Jagash

Introduction to Independent RPG’s – A GenCon Seminar

Jan 302012

I will be on a panel at Gencon on Thursday morning, providing an introduction to independent RPG’s. I hope to see you there.

Introduction to Independent RPG’s

A panel of independent game designers are here to help! Hear about the major schools of rpg design. Learn some GM techniques from indie designers. Discover new games that match your interests!

This seminar is here to help you learn about the philosophical underpinnings of traditional games, Story Games and the Old School Renaissance. Our goal is to provide context about different types of games so that people can explore a variety of different games.

We will share some handy techniques and tricks, either invented or discovered by independent designers, that you can use in your games. Indie games tend to be a hotbed of innovation and we want to help you take advantage.

We will be happy to play matchmaker, finding just the game that would meet your particular interests. What sorts of things do you want to see in play? We can help you expand that to include things you didn’t even think of, and then try to hook you up with games that do that.

Let’s explore Indie Games.

Software Choices

Home, The Process of Design 2 Responses »

Jan 152012

Good software is nearly essential for producing a good roleplaying game book. Over the years I have made a series of choices between different software packages and I thought I might explain my reasoning. Perhaps this may be useful to some of you.

Brainstorming: I am currently undecided between using the technical solution (Freemind) or simply resorting to pen and paper for this function. I haven’t quite internalized a separate “brainstorming” step in my game designs, so I tend to use this in an ad-hoc fashion.

Writing the Draft: I started using the very nice open-source program Celtx which is a remarkably versatile media pre-production program. That one is particularly good for screenplays and movies, but I managed to get it working for my game writing. Easy to learn and freely available, it was a good choice.

That was when I found that Literature and Latte had released Scrivner for windows. I picked up the program and fell absolutely in love. It’s a logical system for organizing and shuffling content without the fiddly bits involved in word processing software. Excellent as an organizational tool alone, it also supports the writing of content. It comes with a a two-hour long tutorial and costs about $40 USD, but well worth the price. It’s telling that this is one of the few pieces of commercial software I currently use.

Editing: My go-to word processor is the open-source program Libreoffice at the moment. While I have access to MS Word and WordPerfect, I like to support the free program. Despite a few aesthetic disagreements, I have found the program to be robust and it fulfills my needs at the moment. Some of the technical decisions, such as the use of frames, work quite well. As a supporter of the open-source movement, I appreciate the use of open standards.

That said, I do fall back to MS Word on occasion. Turns out that word 2007 has some extremely handy automated tools to point out passive phrasing and a host of similar stylistic problems. It’s also the default file format for writing, so sometimes it must be used.

Art: The open-source domain has continued to treat me well when it comes to art. I use the excellent and intuitive program Inkscape for all of my vector art. I have replaced the proprietary Adobe Photoshop with the excellent and free program The GIMP. Both of these are of professional quality and free

That said, I fully realize that some closed-source software can be worthwhile. One program in particular, Corel Painter, has earned my praises. I know that it would take me months of continuous practice to learn how to use the program effectively, but the incredible versitility has impressed me.

Layout and Publication: I have the hardest time in choosing the best programs for layout and pdf production. Picking an excellent closed-source PDF Editor was easy (PDF-XChange by Tracker Software). The challenge was in picking the ideal layout program for my purposes. I am torn between sticking with the open-source Scribus or invest in the proprietary Adobe InDesign.

Adobe InDesign is aboslutely the industry standard and is objectively the best program of it’s type on the market. Everyone uses the program, printers expect it and tutorials abound. It’s also a closed-source program with a price-tag of $699 USD. That is certainly not a casual purchase, especially for a new publisher.

The open source competition is Scribus, a program with its own challenges. The consensus within the Forge and Story Games appears to be, avoid the program. There is a significant learning curve and the help files/tutorials are quite poor. Adding to that, several professional graphic designers have mentioned some key deficiencies in the program. I put in days of effort learning the bloody program and the effort paid off; I am now able to do my own rudimentary layout. I used Scribus for “A Sojourn In Alexandria” in Gamechef 2010 and it worked well enough.

I hope that someone finds this information worthwhile. I would love some discussion on the layout programs in the comments, if you kind reader(s) would like to help. Thank you.

Creative Constraints

The Process of Design No Responses »

Dec 232011

Storytelling demands creativity. It’s challenging to design a game system that consistently encourages inspiration. Fortunately, some great minds have found approaches to solve this problem. Let’s focus on the first of these approaches today; Creative Constraints.

