Essays on Game Design

[Raven Crowking]

The one in the Silver Can?

"The Silver Bullet won't slow you down."

It was their advertising campaign.

Myself, I'd much, much rather a Guiness or a Kilkenny, a rum & coke, black coffee, or even a quality eggnog, but werewolves apparently aren't harmed by my beverages of choice.


RC

 

[Jack7]

Myself, I'd much, much rather a Guiness or a Kilkenny, a rum & coke, black coffee, or even a quality eggnog, but werewolves apparently aren't harmed by my beverages of choice.

It's never really fair how that works, is it?

I drank some cheap rubbing alcohol once though and dreamed I was made out of unicorn horn, chewed glass, and shed rattlesnake skin. I didn't wake up a monster but I kinda suspected one had been rummaging through my guts for awhile.

 

[jmucchiello]

What I'm saying is that for individual games, or in this sense, as you pointed out, for individual campaigns, neither the DM nor the way in which the game is designed (to provide basic, common formulae and descriptions for monsters) should limit monsters and monster design to being "as is."

I've never read a rulebook that said "You must use these monsters exactly as presented, no exceptions." All RPG rulebooks are merely suggestions and most good RPGs tell the GM up front, "Hey, these are suggestions for you to mold into your own game". What you are saying here is not new.

....but you're not hamstrung at that point, not limited to that expression. You can build entirely new kinds of monsters by unique reinterpretation, by redesigned methods of construction, and by re-evaluating the very idea of, "what is a real monster and how would it behave if it really existed?"

And I reiterate: this has nothing to do with game design. This is DM advice for "how to create memorable foes". It is excellent advice. But still it is not game design.

Some DMs can take stat block with 2 lines of text "describing" the monster and turn it into the central focus of a 3 year campaign his players talk about for decades afterward. Other DMs can take a book like the Dragonomicon, read it faithfully for months and still present his players with flat cookie-cutter "dragons" no more interesting than a handful of orcs, encountered and killed with no lingering memory. The decision to create a 2 line monster or 200 page book was game design. The aspect whereby the monster was a memorable foe was good DMing. You are trying to improve DMing, not game design.

Just as criminals are violent, unpredictable, and cunning (though not necessarily very bright) so would be a monster. Monsters, if they were real, in order to be a real monster, would not be "common," ", ordinary," "typical," or "predictable."

Actually, most human criminals are predictable. If they weren't, law enforcement would be even more dangerous than it already is. Criminals tend to have modus operandi that do not vary from crime to crime. Once you know what kind of criminal you are dealing with, you know how to catch him. I find it hard to believe that if Monsters were real they wouldn't behave similarly.

In fact, Myth tends to provide "Rules of Engagement" for Monsters. The Troll under the Bridge does not attack people in the countryside. He just wants payment for crossing the bridge else there are monstrous consequences. The Vampire will not enter an abode without proper invitation. The Sphinx does not attack you unless you get the riddle wrong. Heck, Death will set you free if you win a game against him. Unpredictable is not a trait found in all traditional Monsters.

So I'm saying, "no, they wouldn't." They would be many things, but they would not be "common, predictable, and unremarkable." Monsters would be full of hot blood and acidic ichor, not full of mild manners, and easily understood.

So, every monster being full of hot blood and acidic ichor is somehow not predictable?

If you make a monster in that way then you've made a real and lasting threat, not just a run of the mill, easily dispatched nuisance.

And again, I'm all for memorable and even recurring threats. But attaining this has nothing to do with game design and everything to do with DM advice for creating memorable foes.

Let me turn this around. Suppose you could go back in time and whisper your cunning and dangerous thoughts into Gary's ear as he was typing the 1e Monster Manual. At the game design level, in order to promote this paradigm of all monsters are monstrous all the time, what would have changed? How would the Beholder's entry (or some other monster's) in your version of that book have looked? What could have been done so that ALL DMs reading that Beholder entry would be able to (without much additional work) cause all Beholders to be inescapably monstrous? Remember Game Design. Once your have Monstrously Cunning and Dangerous Beholders on page 10, page 11 must follow with the equally Monstrous and Dangerous Black Pudding. What is missing in the presentation (from a game design) point of view?

 

[Jack7]

JM, have ya ever met a fella that his first reaction is to anything you say is,

I don’t know what they have to say,
It makes no difference anyway --
Whatever it is, I’m against it!
No matter what it is or who commenced it,
I’m against it.

Your proposition may be good
But let’s have one thing understood --
Whatever it is, I’m against it!
And even when you’ve changed it or condensed it,
I’m against it.

I’m opposed to it --
On general principles I’m opposed to it!

Chorus: He’s opposed to it!
In fact, in word, in deed,
He’s opposed to it!

For months before my son was born,
I used to yell from night till morn,
Whatever it is, I’m against it!
And I’ve kept yelling since I commenced it,
I’m against it!


Well, me neither... I'm against that kinda thing on general principle.
I'm just peculiar that way.

You guys and dolls have a Great Thanksgiving.
Im'ma taking my family to see the whole family.

It's not my fault though, it's the law.
(And who can be against that kinda thing?)

