PDA

View Full Version : Making an RPG. Any Advice?



Chainsaw Hobbit
2011-06-18, 03:33 PM
After seeing THIS GAME (http://basicfantasy.org/main.html) and reading THIS THREAD (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=202683), I decided I wanted to make my own streamlined hack of the D20 System. I have set aside some time in the summer, recruited a friend to do artwork, and registered a domain name for the game's website. I just don't know where to begin or what the game's overall goal should be.

I want to make the game retro, but how retro should I go? I don't want the game to be a clone of AD&D, but I want to recapture the "low-powered heroic romp" feel.
How close should I go to the D&D concept? I the game to have a heroic fantasy theme, but should I have the exact same concept as D&D?
How should I advertise the game? I'll give away the game for free, and I'm wondering how I could advertise it in a way that can compete with D&D.
How should I handle combat? I want combat to be less tactical than 4.0e, less tedious than 3.Xe, and still not mindless. How could I pull this off?
How rules-heavy should I go? I want the game to be less crunchy than 3.Xe and 4.0e, but I don't think I want it to be "rules-light" either. How should I handle this?

claricorp
2011-06-18, 04:00 PM
For rules heaviness, I have often mulled around the following idea in my head.

I think if you want to make a solid d20 system, make a fairly basic rule set for combat, checks, abilities, etc. Then have a fleshed out setting(or two or three!) that can be bought with the game, each having different rule variances or ideas, as well as some good stuff encouraging GMs to make there own world, with example towns, how to guides, tips and tricks.


Of course that's how I would do it, it could be fun to work on making a basic, malleable rule set, then having different settings that add additional rules, change basic ones and generally add in all of the important stuff like magic, and such. If I did something like this, I would probably have a slightly lighthearted tolkienish setting, a grimdark/cosmic horror setting and a funky high magic, high fantasy setting.

Totally Guy
2011-06-18, 04:01 PM
This blog (http://bankuei.wordpress.com/2010/09/26/so-you-want-to-make-an-rpg/) has a good write up of advice for the budding game designer. I hope it's the kind of stuff you are looking for. :smallsmile:

Oracle_Hunter
2011-06-18, 04:23 PM
This blog (http://bankuei.wordpress.com/2010/09/26/so-you-want-to-make-an-rpg/) has a good write up of advice for the budding game designer. I hope it's the kind of stuff you are looking for. :smallsmile:
Man, that gives good advice.

TG, you're in charge of linking that article every time someone says "hey, gonna publish a RPG!" on this forum :smallsmile:

DukeofDellot
2011-06-18, 04:30 PM
My advice is to create a niche or two and fill them.

d20 based, fantasy games are a dime a dozen: FEAR, Castles and Crusades, Hackmaster, d20 Open Project, Trailblazers, Pathfinder*, AD&D Revival, and so on... how many of these have you heard of? How many have you played?

They're good practice, but don't expect to compete unless you got something to set you apart... and what sets Pathfinder apart isn't anything in the design or quality field (though I would argue that they have both of those pretty well accounted for). What sets Pathfinder apart is that they have resources.

If you want my attention, which isn't saying a lot, you'll need to invent something and have a reason for it. Say you make the whole system skill based (as in every time a player picks up his d20 his eyes go directly to a box with everything he can do)... we've seen it, but it feels streamlined and clean. Not inventive, but safe. Then you slap in techniques that make basic combat more entertaining to the tactically minded... that's cool, I make sure that comes standard before I pick up a game though.

What if you go completely rules-lite so the game can be explained in five minutes... I'm sorry, but did you make that game in five minutes as well? Should we care that you have a sketchbook that you doodle in occasionally? No, you're not yet famous, so your **** still stinks.

What if everything in the game world has it's own set of rules to be handled with so that everything feels realistic? That's a wondrously naive perspective. Everything in the world actually runs on very few interlinked formula as it is, so why would you want a game that requires the GM to look up a rule every five minutes or... memorize things... good games are streamlined, which is easy to do. I mentioned setting everything up as skill rolls, right? Well here's the hitch: Making those skill rolls fun.

