(He/Him)| Court of Blades and assorted wonders | Word Puncher | Linguistic Necromancer | Mechanics Goblin | Dead Belt Podcaster | One half of A Couple of Drakes Ask me about small-batch, artisinal, handcrafted TTRPG experiences.
(This is dedicated to @temporalhiccup who I'm sure it will delight).
Send me a Tarot card and I'll answer!
The Fool – What do the earliest stages of work on a game look like for you? OR How did you get into game design?
The Magician — What design skills are you best at? OR What skill have you been working on lately?
The High Priestess — What role does intuition play in your process? OR Are the themes of your games planned or discovered?
The Empress — Where do your ideas come from? OR Do you seek out or avoid inspiration while working on an idea?
The Emperor — Do you have a process you follow with your design work? OR How important is mechanical complexity to you?
The Hierophant — Who is a fellow game designer you’ve learned a lot from? OR What is a piece of popular wisdom about games you think is nonsense?
The Choice — Which do you prefer: drafting or editing? Design or playtesting? Beginning projects or ending projects? Fluff or mechanics? Or a pair of your own invention.
The Chariot — What is the next project you’re planning to start OR What is the next project you’re excited to finish?
Justice — How importance is game balance to you? OR How personal are your games?
The Hermit — What are the biggest lessons you’ve learned about game design? OR Are you interested in collaborating with others?
The Wheel of Fortune — What is a game you think is underappreciated? OR What is a game you think is overhyped?
Fortitude — What are your tricks for staying motivated in the middle of a project? OR Are you interested in making game design a career?
The Hanged Man — What other creative pursuits do you have? OR What current trends in game design are you most interested in?
Death — Talk about an idea you’d love to make that no-one would expect from you.
Temperance — Who do you rely on for design advice? OR What is your approach to incorporating feedback?
The Devil — What motifs or mechanics do you just keep coming back to? OR What is a game you’ve enjoyed playing in the last year?
The Tower — Talk about about a game you tried to make that crashed and burned.
The Star — Talk about a game you’re working on and what excites you about it.
The Moon — Talk about a game you’re working on and what you’re struggling with.
The Sun — Talk about a game you’ve made that you’re proud of.
Judgement — Talk about a game you’ve made that taught you a lot.
The World — Ask a question of your own invention.
I’m fairly sure I answer most of these questions regularly whether you want me to or not, but in the interest of fun games on the Internet I’m happy to answer them on demand as well. And probably more coherently, truth be told. My asks are open.
One of the benefits of broadening one's horizons beyond the half-a-dozen tabletop RPGs the "play a second game" crowd predictably trots out every time the topic of alternatives to Dungeons & Dragons comes up is that no matter how weird and isolating and unrelatable you think your deal is, eventually you will bump into a game written by and for someone who has exactly the same thing wrong with them that you do.
Monte Cook has a very strange and varied history as an RPG designer and writer but the best way I could sum it all up is: Monte Cook is an RPG auteur for D&D players.
Pinpanar9 is an unsung hero, leaving a simple and understated "good" on all manner of indie games. Every creator that I know who has an itch.io counts it as a mark of pride to have a "good" from pinpanar9.
I've got a couple, and every time I get one, I feel a little more like I've made it. That I'm a real designer.
And then I got this.
This is what I imagine an Ennie win feels like. It can't feel any better.
Pinpanar9 is an unsung hero, leaving a simple and understated "good" on all manner of indie games. Every creator that I know who has an itch.io counts it as a mark of pride to have a "good" from pinpanar9.
I've got a couple, and every time I get one, I feel a little more like I've made it. That I'm a real designer.
And then I got this.
This is what I imagine an Ennie win feels like. It can't feel any better.
So my home ttrpg group is between longform games right now, and I have been planning to bring a bunch of games to them this weekend as options for what we might play next. However, I have been trying to figure out how to talk about the games in a way that doesn't rely as much on me explaining the vibes to them.