Some games are limited in scope and these constraints can help. In Vincent Baker’s game “Poisn’d”, players portray rapacious and violent pirates. The rules tell you what general kinds of things a pirate will do and encourage you do to follow those conventions. “Dogs in the Vineyard” has the players portraying naïve and faithful youth in a western setting with more power then experience. Since much of the story is defined, these games let you focus your attention on creating interesting Situations and conflicts.

The limited scope can often show you where the interesting conflicts may be hiding. “How we Came to Live Here” presents a setting with very strict gender roles. How many of you fine folks reading this considered playing characters which violated that cultural norm? By telling players what is forbidden, they start to consider how that would impact a character.

Some of these constraints can force us to play outside of our comfort zones. The gender roles in How we Came to Live Here attracts our attention because it clashes with our cultural assumptions. Other games such as “Grey Ranks” or “Steal Away Jordan” do the same thing, forcing us to consider new perspectives and triggering creativity.

I recommend you check out “Narrative Fenceposts” by the fine folks at Transneptune Games for some related discussions.

Who are you designing for?

The Process of Design No Responses »

Dec 102011

Universal Principles of Design, published by Rockport, has taught me dozens of excellent techniques. One technique is referred to as “Personas”, where you try to create diverse profiles of potential users so that you can consider each of their needs & preferences. I suspect that using a technique like that might help improve our presentation of games to a wider variety of audiences. As roleplaying game designers, I feel we have a big advantage when it comes to creating fictional users and anticipating their needs.

Here is my list of different Personas which you can feel free to use for your own designs. These are in no particular order and any resemblance to individuals living or dead is purely accidental.

1) Richard: Richard is a middle-aged Caucasian male with a classical education and a long history with the gaming hobby. He cut his teeth on basic D&D and still considers 2nd edition to be a bad decision. His experience focuses on the older games such as Rolemaster, Tunnels and Trolls, Runequest, Gurps and Champions. He has a broad experience with telling good and realistic stories as a fair and benevolent dungeon master.

2) Zak: Zak is a well-off Caucasian teenager from the suburbs from a dual-income home. He just started playing Pathfinder over the summer and is having a blast killing monsters and taking their loot. He picked up D&D 4e and it looked interesting, but he considers himself is strictly as a player. His Tuesday and Friday nights are spent drafting magic cards at the local gaming store and he considers himself quite the expert in that game.

3) Gloria: Gloria is an Caucasian woman, just turning 18 and considering college. She embraced drama class enthusiastically and has tried her hand at improvisational theatre. Unfortunately for Gloria, a genetic condition has set in of late and her eyesight has deteriorated over the last few years. She has never been exposed to an RPG.

4) Suzanne: Suzanne is a first-nations youth in an isolated community. She has had some difficulty in schooling due to the poverty gripping her people. She has been trying hard to improve her reading and writing skills and has gotten into reading fantasy novels of late. She has never played a roleplaying game, though she listens to every story that her elders are willing to tell.

5) Mohammad : Mohammad is a devout Muslim gentleman of Arabic decent, currently living in the middle east. He is passionate about designing new roleplaying games, particularly those originating from the Forge. He thinks that his current game will have an impact on his society on a whole and help people explore themselves and their faiths during these turbulent times.

6) Lily: Lily is a mature Chinese woman with a master’s degree in psychology. On her off hours, she plays in a game of Lamentations of the Flame Princess with a few other women from the university she works at. She has embraced the Old School Renaissance movement, enjoying pitting her mind against the pitiless fantasy world. Years ago she had played a number of Vampire: the Masquerade LARP’s as well and she appreciated the experience, but was weirded out by the extent people were playing in character.

I hope that some of these persona are of use when examining your own designs and your potential audiences.

The Master’s Attention

The Process of Design 1 Response »

Nov 212011

Where do you focus your attention when you prepare for a game? How do you cobble together a convincing and engaging story? What does your game teach Game Masters to do in the lonely hours of the evening? Thanks to the Bear Swarm Podcast, and I have noticed three distinct ways that game masters and designers focus their attention.

The first approach is to focus on the characters. The idea is that the GM should focus on creating compelling, dynamic and engaging non-player characters. You can follow the NPC’s personalities and goals during play, reacting to the players efforts. As a result, the players pay attention to character relationships and motivations. This is the method of design for the video game “Mass Effect 2″ for example, with the richly detailed team members.