Further there are questions you should ask yourself:
-How much thinking should the player be doing? What types of thinking is it, and are they desirable for your target audience?
-What is your target audience to begin with? "People who like the same types of things as me" is an obvious one that typically includes your friends, but if you're competing with the big boys, that's not an acceptable answer.
-How do you make it further appeal to the target audience?
-Are you descriptive enough with your text? Ask yourself this between each paragraph of rereading everything you type during your progress on this project.
-How long does it take for the average player to perform a normal action? Who is the average player? What is this normal action? Should this time be shortened somehow? How much "dramatic" pause can you afford due to having to add or compare the values in your notes and on dice?
-Why would people play your game instead of DnD or whatever popular game yours most resembles? There is really only one truly wrong answer here. "Because it's free" is that answer.
-How much do you value GM judgment? Should the rules have to say things that are painfully obvious but have nothing to do with the system or it's rules? The correct answer to this may often surprise you.
-What setting specific content are you going to use? How are you defining your pointy eared race? Is it based off a specific source, or your own interpretation? Why should we care what you think?

Questions I'm asking you, in order:
-What's your design theory?
-How much are you willing to bend to input?
-If I played your game, would I be bored out of my mind?
-Really?
-Why not?
-Are you sure that's enough?

All in all, I will say that the Game Design hobby is a very rewarding experience. You will learn a lot about yourself, and probably have a lot of fun doing it. But it is very math, language, and psychology heavy, further you might have to do a lot of study in history, sociology, chemistry, biology, combat, and various other vast fields if your not careful. Especially if you're looking for "realism" which you shouldn't unless you've got a team of experts and at least fifty active testers.

In fact I would go as far as saying that the number of times you reference realism in your game is inversely proportionate to the amount of respect you will get in your final project. There are other things that can hurt you, but none as much as this.

Either way, good luck with your endeavor.

Chainsaw Hobbit
2011-06-18, 04:32 PM
This blog (http://bankuei.wordpress.com/2010/09/26/so-you-want-to-make-an-rpg/) has a good write up of advice for the budding game designer. I hope it's the kind of stuff you are looking for. :smallsmile:

All that really says is "Make the game without asking other people for advice, publish it if you like, and don't get your hopes up".

Chainsaw Hobbit
2011-06-18, 04:44 PM
Questions I'm asking you, in order:
-What's your design theory?
-How much are you willing to bend to input?
-If I played your game, would I be bored out of my mind?
-Really?
-Why not?
-Are you sure that's enough?

- I want to create what D&D would have been if it were designed purely to be fun instead of to bring in the most revenue.
- Quite a bit.
- No.
- Yes.
- It will be an off-kilter, slightly disturbing romp inspired by the works of H. P Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, J. R. R. Tolkien, H. R. Giger, Tim Burton, and Lewis Carrol, with a relatively light rules set that focuses on speed of play.
- Actually, no. I think there might be something missing.

Oracle_Hunter
2011-06-18, 07:29 PM
All that really says is "Make the game without asking other people for advice, publish it if you like, and don't get your hopes up".
...yes. That's the point.

It's best to make a game that at least you will enjoy. It will sustain your interest in creating the system and ensure that at least one person will enjoy it when it is done. The truth is that you are a gamer and therefore what you enjoy in a game is likely what other people like in a game. Asking other people what they enjoy isn't going to be that productive towards creating a novel game. At best it confirms what you already like in games; at worst it reveals some new thing you didn't know about and therefore have no idea how to implement in a system.

It's not pessimism; it's practical advice. I highly recommend you seriously consider it.

arrowhen
2011-06-18, 09:56 PM
- It will be an off-kilter, slightly disturbing romp inspired by the works of H. P Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, J. R. R. Tolkien, H. R. Giger, Tim Burton, and Lewis Carrol, with a relatively light rules set that focuses on speed of play.

That's a nice sentence right there. Print it out and tape it to the wall over your monitor and read it aloud every time you sit down to work on your game.

OK, you don't really have to do that, but you've come up with what I think is a very good design goal (and, incidentally, a game that sounds like something I'd very much like to play.) What you need to do now is design your game with that goal in mind. You've decided what your game is supposed to do, now you just need to decide how it's supposed to do that... and make sure that every single element that you put in the game is a tool that helps achieve the goal.