I know that people have a bunch of qualitative categories for how they explain games, but I find the idea of saying things like Dark Fantasy OSR, or Lesbian Goofball PBTA less helpful when talking about how games actually play, especially when two games in the same category are like, wildly different in the way they use their frameworks.
So I invented a 6 axis, 1 to 5 star rating scale for TTRPGs that you are free to borrow when talking to groups, or whatever.
TTRPG 5 Star Rating Matrix
Width
What is the scope of this game? Is it narrowly about one thing or does it encompass many types of play? (Credit to friend of the blog @ostermad-blog for this one, they came up with it from my draft)
Weight
How much cognitive load does the player need to bear? Do rules often need to be referenced verbatim? Can those rules fit on a handout?
Wargame
Is the player expected to apply tactical acumen? Is movement tracked tightly or loosely? Does a bad build punish a player?
Writers Room
How much are players expected to make narrative choices and drive the story without the rules scaffolding them? Does this game fall apart without excellent improvisational storytellers?
(Prep)Work
Does this game require a lot of pre-planning by the facilitator? Are there intricate systems to attend to outside of table play? Can I put in the same amount of time as other players and still have everyone leave happy?
Whimsy
Expected tone of the game. Does this game have difficult thematic elements baked in? Is the core subject or role in the game high or low risk?
Here are some games I know well and how I calibrated them:
I have breakdowns of what each star rating means below the cut if you're curious. Happy Gaming!
Width
⭐ - As written, the game has basically one mode of play, or one thematic core that it meditates on. May have phases, but textural difference is minimal.
⭐⭐ - As written, there are at least two modes of play, but the scope of that play is highly thematically focused or highly dependent on using the game’s own lore. Might have only one kind of character (e.g. Mech Pilot) that it supports. Has limited tools outside of the primary mode of play.
⭐⭐⭐ - Has a variety of modes of play, but may be rigid in their execution. Might encompass multiple kinds of characters (e.g. Doctor, Lawyer, fighter) or character options. The narratives that this game tells within its setting are narrowed, a three word description tells you what kind of stories it can tell with consistency.
⭐⭐⭐⭐ - Loose framework, but with some kind of thematic grounding. Describing the framework in 3 words doesn’t tell you the kind of stories that the game tells (e.g. Dark Fantasy, Star Wars Romp).
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐- As written, this game is designed in such a way that it doesn’t put specific limits on what sorts of stories that it is meant to tell. It might ask players to define abilities or stats for themselves. The Facilitator is going to pitch a thematic grounding on top of the rules set.
One Star Examples: For the Queen, Dialect, Honey Heist
Five Star Examples: Fate Core, Savage Worlds, GURPS
Weight
⭐ - It is reasonable for a player to be able to recite the rules from memory. The game may be prompt based, or driven by a flow of rules that are read aloud as played.
⭐⭐ - Players can hold most of the most important information about the game in their heads, with a page or less of rules reference needed to play smoothly. This reference could all fit neatly on the character sheet if one is present.
⭐⭐⭐ - Everything a player needs to know about the game is visible on less than 3 sheets of reference. Players are more or less expected to know exactly how their own abilities work in precise detail, and are unlikely to make a mistake in executing them.
⭐⭐⭐⭐ - Players make extensive use of multiple reference sheets to keep rules moving smoothly. No external tools are needed, but players memorizing the details of all of their abilities is taxing.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐- Players and facilitators will prefer to make extensive use of external tools or reference to keep play moving smoothly. Expecting a player to have the exact details of their abilities memorized is not reasonable.
One Star Examples: For the Queen, Stewpot, Mobile Frame Zero: Firebrands
Five Star Examples: Dungeons and Dragons 3-5e, Lancer, Edge of the Empire
Wargame
⭐ - As written, this game does not treat combat as mechanically different from any other aspect of play, or does not include narrative violence at all.
⭐⭐ - While players may engage in combat, it is minimally different from regular play. There may be tools or abilities for players to use to conduct a fight, but the texture of those fights is thematic, not mechanical. Narrative and consequence drive the action, not hit points.
