RPG Design Questionnaire

Dirk Remmecke · July 12, 2018, 07:53:06 AM

My first questions would be meta questions like:

How many stats do I, as a GM, need to set up an encounter?

What dialogue do I want to have at the game table? Do I want dialogue where players recalculate what modifiers they can amass before they roll dice? Where they ask what modifiers stack? Where they use overly-abstract, technical, made-up language? ("Compel", "+1 forward", "condition", "keyword", "buff/debuff")

Or where almost the whole back and forth between players is describing actions and results in natural language?
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Many years ago I read a thought experiment (maybe on a blog): Before sitting down and thinking about rules write a (fictive) game transcript of your ideal game session of your new game.

What is the typical session structure you want to have? (in media res, collaborative setting definition, mission briefing?)
What are typical situations the characters have to overcome? What is the default adventure?
What kind of dialogue do you want to have in a typical combat? (Do you want the count of 5 foot squares? Technical-tactical discussions about flat-footedness or triggers of attacks of opportunity? Ordered or wild and chaotic dialogue?)
How long should a typical encounter run? 5 rounds? 20 rounds? How many descisions and single player actions (refer to the character sheet, roll dice, communicate something to the GM) are there in a round? How long do they take?

Use that as your guideline, periodically go back to that "transcript" to check how far you deviated from it, and purge all rules that stand in the way of this dialogue to occur.

I never did that but I always found it fascinating.

Nerzenjäger · July 12, 2018, 07:59:42 AM

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;1048604My first questions would be meta questions like:

*SNIP*

I never did that but I always found it fascinating.

Thanks for chiming in, Dirk.

RPGPundit · July 14, 2018, 05:42:44 AM

Or to put it more succinctly: what are you trying to emulate?

Ashakyre · July 15, 2018, 08:22:25 AM

How do the mechanics tie into the fundamental gameloop?

NYTFLYR · July 15, 2018, 08:37:55 AM

Quote from: Warlord Ralts;1047852This is the big one. "Am I reinventing the wheel here when Firestone has the market cornered"

Im sure with my game, I've reinvented the wheel, but every pulp game I have tried seemed to be missing something, there are a lot of great ideas out there though...

Spinachcat · July 18, 2018, 03:34:43 AM

This is a good thread.

Continue your brain downloads!

Nerzenjäger · July 18, 2018, 05:44:27 AM

How does the game's genre model onto the game's rules?

RPGPundit · July 20, 2018, 06:02:50 AM

Many of these seem to be variants on the same question.