Especially with it being a d20 hack rather than something you come up with from scratch, you'll be tempted to leave in things from the d20 system just because you're used to them being there. Avoid that temptation. Don't just throw in Dexterity scores or Fortitude saves or whatever because they're "supposed" to be there, sit down and ask yourself, "as a player, does rolling a Fortitude save help me experience an off-kilter, slightly disturbing Weird Fiction romp? Really? How?" If you can't come up with a good answer, leave it out; it doesn't need to be there.

d20 is a hardware store. Choose only the tools you absolutely need to fill your personal toolbox, and if they don't have exactly what you need, make it yourself.

erikun
2011-06-18, 11:17 PM
I want to make the game retro, but how retro should I go?
How retro you want to go, and what you actually mean by "retro". THAC0? Tables? "Roll 1d6, with 6 being an instant kill"? There was a lot of RPGs before D&D v.3.5, and a number of tabletop games before that.

Remember, also, that both "retro 3.5e" and "improved AD&D" have been done before, and rather well. If you're just looking for a version of 3.5e that "returns" to AD&D playstyle, or AD&D with "improvements" from 3.5e, I think it's already been done before.


I want to create what D&D would have been if it were designed purely to be fun instead of to bring in the most revenue.
This, like the retro comment, makes me wonder what you mean. What's the fun part that's missing? What was included just to bring in the revenue? I'm sure your answer would be far different than mine.

Saying you want to go retro or fun or non-mindless sounds good, but I'm hoping to get something a bit more objective out of you than that. Those phrases are very subjective, and while they may mean something very clear in your mind, they likely don't mean the same to other people.

Tyndmyr
2011-06-19, 12:11 AM
All that really says is "Make the game without asking other people for advice, publish it if you like, and don't get your hopes up".

Nah. It tells you what to ask for advice on and when. This is important. I've definitely seen people asking about publishing advice before making or playtesting a game...more focused feedback is almost invariably more useful, and playtesting feedback is extremely important to a game, IMO.

DoomHat
2011-06-19, 02:14 AM
I find The Three Questions (http://memento-mori.livejournal.com/288677.html) infinitely helpful. But you should also add a fourth question, "How is that fun?".

DukeofDellot
2011-06-19, 03:58 AM
I liked all of your answers until...


- Actually, no. I think there might be something missing.

The thing is, you're probably right.

Warning: More Unorganized thought!

I will add in that there is a noble idea in trying to make the game run faster. In fact I studied this very concept for several years to formulate what I hypothesize to be the optimized core mechanic for speed with enough flexibility to handle a great many situations and much character growth. The problem is twofold, and I'm too nervous to let it leak until I can find a good testing team and am sure it hasn't already existed. If the later is true, then it probably failed to catch hold

Basically, the concept is that many minds have trouble processing... well... math. One obvious suggestion is to try to reduce the number of abilities that give a conditional or temporary bonus or penalty to rolls and values. If you must have a "buffer" class have their abilities focus on giving new abilities to the other characters. For example, you could have a stealthy combat leader that is able to use his knowledge of camouflage and tactical movement strategies (or whatever other bull**** reason) to allow the party to sneak as a group using his stealth roll instead of the worst of the group (which makes much more sense). Or a priest who bolsters his comrades with immunity (not a resistance bonus) to the ill-effects of fear. Or a wind caller who can bless his friends with the capability of flight.

Getting a bonus to hit and damage from Rage is fun, remembering and combining the effects of Rage + Bull's Strength + Enlarge Person can be stressful for some players...

