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Picture courtesy of Pixabay. The apocalypse, as used in fiction, generally means the destruction of civilization, leading to a drastic reduction of knowledge and physical capabilities. This is reflected historically, such as when Mycenaean (early Greek) civilization fell and the region lost...

Picture courtesy of Pixabay. The Universal Trinity of Vehicle Design When building a world—or in this case, a science-fiction setting that probably involves many worlds—you must first define what kinds of warships are available to the setting’s nations. The discussion can be applied to warships...

Defining Believability Believability in a character can stem from individual characteristics, background, and dialogue, but it is especially derived from actions. Let’s take an example that immediately drains believability: when the antagonist gives a long speech instead of acting immediately...

Photo by Birmingham Museums Trust on Unsplash The Agricultural Foundation Every country—and indeed every individual—must operate within some form of economy, formal or informal. In the pre-modern world, economie were built almost exclusively on agriculture. The core principle was simple: Land...

Picture courtesy of Pixabay. Which Comes First? This is an age-old question in the realm of game design: Which element takes precedence—the narrative arc of the story, or the functional constraints and mechanisms of the gameplay? We must consider this question from two perspectives: which comes...

Picture courtesy of Pixabay. The debate over the fundamental nature of the hero has endured for centuries. As noted by author G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936), the appeal of the old fairy tale lies in making heroes start out as someone just like us. Conversely, Chesterton observed that the modern...

Picture courtesy of Pixabay. Last time we examined reasons to favor using a board and pieces in tabletop role-playing games, particularly when the focus is on tactical combat and treating the RPG primarily as a game. Now, we turn our attention to the other side of the coin: the advantages of...

Picture courtesy of Pixabay. There are pros and cons to theater of the mind style of play, and much of it is determined by the interplay between the game master and the players. What is Theater of the Mind? In a role-playing game, when there is a physical encounter during adventure and...

Picture courtesy of Pixabay. Despite the many wars going on around the world today, warfare (as a concept) is much frowned upon these days. This hasn’t always been the case, and earlier societies regularly planned for war. Of course, hardly anyone wants to BE in a war (just ask the soldiers)...

Picture courtesy of Pixabay. Today we're going to discuss two ways of creating many things: not just games but stories and game worlds. That is, starting top-down, or bottom-up. Many of the Worlds of Design columns start out “shotgun” (bottom-up) and may not be finished until years after they...

Courtesy of Pixabay. My wife was using her tablet, early in the morning. I wanted to say something to her, but her response was “I only have six minutes to get triple points!” So I shut my mouth, and went to the computer to add this quote to this article. She’s using online software, Duolingo...

Picture courtesy of Pixabay. Cities don’t just happen, though it may look that way to those who live in one. As a GM/world-builder you can “do it that way” (they just happen), but I prefer a believable world, which means that cities must have reasons for being there. For this article, a city...

Picture courtesy of Pixabay. “Don’t read any science fiction/fantasy from before [or after] 1980” is a phrase characterizing a notable split in sci-fi and fantasy fandom. There's a split for sure, but they're not nearly as incompatible as that quote might imply. Vicarious vs. Role For the...

Picture courtesy of Pixabay. I confess that I am a big fan of naval history (the topic of my long ago doctoral dissertation is “Aircraft and the Royal Navy 1908 to 1919”), so I have some bias. Certainly if you work at it, you can deliberately make up science-fiction settings where ground...

Picture courtesy of Pixabay. A Change of Space When I write a Worlds of Design column about worldbuilding I usually think in terms of fantasy rather than science fiction. Today I have a sci-fi topic, how “space navies” are likely to work. In this discussion I assume a sci-fi setting is the...

Picture courtesy of Pixabay. Humans are generally positioned as the baseline to which other species are compared, no doubt because humans are playing the game. Dungeons & Dragons famously centered humans as the “main” species lest the game turn into less fantasy medieval and more abstract...

Picture courtesy of Pixabay. Crowns in Crisis As you GM more and more adventures, it may become harder to find an unusual reason for player characters to go adventuring. There’s a lot of potential in "succession dramas" for adventure hooks, even if the adventurers are not amongst the possible...

The answer is likely predicated on if you came to Tolkien before you came to FRPGs. Picture courtesy of Pixabay. I read the Lord of the Rings (LOTR) when I was in my late teens, about seven years before original Dungeons & Dragons was released. (The Hobbit came later for me.) This is long...

Picture courtesy of Pixabay. Simplify, Don’t Add When I'm referencing "simple games" I'm specifically discussing games that are simple, but have some depth to them. I prefer to design simple games - games that are fundamentally simple in rules, though not in strategies. That said, simple...

Now that we’ve established the basics of simplifying a game, let’s work through how to make a game simple. Picture courtesy of Pixabay. The Simplification Checklist Simplicity in games consists of several tenets, which we’ll discuss in order. Remove trivial decisions: Trivial doesn’t mean...