The second approach is to focus on the locations. This is where the GM draws a detailed map of the setting, describing each place as a uniquely themed gem in a massive world. You can encourage a sandbox style of gameplay, where the characters choose their own path and explore the game as they see fit. This seems to be the method of design use for “Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim” for example, where exploration of the rich environment dominates the play experience.

The third approach is to focus on the narrative. This is where the GM spends their time on crafting rich plots, character-testing events and dramatic arcs. This is where the group story is paramount, where matters of pacing and theme drive the action. An excellent example of this in the video game tradition would be “Dragon Age 2″.

Now, each of these methods clearly has their own place in game design. You can’t have a character focused game without paying attention to their narrative arc. Locations are defined by the characters they will interact with. The story depends on exploring a rich world. I think it’s worth _considering_ how much of each factor you include in your games.

What roleplaying games do you know which focus on one of those particular approaches?

Building the Machine

Home, The Process of Design 2 Responses »

Nov 092011

There is a simple joy in the act of creation. It doesn’t matter if you optimized a deck of Magic Cards, created a D&D character from scratch or forged a robot with a murderous heart. Preparing your tools before you play is rewarding because every choice is significant. I think this is one facet of design that we in the Indie RPG design community tend to overlook.

This realization came to me after leveling up in a D&D 4E game that I am playing in. Each time I got to tinker with my character, I was presented with a puzzle of which new feat or power I was going to choose. I knew that I was stuck with whatever decision I made until I earned my level, always feeling like my choices were meaningful. Looking back, it was the same thrill that I had gotten each time I started altering one of my decks of Magic cards. The very act of altering and customizing something for a game was enormous fun.

If you look back at the changes to D&D, you can see that the fun of preparation was taken into account. In classical D&D, the sum total of your creative input consisted of a few trivial decisions at character creation. 2nd edition introduced Kits, giving you more choice for differentiation at character creation. 3rd edition gave us Feats and Prestige Classes which allowed the players to alter their characters in significant ways whenever they earned certain levels. When 4E came around, the advancement system was altered so that the players would be able to make small but important decisions every time they leveled up by changing feats, power selection and/or attributes.

Changing my character helps me feel as if I gain a little more agency. In turn, I find myself more and more engaged with the game. I know that many great story games include preparation, but I think that it’s still an aspect of design that is far too often overlooked. I’m not saying that we should start including detailed encumbrance rules in every new game, but I think that _some_ level of preparation can improve a game and keep the players wanting more.

What do you think?

We must Organize!

Home, Spark, The Process of Design 4 Responses »

Oct 082011

I thought I knew what I was doing last year. My plan had been to write up the text of the game, then simply make a _few_ revisions based on the playtesting. I thought that my design _must_ have been advanced enough that I could commission art. I expected that I could finish off playtesting in 6-9 months, max and have my book in public Beta by early 2012.

I have learned a great deal over the last year. I tore out 50% of the system and abandoned the text which I _had_ been writing. I changed my approach and decided that I really needed to get the core system solidified before I tried anything else. This led to me creating and heavily revising of a 2-page rules summary, just so that I had something to work from.

This is almost all I had ready by the time the convention season began. Each playtest taught me a different lesson. CanGames taught me that the game itself had the potential to be fun and compelling. The Grand Roludothon taught me to simplify the mechanics and adopt a more improvisational style. GenCon gave me 2-3 pages worth of astounding feedback which I am only now starting to digest.

Now I am organizing all of the rules for the Spark RPG. I have Google Docs open and I am populating it with a series of one-line statements. Each statement corresponds to an individual rule, concept, explanation or piece of advice for the game. When I finish that up, I will be able to organize the content and turn that into a solid outline for my next attempt at writing the rule. My hope is that through outlining, I ought to be able to write the game in the most concise manner possible without losing clarity.

Are there any readers in the audience who outline this way? If not, how do you organize your RPG content?

Not because they are easy…

Spark, The Process of Design No Responses »

Oct 012011

The Spark RPG is a “generic” game, flexible of setting while still encouraging a certain style of play. The challenge is that generic games often come across as flavourless, dull and derivative. It’s hard to design a good generic and almost impossible to market them in my experience. This made it the perfect challenge.

