There’s little that I loathe more than abandoning design.

It’s agony but you’ve got to do it. You’ve got to kill your darlings.

So the system for my little barbarian game (the game which was like 90% complete!) got taken out behind the shed and shot.

It wasn’t fun. Playtesting revealed huge flaws. A gigantic bias to over-challenge which took it from “success-first” to “guaranteed failure”.

It sucked.

So I had to start over. God I hate doing that.

The frustrating thing is that you go from that little green bar being right at the end to a new little green bar that’s stuck on 15%. Argh!

So that’s been eating design time this last couple of weeks. Once I changed the combat system everything had to change. Ugh. This project just became a D&D surrogate. Which means work with no pay. Again.

So here’s the updated document. It’s free, as planned. It’s not done, but it’s getting closer. Please take a copy and send somefeedback with my blessing.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

It’s high time for an actual post about “RPG theory”

(Although maybe “Hypothesis” or “Rumination” is a better term. I don’t know that I can produce an idea on RPGs that comes close to being a “Theory”)

I was watching the new Voltron with my son yesterday (it’s great for the record). I started noticing the little character arcs of the cast. Some of the familiar “zero to hero” “weight of the world” “heart vs duty” stories played out in the episodes. It got me in mind of how comfortable certain narrative arcs are. Not stereotyped, just easy for me as an audience member to enjoy, recognize, and root for. I pumped my fist when the hero-kid picked up a sword and stood between his robot and the bad guys. “You’re not getting this lion!” he cried defiantly, and I was like “Hell yeah!”

Defiant hero teenager is pretty much playing right into the tropes of the genre. Watching the show though put me in mind of another mecha show which is basically its antithesis: Neon Genesis Evangelion.

People hate the first series/movie of that show (and with good reason). Shinji, our “hero”, is an unlikable twerp. Instead of being cool and defiant he’s a bumbling, incompetent little wimp. His character murders the escapist power fantasy. He kind of makes you sick, honestly. The whole series does.

They knew what they were doing, though. The series creators clearly new the genre tropes of Mecha anime, with exactly as much intimacy as the creators of Voltron. In both cases the comfort exhibited by the show’s writing reveals a deep understanding of the clockwork of the genre. The two series diverged radically in their aims: Voltron is a love letter to mecha/sentai shows, but NGE is a poisoned one.

There’s a scene in the movie where Asuka, the cute, tough female pilot (and one of Shinji’s “love interests”) gets into a fight with a wave of huge monsters. The scene starts like you’d expect: she’s kicking ass and tearing them apart. Then suddenly, everything changes. Her energy runs low and the bad guys lob a spear through her mech.

She’s defeated. Overwhelmed and beaten. Then the creatures she’s “killed” all start piecing themselves back together. Then they violently rip her mech to shreds.

It’s a stomach-turning, gripping scene. A scene that flies completely in the face of every trope of its genre. A great, agonizing visual metaphor for futility.

The “crush” character didn’t get in over her head and get rescued by the protagonist. She didn’t get to show off how “tough” she was by winning a hard-fought victory. She failed in a crushing, pointless defeat.

And as I watched the end of that scene for the first time, all of this dawning on my awestruck little mind, I let out a quiet but emphatic “Hell Yeah.”

…….

So we have a room full of writers who produced one show, where all of the heroic arcs and beats play out like clockwork. Then we have a different room of writers that made, like, an anti-clock out of the opposite of those same pieces.

So there’s weight to genre tropes, whether you consciously embrace them or defy them.

But what if you’re not consciously doing either?

There’s where RPGs come in. They’re a hybrid of both games and stories that draw from their own well of genre tropes (some of which are so ancient that they’re essentially dramatic laws).

A game writer has a genre in mind when they make their game. DnD had pulp classics like Howard’s Conan, the high fantasies of Tolkien, the material rationalism of De Camp and so on. Call of Cthulhu had the seminal works of H.P Lovecraft to guide it. Vampire: The Masquerade had Interview with a Vampire, Dracula, and even the Bible.

So there’s a well of tropes for the game when you draw up your campaign and make characters. Even while you play, those tropes inform the game.
RPG characters sometimes do follow the familiar arcs of their genre. But generally they veer off in unexpected directions. You could have a paladin going from zero-to-hero that, just following his arc, steals a forbidden otherworldly power so a big bad can’t get it. Then this malignant power slowly eats at him, driving him mad and warping his body. His actions keep getting grimmer, his judgment more skewed. Now he’s still becoming stronger, but his arc is different now. It’s something unexpected.

We’re familiar with the urgings of the genre to particular forms. But as GMs and Players we find the unexpected disrupting the clean lines of narrative. As people both playing a game and playing a part we’re left to interpret the meaning of events for a character. We find ourselves contemplating their perspective in order to inform their actions.

That chemistry is organic. It’s a unique, at-the-table thing that doesn’t happen in other media. There’s no room full of writer-guardians enforcing genre arcs. Instead there’s a pile of idiot-god dice scattering them to the winds.

The strange and satisfying beauty of character arcs in a roleplaying game is that we decide on them while in the jaws of these mechanics.

“My thief is a werewolf now, let’s see how that goes!”
“I guess we have the sword of kings now. Huh.”
“Wait, did we just make an enemy out of Nyarlathotep?!”

RPGs do something new. They break up the familiar and force us to pick up the pieces and figure out our own damn meaning.

Things to be proud of this week:

1. The introductory chapter for Brahamanda!!! Is done. This is the pre-edited version and so is subject to change, but its solid. I posted it as this month’s preview chapter on my Patreon page for backers.