Another thing, Players want their characters to be interesting and different... well, the type of player I like to game with does. This should apply at the very beginning as much as it does when they're taking down the Gods. If fighting the Gods is the beginning... then it should apply to when they're commanding the cosmos and deciding which worlds should still exist as well. There is a certain amount to this illusion (yes, it's all an illusion) that you need to understand. The character needs only look different enough from other known characters. Often being different from the other PCs in the party, and the other PCs the player has played is enough. Personality and Back-stories are enough for the rest. That isn't to say that giving the player more choices is a bad thing, but remember:

Every choice takes time. In some cases it's a good thing, but often it's bad. When a player is choosing which spell he's going to cast and on who, if he's got about five or six combat spells that all have different effects, he'll likely be able to figure out which is the right one for the job in a reasonable amount of time (depending on the player, the relative balance between the different spells, and a few other factors), but when you've got a player who has never played the game before, and he isn't quite sure yet who he wants his character to be, and he's got a choice of fifty traits or abilities, and he's got five of them? Further not all of them work for each Archetype... which ones work well for his character? How much is he penalized for a bad choice? He has someone there to help him? That's great, but it's likely the GM, and often that means taking time away from the rest of the group to focus on just him. There's only so much of that a GM can do. And no, you as a game designer don't necessarily control that situation (unless you are also the GM).

...

So what I'm trying to say is: No choice, and I'm bored. Too much choice and everyone else is bored.

That balance is more important than the notorious character class balancing. Which isn't as big of an issue as some might think... the thing is, to compete in modern day, you might have to give it quite a bit of thought. There are several ways to handle it: Everyone can do everything, it's up to the player to choose which parts of everything his character is good at. Everyone has a purpose, others can't (or aren't as good) at that purpose. There are necessary roles to be filled and each character needs to conform to one of them.

There's more, but I'm running out of steam... The most important thing about inter-party balance is to pay a lot of attention during your testing. I mean a whole lot of attention, to the oddest things. You're not going to have as large a test group as the professionals, so you're going to have to know your testers pretty well to get some quality observations out of them. Say if one character isn't performing as well, it might be that it isn't well designed, or it might be that the player doesn't understand it. An funny example I stumbled across from World of Warcraft... There are four "Tank" classes and people arguing which was best, but no one said Death Knight. Not because the class lacked the abilities, but because it was a secret class that you needed to get to level... 55, I think... to unlock, but when you make one it starts your new character at that level. So you start with a huge list of abilities, and lacking the hundred or so hours of experience it would take to get to that level... so the number of people that don't understand how to play the class effectively are numerous enough to make people building raid groups favor a tank of another class rather than risking it with a Death Knight.

...

I just got way off track there... anyways... the point I'm trying to make is... expect a lot of human error... from your testers, from yourself, from every bit of input you take in... but don't immediately respond to something that seems like a mistake... I mean... There's a certain amount of balance here that is very important...

Take all things in moderation... Just as a generic cover...

Just so you know, I'm no professional, but I've been in the game design hobby for... longer than I care to remember... at least twelve years. And I have little to show for it. So my advice is shaky at best, but probably better than anyone saying "I speak from experience" which often translates to "I tried it once and it happened this way" (You know who you are.)

Sorry that everything I'm saying is so... vague... You've just got to find your own style. I really don't want to push mine on anyone, it hasn't gotten me anywhere, why would it work for anyone else?

I was running out of steam how far back? ha...

kyoryu
2011-06-19, 01:59 PM
One thing I'd throw out there, and I think that this is true for any game, be it pen and paper, video, etc...

The driving question for most decisions should be: What decisions are the players making? Understanding this should drive most of your mechanics, as making decisions is how your players will interact with the mechanics.

Ravens_cry
2011-06-19, 02:10 PM
I think a core mechanic is a good idea, something everything else is built around. In D&D 3.5, this is ( mostly) rolling a d20 and adding modifiers. In Storyteller, it is rolling d10's and counting how many have rolled above a certain number. But whatever the core mechanic is, it should be dead simple. You can add complicated stuff after. Also, you need to know when to simulate and know when to abstract. Unless it is a hardcore sniper simulator, a game should not have a complicated system to check for windage. A simple modifier should do it, if that.

Lord Loss
2011-06-19, 02:31 PM
Don't make an RPG because you wnat to make an RPG. If you're able to explain the idea your RPG's set out to do and find an example of the kind of RPG you're trying to make, you're doing it wrong.

Make an RPG because you want to play an RPG but you can't find an RPG that emulates the genre and/or setting and/or rules heaviness and/or mechanics you want.

