Writing a roleplaying game

As you might have noticed, I’ve been busy in my free time with my completely self-written new roleplaying game „Raiders of Arismyth“.

Unlike „Mail Order Apocalypse“, which was me applying a wild hair setting idea to an existing ruleset, this project has a different background: I wanted to play in a particular style, and was lacking a game system for that. Not to say that there aren’t systems that could work for this, but there would be compromises and homebrew rules and so on, so I might as well start from scratch!

It is now a bit over a year later, and I’m nearing the finish line. A good moment to take a look back: What design goals did I have in mind, what kind of fun did I want to capture, and do I think I succeeded?

The main drive was that I had accumulated a lot of painted and unpainted fantasy miniatures over the past 30-odd years I’m playing this sort of games. And most of the time, they have been sitting in display shelves or boxes, not being used at all. And I really wanted to use them!

So, I wanted a regular game where I could bring them to the table. And there is a fun in moving them around, counting squares and looking at possible tactics. The game I wanted should support this.

Wanting to have miniatures on the table also sort-of dictates what kind of scenarios and adventures you play: There is little sense of setting up miniatures for a court intrigue, or a detective adventure where the majority of the session involves talking to a bunch of people.

So, combat scenarios it is, and most often, this means dungeon crawling.

And that brought up the next requirement for my prospective new game: I didn’t just collected miniatures over those 30-odd years. Of course I also have a library of adventures and scenarios. It’s a hodge-podge of systems and settings, ranging from one page scenarios to sprawling megadungeons. I should be able to use those in the new game!

Let’s make this a list:

I want to use miniatures
I want a dungeon/combat focused game
I want to be able to easily drop in lots of different scenarios and adventures

Some other things are also important to me, regardless of the game system or setting I play: I like to play fast and player-centric. While I do enjoy the storytelling parts of being the dungeon master, I don’t want to monologue. Instead, the players should be the ones who talk most and who drive the action as much as possible.

I’m most content if I can lean back and react to the players, instead of dragging or pushing them towards a goal of my own.

That also means that I don’t want to be bogged down by too many complicated rules. Every time I have to stop the action and look something up, things get delayed too much in my opinion. So the rules should be very clear and concise, and allow me to come up with rulings on the fly that don’t feel out of place.

So, let’s add two more requirements:

Have simple and consistent rules
allow for as much player-empowerment and player-centric game as possible

That said, I wanted the game to be accessible to new players, but also provide mechanics and crunch for them to sink their teeth into. Videogames have these skill trees, where one can plan and map out a progression, looking forward to that juicy power at the far end of the tree.

That makes another two requirements:

easy enough to start playing within 15–30 minutes of introduction
deep enough so that experienced players can plan ahead and spend time „tinkering“.

And then I added one last requirement simply for personal taste:

Certain tropes and „problematic“ content should be left out. I always for example hated the pseudo-dilemma of „orc babies“.

Let’s have a look at the individual requirements and how I tried to meet them in terms of game design:

I want to use miniatures

„Just put them on the table.“ might be the most straightforward answer, but I also wanted the to be useful for the game. So squares-based floorplans, movement rules and other mechanics that are derived from miniatures were added. I didn’t want to overcomplicate things, so I left out things like which way a miniature is facing and the like.

As a corollary to the use of miniatures, I wanted to make combat a very dynamic thing. Combatants should be moving around a lot, instead of just standing there and bashing at each other. I tried to help this by adding skills and rules that promote lots of movement, and penalized standing still.

I want a dungeon/combat focused game

This didn’t need a lot of conscious effort to make it happen, but having it listed as a requirement did inform me a lot on what I could leave out of the game. There are no rules for social conflict, diplomacy, ruling fiefdoms or similar things. I left out rules for overland travel, or rules to keep track of consumables.

I want to be able to easily drop in lots of different scenarios and adventures

This led me to two things:

I needed to make the game world open and vague enough so that I can drop in a broad variety of other content into it with minimal fuss
Have some sort of idea of how to easily convert monster and NPC statistics into my own ruleset.

To be honest, I haven’t really tackled the second part yet. Mostly because I didn’t need to so far, but I think it won’t need a lot of work. My monster stat blocks are usually short enough anyway, so adapting others should be easy.

For the first part, I found inspiration in the world setting of Earthdawn: The world gets rediscovered after the survivors of some cataclysm finally come back to the surface.

My worlds cataclysm was a war between an evil goddess and the rest of the world. In the end, she was defeated, but half of the continent became inaccessible for a thousand years. That made the south both known (from really old maps and books) but also unknown and dangerous (a lot could happen in those 1000 years).

