The Campaign Builder's Guild

Exactly enough to be able to GM/play in the setting and improvise details consistently.

Races: Appearance, usual motivations (that is, their role in the setting or as player characters), abilities
Of the list above, only motivations should take significant space. Appearance is easily communicated by comparisons, as are abilities.

Classes: Not among my favourite design choices.

Regions: What can PCs do there? If PC action happens on political level, politics matter. If on a "band of mercenaries"-level, just tell where and what kinds of jobs they can get. General description like "mountainous with lots of caverns and underground cities" may take a sentence or three. Planes are simply a special case of regions.

Threats: What creates pressure in the setting and forces player characters or NPCs to act RIGHT NOW? Tell enough to build a game of arbitrary length around them.

Conflicts: Who are involved, what do they want, what can they do, and why might PCs be involved? Again, enough to build a game around the conflicts.

Quote from: LordVreegBut I disagree that death is a boring consequence, or that it closes more doors than it opens.  If done properly, a PC death can motivate the other PC's to behave differently, more than almost any other event.  Not saying I ever plan to knowck them off, but a child that burns their hand in fire tends to avoid the flame: and PC's who experience death act a little smarter.

Personally, if I want players to play their characters in a more cautios way, I ask them to do so and make the game work in a way that rewards cautios behaviour or punishes rash actions. If you want to change the way the players play the game, ask them and make it a useful way to play. Much more effective than intentionally and purposefully killing off a character to teach the players a lesson. Trying to teach a lesson usually doesn't end well.

There's been some dying. No PCs in the current game. Death is, generally speaking, a boring consequence. It usually closes more things than it opens, hence being more suitable when the game is about to end anyway.

Phil Menard has been posting on the use of tropes in roleplaying (particularly running a game). There is likely to be some overlap with setting building. Link: http://chattydm.net/category/tropes/.

Quote from: Ra-Tiel

Quote from: ThanuirIf players can't create their own (dis)advantages, what you have is a skill-based system with another name.

Not necessarily. Consider the fact that there are no other values for attributes or other basic abilities, it is likely not "a skill-based with another name". ;)

The fact that there can be multiple overlapping skills that stack is different from most skill systems, which either try desperately to avoid having overlapping skills and make a contrived mess as a result or have the player or GM decide which skill is used, and have related skills give a bonus.

It is very possible to build a skill-based system with no attributes. I don't, at least, see the presence of skills implying attributes. A matter of semantics and likely not worth the trouble to argue.

If players can't create their own (dis)advantages, what you have is a skill-based system with another name.

SotC SRD is free and PDQ is free. Reading them is likely to give some ideas.

Here's an idea: Player character will always win when the player wants that. Question is: Is it really worth it? Do you want this goal bad enough to signicantly hurt yourself and others you love?

This can be made machanical or fiction-based. Mechanical factors would be taking damage or permanently losing stats or paying hero points or whatever. Fiction-based would be potential consequences; like, you are fighting a mafia boss. It's not easy, which means there will be severe consequences. Maybe your girlfriend is murdered in revenge if you persist in the fight and slay the mafioso. Or maybe the other mafia people find out your identity (by tracking your gun which you are too exhausted to carry with out when escaping the scene).

Characters with skill would suffer lesser consequences or would suffer them less often than unskilled characters. This is easy to mechanically implement by dice pools (for example), which always carry the chance of getting no successes.

Two more, both from Chris Chinn. The latter one I find insightful.

Setting, what it does
Setting - Canon & Evocative

Personally I prefer rules with at least two options; to use an intricate subsystem, whether generic or only capable of handling combat, or to deal with the situation in a single roll.

If the battle is uninteresting (a cohort of a PC trying to subdue a guard) and I want to roll dice, a simple opposed weapon skill test is sufficient detail. Or a PC trying to slay mooks fast in a suitably nondramatic situation. If situations like those happen, it is a loss of time to use involved combat rules.

Dramatic and intense conflicts, OTOH, deserve a more detailed set of rules. Or freeforming them with detail. Whichever suits the group playing.


Personally I prefer rules which treat all conflicts in the same way: One simple way to handle them and one involved.
Another good way is to make good and useful subsystems for all common conflicts, which is the way Burning Wheel works, essentially.

Socratic design is unfortunately not mine, it Troy Costisick's. The blog has been pretty silent for a while, but one can hope.

That would be me.

Some picks from around the rpg blogsphere, some old, some new. The last one is mine and references some of the others.

Does Setting still matter, Socratic design
What is Setting? part 1, Socratic design
What is Setting? part 2, Socratic design
What is Setting? part 3, Socratic design
What is Setting? part 4, Socratic design
Setting, Deeper in the Game
Setting does matter, Cogito, ergo ludo.

Hope they are useful.

A reptilian creature with mythical power, be it elemental (fiery breath, connection with rain) or outright magical (guardian of hidden knowledge), or, occasionally, psychological (persuasive whispers).

I design to improve my gaming and the understanding I have of it.
Which is also why I write so little of it anywhere.

I figured someone around here might be intetested in Chris Lehrich's articles on creating fantasy cultures. He's an academic and the articles reflect that, as a warning.

Preface (not that integral, but recommended if you have any academic background)
Sacred and profane, also, the importance of faith and cultural identity.
Master narratives, also, creating complexity and avoiding too simple cultures.

The series will continue when he has time to continue. It will likely take a while.