⭐⭐⭐ - As written, combat has its own set of rules. This game may have some elements of buildcrafting, but either it is difficult to build something that doesn’t work, or the player may meaningfully invest in other modes of play and still find a commensurate level of satisfaction. If combat occurs, spacing is kept in mind, but is tracked in relative terms (range bands) or highly simplified (zone based combat).
⭐⭐⭐⭐ - This game has buildcrafting that is somewhat mandatory if players wish to survive a fight, but there is still a meaningful choice in choosing a non-combat role. It may use a grid or a spacing system to help players visualize the combat. Fights are driven by mechanics, not by narrative.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐- To enjoy this game, players must spend time buildcrafting. If a player’s build is suboptimal, there may be significant parts of the intended experience that will either feel tedious, or that the player will not have meaningful access to. This game is played on a grid.
One Star Examples: Wanderhome, Dialect, Belonging Outside Belonging
Five Star Examples: Lancer, Dungeons and Dragons 3-5e, Valor
Writers Room
⭐ - Players in this game are not expected to provide much in the way of narrative substance. Story is something that is driven by external input or tools, and players are there to imagine and react. The player need not separate the self from the character they play in any meaningful way.
⭐⭐ - The mechanics of this game drive most of the narrative, or else the narrative is set for the players by an external source or player. Players are encouraged to play optimally rather than dramatically, but do have room for expressing the identity of their character within the game’s mechanical frameworks.
⭐⭐⭐ - While the game does provide strong scaffolding to tell a story, the players present are expected to drive the story within those frameworks. The game’s systems create and resolve conflict on their own, but works best when the players are willing to choose the dramatically interesting option even if it mechanically non-optimal.
⭐⭐⭐⭐ - The game provides some mechanical tools that create and resolve drama, but there is a significant expectation that the players are buying into and driving the game’s thematic concepts. Players are the ones deciding what the scenes should be and when to end them, but mechanics still help determine outcomes.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐- The players are expected to drive the narrative at all times. Tools for deciding what scenes to do and when to end them are limited, optional, or vague. There is no meaningful scaffolding that creates conflict or resolution, it is incumbent on those present to manifest those things.
One Star Examples: Alice is Missing, Ribbon Drive, For the Queen
Five Star Examples: Wanderhome, Systemless RP
(Prep)Work
⭐ - Facilitators are not expected to do work outside the time at the table. All rules can be read while the game is played. No memorization is needed.
⭐⭐ - This game expects the facilitator to have read the rules in advance, but the rules are so few that they can be run from a single reference sheet. At times, the facilitator must think about and potentially advance and adjust the narrative of the game behind the scenes. Prep is qualitative; answering questions about where the narrative is going to go, who will be there etc. The game can be run smoothly predominantly as improv.
⭐⭐⭐ - This game expects the facilitator to not only know the rules, but to imagine scenarios where the group must play. However, the scope of the scenario design is limited and qualitative. It takes a bit of pondering and perhaps a sketch and a few words of notes. Alternatively, the facilitator must design simple foes or track a simple background system. The work is trivial, and can be done with a bit of time before session.
⭐⭐⭐⭐ - The facilitator of this game is expected to have run systems between games, or created usable maps or scenarios. Generally, games at this level have some reduced wargaming component. The facilitator might need to engage in enemy design, but the work is limited or imminently reusable. The work is non-trivial, and failing to do it will somewhat impact the quality of play.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐- The facilitator of this game puts in significant time between sessions engaging in game design activities. They are expected to plan narratives, write NPCs, draw maps, run significant background systems, and design enemies and combat encounters. The work is significant outside of play, and failing to do it beforehand will result in a worse table experience.
One Star Examples: For the Queen, Alley-Oop, Lasers and Feelings
Five Star Examples: Lancer, D&D 3-5e, Stars Without Number, Edge of the Empire
Whimsy
⭐ - This game’s thematic core is considered dark, taboo, or difficult, and separating the game’s mechanical features from this subject matter is next to impossible. Games with horror elements almost certainly fit within this category. These games encourage extensive pre-play safety talks.