DukeofDellot
2011-06-19, 02:53 PM
Don't make an RPG because you wnat to make an RPG. If you're able to explain the idea your RPG's set out to do and find an example of the kind of RPG you're trying to make, you're doing it wrong.

Quoted for falsehood.

Wanting to make an RPG is the main reason to make an RPG. You often need little more than that.

If you're just looking to play one, you can find another and houserule it a bit to your liking.

Game Design is as much a hobby as Gaming. It has a different appeal, and often leads to entertainment on its own. Even if you make a game that's got nothing new, and no one outside your friends want to play it, you'll still have the experience of building one, the lessons you've learned (about yourself and your studies due to the project), and if it's something you enjoy...

You'll have fun.

Lord Loss
2011-06-19, 03:26 PM
I wasn't clear with my meaning. Wanting to make an RPG is as good a reason as any to make an RPG, but in order to make a quality, you're going to need to do more than just find a genre and slap some rules on. There's an RPG for just about everything that you can imagine. In order to make a qulaity RPG -although you shouldn't feel pressured to make a quality RPG just yet, you'll have fun and learn quite a bit by just experimenting with rules and whatnot -you'll need to have fresh new ideas, or at least mechanics that embody the genre/concept of your RPG. This can be as basic as making an action-rpg that's meant to go quickly and fluidly rules light and as complex as creating a health system that incorporates the effects of damage to different body parts for a martials arts RPG where kicks are flying all over the place, or far more complicated.

If you're aiming for success (and once again, I don't encourage you to do so just yet) you won't make a profitable RPG by just saying "I want a better D&D". You'll probably have fun making it, but it definitely won't be succesful, as making good RPGs takes a heap of experience.

Finally, I encourage you to try as many diverse RPGs as you can find, from stuff like Mouse Guard, CoC, D&D and other known RPGs to obscure things like 44: A Game of Automatic Fear (which is free on DriveThruRPG) and a personal fave of mine, Underworld: An Adventure Game of Subterrean Fantasy.

oxybe
2011-06-19, 04:24 PM
- I want to create what D&D would have been if it were designed purely to be fun instead of to bring in the most revenue.
- Quite a bit.
- No.
- Yes.
- It will be an off-kilter, slightly disturbing romp inspired by the works of H. P Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, J. R. R. Tolkien, H. R. Giger, Tim Burton, and Lewis Carrol, with a relatively light rules set that focuses on speed of play.
- Actually, no. I think there might be something missing.

a few notes:

-"fun" is VERY subjective. some people find 3.5 fun. i don't. some people find 4th ed unfun. i love 4th ed and think it's the most fun edition of the game to date. etc...
-i wouldn't say you should bend to other people's input but at the very least think about how that input fits with your design goals. don't try to please everyone but realize that looking at something from a different angle might not be a bad idea
-boredom is, IMO, very subjective and probably more of a group thing then a system thing. while i don't find 3.5 fun, i do have a group that can make a session fun, even thought the system does nothing for me


as for design goals: i've been working on a game on/off for a while now. to me, having a list of well defined goals can help you get a better idea on how you should setup your game and what kind of mechanics to use.

here is a list of my personal design goals, thoughts and it's definitely a list that keeps being expanded as i can think up goals or clarify them:

-it won't be medieval fantasy, at least not initially. the Faurope settings, to me at least, have been done over and over far too much and i'm getting bored of them. while support for medieval fantasy will probably be added later i'm aiming for a more wild west or renaissance type of with some fantasy elements mixed in.

-it will be pulp-action.

-i want it to be a class based game system. pick 2 classes, gain the benefits of both. kinda like 2nd ed's multiclassing, 3.5's gestalt or 4th ed's hybrid classes. effectively mixing and matching 2 classes to create your own. i had initially thought of going strait 1-class but Gamma World 4th ed's treatment of character origins was quite fun and allowed for a diverse amount of PCs yet each "class" itself being small and self-contained.

in combat each class will have it's own goal/role. to me that's part and parcel to a class based game... that each class has it's "thing".

out of combat i want to keep it more open and allow players to create a wider variety of characters within each class. skills won't be restricted to any particular class. more on skills later.

