#rpgdesign

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Steadily iterating on Ill Winds character sheets. Decided on some changes while out on the road, and we’ll see how well they’re received come the weekend.

To be sure, much of the hate on 4th edition today comes from people who have never even played it (Or never gave it a chance). When it came out, I believe that the huge and sudden shift in the ruleset is what made 4th edition unpopular and not anything in particular that was wrong with the system. I’ve been playing D&D since 1995, and I learned as a player and as a DM with AD&D(2nd edition). And one of the things I liked so much about D&D NEXT (the beta that became 5e) was how much it reminded me of the classic game I learned as a teen. But as I played more of 5th edition I burned out very quickly, because I found it boring as a player, and Tedious as a Dungeon Master. 

I miss how easy it was in 4th to prep for a pre-written adventure. In 5th, I feel like I may as well just write it all myself. I loved how monsters have dynamic combat choices too, not just move and attack. 4th Edition made so many great design choices, and recently I’ve seen other people starting to realize that.

But it’s NOT very much like D&D. 4th fixed the worst parts of D&D, but people hated it because those parts are iconic to D&D:-

Rules Lawyering- 

Min/maxing and unbalanced synergies- 

dull classes with few meaningful choices- 

dull monsters with 0 meaningful choices- 

Unrealistic skill checks

Unfair deaths

I thought I'd kick of this inaugural blog post by talking about a design philosophy that I discovered (Adam Koebel is where first I learned about it) and am currently using to help shape what Fortunes & Frontiers will become.

The theory behind The Big Three Questions is something that was developed as a method for examining what the core elements of your game are while acting as a guide for keeping your designs inline with those elements throughout development. From what I have read, the concept was first talked about by Jared Sorenson and Luke Crane during design seminars they held at conventions. John Wick also appended an additional question to the mix that we will look at later. Asking yourself these questions can help you to look beyond any setting or mechanical noise to discover what your game is really about.

Today I am going to attempt to answer these questions about the game I am working on with hope that it can illustrate what I am trying to accomplish with the game and maybe even act as a tool to help you with your own designs. I will try to answer each of these questions as concisely as I can and then follow that up with a brief overview of what the question means and a few examples. The way I am presenting this is merely my interpretation of the idea and you can obviously retool this for your own needs.

Question 1 - What is your game about?

It is about feeling hopeless and desperate in a world that wants to break you and having enough courage and determination to do something about it.

Take note that nothing in that statement gives any indication of what setting the game takes place in or any of the mechanics or systems of the game. It merely sets up the notion that you are portraying a character who is fed up with the way things are and is ready to do whatever needs to be done to change it. Many people would initially think that a game is about its setting but what we are really seeking to understand is the idea or concept behind the game.

So, if we were having a discussion about Dungeons & Dragons and I were to ask you, "What is that game about?", you would probably scoff at me and explain that D&D is a game about brave adventurers in a fantasy world full of dragons and magic. Now, if we were talking about the setting, then you would be correct, but the question isn't asking about the setting or the characters...it asks what it is about. If you were to really pick it apart, D&D is about killing monsters, stealing their treasure, and becoming more powerful so that you can proceed to kill even bigger monsters and loot even more treasure.

Here are some more examples:

The Burning Wheel — It is about dynamic characters who are driven by their beliefs, instincts, and traits.

Blades in the Dark — It is about a group of scoundrels trying to build a criminal enterprise.

Question 2 - How does the game accomplish this?

The characters constantly face new threats and must push themselves to their limits and be willing to pay whatever cost necessary to overcome them.

We aren't necessarily looking for mechanics at this point. We are simply trying to understand how the game will allow the players to feel as if the answer to the first question is legit. Let's try to break this down even further—if the world that the characters are living in wants to break them, how do we simulate that? By always providing new or persistent threats and obstacles for them to overcome. They are always being tested and this can lead to feelings of hopelessness and desperation and forces them to push their limits and pay whatever cost needed to succeed.