⭐⭐ - This game is designed to look at dark subject matter, but doesn’t expect the player to spend all of their time there. Players explore difficult topics, but may get to choose what topics to explore, or when to explore them. Games with political messaging/commentary tend to fit this category. These games encourage pre-play safety talks.
⭐⭐⭐ - This game may have dark aesthetics, but doesn’t enforce them mechanically. Alternatively, there are mechanics that address difficult topics in broad strokes, but players are given leeway in the rules with how any difficult topics are approached. These games may encourage safety talks.
⭐⭐⭐⭐ - This game may have the option to explore dark topics, but none of the mechanics are tied to such topics. This game may have violence in its aesthetics, but players may choose to adjust the aesthetics at the table to suit their comfort. These games tend not to talk about safety in their text.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐- This game is designed to focus on thematic material that is considered to be relatively safe. The game is unlikely to tread into violence or trauma without effort.
One Star Examples: Trophy Dark, Dungeon Bitches, Vampire the Masquerade
Five Star Examples: Honey Heist, Princess World, Beach Episode
The system here isn't about what's good or bad, to be clear. I think there are good and bad games at every level of these categories, but when I think about what my game group is good at and comfy with, I don't think we go in for things at like the 5 end of the Writers Room scale. It's too much work, and most of them aren't pro improvisers.
Similarly, if we play another game that is a 4 or 5 on the PrepWork category, I don't have time to run it these days. So this helps me make practical choices about our next game.
robot mecha anime that is almost entirely about all the hundreds of mechanics and engineers that make the mech possible. the actual mech is only ever shown in parts in the bay or as a blip on a radar. the whole this is shot in a way that makes the machine as eldritch and incomprehensible as the monsters it is fighting. maybe it’s set before digital video so all glimpses of it in action are bad angles on terrible analogue monitors. such that you never even really lock down how its anatomy works. the pilot can be there and be important, but like it’s like a weird eldritch horror take on office politics.
Stills and Woob, journeyman mech-techs shot from low angle, as if shot from the workbench. Their hands move as if on autopilot, smeared with viscous amber fluids.
STILLS
Y’think it’s the rev-limiter?
WOOB
How’s that?
STILLS
Rev-limiter. Sits about here?
WOOB
There’s nothing there.
STILLS
Kinda what I mean.
WOOB
I can see how that’d be a problem. Doesn’t explain the grinding sound the pilot was talking about when they throttle up. Hand me the number 6 spliner.
STILLS
(Passing a strange gadget)
Woob, the whole assembly’s gone. Don’t think that’s gonna grind a little?
WOOB
It’ll grind, sure. But not like
(makes a low, phlegmy grinding sound)
More like a
(imitates a high-pitched whining grinding sound)
Ain’t the rev limiter.
They work in silence for a beat.
STILLS
I was just thinking—
WOOB
(interrupting)
It ain’t the rev-limiter
STILLS
I was thinking about maybe asking Bay Chief if Cossie could be up to joining us on the knee-actuator job. It’d be good for her to get hands in.
WOOB
(disinterested)
Mmhm.
STILLS
I mean, Op-Supe’s got her back in fabrication and you know how soul-crushing it is laying armo-plast shift after shift, eight hours a day. Gotta get her up here and in the fight, you know?
WOOB
(Increasingly disinterested)
Yup.
STILLS
Like, I don’t even know what she did to get Op-Supe’s panties bunched. Like, she’s not a junior tech. The hell she doing in the back shop when we’re out here drowning.
WOOB
(checked completely out)
Mmhm.
STILLS
Woob! You’re drifting.
WOOB
Uh, actually, I’m putting together the multiarticulating gimble for a multi-megawatt chemical laser for a warmachine whose pricetag out masses my salary by several orders of magnitude.
(Beat)
We can talk about how we’re going to rescue your girlfriend from the backshop when this thing stops making that weird noise, okay?
STILLS
(under her breath)
She’s not my girlfriend. She’s just
WOOB
A smoking hot polymath, top of her class, freshly transferred, and not afraid to stand up to her bay chief even if it gets her a month in the backshop? Yeah who’d be into that?