-players should succeed more often then failing by default, modifiers should be kept at a minimum but still be relevant. i've decided to use 3d6, roll over, with 10 as the "key" number for success, giving the player about a 60% success rate. i'm working on keeping overall modifiers within an overall +/- 3 at most. with a -3 total giving the player the biggest penalties and reducing his chance of success to about 25% while a +3 will raise his chances to 85%

-stats: still unsure how i'm going to handle it, if i want a simple 3-4 GURPS/Tri-Stat a moderate D&D 6-point style or a more expansive White Wolf 9-stat system. i might just drop stats entirely and keep it entirely skill based.

-as for character resources: i'm going for a more encounter-based design. my personal experience with 3 editions of D&D (among other systems) has shown me that daily resources are too difficult to balance properly due to how many encounters you'll get into on a day-to-day basis can vary not just from campaign to campaign, but session to session.

i'm hoping a more encounter-based refresh mechanic will help me balance PC power. class-based combat abilities will probably resemble 4th ed's powers (as in, they'll have a standard fomat but a wide array of thematic uses), but i'm not entirely sure how i'm going to handle non-combat resources yet. i'm still tinkering.

-broad skillsets with "specialties" included inside. characters should be capable of a wide array of things, but still allow for further specialization within those, with training allowing characters more options, akin to skill tricks in 3.5 or the skill powers in 4th ed that add extra uses out of the individual skills.

the ability to gain skill tricks/powers will be innate to the leveling system. so at level 1 you start with X amount of specializations while at levels A, B & C you gain one extra specialization trick/power.

-not sure how i'm going to handle social skills yet. i do want to include them, but how, i'm still on the fence on how to handle "social combat".

-not sure if i'm going to include things like feats. i'm thinking "no" since the larger number of classes (and combinations thereof) and the skill system should allow for more then enough variety.

-weapons should be simple in design. another thing from the 4th ed version of Gamma world i liked is how they have overall simple weapons as a framework (unarmed, 1-handed, 2-handed, ranged retrievable/easy to find ammo, ranged limited use) and have a light/heavy version of each. one man's javelin (light ranged, retrievable) is another man's slingshot (light ranged, easy to find ammo).

not too sure how i'm going to treat armor.

-health will be abstracted, probably using a system similar to HP. i've played games that use a downward spiral of health and they're not my thing.

-as i said, i want the game to be pulp-action, rather fast paced. i also want combat to be tactical yet fast enough that you won't slog through basic/at-will attacks after you've used up your encounter-based resources.


this, to me at least, is how you should look at design goals. your individual goals will help decide a lot of how you'll look at some of your OP's things, ie: how you're going to handle combat and how heavy the ruleset will be

onthetown
2011-06-19, 05:25 PM
All that really says is "Make the game without asking other people for advice, publish it if you like, and don't get your hopes up".

You seem a little closed-minded. The article gives really good advice. Asking people for advice can end with your public survey going awry (opinions change, after all) or you not liking what you hear, or people wanting to push you in a totally different direction than what you want to do, etc... Of course you can publish it if you like, and doing it online like you want to is a great way to get gamers into it. It doesn't say to "don't get your hopes up" -- it just points out that you're not likely to make the biggest thing since sliced bread, and don't count on your project to set you up for life. Besides, this is something you're doing for free over the summer.


- I want to create what D&D would have been if it were designed purely to be fun instead of to bring in the most revenue.
- Quite a bit.
- No.
- Yes.
- It will be an off-kilter, slightly disturbing romp inspired by the works of H. P Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, J. R. R. Tolkien, H. R. Giger, Tim Burton, and Lewis Carrol, with a relatively light rules set that focuses on speed of play.
- Actually, no. I think there might be something missing.

-Honestly, I purely have fun when I play D&D because I don't care whether or not they only want to make money. I just enjoy the game.
-Good, but don't let people push you in a direction that you don't want to go.
-Next three points: You're very assuming that people will automatically have fun in your game. When I read the description of it, I wasn't interested in the least. This goes back to why you shouldn't rely on advice, because people like me will tell you what you don't want to hear: they might not be the least bit interested in your game. Keep in mind that when it comes to games (or just about anything), people can be very opinionated and stuck in their ways, and you're going into a dark little niche that not everybody will want to play. So, on your earlier point of not getting your hopes up? That's why.
-You'll find out what's missing as it comes along, I imagine.