I chose to design generic games games like these not because they are easy, but because they are hard. The only way to learn quality RPG design is through practice. Rather than release a series of smaller titles, I wanted to throw myself into the deep end and tackle a large and difficult project. For my first major commercially-published product, I needed to be exposed to every step in the development process. I needed to teach myself the design philosophies, writing tricks, editing skills, layout, production and marketing. I view this ambitious project as a self-funded undergraduate degree in roleplaying game design.

I have made almost every mistake in the textbook. I have tried publishing a fan supplement for a White Wolf game without a license. I have discovered the folly of commissioning art assets prematurely. I have written a draft text for my game before bringing it to playtesting. I have spent hours fiddling with formatting when I could have better spent that time cleaning up the writing. Right now, the beginners mistake I am making is focusing on marketing. It is so very tempting to market myself and network over social media instead of putting in the hard work of writing. Paradoxically, the infrequent updates on my website are a sign that I am actually writing the game.
I am designing games to learn and I think that generics are the best teachers. What are your thoughts?

GenCon 2011 Seminar Recordings

Downloads, Links, Seminars, Spark, The Process of Design 13 Responses »

Aug 112011

One of my guilty pleasures at GenCon is to attend a variety of interesting game design panels with digital recorder in hand. I was quite successful this year with 5 distinct seminar recordings. I have done some rudimentary audio clean-up on the recordings but I currently lack the skill to properly polish them. They are definitely worth a listen though, in my opinion I present the seminars in chronological order as I attended them. I will try to link to the presenters websites whenever possible.

Things You Think About Games

Event Number: SEM1122700

Presenters: Jeff Tidball and Will Hindmarch from Gameplaywright (http://gameplaywright.net)

Things You Think About Games

The No-No’s of Game Design

Event Number: SEM1128758

Presenters:

Stan! (http://www.stannex.com/)

Jeff Neil Bellinger (http://killerbunnies.com)

Daniel Solis (http://danielsolisblog.blogspot.com)

Matt Forbeck (http://www.forbeck.com)

The No-No’s of Game Design

Lessons from Indie Publishing

Event Number: SEM1122904

Presenters: David A Hill Jr. from Machine Age Productions (http://machineageproductions.com)

Lessons from Indie Publishing

Design an RPG in an Hour

Event Number: SEM1122800

Presenters: David A Hill Jr. from Machine Age Productions (http://machineageproductions.com)

Design an RPG in an Hour

Game Design is Mind Control

Event Number: SEM1120297

Presenters:

Luke Crane (http://www.burningwheel.org)

Jared A Sorenson (http://memento-mori.com)

Game Design is Mind Control

The Legal Rules of Gaming

Event Number: SEM1118576

Presenters: Neil A. Wehneman (http://boardgamegeek.com/blog/377)

The Legal Rules of Gaming

In addition to those excellent seminars, I also had the pleasure of running 2-3 playtests of the Spark RPG with some excellent gamers and/or designers. I didn’t request permission to post those game sessions online from the participants, so I will not post those particular recordings. I was told a couple of things by all of the different groups of playtesters.

I need to improve the presentation of the rules; teach them in a better fashion with more clear character sheets
I should change the GM Fate tracking sheet into a variant of the normal player character sheet.
It is counter-intuitive to have conditions which only help you or only impede you, regardless of circumstances. I will consider changing this around, though I am uncertain how exactly that would affect the economy.

I hope the seminar recordings and I wish to thank all of the fine participants of GenCon who supported my playtesting endeavours.

Placeholder update

Spark No Responses »

Aug 092011

I just made it back home from an incredibly successful GenCon with a pile of indie RPGs and a half dozen recordings. I will be posting all of the seminar recordings within the next 48 hours, but to tide you over till then here is the “This Just in From GenCon” episode that I sponsored and co-hosted.

Also, congratulations to the Evil Hat crew for sweeping the ~~Dresdens~~ Ennies on Friday night.

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Jagash

Introduction to Independent RPG’s – A GenCon Seminar

Software Choices

Creative Constraints

Who are you designing for?

The Master’s Attention

Building the Machine

We must Organize!

Not because they are easy…

GenCon 2011 Seminar Recordings

Things You Think About Games

The No-No’s of Game Design

Lessons from Indie Publishing

Design an RPG in an Hour

Game Design is Mind Control

The Legal Rules of Gaming

Placeholder update

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