game I like to run." "Here are some things I've been thinking of buying." "Here's my quick review of source book X." Nothing wrong with any of this, but it's not particularly helpful, and it's thin gruel, especially considering the RPG blogging I'm used to.

I'd like to see more practical advice culled from real experience. I'm not referring to campaign logs with a few comments; I mean building a blog post around a key concept illustrated during a play session.

I'd also like to see a lot more blogging by game designers about the game design process.

While I can't change others, I can change myself. So I'm planning to write those sorts of blog posts myself in the upcoming weeks and months, centering on the design of Gunwave.

Watch this space.

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