Honestly, it doesn't sound like a bad idea (just because I'm not interested in the setting/flavour doesn't mean I can't appreciate it). But so far you sound quite defensive of this project that you apparently haven't even started apart from brainstorming. So my advice is to not rely on this thread to help you make your game -- make it the way you want to make it, not the way we want you to, as others have pointed it out -- and to just go do it.

But you have to give us the web site when it's done so we can all go see it. :smallamused:

Frozen_Feet
2011-06-19, 05:42 PM
After seeing THIS GAME (http://basicfantasy.org/main.html) and reading THIS THREAD (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=202683), I decided I wanted to make my own streamlined hack of the D20 System. I have set aside some time in the summer, recruited a friend to do artwork, and registered a domain name for the game's website. I just don't know where to begin or what the game's overall goal should be.

Easiest goal for a system is to make game out of a setting. So the question becomes: do you have one? Do you have interest in creating one? What sort of standards would you have for one?

For the record, "setting" doesn't need to be a complete, fleshed-out game world at all. It can be a theme or a feel just as much. Lamentations of the Flame Princess (http://www.lotfp.com/RPG/products/lotfp-weird-fantasy-role-playing) is a great example, especially since it's another "D&D retroclone". It seeks out to create a weird feel. It stresses out how important weird is. It achieves much of it not through more rules, but omission of some rules you'd expect (such as magic item charts and premade monsters), artwork and little bit of detail here and there - see especially invidual spell descriptions and the class descriptions.

The referee booklet also outlines philosophy for the kind of adventures the system is meant for. It tells how to establish a feel through how you use rules, instead of adding more rules. Tower of the Stargazer example adventure is beautiful illustration of it.


I want to make the game retro, but how retro should I go? I don't want the game to be a clone of AD&D, but I want to recapture the "low-powered heroic romp" feel.

First: do you have old AD&D books at hand, or some other retroclone to look at? I'll take this to be yes, since you mentioned basic RPG. If you're trying to make a "streamlined" d20 version, acknowledge that you will be straight out copy-pasting much of stuff.

So go back to the things that you think make the "low-powered heroic romp" feel in those other rules. Pick the parts you like. Now identify elements that you don't like or that detract from the feeling you're after and scrub them.

This should give you a chassis to work on. Now, it's time to think of what needs adding. But whenever you add something, stop to think of how to integrate it to the system. Early D&D was notorious for having separate tables and standards for everything. Do you want to go back to that, or do you want to stay as close to the d20 roll as possible?

On the other hand, later D&D is notorious for piling up so many bonuses the actual d20 roll is trivialized. You might want to do some math of your game mechanics just to see how much things affect chances of whatever thing.

Second: what kind of fiction or history do you associate with the feel you're after? Stop looking at simulations of life or fiction for a moment, and go back to the source to look at actual fiction or life and draw inspiration from there.


How close should I go to the D&D concept? I the game to have a heroic fantasy theme, but should I have the exact same concept as D&D?

First of all, D&D doesn't have a concept. It's a mish-mash of thousand different concepts. The original idea of following a small warband instead of an army in small-scale structural area (ie., a dungeon) in search of loot has slowly but surely been buried under layers and layers of only tangentially related stuff. 4th Ed finally took a knife to the cloth and cut off much of the frills; with it's "back to basics" attitude, I hear it made a system that implemented the original concept better than anything, but a lot of people disliked it because they suddenly realized they liked the frills more.

Within D&D 3.5, it's possible to run almost any sort of fantasy game - the system is just that vast. You aren't going to compete with that as a single person. You could try to find an unused niche, but RPG niches have been filled to the point that those left unoccupied are so specific and obscure they're unlikely to appeal to you.

As such, you have to suck up the reality that you'll be competing not just with D&D, but bazillion other d20 variants meant to do "low-powered heroic romp". Acknowledge that you're re-inventing the wheel, and then just try to make your wheel as good as you can. It might not be the only wheel, but at least you can decorate it in an unique way.


