Using the four pillars of play in RPG design.
Talking aloud to myself here on how to design an RPG.
As designers, we want to have a game encompass everything. The intrinsic nature to add on more mechanics for more edgecases is inescapable - but it leads to a bloated mess that is unnavigable and unapproachable. The more the game bloats, the more errors wil creep in, and the harder the game will be to play. Not to mention the fact that the game in practice will on average be about 60% by the book and 40% homebrew, and in the moment judgements from the GM.
An example of design without boundaries.
...So what do we do? How do we set boundaries that will help deliver the RPG experience we want to create, without being too restrictive? The answer is quite simple: Consider the audience.
An RPG - or any game (or product) for that matter - should have a targeted audience or user experience. Why would you play this? How does it feel to play? Who wants that experience? And to help define that, I would like to use the "four pillars of RPGs" that I mused on before.
There can actually be a lot of pillars. Like a lot a lot - each game may make their own pillars for specific key elements.
All games have Roleplay, Combat, Exploration, and my handcrafted fourth, "Meta." All RPGs have these pillars in varied amounts, and players focus on them in different amounts as well.
A player who focuses on the pillar of Roleplay will be interested in character creation, sure, but the hook for them will likely be the art and setting of the system, giving their imagination fertile ground to play in in the first place. A player focused on Combat will be more concerned with the mechanics - how one goes about interactions and "winning" the game portions of an RPG. An Exploration focused player will equally be interested in both the setting and the mechanics needed to interact with it - their own character is almost ancillary to the point. A player focused on "Meta" is one who spends more time playing the game away from the table than at it. This is the player who theorycrafts, homebrews, and has thirteen new characters written up by the second session.
So lets give these pillar-players some quick names:
-The Roleplayer, who wants to tell their story.
-The Gamer, who wants to win a challenge.
-The Explorer, who wants to find an experience.
-The Metagamer, who wants a toybox to build with.
The MTG classic Timmy, Johny, and Spike trio can also work - Timmy is an Explorer, Johny is a Roleplayer, Spike the Gamer.
Our roles defined, how do they focus us in on the design front?
Let's start with the Roleplayer. They live for creative expression - they want a unique character with a unique story, living unique experiences. First and foremost, art will likely be their hook. Seeing a book on a shelf and saying "I want to go there!"
...But seeing as art is the packaging rather than specific design, let's start at character creation. For the Roleplayer, this should be robust, replete with options to express a specific character. Giving rules for backgrounds, a full set of skills, unique species complete with lore, etc. One thing I would specifically highlight would be giving a character flaws - either enforced or by choice. Giving a character a hangup is an especially juicy opportunity to have dramatic moments of either overcoming or failing due to a flaw.
Once the Roleplayer's character is created, it's time to play - and once again, the focus is on expression - so having many approaches to a problem is key. Sure, a fight might be a solution to a blockade, but so is stealth - and negotiations, and trickery, and going a different route, and and and... You get the point. Making a tool for every scenario is hard to do - and it puts a lot of pressure on the Game Master (if you have one) to be able to think on their feet - so when it comes to designing, a lot of the work comes down on the rules behind the GM's screen. Broad, flexible categories and tables that can be easily adapted to any situation the Roleplayer may suddenly think up. When they say "I want to drop a barrel on their head!" the GM needs the resources necessary to say "ah, yes, so that would be a difficult task with an improvised object, and will leave them restrained. Here's your roll."
Roleplaying in and of itsself is an important part of the Roleplayer's repetoire, but it is not the only thing. When designing for Roleplayers a robust system of speechcraft and influence is good, but is still secondary to having a system that is flexible over all situations.
A Roleplayer may or may not be a Bard. They would totally woo the dragon though.
Designing for the Gamer is simple enough. They play to 'win.' This is the person that skips over character creation to look at combat, then goes back to craft a barbarian specialized in in javelins because it's "optimal." They will put the actual moment-to-moment rules of a game to the test. Flexibility is less important than optimization, and they absolutely will call you out if something isn't balanced correctly. This is the player who wants spreadsheets, statlines, and the functional mechanics first and foremost. A description of Goblin society is far less important that their to-hit numbers and special moves.
