The Free RPG Blog

Wushu Open by Daniel Bayn kicks bottom - through a window on fire

2013-05-21T12:00:00.000+01:00

I jump, grab a red paper light fitting, swing across the room and boot the first mook through a flowery paper wall, I roll with the momentum over a sloshing fish tank and connect my fist into the face of another.

Wushu Open is an action movie roleplaying game system. A system that encourages you to do that. A system that rewards you for doing that. Wushu Open is the no-frills-and-free, creative commons version of the commercial-but-indie Wushu system. Ideal for action movie settings from Hong Kong action theatres to derivatives such as the Matrix. The rulebook is plain but I implore you to forgive that and read it; as the system breaks preconceptions in the most mind shattering manner.

Put reality away for a minute...

Daniel demonstrates that realism isn't always good. In most systems realism causes negative modifiers to outrageous acts of heroism. Negative modifiers make cool stuff less likely and so players are rewarded less. A good point, I think. I've certainly seen the benefits of chaining up reality in the cellar when playing with my Shared Pool system. In Wushu, the core mechanic is based on that principle.

It's a core mechanic, you say?

Everyone describes what they are doing and then everyone rolls. What you describe will automatically happen, how it advances the scene depends on the roll. A solid storygame mechanic. You're aiming to roll under your character's most appropriate trait (rated 1-5) on a D6. Here's the clever bit: you roll a D6 for each cool detail you include. For my example earlier:

I jump, grab a red paper light fitting [D6], swing across the room and kick the first goon through a flowery paper wall [D6], I roll with the momentum over a sloshing fish tank [D6] and connect my boot into the face of another mook [D6].

My pool is 4 dice. The GM and player decide what a die-worthy detail is and you limit the number of dice to speed up or slow down a scene (for dramatic effect). I find that this kind of reward works brilliantly with players who are engaged at the table as there is a tangible benefit for coming up with entertaining and interesting actions.

Choppy and Kicky

When in combat, you fight Mooks and Nemeses. Mooks can be dispatched without an opposed check and damage ticks down their "Chi" as a group. When Chi runs out, the remaining Mooks take to their heels or are all unconscious or realise they're the bad guys and surrender. Either way, the scene moves on.

Nemeses are taken on mano-e-mano basis. Nemeses are like player characters. When rolling combat, you split your dice between attack dice for doing damage (called Yang) and defence dice for soaking up damage (called Yin). Every success removes a point of Chi until you're exhausted. Choosing a balance between Yin and Yang gives a clever tactical choice.

Freedoms

As damage relies on narrative, you can choose whatever weapons fit your character and the setting. There is no initiative or advancement either. Your character begins with a Weakness trait that gives your character depth too.

Stuck between free and a paid place

Wushu Open feels unfinished. The system itself is complete but as a game, it needs expansion to get over that hump to finished. And here lies the difficulty: if the free game was complete then there would be little need to buy the full price game (which isn't expensive). I would like more examples, an evocative layout, sample adventure, contents page and some images.

The reviewer runs up a chair onto the table and launches a simile laden paragraph at one reader while slapping the foundations of another.

As the game has a Creative Commons variant, so there is no reason that someone else couldn't take Wushu Open and make these updates. However, you could well argue that a well put together Open redux would affect sales of the core Wushu game; as the sort of person who would do a redux, I would not like to sour Daniel's goodwill. This issue is not unique to Wushu Open but any free RPG that is shoulder to shoulder with a paid product.

Super whizzy choppy

I regularly red "GMs should reward the players for imaginative play" and although experience points can serve that purpose, Wushu uses that tenet as a cornerstone. To demonstrate the opposite, Wushu penalises players who do not engage at the table. How many games can claim to that? Wushu is a novel system for action movies and is worthy of its following.

Light and tight: Mutants and Machineguns by Robertson Sondoh Jr and Daniel Marcus

2013-05-14T12:00:00.000+01:00

Mutants and Machineguns is a modern world political drama set in the West Wing of the Whitehouse. Ha! Only joking. Had you fooled for a moment there. Didn't I? No? Oh.