How should I advertise the game? I'll give away the game for free, and I'm wondering how I could advertise it in a way that can compete with D&D.

You won't be competing with D&D. You will be competing with other indie games. And if you're not going to get money for it, I'd think twice of how much effort to pour into it.

But first and foremost, fine and finalized product is good advert. Memorable art, easy-to-read text and lay-out, conscise and clear rules, fun and informative examples, easy-to-print character sheets with maybe even printing advice included go a long way.

You really can't underestimate power of good representation. I bought LotFP solely because it had a beautiful box cover, and I noticed it because there was a window-size poster print of it on a building wall.

Next, make sure your game site, if you're intent on having one, is well-represented as well. Have FAQ and other customer support available. Forum is a handy tool for this. You need to update regularly. Things like online character sheet hosting, fast-to-download character sheets and game hosting are nice boons as well.

And of course, you have to keep noise. Go to roleplaying conventions. Illustrate your system there, hold games with your system in person. In forums you frequent, use link to your site as your signature, or have an avatar related to your game if just allowed. You have to be a bit shameless and insert references and links to your game site anytime you see a crowd that might be interested. You need to spark word-of-mouth.

After that, the next thing would be online banners on gaming sites... but that might require money, and at this point you're already putting so much effort in that you should strongly consider finding a way to get at least some compensation for it. If you're not interested in making a real business, well... this is about as far as you can go.


How should I handle combat? I want combat to be less tactical than 4.0e, less tedious than 3.Xe, and still not mindless. How could I pull this off?

Reduce amount of mechanics influencing combat, increase prominence of random chance. The former reduces tediousness and increases pace, the latter lessens affect of tactics.

But as long as there are any factors influencing random chance one way or another, tactics are possible. (And they can even be pretty involved tactics.) Making combat mindless is, all in all, pretty hard.

Some math should be done here as well. How many rounds can a combat last before becoming tedious to you? Calibrate chance of succesful attack and effects of injury around the timeframe you find ideal. For example, if you think combat should be decided in three rounds of less, calbrate weapon damage and HP so that an appropriate foe goe down in that amount if the player finds the right tactic.


How rules-heavy should I go? I want the game to be less crunchy than 3.Xe and 4.0e, but I don't think I want it to be "rules-light" either. How should I handle this?
[/LIST]
With such a vague feel for what you're going for, the only way is to build a system from mechanical elements that you think are necessary for your goals, then playtest the system until you get a feel for whether you want to add or remove rules. I have a feeling you'll find your sweet spot that way.

kyoryu
2011-06-20, 12:27 PM
here is a list of my personal design goals, thoughts and it's definitely a list that keeps being expanded as i can think up goals or clarify them:


Write a transcript for a game session, without getting into mechanics. Think about how you want the game to play. Use that as a basis for your design.

If a transcript of a game with the mechanics you've chosen is close to your sample transcript, you know you're on target.

Again, I'd recommend focusing on *decisions* rather than *mechanics*.

oxybe
2011-06-20, 02:05 PM
i have a rough idea how i want the different aspects of the game to work i definitely have an idea or three... which is why i'm currently using the mechanics i've chosen and trying to work out how to make them interact together in a more cohesive and consistent way.

as for transcripts... i wouldn't be able to write any "flowery" transcripts... anytime i'm asked to do a summary of anything, it tends to be a rather dry read. i also have no clue how to make one transcript of a typical 4 hour session of any game system that properly covers the entirely of any game's scope.

i can rarely talk about an aspect of a game without thinking about some sort of mechanics. for me the creative process involves just as much figuring out the "why" as much as it's figuring out the "how". the more i think of either, the more i get a clearer idea what i want, which is unsurprisingly how i get most of my PCs created.

very rarely do i start with a 100% clear idea on anything, and a lot of time it starts with something like "a parody of a typical D&D character: an actual violent, magical hobo" who ended up being my longest played character and only PC to survive the entire scope of 3.5's 1-20, and developing into an actual PC... but i had no clue when i initially created Shump what the "final product" would end up as (well, "final product" meaning the last decisions made before the first session).