STILLS
She’d just be an asset, is all I’m saying.
WOOB
(like Groucho Marx)
And what an asset, amirite?
STILLS
You’re a child.
WOOB
Least my girlfriend didn’t slag a rev-limiter and get put in timeout.
Okay, the Dungeon Meshi/Stardew Valley Dungeon game (or at least the earliest iteration with like HALF of the minigames that I have planned for it) is done, but for the layout and finalization. That ashcan should be ready for release and distribution in the next week.
Which means it’s now time to wrestle with the “John Wick but make it fantasy” game.
i think all quiet on the western front and the lord of the rings are in direct conversation with each other, as in theyre the retelling of the same war with one saying here’s what happened, we all died, and it did not matter at all and another going hush little boy, of course we won, of course your friends came back
someone should remake lord of the rings as a grandfather telling a fantasy story to his grand child with flashbacks to world war one showing the dead boys and men the characters were based on. grandpa why didn’t they just fly. because they didn’t. they didn’t.
I will never get over how Tolkien & Lewis took the horrors of war and spun them into fantasy.
Shivering in the trenches dreaming of cozy hobbit holes, shaking as bombs pockmark a forest and imagining each shallow mud-filled crater contains a new world—that maybe there are still as many beautiful things in the universe as there are bombs—that maybe the world is bigger than this moment and this ugliness and one day this will be a peaceful forest again full of small ponds.
I mean look at these photos of the shell craters in Sanctuary Woods, near Ypres Belgium and tell me it’s not the Wood Between The Worlds:
I'm at the point where I have pendulumed away from my love for a quick and easy central mechanic and toward games that are 6-10 interlocking minigames in a trenchcoat.
Follow up to the "Death" ask yesterday, and I find myself reading about a decade-worth of official D&D adventures and...
D&D folks, this is not good. You have given these people money for this. To my utter shame, I have given people money for this, though I assiduously only buy used.
These are overwritten, have detail in all the wrong places, have paper-thin excuses for hooks, do not adhere to the stated resource economy, require you to flip between books to run, and notably ACTIVELY seek to be unusable at the table. I could not run these adventures from the book without actively cutting, restructuring, and rewriting most of this.
Is this the intended design? You buy an adventure so that you can write your own adventure loosely based on it? You're signing up for homework and paying for it?
Anyone got like a...good example of a D&D module that I could read over?
For the tarot ask post: have you posted a reply for Death yet?
I may have! But things change and this question's evergreen.
I mean, I like to think that no one expects anything of me, anyway. My games include fraught and sexy scandal and swords, cooking for ghosts, a duet grudge and vengeance simulator, guerilla resistance versus blatant christofascist oppression, magical girls, magical girls in mechs, adorable fairy children wake up nature, captains planet vs the scary fairies, folksome space misery capitalism, and "you are a sad airship."
Frankly I think the only thing that would make someone who's followed my career--
Thanks, Kent.
Anyone who's, like, generally aware of what I do here would only be surprised to learn that I think that I've got a couple of D&D modules in me. And despite my obvious feelings about the dungeons and the dragons, the system, the ecosystem, and the enmeshed lifestyle brand, I think that there are a couple of scenarios kicking around in my brain that would be fun as hell to translate into D&D modules.
Like, my temptation is always "I could write an OSR module and hit the same notes, and it wouldn't be part of that gnarly ecosystem." But also...
I think it'd be an interesting challenge. Purely coming from a gaming culture standpoint. Like currently the most popular adventure for dungeons and dragons is...what Curse of Strahd?
I've read it. It was fine.
But I think sitting down and actually building a bunch of site-based modular adventures that weren't a chore to prep and run could be legitimately fun. I also think it would be grounds for a number of people to suspect that I had been murdered by Pinkertons.
Essential. The only D&D adjacent thing we ever did, The Widow of Roses was built almost entirely around the skipping rhyme.
Yeah, yeah. Fairytale villain, tragic tales of love lost and won, shadowy minions with telltale marks, whispered conspiracies and looming threats behind every mirror. But that skipping rhyme.
