5 mistakes I have made in designing TTRPGs
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 มิ.ย. 2024
- I've made many mistakes whilst designing my TTRPG Bounty Hunter, although these mistakes apply to ALL TTRPG design. I've learned from those mistakes and I've made new ones in developing Mage Hunter. Well, these are the top five that I think you should watch out for!
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"Character creation has 53 steps!!" 😅 That's how it felt making my first Pathfinder 2e character
Testing is a Thing that never ends. I'm almost in Year 4 of working on my System and every Time something is changed or added it needs testdata. It is the gift that never stops giving.
That cumbersome, heavy solution is genius! Thank you.
I totally agree. XP to level 3 used a system that includes both weight and size into one number but I love cumbersome as a concept more.
Design is a journey like a campaign.
I cannot help but feel the Internet has become some kind of eldeitch entity prying and feeding on thoughts. I was just toying with some mechanics of a system I have been building when this popped up. I have to admit I had not even considered inventory yet. A very well timed and helpful video.
I just wanted to find a newer video to let you know something my friend. Thank you! Your "practical guide to becoming a great gm" book has been a massive help in my journey to create my own original world. And yes, I'm designing an entire planet from scratch. I can hear your voice as I read through it too. It really is a great tool to lead me in a better path to making a more cohesive story that everyone can enjoy. Thank you so much for everything you do for your audience
All these points apply to basically any creative process, more or less. Quite interesting if you think about it. I for one always fail at a point I'd call "Too ambitious" I always have so many ideas I want to use, yet when it comes to actually applying them to paper, or a text document I fail at actually writing it down and staying commited to it. Many times have I started making a map that ultimately lead to nothing but unused space on my computers drive.
Love this video! The ironic thing is right after your intro where you invite the viewers to learn from your mistakes, a new fast food item came up that can only describe as a mistake.
Brillant! One of your best! Appreciate the humility that went into this!
Guy, thank you very much for this video. It's giving me a better idea about what things I have to pay more attention to in the design of my TTRPG. And it makes me feel pretty calm knowing that it's not bad that I'm testing it for bugs so rigorously. Even though some of my friends say that it was ready to be playable for a long time.
I'm looking forward to Mage Hunter. I have a blind player, and they struggle with dice. A system without dice might make their life easier.
Hey Guy, thank you for getting me into GMing and allowing me to bypass my hurdle of pure melee hate. I've always been averse to playing a class that boils down to start turn>bonk>end turn>repeat. I was recently convinced by fellow players and a race to try out a Barbarian.
this has led me to make Aero Wildlight a one-armed Firbolg, a non-killing pacifist whom doesn't understand money as most naturally Firbolgs tend to be ignorant of it.
sadly this has led to people I show my character idea to answer with such things as "What? One-armed? But you NEED to use 2H weapons as barbarian or you are gimping your character and a hindrance to the team" or "Why would you handicap yourself early?" and "you MUST hoard money for better loot and stuff, not knowing about money is STUPID"
this has not deterred me from making and even getting art for this character, but I think it could be a great topic for you to bring up. both underused classes like firbolg's, and making characters with flaws or disadvantages.
A quick addition to the great advice in this video.
When testing your mechanics (mechanisms?) there are three things you should look for.
1. Does the mechanism allow the character to accomplish the intended goal? For example does "unlock door"potentially end with an unlocked door.
This sounds obvious - it should be. If you're not delivering the goods with this point, you're failing hard.
Is it too obvious to require explanation? Perhaps, but I do recall paying for a commercial set of naval wargame rules.
The rules were full of detail, how to navigate, how to shoot your guns and torpedoes, extensive tables on the systems that could be damages by the guns and torpedoes with relevant reductions to movement and shooting.
The rules didn't contain and instructions on what would sink a ship.
Now for the less obvious pair.
2. Are the mechanics reasonable. Are big expensive locks like the ones on castle or bank doors harder to pick than the latch you find on a peasant's hut?
Are your numbers broken so some characters can open every lock with no effort?
Consider whether lock picking should be restricted to specialists, and require special tools, or whether everybody can have a go.
3. Are the mechanics playable. Does it take 30 minutes, a slide rule and a migraine to find out whether you picked the lock, or do you roll your dice, add a modifier and check a target mumber.
I assume you will want to do lots of fun things during your game session.
I also assume your players will all want a go, and don't want to be sitting about for an hour while one character picks a lock.
Try to make your mechanics as quick as possible.
I assure you, game friction, slow players and unexpected adventure events will add significantly to your anticipated playing time.
Good to know that there are people on your Discord server who are game testers. I need people other than my friends to test out my game when it's ready.
Great video! The journey for figuring out how you were going to handle inventory was especially good. Though I have to admit I kept getting distracted by the subtle cycling rainbow lighting from off to one side, like ‘wait, did Guy leave the chromatic orb on?’
i find any thing that makes you reconsider things is good, because it makes you think and that helps make you a better GM
Keep it up i find these very insightful
Congratulations, Guy! I've just started reading "The Practical Guide to Becoming a Great GM." I have your KS project saved, and hopefully I finish your first book before then. 😊🍻
I love videos like this because I am making a ttrpg and this reminds me to keep within the bounds of the system I am making
Guy Schlanders is possibly the most D&D barkeep name I've ever heard.