The player characters are those brave adventurers who venture into the south to rediscover the lost parts of the world, and just maybe preventing that evil goddess from rising again.

All this really allows me to drop in nearly anything that is even remotely of the „fantastic“ genre. The world in the south is mostly just the sketch of a map, leaving enough room for nearly anything.

Have simple and consistent rules

When writing „Mail Order Apocalypse“ I really fell in love with the Into the Odd ruleset again. With just three stats and an „everything is a save“ mechanism, one can easily find rulings for every situation.

Except, I don’t really love-love stats. And I especially didn’t want too much randomness for character creation. No randomness at all might even be best, at least for the core character bits.

Instead, I came up with the idea that „everything is a skill“. Those can be purchased with advancement points, and that’s it. And each skill is a competency. You either are competent, or you’re not. No „I’m 64% good at swimming“

Mechanically, I settled on a pool system, where you throw as many dice as you have skills connected to the task at hand, then count the successes — with each single dice having a 50:50 chance to be a success. Figuring out things usually simply involves sorting and counting dice. No complicated addition or subtraction needed.

That base mechanic is used throughout the game and it proved to be working well throughout playtesting. And I could easily adapt things to new situations on the fly: You get extra dice when something helps you, or you loose successes in certain circumstances.

Player-empowerment and player-centric game

This ended up being more a „how to run the game“ philosophy than hard rules. This is not a story centric game where players have rules-encoded ways to create facts like in Fate. Instead, the rules are written in a way that explicitly leaves a lot of decision-making with the players, and only demands dice rolls when things are very unclear, otherwise favouring the „yes, that works“ answer from the referee.

Easy enough to start playing fast

It is really important to me, that people can jump into the game pretty easily, if guided by a referee who knows the rules.

I prepared character sheets that have all the important bits as checkboxes and easy-to-fill forms, as well as a simple random table to populate ones inventory in one go.

All in all, creating a character takes only a few choices: What five advancements to take, how to distribute life points, and what to put into the inventory. Add a name and a quick description and you’re good to go!

There is very little math involved in this, next to no dice rolling, and not too much agonizing over the skill choices: Five advancements is not a lot, and people tend to spend them fast.

Deep enough for experienced players

This is where the skill tree really starts to shine: People can explore and test and think about different combinations of skills and magic. There are a few obvious combinations, but also a lot that are not so obvious.

The skill tree really offers a lot of flexibility but also planning-ahead material.

Avoid „problematic“ content and tropes

The classic thing I wanted to absolutely avoid are things that can be tinged with racism. In-game populations that are evil by birth just rubs me the wrong way, and it creates moral pseudo-dilemma like the „innocent orc baby that will absolutely grow up to be a bloodthirsty monster, so should you kill it right now?“

I scratched the whole notion of lots of different sentient „races“ and instead ruled (inspired by this blogpost by Cavegirl) that there are no other sentient populations or „races“ than humans. Of course, there are monsters that do monstrous things, but there are no civilizations of orcs that are jus there.

(In fact, in my game world, Orcs are human corpses brought back to beastly life by some otherworldly evil entity)

Similarly, there are no elves or dwarfs in the game world (although there are humans that might fit the stereotypes in some way). Getting this right while keeping to some „fantastic“ vibe is still a work in progress, but I’m getting there.

Generally, the world is more and more borrowing from classic „medieval“ tropes and clichés, so my players can expect a lot more monsters from that sort of place.

Conclusion

I think in terms of the rules mechanics, the game is done. Of course, there’s always more spells and skills and abilities I could add, I should probably revise a few of the random tables a bit, write out more examples and have an editor have a go at the rules to make sure they are really as legible as I want them to be.

And then there is the world: It is evocative, but with only very broad strokes, leaving a lot of room for anything I might want to add later.

It very much supports a West Marshes Campaign style of gaming, where groups from a large stable of characters form and disband to explore different places and return home to report. I have managed to set up some sort of overarching thread and threats, but the player characters are still trying to get a grasp of what exactly these are.

I do wonder if I should write the background of these threads and threats into the gamebook, as inspiration for other referees, or if that would ruin the blank canvas and rob others of the chance to build their own world of the Kari. (Kari being the name of the human empire the game world is centered on)

27. August 2024 playing, thinking 1 Kommentar

Self Descriptions made Easy

I have a „Manual of Me“ in my professional e‑Mail signature for a while now. That describes when and how to reach me, and how I communicate or set tasks.

What it doesn’t do in depth or any detail is describing what I’m really good at or what I’m bad at.

