Worlds of Design: Why Would Anyone Write a RPG?

Anthony cloak · Apr 22, 2019

RPG now stands for, "Roll Playing Game" and not, "Role Playing Game" clears. It is a game which allows you to develop your character with lots of fun & adventures, according to your desired way and there are many of them. RPGs is a game in which each participant assumes the role of a character, generally in a fantasy or science fiction setting, that can interact within the game's imaginary world rather than reality. These games are so wide in variety but I tend to look for three main components when it comes to excellent RPGs: great storytelling, complex game play, and solid character progression. Best RPG games are as follow:
1. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
2. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
3. Diablo II
4. Final Fantasy VII
5. Fallout: New Vegas
6. Baldur's Gate II
7. Dragon Age

The White Sorcerer · Apr 22, 2019

Anthony cloak said:
RPG now stands for, "Roll Playing Game" and not, "Role Playing Game" clears.

No.

Dragonmoose · Apr 22, 2019

I voted the "working on" option.

When I was young, going from teens into my early twenties, I had surrounded myself with various RPGs I ordered out of the Wargames West catalog in the States. I started designing one using playing cards, but didn't get far.

Now twenty odd years later, I'm showing my daughter and step-kids the wonders of RPGs. I had been out ofcthe scene for a while but still had my old AD&D/C&C books. Violence was a worry in the early part of my new marriage so I kept the teens playing C&C while I came up with something for my younger ones. I selected a deck of cards for resolutions as now I'm stepping on dice left on the floor. I had forgotten my old game idea until after going through sold old backup CD-R's and finding my old RPG notes I was recreating it! Talk about hand of fate....

Anyway, violence tensions have eased but my kids still want me to make it. We have played only a session as my step kids' virtual school sucks a lot of time and I only get my daughter overnight a couple times a week. It's been hard to make the game as one gets filled with self doubt as I want to share this but with all the options out there, it's daunting. On top of that just the sheer amount of work involved can kick in procrastination.

I finally have a combat and action resolution done in a way I like. The world, which I went with a fantasy anthropomorphic animal approach, is fleshed in my head and a bit on paper. The spell system originally was going to be free form (come up with an action and effect, consult table for spell cost, etc.) but I'm rethinking that. Character creation needs a rework with my new ideas but something will pop in my brain.

Should be a fun endeavor. The trick is sticking with it.

jagerfury · Apr 24, 2019

Celebrim said:
And yet, now 30 years later, where have we gone? What have we achieved? What have we done that has improved upon what was done in the past?

The next horizon is more adventure products design with use at the table in mind. There are less adventures written because making a "good" one is hard. Reassembling existing mechanics into new shapes is much easier. That is why you see more games than game content.

Not that I haven't published my own ttrpg :-S

But I did include an intro adventure with it!

Tony Vargas · Apr 25, 2019

lewpuls said:
Why Would Anyone Write a RPG? …
… Of course, there are lots of tongue-in-cheek reasons, which I'll leave to readers to convey.

… you asked for it:

Because you couldn't write the Great American Novel, so you...

… tried writing screen plays and couldn't, so you …

… tried writing short stories, and couldn't, so you …

… tried writing an RPG, and everyone was impressed how literate and readable it was!

… or not, so you tried writing forum posts, and got a few laughs now and then.

Blue · Apr 25, 2019

Anthony cloak said:
RPG now stands for, "Roll Playing Game" and not, "Role Playing Game" clears.

I really have to disagree. There are more and more narrative games doing well on the market, and some of the most old-school (even D&D) are including mechanics to support and reward RP instead of just their wargaming roots.

There's a lot out there, I think it's tunnel vision to say that the state of RPGs has moved away from Role Playing.

Blue · Apr 25, 2019

Jraynack said:
I’m near the end of developing a true, deckbuilding RPG.

I'm cheering you on.