It applies to TTRPG, but these are mistakes that apply to design / development in general ^^ The joys and sadnesses of creation :D
Great video. My mistakes are legendary!
Super-useful practical advice. Thank you!
A mistake I saw when a friend designed his TTRPG is choosing which feedback to consider based on the reviewer experience. When I was starting TTRPG, I played his system and I felt some things were very heavy for beginners, overly complicated or required lots and lots of practice to get it right. He dismissed my feedback by saying I had too little experience and I'll see with time . 10 years later, I still feel the same.
Every feedback however the background of the player is good to hear.
Sometimes you have to dig deeper to find the real problem behind the feedback, but if someone has a bad feeling on something, it usually is something to ponder
Well now I have Seven Mary Three's Cumberson playing in my head...
Great content. Thanks for sharing! 😊
I always like it to learn from mistakes other people make, way better than making mistakes on my own. But if everything woks out without mistakes does not necessarily mean that people cannot still learn from it, but for our hobby that would mean if you would be correct, that most games award XP the wrong way, since usually it is gained for overcoming a challenge not for the failures to do so.
Regarding playtesting, that is why I think having power gamers around is important to find such crucial loop holes. And yes, I have also found issues in professional published RPGs, I would say nothing had so many game breaking options as the 3rd edition for L5R.
I definitely have also made descriptions too early in the past which did not survived later revisions. But I feel like bloat during the design is a problem, since part of the design process is to try things out, the important part is just to cut all the useless stuff at the end out again. Like the design saying goes, something not finished when you cannot add anything else to it, but it is finished when you cannot remove anything from it.
Appreciate this insight, thank you. Did you go into the Talisman issue anywhere?
Thank you this helps a lot. Once my game is done I'll definitely join the discord.
That is very helpful. Bloat is annoying to me.
Amazingly helpful stuff
Im stealing that carryweight system
Great timps as always. Thank you!
Very good video. Very insightful, some fully play tested wisdom.
I swithed off when you said "diceless".
What about the Talisman RPG?? I picked it up but never got to play it. What's the big flaw Guy mentioned?
I would think, that the best counter, to bloating, in creating TTRPGs, would be, expansions; "you want to see what, added to spell casters? well, that is a great idea, but lets save that for a possible expansion, and just focus on nailing the core necessities." You can file away all those extra bits and bobs for future projects, aka expansions. Not only do you keep your core mechanics neat and clean, you have a plethora of ideas, to keep the game going, in the future.
How do you define the scope and goals of your game design?
Is there a play test material out for mage hunter? Love to try?
Great video
The biggest design thing I picked up on while cannibalizing systems: Don't try and beat the powergamers at their own game. They will find a way to win at that. I was reworking the WEG SWD6 (with the eventual goal of porting it to other settings), and I had a couple players over the years that just broke everything. I thought about how to prevent the skill creep... and all it did was prevent players from expanding... except the powergamers, they were still making amazingly OP stuff. Somehow.
I am reminded that Cairn 2e and Knave 2e are just more nuanced versions of simple systems. I figure it’s based on hardcore fan feedback…
How would you handle pets? Pets are my bane... I really like the concept of the beastmaster, but it is a nightmare to do.
Your mistake #6... Being too awesome.
13:39 I love these special sound FX you sprinkle on your videos
Yea building a system is not easy and even moreso if it's based on anything like one I'm working on is based on the FF series so I have to keep to the thimes of the series but also make it not so complicated that it is hard to do with dice and basic math
Guy, would you mind reducing the colour-changing rgb-light in your next video, in this recording it is a bit too distracting.
Thanks ♥️
I wish all game designers would use math when they test and balance their game. You don't have to use a LOT of math, basic algebra is as deep as you would need to go in most cases.
Abilities should have costs relative to their game effect. If every Feat, Edge, whatever, is to be worth 2 points, then design them to each be worth 2 points. And only 2 points. Many games get lazy with "fuzzy math" where some choices are inherently worth more for the same cost. A game should never do that. If it is worth more, it should cost more.
Examples are great, but not to include in your literature until the mechanics are done. Use examples as a way to think through the mechanics.
You do _not_ have legal recourse if people copy your game mechanics from a post on Discord. Heck, you don't have legal recourse from people copying your game mechanics in print, because game mechanics are not copyrighteable. What to do about that?
Nothing. "People will steal my ideas" Is a jubenile concern from unexperienced creators. Because: A) People have their own ideas they are passionate to be working on rather than yours. B) Your ideas are probably not industry-shattering innovations tbh. Leave your ego at the door. C) Products are not valued by "the idea" but rather by the work that's put into them. There are no million dollar ideas, because they can be so easily copied. Ideas are a dime a donzen if even that. D) They are gonna be copied anyway. They _should_ be copied if they are good. Embrace it. RPGs are an open creative medium that flourishes with the adoption of new, effective ideas. You benefit from that. You borrow good ideas from other games, let others do the same with your own creation and take pride in it.