And that is something that no team should ever ask from its members. Forcing people to write down or reveal what they are good and bad at is… bad. For multiple reasons:

One reason is that a lot of times, people don’t really know what their relevant weaknesses are. Or they don’t like to face them. Or they know them, face them internally, but won’t ever admit to them to their boss or coworkers. Because, let’s face it, there is a real risk that this will be used against them.

In those cases, you’ll end up with weaknesses as „too driven“, „too detail oriented“, „not taking breaks enough“, with the hopes that they’ll look good.

The other thing is that what I might perceive as a big weakness might actually be insignificant in the team dynamic. Who cares if I can’t do math in my head at the speed of thought, I have a calculator app and a spreadsheet available at all times anyway!

So instead, I recommend thinking and talking at length within a team about how one communicates, decides, and documents things. There are lots of differences on how this can happen, especially if you cross cultural borders by having a diverse multinational team. (see https://erinmeyer.com/books/the-culture-map/)

Putting those differences and preferences out into the open is really useful.

Things that are good to explain about oneself

Get your folks to explain themselves in these terms:

what are their productive/waking hours? Are they night owls, early birds, or something in between?
Do they prefer face-to-face, synchronous, asynchronous or just written communication?
How do they like to separate documentation and decision-making?
What is their instinct when it comes to looking for information? Which systems do they use, who do they ask (if they ask someone at all)?
What are their notification etiquette? Are there times where you shouldn’t try to call them, or is that something you don’t need to worry about?
How do they want to get tasks assigned and reviewed, how do they do this themselves?
What are their preferred ways of addressing them? Honorific, nicknames, full names, pronouns, the works.

A tangent on leadership

I strongly advise that the team lead or most senior person of the group leads by example here. Don’t put the onus on the others to find out what is appropriate to share or tell, don’t let them guess what is necessary information. This is absolutely a managerial responsibility, to set the tone and expectations in a way that doesn’t discourage people, or makes them write in supplicant answers, in the hope to not look bad.

Communication can and should be trained, but it needs to start honest and open. If your team thinks they cannot be that way, you won’t get anywhere with them.

And power imbalances, even if you’re the most approachable manager of all, are still a thing. Subordinates will always have the next firing/hiring/promotion round in the back of their minds. Individual members of your team might thus not only worry about how they are perceived by you, but also by their peers, who could gleefully exploit any (perceived) weaknesses of others in order to get that promotion for themselves, or to prevent being axed when the inevitable downsizing comes.

Back to self descriptions

Self descriptions are useful. They make unspoken assumptions visible and clear, they highlight the differences between individuals in a way that makes them useful instead of a source of conflicts.

And they provide the basis on which to improve communication and collaboration within a group of people.

These self descriptions are not an end to themselves, they are a tool to figure out future collaboration and communication. Ideally, you encourage everyone to revisit their and other people manuals every now and then too.

9. Juli 2024 working Keine Kommentare

Eine Lanze für Orks

Danger Zone und dnalorsblog schrieben vor einiger Zeit über das Für und Wider bezüglich der Orks, in Reflektion auf einen der Essays in Roll Inclusive. Und auch der Deutschlandfunk spricht über das Thema. Im Endeffekt gibt es folgendes Spannungsfeld:

Othering ist Mist, macht Empathie kaputt und sollte eigentlich nie eingeübt werden.
Monster verkloppen ist ein integraler Bestandteil des Fantasy-Rollenspiels, und sollte ohne echtwelt-moralische Bedenken möglich sein.

Um „moralisch unbedenklich“ Spaß an der Monsterklopperei haben zu dürfen, müssen diese Monster leider eben doch ge-„othered“ sein. Denn wie dnalorsblog schildert, kann man nicht mehr nach Herzenslust Goblins weghauen, wenn diese eine Kultur und Daseinsberechtigung bekommen haben. Wenn eine Welt ihre eigene Monster Ecology hat, dann haben eben auch Orks und Goblins ihre Daseinsberechtigung, und sind keine gesichtslosen Monster mehr.

Jetzt schreibe ich ja gerade selbst an einem Monsterklopper-Rollenspiel, Raiders of Arismyth. Das Thema ist also für mich daher brennend interessant. Die Leute sollen Spaß mit Kämpfen in dem Spiel haben, und daher brauchen Sie Monster mit denen sie kämpfen können. Manchmal sollen sie dabei auch darüber nachdenken, mit wem sie warum kämpfen.

Aber eben auch nicht immer. Manchmal soll einfach der interessante Kampf und das Gekloppe im Vordergrund stehen, und die Moral nicht das zu beackernde Problem sein. Und damit kommen wir zu den Orks.