Falling back on our Dungeons & Dragons example, you might say that the game accomplishes its core concept because the characters are given weapons and abilities that allow them to kill monsters and take their loot.

Once again, the two examples from the previous question:

The Burning Wheel — The Game Master is encouraged to create problems and challenges that test the beliefs and instincts of the characters which then fosters significant changes in their motivations.

Blades in the Dark — Players seek out opportunities that force them to take risks and put their characters into danger. Everything the characters do has consequences and shifts the balance of power in the city.

Question 3 - How does the game encourage or reward this behavior?

Players are rewarded for making desperate choices, overcoming obstacles with their specific abilities, acting on their beliefs, desires, or heritage, or when stress or trauma causes them to struggle.

The players are encouraged to push their characters to their limits to achieve their goals. These characters are desperate and should be willing to do whatever it takes to survive. They are hopeless and using their abilities to overcome struggles should be a beacon of hope—an indication that they can make a difference. Sometimes the choices characters make in desperation bring about more stress or harm. Players should be rewarded for their willingness to take action knowing there will likely be consequences.

This question seeks to understand why the players should care about the first two questions. Why should I care about my character feeling hopeless and desperate? Because you are rewarded for taking desperate action despite feeling like there is no hope.

Looking back to our Dungeons & Dragons example, we see that the players care about killing monsters and looting treasure because they are rewarded with better gear and more powerful abilities for doing so. If killing monsters didn't make the characters more powerful then why bother fighting them at all? This was especially true in old school D&D. Players earned way more XP for the treasure they looted than they did for killing things. This reward structure encouraged players to try and avoid fighting monsters because it was more profitable to avoid them and focus on looting.

The answers to the third question for our two examples:

The Burning Wheel — Players are rewarded for acting in accordance with or in opposition to their beliefs, instincts, and traits.

Blades in the Dark — Players are rewarded for making desperate choices, overcoming obstacles with their specific abilities, expressing their core values, or when vices or trauma causes them to struggle.

Notice how similar the answer for my game reflects the answers from these two examples?

Question Four - How can I make this fun for the players?

Even though the game is difficult by design, the players should always feel like they are in control of their character's destiny. In order to achieve this, players ALWAYS get to decide AND describe how they succeed AND how they fail and they should ALWAYS have the opportunity to resist the consequences of a failed roll.

Fortunes & Frontiers is a Forged in the Dark game. As such, it employs fictional positioning and the effect of an action is determined by how well you rolled against the determined position. If you fail or succeed with consequences, the GM will offer a number of different options based on the results of the action roll. You get to decide which option happens and you also have the opportunity to describe what happens to your character as a result. The Game Master never gets to force actions and consequences on the players' characters. Their job is to help with the narrative and provide opportunities for the characters to propel the story forward.

The inspiration for this occurred while watching John Wick talk about his game, Houses of the Blooded, in which he detailed how much he wanted to avoid what he called 'the whiff factor'. I don't recall the exact details of how he mechanized this concept, but it essentially boils down to giving players control over what happens to their character even when they fail. You set your character up for this big, pivotal moment and then the dice cause the whole experience to come crashing down because the roll failed. Using the above idea we can mitigate that feeling by allowing the player to decide and describe what happens even if their character failed in their actions.

In summary, Fortunes & Frontiers is a game about feeling hopeless and desperate in a world that wants to break you and having enough courage and determination to do something about it. The characters constantly face new threats and must push themselves to their limits and be willing to pay whatever cost necessary to overcome them. Players are rewarded for making desperate choices, overcoming obstacles with their specific abilities, acting on their beliefs, desires, or heritage, or when stress or trauma causes them to struggle. Even though the game is difficult by design, the players should always feel like they are in control of their character's destiny and they always get to decide and describe how they succeed and how they fail and always have the opportunity to resist the consequences of any roll.