2. For free RPG day, I’m bringing to life a concept that I’ve been wanting to mechanize since 2010. My friend Joe Torres came to me with a setting for a barbarian game and I proposed a success-first resolution system, where the dice didn’t tell you whether you succeeded but how much it costs you. Sadly, I’m no longer in contact with Joe, so I’m bringing it to life with a more generic “weird barbarian” style setting (sort of like A Princess of Mars).

It’s coming along nicely. My plan is to have the entire document completed by free RPG day and then put it on drivethrurpg.com as a free download. After that, I suppose I’ll shift it to a “pay what you want” so that folks can support us here at the Mushroom Press should they choose.

What I have done thus far I threw up for free on the Patreon page. Have a look!

3. Work on the Brahamanda!!! Playtest document is commencing. Mostly this consist of compiling the rules into a better format for playtesters. It will be available later this month on the Patreon page for certain backers.

Character Creation

This week I’m working on the character creation chapter of Brahamanda. It put in me in mind of the various types of character creation sections I’ve read, which ones were effective, and why.

There’s a sliding scale of character creation. Its poles are freeform or structured. On the structured end, you have a lot of Oldschool games (AD&D pops immediately to mind). You pick out the role and powers of your character from a list. On the far end of free form, you have games like Fate where even the stats on the character sheet are negotiable.

Back when I first started gaming in the mid-90’s, the structured form was highly dominant. Even the then avant-garde vampire the masquerade had you pick between clans of vampire (they even had vampire mages).

My guess is that designers were largely inspired by Dungeons and Dragons, which isn’t surprising. RIFTS prided itself on its character customizability, but I always felt like it cleaved closer to structure (albeit with tons of options).

Even in those early days though, there was no ubiquity. Games like Call of Cthulhu broke the mold, allowing you a lot of freedom.

Going back to vampire, I remember the first time that it was explained to me I was excited about how much I could customize my character. I could be a science nerd, or a jock, or a public accountant, or…

The kind of character generation informed the game that was played. In D&D, you had a role you were expected to fill; the game had a place for you and your choice was how to fulfil it. In Vampire, the role you filled (and how the game got played) was based on your decisions at character generation.

I greatly admire the freeform school of character generation, but I find a few flaws with it.

Most notably I’ve found it serves as a barrier to entry for a game. During the discussion of “What is this game about?”, it becomes difficult to pin down the further you wade into freeform territory.

ME: “Play this game with me!”

PLAYER: “Cool. What’s it about?

ME: “It can be about whatever you want! It’s a magical tapestry of creativity!”

PLAYER: “So it’s not about anything?”

ME: “Um…”

I’ve never had this problem with games that enforce a more rigid structure.

ME: “Play this different game with me!”

PLAYER: “Okay. What’s this one about?

ME: “You stab monsters.”

PLAYER: “…”

PLAYER: “Can I stab them with fire?”

ME: “Yes”

Another issue I’ve had, and definitely a more powerful critique, is the issue of character relevancy.

Being able to make a computer geek in a game of terrifying lords of the night can cause some powerful tonal dissonance. That’s not always a problem (tonal dissonance can be awesome) but it means in a high-stakes political intrigue between warring vampire clans, you can get stuck playing Urkel.

The problem isn't purely tonal either. There were a lot of times where I made a character in Vampire and sat on the sidelines during 9/10ths of an average session. Not because my character had nothing to do, but because I thought being a gravity-wizard would be cool, so I blew all of my build points on being able to levitate things and I couldn’t tie my shoes without falling on a stake.

So, with structured character generation, you sacrifice some player agency in order to be able to get playing quicker with a near-guarantee that your character will match the tone and form of the game. Which, in my estimation, is a lot like getting a college degree by trading your ability to shoot yourself in the face.

Fate does a pretty remarkable job of taking the extreme of free-form and coupling it with mechanics that guarantee your relevancy, which is impressive rules tech. It leans very strongly on the social contract to enforce tonality though. It also asks you for a lot of information about your character up-front, which can be intimidating for a casual player.

With Brahamanda!!! I wanted something simple and concrete. It’s been designed so that there are wide customization options, but that the core mechanical relevancy of your character is never jeopardized.

Again this apes the genius of the previous game. The use of the central die-mechanic (the “Lake”) and the careful choice of skills meant that you couldn’t actually make a character that wasn’t some variety of kung-fu badass. But you could be a doctor, a courtier, a warrior who could blast lighting from his nose, etc.

I wanted to retain this brilliant mix of ease of character creation, high degree of customization, and guaranteed mechanical relevancy.

As with those games, we designed a massive list of special kung-fu which could be selected to customize your character. We’ve grouped them by theme and clarified what each can do. It’s now very easy to try, for example, a fast build, or a strong build, or tough, or ranged.

There are now distinct “tiers” of play, with a clean discussion of what to expect at each. This helps inform game experience and is a useful tool for GMs and players to discuss their expectations of the game.

There are also, for the first time, a selection of Races to choose between. They are based on Hindu Mythology, as well as Chinese folklore. In addition to Humans, there are Preta, Uplifted Animals, Rakshasa, Asura and Deva.

The Loresheets of yore (which allowed you to “buy” certain plot threads, making them relevant to the story) have been greatly revised into a broader rule set called Dharma. These rules are a living part of the character, granting them character build and advancement options, a destiny, and a means for advancement. They even have unique consequences for violating your fate, driving play into exciting and unexpected directions!

So, for the casual gamer, we have a character creation system where a few high-impact decisions lead to a perfectly fun and playable character. For the discerning veteran, we have a vast amount of options to tinker with. The broadness of the Dharmas, coupled with robust rules for obeying or defying them, couple the ease of structure with the freedom to break the mold.

Not a bad compromise.