Die meisten Gegner in meinen Spielrunden haben eigene Motivation die mehr ist als nur „ich bin böse!“ ist. Sie sind hungrig, versuchen Geld zu verdienen, jemanden beschützen, und so weiter. Manchmal kann man so Kämpfe umgehen, und manchmal sind die Dinge, die die Gegner wollen absolut konträr zu denen der Gruppe.

Orks bei mir sind anders. Sie sind wortwörtlich nicht von dieser Welt. Kein Ork, dem man in meiner Spielwelt begegnet ist einfach nur da. Es gibt keine Orkdörfer mit Orkbabies, keine unschuldigen „ich bin nur Farmer“ Orks. Zumindest nicht in der Spielwelt. Wahrscheinlich gibt es all das auf der Herkunftswelt der Orks, aber die ist… woanders.

Orks, denen man auf meiner Spielwelt begegnet sind die selbstgewählte Speerspitze einer Invasion, mit sinistren Zielen. Die Details dazu wollen noch im Spiel herausgefunden werden, aber eines wissen alle am Tisch: Die Orks sind Monster, und sie sind es nicht qua Geburt, sondern weil sie es so wollten.

Alle anderen Gegner sind vielschichtig, die Gruppe ist sich nie wirklich sicher, welcher Gruppe sie nun wirklich feindlich gegenüber stehen sollen. Aber Orks? Orks sind zum wegkloppen da.

7. Juli 2024 playing, thinking 2 Kommentare

My 3D printer wishlist

3D printing things is one of my hobbies. And while I am reasonably happy with the printer I currently have,there’s always a new and shinier resin 3D printer around the corner.

But they rarely manage to really excite me in the way that I actually want to swap.

So, this is the laundry list of things that I want to see in one machine:

A heated vat or chamber. I print with an open window, and that means the room can get cool or even cold. 3D printer resin has a certain optimal working temperature, usually between 25 and 30 degrees celsius. That means a bit of heating.
A bed pressure sensor. That is pretty useful for two things: It tells the printer when there is something stuck on the bottom of the resin tank, and whether the print is releasing fine from the film. I haven’t yet had a printer with such a sensor, but I hear brilliant things about them.
A tilting resin vat. Again, not something that I had so far, but the Prusa MSLA printer and the new Elegoo Saturn do feature this, and apparently it makes for cleaner and faster prints.
A decent build volume. 20×30×30 would be ideal, but 20×25×25 is fine too.
A decent resolution of pixels per cubic inch. Although, to be fair, all current printers have that. This is not where technology needs to advance.
Fill lines in the vat. Really, how hard is that?
A slide in locking mechanism for the vat. I have it on my GKTwo, and it is brilliant.
Same for the lever locking mechanism for the build plate. Again, brilliant.
Magnetic flexible steel sheets that attach to the build plate that aren’t after market installs. All the FFF 3D printers have these by now, why not the resin ones? It’s super useful.
Flip up lids, or doors. With a handle. None of this „lifting a shroud and then looking for a place to put it“ nonsense.
An easy way to add an external ventilation hose. Generally, good air management, to keep the resin fumes controlled.
A good way to filter the air coming out of the printer.
An easy-but-sturdy levelling system. Although again, the GKTwo one works fine for me.
A vat with a proper non-drip spout for emptying leftover resin.
A non-flimsy vat cover. Sealing the vat firmly, instead of just loosely sitting on it. I want to be able to shake the whole vat full of resin with the cover on!
A sensor to pause the print when resin runs out.
Feet on the vat, so you don’t scratch the FEP when setting it down somewhere
Easy to swap screens with a good screen protector by default.
A built-in way to cure the whole vat for capture leftover floating resin bits.
A built-in way for exposure testing multiple settings in one go, to speed up dialing in any given resin.
Any USB or memory card slots and buttons in the front of the device.
Surfaces with as little nooks and crannies as possible, to make cleaning the device easier.

The above are basically things I see as must haves in order to make me want to switch. The following are nice to have features:

Make the vat high enough to hold a whole litre of resin.
Wifi connectivity is nice, but not really that vital for me. IF there is some, I’ll mostly use it to monitor the print status and being able to cancel the print in case something went wrong. Starting a print is.. eh, not really a thing I’d do remotely.
But managing the sliced files on the printer over wifi, adding and removing them would be nifty.

I see printers that have some of these features, but not one yet that has all of them. Any takers? :)

10. Mai 2024 playing, testing Keine Kommentare

Content