Posts
What
“Should” Be in an RPG Design Book
This is an unusual piece because I want to talk about what
“should” be in an RPG design book. Somehow I once again have the idea of
writing a 100,000 word book about role-playing game design. This is not the
first time I've thought about this, last time was in 2017. Actually a great
deal of it has already been written in my old articles from the 70s and 80s, in
hundreds of my videos for online courses and YouTube, and in my “Worlds of
Design” column, plus stuff that I've written that has not (yet) been published.
This book might pair well with my 2012 book game design how to create video
and tabletop games, which is still in print and not outdated, and still
sells. I prefer small to medium books that people might actually read (rather
than “TL;DR”) rather than a monster book, hence the limit to 100,000 words, about
250 pages in 5” by 8” format (the average novel is 90,000-100,000 words).
The question is, what would people expect in such a
book, because I have far more material than I have space.
First we should ask what goes into a published RPG. An
RPG can have up to three parts, but can do with just the first. The first is
the RPG rules, the mechanisms that govern play. You can’t have a role-playing
game without that, you can have something else but not a role-playing game. The
second component that might be in the game is a description of a world or
setting. Third could be sample adventures or how to GM advice, or both.
So why setting? Some games rely on a default setting,
for example, D&D's default is late medieval Europe (stone castles come after
the halfway point of the Middle Ages) plus magic and monsters. But the
publisher has released many separate D&D settings. Still, everything
references back to that default, which is kind of the default setting for
fantasy novels and games in general. A World War II RPG would have a World War
II setting, a Tolkien RPG would have the Middle-earth setting, etc.
There are also RPGs that are as much or more the
setting as the rules. for example Dystopia Rising is very heavily
focused on the rich post-cataclysm setting rather than on the rules. The rules
unfortunately are not good, much too complicated for a setting that cries out
for simple rules. Of course there are games everywhere between the extremes.
When you write a role-playing game, sometimes you
expect the reader to know how to GM already, sometimes you don't. This depends
on your target market. For example, if you have a heavily storytelling game,
then you might want to provide advice to the reader about storytelling. At the
other end of the spectrum there is at least one book, by Alex Macris who
designed the Adventurer, Conqueror, King system, that's about GMing in a
general sense.
You can include adventures with the rules, and an adventure
itself might include advice about how to make stories. Or we can assume that
the readers already know how to make an adventure. A sample adventure included
in the rules may be a compromise.
I just described what a role-playing game can be. What
should the book be? Clearly a book must discuss game design generally and
role-playing game design specifically, at length. This is not a problem for me,
I've written and talked a lot about this in my online video courses on Udemy
and wrote a book about it. This needs to include an extensive section on rules
writing, as poorly written rules can ruin a good game.
What about the rest of the possibilities? Worldbuilding?
There are books, and many long YouTube videos (not mine) about worldbuilding.
It's of great interest to some aspiring novelists. I think that is the main
reason why there is so much material. But it's also quite complicated. Yet it's
not directly related to the game. Too many GM's concern themselves more
with their world than with actual gameplay. So their adventures are “look at
what I've made” instead of actual adventures. I think less emphasis on
the world may be better than more. So worldbuilding may be a matter of what
space is available in the book after we take care of other elements.
Adventure making? Again, there are entire books about
video game level creation, and innumerable books about writing stories. Perhaps
an example adventure would be better than extensive advice. I recall Advanced
D&D included a sample adventure as well as tables to help create
adventures.
What about “how to GM?” That could be a problem when
the space available is only 100,000 words. An entire book can be written about
how to GM. This can’t take up much space.
How about including an actual complete role-playing
game with commentary about its design? I think this might be especially useful
but has to be short and simple, if only to fit in the book. I do have one that
has been partially tested. I originally wrote it to accompany a boardgame, but
decided that it wasn't practical because the boardgame would never have a GM
and something like a deck of cards wasn’t good enough to control the opposition
on its own. So I have this very simple game that makes a lot of sense in many
respects.
There are lots of subsidiary possibilities, for
example, would you expect to see lots of dice tables in a book about RPG design?
I wouldn't. What about a glossary? There’s a glossary in my general game design
book, but I don’t think there’s space for much of a glossary in this case.
I seek your comments. However large or small, what do
you think must be in or must not be in a book about role-playing
game design?
END