 

[jmucchiello]

JM, have ya ever met a fella that his first reaction is to anything you say is,

What does this have to do with my comments? I've said your comments are good advice for DMs. You've merely categorized it incorrectly.

And I really want to see an example of your Monster design. Actually create a new monster (with stats) and also make it memorably monstrous as your article describes. You know the old saw, "Don't tell. Show."

 

[Jack7]

What does this have to do with my comments?

I was teasing ya JM.

And I really want to see an example of your Monster design.

Alright, let me pull a couple out of my files.

For entries see here: http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/246752-creating-unique-monsters.html

 

[Jack7]

To Hell With Balance

ESSAYS ON GAME DESIGN

Essay Two: To Hell With Balance

I’m gonna say something that might shock some of you guys. Then again, maybe not.

Balance, go to the Devil. And sip septic tea with him til you’re really needed again. And chances are it won’t be often. But whatever the case, don’t call me, I’ll call you.

I’m working on a fantasy Role Playing Game, I’m not designing an algorithm, doing covalence equations, or writing a computer program to calculate a moonshot at apogee.

So sometimes in-game my players get their noses busted and spleens ruptured by a dragon that in real life they couldn’t ever easily kill. Not with bow-sticks and knives and harsh words anyways. Good, it’ll teach em a lesson about danger and risk and what it actually costs people.

And sometimes they’ll whip out their Horn of Resounding and bring down the walls of Jericho, or slay a few giants with the Jawbone of an ass. Good, sometimes you catch a miracle in midair, deserved or undeserved. Sometimes you get the bear, and sometimes he gets you. That’s life.

But in any case, as far as the game goes, the player is fascinated, interested, intrigued, involved, worried, anxious, and maybe even occasionally excited again. Perhaps shocked and ecstatic from time to time too, just to boot.

Balance, he ain’t my god. I don’t owe him any real sacrifices. He’s more like the grey-skinned Graeæ sisters than bright Apollo. Only one eye to see with, a lot of double talk, the bite of a one-toothed wonder - and in the end, disaster, not glory. You can’t trust Balance to point the way to the future, cause he’s more consumed with his own reflection in the mirror than with anything remotely heroic happening. Static, stale, sterile, sluggish, and simple-minded. A dotard of dullness. No poetry of soul, just an arrested arithmetic of tedium. More Echo and Narcissus, more Sound and Fury, than Thunder and Lightning.

I liked the original version of D&D. I like the 4th Edition, at least many things about it. But I see now that this pernicious idea of “balance” that crept in like the Serpent at Eve in Paradise, balance as an end in itself, especially in a fantasy game of all things, is more assassins’ poison than golden Ambrosia. If I have to kill wonder and potential just to achieve balance, then I have to kill fantasy just to achieve boredom. Thank you modern RPG Fantasy Game Theory of Balance, but I think you’d be happier working as a stock-boy in the warehouse of modern mediocrity, than a gate-keeper to the temples at Mount Olympus.

So Balance, my fine feathered fowl of gutless acquittal, go to hell and burn awhile. Maybe you’ll cook into a decent potpie.

Invention is as invention does. So, I’m gonna start designing fantasy games and adventures again, even D&D ones, where magic happens, miracles save the day, monsters are dangerous and feral, the voice of God rumbles across the sky, kingdoms topple, heroes struggle, players say, “Now that’s what I’m talking ‘bout!” and imaginations catch fire.

Balance can burn in his own oven… and stew in his own juices.

 

[justanobody]

Yup. Balance can destroy a good game once it is established as seen with a recent RPG edition. Characters don't need to be balanced. If everyone is the same then that limits choices of avenues to take with a character. A game should first be created with what is fun and if for some reason players have a problem with damage output or something, then they should review why they are playing the game and if they are playing the correct game in the first place if they are looking for a battle of numbers.

I would prefer a fun game to a balanced one.

 

[DandD]

I'd prefer a fun and balanced for all game than a game that is only fun to one person, and unbalanced for the rest, who will complain about being sidelined by, let's say, the wizards and the clerics.

Just happened in a Shadowrun game, where one player is changing from a street sam to a physical adept, so that he also gets to have the cool adept powers that the other player had. A common problem in Shadowrun, of course.

Good luck with creating a fun game that has no balance. One tip: Make everyone being forced to play a mage or something similar, like in Mage: The Ascension (or the Awakening). Your players won't then change characters like daily underwear.
It works wonder, as White Wolf-games are the second-most popular tabletop RPGs.

 

[Jack7]

I'd prefer a fun and balanced for all game than a game that is only fun to one person, and unbalanced for the rest, who will complain about being sidelined by, let's say, the wizards and the clerics.

I suspect that in this case DD we're talking about different aspects of balance. You seem to be talking about player-interactivity and character design/play balance, and I'm talking about overall game balance in regards to how characters interact with the world around them and the forces that oppose them.

I don't have the time for it now but perhaps someone else could carry on a conversation in which different aspects of balance are analyzed and properly and carefully defined (because without real definitions it is hard to properly debate terms and what they imply accurately), and the pros and cons of each form of balance then debated.

So there's balance, and then there is balance, and I reckon everyone has to be on the same page, to be precise as to what the term means and implies, to have a real fight over it.

Gotta go.
Later.