To help you on your games design journey, here are the common pitfalls in the journey you might like to be aware of. I have fallen for all of these in some way at some point. These are specific design choices or approaches that often lead to challenges or suboptimal outcomes.
The D12 Dice Trap
There is an ocean of games that use D10 dice pools and all manner of D20 games. D6s are ubiquitous and while games like D&D use all the dice, the poor D12 tends to be rolled very rarely. Most designers notice this and seek to redress the balance by deciding to make a game system driven by only D12s. No one else is using this much maligned dice, making your new system unique.Now I have nothing against the D12, it’s a great dice. But part of the problem here is the starting point. Trying to make a game specifically to use a certain dice is not a good idea. Use the dice that works best for the system you want to use instead. There is also the matter of marketability. Any gamer will have a crop of D10s and D20s, and any non-gamer will have a pile of D6s. Making a game based on D12s means a trip to the dice shop for most people (which is expensive but not all bad…).
The main reason the D12 tends to get left out as a core dice is the range though. Humans think mostly in base 10, so dealing in 5, 10 and 20 is more natural for most people. When it comes to difficulty numbers any dice with fewer than 10 sides might not give you enough variety, hence why many low sided dice systems use multiples of said dice. So for your “roll 1 dice to resolve an action” system we tend to come back to D10s and D20s.
So, if you are going to use a D12, use it to do something other dice can’t do. Just as with the Imperial versus Metric measurements, values of 12 can divide in half without going to fractions one more time. For a d12 that means 12, 6, 3 instead or 10, 5, 2.5. That gives you four distinct sections for any D12 roll (0-3, 4-6, 7-9, 10-12). However, a D20 can also break down to 4 sections (1-5, 6-10, 11-15, 16-20, another reason they are popular) so you’ll need to create something that divides rather than just uses stages ideally.
Respecting the Tarot
Many of us get into Tarot at some stage as plenty of geeks run with the alternative crowd. I’m an occasional Tarot collector myself so I get the attraction. Tarot has been used as a storytelling aid for many years and it works very well for this. You have four numbered suits and 22 numbered trump cards making them cry out to be used as a gaming tool. This is doubly so when the suits and trumps divide the same numerical results into different sections.The problems with Tarot cards are twofold. Firstly, Tarot decks have significant spiritual meaning to some, both those who practice its use and those who are unfamiliar with it. This means that there is more likelihood people playing the game will be seen as “playing with dangerous occult forces,” to say nothing of just trying to get hold of a pack to play the game.
The other issue comes from those who do know Tarot. The cards have meanings that have been passed down over centuries and just grabbing them as a “say what you see” narrative tool or a random number generator can sound very disrespectful. While the meanings are often vague and complex, if you don’t know them better than the tiny booklet that came with your first deck, you will stand out as an amateur. So, you should know how the cards are used if you are going to use them. This is no bad thing as the meanings have stood the test of time and using them properly will give you better narrative options.
Having said all that, these last few years has seen several games driven by Tarot cards. Many are journaling games, which is very close to the Tarot storytelling that’s been going on for years. The joy of crowdfunding has also allowed such games to be delivered with a deck created for the game (although 78 images from an artist is expensive so count that into your budget). There are also several gaming companies that have made even standalone Tarot decks. However, most of these games use the pictures and meanings as narrative prompts rather than the numbers as a game mechanic. Tarot, when used respectfully and with some forethought, can make for a great game mechanic -- just be aware of the pitfalls.
Magical Narrative
If you tire of rules systems you can go too far in the other direction and let the narrative decide the whole system. Go completely diceless! Let players do anything they can imagine! Their very words define success and failure! On the face of it, that sounds like the purest form of role playing.The problem here is that rules are not actually a burden, they are an assistant. Rules give you structure not to control or limit but to build upon. If you want a totally narrative game (and that’s fine) you actually have more work to do, not less, than a more rules heavy game.
Firstly you need to figure out how your narrative will guide the story so everyone can take part, not just the loudest player. If the words people use will become the keys to success and failure, you need to define which words, how they do this, and how the players will be able to know which ones. A lot of this can be figured out by just letting them do as they will. Most story games do this by setting up a situation and letting that give the players the parameters their characters work with.
The second problem is explaining how you do it. It is not enough for a game designer to just say “and then you just tell a story”. It’s not actually that easy to randomly tell a story for most people. They need some help, some prompts and guidelines. The rules usually do this by telling them what actions their character can do and how good they are at them. Narrative games are much harder to do this with.
Despite role playing being among the most imaginative and creative people, not everyone is able to just jump into a game or pull narrative out of a hat at a moment’s notice. When we made the Doctor Who game I remember talking to people at conventions who would ask “So what characters can you play?” to which my answer would be “Anything you like across all of time and space!” For me that’s a selling point, you can play literally anything or base a character on anyone in the series across 60 years. But for many people that was just a scary option with no direction to help them out. The same applies to rules and system. So whatever your game is like, write examples, for everything, a lot.
Your Turn: What common issues have you seen in game design or tackled yourself ... only to discover it in another game?