And a Gamer is not limited to combat - they will want to win anything that has proper rules - as likely to create a master stone mason as a master swordsman, so long as there is a system of rules there - a "puzzle" to "solve." So designing for Gamers is a mater of making those puzzles - clear, up-front rules that work together well to present challenges directly to the players. While the Roleplayer requires GM-facing tables to handle creative solutions, the Gamer requires player-facing tables to figure out the logical solutions themselves.
"The Senator class gives me +2 against people with a different political alignment. Your move."
The Explorer isn't so singularly focused. The explorer isn't here to express themsleves or state their mastery, but are here to find things out. They love the "aha!" moments and shiny trinkets found at the bottom of deep wells. And as such, they may well take the most effort to cater to.
It may be counterintuitive, but the Explorer likes to not know things. While a Gamer prefers all the cards out on the table, the Explorer would rather figure them out by trial-and-error. So rules that can hide information from the players are important. Rather than revaling a map, have rules for map-making. Rules for identifying magic items. Monster descriptions to present, instead of a stat block to reveal. Doing all of this essentially doubles the writing, as you need both the functional and the descriptive angles of all things.
Rules that further complicate discovering things will also be intriguing to the explorer - an expendable torch mechanic when going underground, weather mechanics that complicate overland travel, exposure mechanics for hazardous areas and materials - overcoming these obstacles to plumb even greater depths is the ideal gameplay loop for the Explorer.
And that's before considering all the cool trinkets and baubles that a player will unearth during their explorations - a full catalogue of unique places and items should be held in reserve to ensure that there's always more to explore, and to explore for.
Why? Because it's there, of course. Why not?
And finally we get to the Metagamer. The gamer that plays away from the table as much as at it. The player who has a mounting pile of backup characters every single session. The player who loves to ask themselves "what if?"
This player loves all the rules, all the charts, and all the fluff. They resemble all three of the other players at points, but their focus is elsewhere. For them, the rules are a toybox full of interesting things to mash together. Character creation is less self-expression, more an experimental labrotory. Combat isn't a puzzle to solve, but a showcase to put the biggest, coolest thing in. A list of items isn't something to be discovered, but a catalogue of things to order.
The Metagamer cares less for the specific moment-to-moment gameplay or optimal solutions, but more for the thrill of making what could be the biggest or fastest or coolest things that could possibly be. So designing for enthusiastic Metagamers is less a choice of what systems are necessary, and more a practice at making sure that all systems are linked. Exploration can give things that are useful in Roleplay, and Roleplay effects Combat, and so on. A Metagamer will gleefully run away with the idea of fall damage being added to an attack, even if no fights ever happen at the bottom of cliff faces - merely because a 300-foot piledriver sounds awesome.
My next character is a cybernetic luchador bear that can deliver a flying lariat at mach two.
I would be remiss not to mention the Game Master as well - as the teacher, and most likely the purchaser of the RPG, they are the first player you must woo over to your system. But other than making sure the game is understandable and laid out in a way that is easy to reference, there's not really any focus to give to specific components - a GM may tend towards the "Gamer" or "Metagamer," but they are as likely to have traits from any of the player pillars. So to make that initial sale, the focus should be on clarity - "THIS GAME IS MADE FOR THIS PURPOSE." Once a GM knows what the game is about, they can then ask if it fits their style.
The magic that goes on behind these three panels...
Now, most players are a mix of these traits. Rarely does a Gamer not have an element of the Metagamer. Explorers can be as much a Roleplayer as a Gamer, and in certain scenarios players may be all four at once. But by choosing a pillar to focus on, or at least prioritise, we start to set our limits.
If a rule or system does not serve to cater towards our focus, and is not necessary for the game to function, it should not be given priority. Does a game for Roleplayers need a detailed list of poisons when a simple "poisoned" effect will convey the emergency? Does a system for Gamers need four pages of background lore? Do you really need that system for playing the stock market?
There is no perfect guideline for me to present here. But it is still good, every once in awhile, to hold your system at arm's length and say, "Who, really, is this game for? And does what I'm doing accomplish that?"
At the very least, it's helped me trim the fat a few times.
Happy creating, designers.
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