I've played around with ideas on deckbuilding as your character sheet / randomness generator / RP+stay-in-character encouragement, especially toward including wounds as null or negative cards in your deck. But the best I've managed are mechanics that support some narrow subset of play (combat, whatever) without the same level of support for clever and ad-hoc maneuvers.

I've worked on a deck as opportunities that a player can take advantage of, in general categories so not relation to specific types of actions - just as meaningful for picking a lock as scamming a mark. But the deck mechanic was weak in "unstructured" time, and was open to gaming by players looking to set up situations of enough importance to shift the hands and decks in preparation of more critical scenes ahead - a meta gaming of system that perhaps could have been cool if I could have worked it into the narrative instead, perhaps as resource building or even the equivalent of a movie's training montage.

Either way, I think there's fertile ground for using something besides numbers for randomness.

lowkey13 · Apr 25, 2019

*Deleted by user*

Jay Verkuilen · Apr 25, 2019

Celebrim said:
What we do not yet have is a lot of widely accessible good examples of play. That is to say, having built the framework for creating stories, we are not yet doing a good job of writing or sharing those stories. All the words communicating rules are wasted compared to value that would be created by investing the same amount of words into the art of RPGs. <...> And yet, now 30 years later, where have we gone? What have we achieved? What have we done that has improved upon what was done in the past?

I was looking at a Dark Sun adventure recently and, lo and behold, it had most of what you discuss in it. It had high production values, lots of pictures and play aids, and the writing was solid and well-edited. How thoroughly was it playtested I can't comment on but I recall a lot of the mid '90s TSR stuff and it was really high quality. al-Qadim was, similarly, very well-executed. The issue is that this level of polish is expensive. Lest we forget, TSR went bankrupt in not too long after that material was released and ended up being bought out by WotC.

Beyond that, really detailed adventures for new GMs are, in my view, a lot like writing super detailed performance guides for complicated pieces of music that end up providing too much information for a newbie to cope with. A newbie needs to learn good fundamentals and probably can't dive into running something really complicated right away.

Jraynack · Apr 29, 2019

Blue said:
I'm cheering you on.

Thanks, that is most welcomed, and, well, I must admit, it’s been a long journey since my Kickstarter for the project failed almost 8 years ago.

It was a difficult task to create a true RPG (rather than a board game variant) into a deckbuilder, but a good one.

Aside from my own gaming experience for the past 30+ years, I’ve read hundreds of RPG systems and combed thousand of posts, learning what players saw as strengths and weaknesses in RPGs in general.

I absorbed all that to offer a different role play experience, all the while creating a game to allow the stories I want to tell, and I believe I’ve done both.

My goal was to focus on role play, but still kept a solid system in place to determine success and failure.

For one, I eliminated target numbers (the game does have a difficulty system), so instead of counting modifiers and adding numbers together, players role play their characters as they play action cards. Each action card is tied to an ability.

Second, the character deck possesses a series of algorithms, like a computer program, running in the background (so to speak).

It keeps track of fatigue, wounds, and sustainability against damage, among other things. It is also serves as a timekeeper for special abilities, such as mana for spells.

This later feature allows characters to cast spells whenever they like, and places the burden on players as to the amount of magic they cast as well as the power level. This eliminated the need for a Vancian or spell slot/points magic system. Players must balance their own magic ability or suffer consequences.

I’ve learned the character deck is essential for the Game Master and players to focus on the story and describe cinematic actions, without being bogged down with numerous dice rolls and math.

As you can see, I’m pretty excited. I’ve kept it under wraps for many years and now feel I can start talking about it - almost like a castaway being rescued from a deserted island.

I should be making a pre-announcement soon, and launching a Kickstarter later this year to help fund artwork.

If you wish to follow the progress, it is Alea Publishing Group (apg-games.com or Facebook). Though, I haven’t updated the website in a while, so it might have much older info pertaining to the game.

As a small publisher, a lot of what I designed is deep under the radar, therefore my credentials suffer that fate as well, but I did design Blood Magic. It turned out to be somewhat notable over at DMSGuild.