Mutants and Machineguns by Robertson Sondoh Jr and Daniel Marcus does what is says on the tin. A light hearted, light weight game set in a grim yet Gonzo post apocalyptic future teeming with mutations and, errrr, guns. It is also comes in a pocketmod format. It's also in Spanish and French. It is a delight to read and leaves you wanting more but like all lightweight games, is there enough here to make it a game?

Brevity

Characters have four attributes: Combat, Physical, Mental, Social; 8 points divvied up, maximum 3, minimum 1. 3 races: Pure Human, Mutant Human, Evolved Animal; decides hit points and mutation.

Mechanics: Sum 2D6 and attribute, succeed if large than a target number. Critical fail on rolling a 2, critical pass on 12. When attacked, target number is 9 by default and called Defense. Experience between 1 to 3 depending on adventure difficulty, spend it on hit points, Defence or abilities. For combat initiative, sum 2D6 and combat, highest goes first.

That's the majority of the mechanics. I wanted to see if I could be more succinct than the game without losing meaning. I'll let you be the judge of that, dear reader! Those mechanics are common but that's OK because they make way for the interesting stuff.

The Interesting Stuff

Mutations! Who wouldn't want them? Telekinesis can be fun in a cafe, extra arms lets you quad-yield SMGs and Dual Brain doubles your mental power. And there are more. Not lots more; enough for characters to be individual.

In combat, you are confined to a linear map (see picture). This sounds awful but it allows there to be a tactical choice without resorting to the complexity of grids or hex systems. A clever balance of enough map to be tactical but not so much that you need to create mechanics for dealing with it. If you ever wondered "how do I cater for maps in my super-lightweight RPG" then this is it.

The linear battle map, I'm a big fan of the art style

The specter of radiation pops up as a check against your physical attribute. If you fail, you get some radiation points. Radiation kills humans and mutates mutants before killing them. It's nasty stuff. Who says that roleplaying games can't be used to teach people about the real world!

Hungry for more

Lightweight games do the same to me as a single bite of chocolate. It melts into your brain, you get the sugary endorphin rush and then you crave more. I crave more of Mutants and Machineguns. I want a game world. I want more critters. I want more of the delightful art.

There is more than enough game here to make it a game I just want more. Gonzo Post-Apocalypse is such a superb idea (Fear and Loathing in Fallout?) that is demands expansion. Expansion without losing the essence of being a small game. That's a huge demand - but a worthwhile one.

Crank up the intensity in Siege by Andrew Smith

2013-05-07T21:07:00.000+01:00

Siege is a one shot story game where the players play all the parts in a hostage situation: Captor, Hostage and Police. Negotiate peacefully or waste the hostages. Make peace with the captors or nuke them from orbit. Feed the media circus or shut them out. Overpower your captor or reason with them. Moral ambiguity is explicit: cops can be bribed, the captor is following a good cause, the hostages are villains. It's got tight, emotive focus but does it work as a game?

Character Creation

With smaller number of players, the GM is both hostage and GM. With more players, roles are added in order. Your character has two Resistances: Patience, Resolve and 2 Abilities: Wit and Action. Patience and Resolve measure how emotional fatigue drains out of your character through the story. Wit and Action are more like traditional Attributes intelligence and strength-dex-etc.

You then pick a core expertise, which outlines the sort of things that you character can do (without being too broad). These add modifiers to checks when you use them. Examples for the police include sniper or negotiator. This is a public area of expertise, you also get to have two secret ones that you can reveal at any time. The GM is final arbiter, ensuring the chosen areas are not too broad.

The Captor character gets to choose why they took hostages. The GM and player playing the Captor work together to set this up in secret. Like all good movie hostage situations, this reason will be revealed at some point for dramatic effect.

Gaming story style

The GM establishes a scene and the players take it in turns to narrate what they are doing. Scenes can be proposed by players too. This continues until a character performs an action that can be opposed by another character. This is called a decision point. Actions are resolved by rolling 3D6.

Choose the relevant action statistic and pick up that many D6s. You then add one die for Resolve and one for Patience. Roll them all. Choose the highest die and add modifiers. Highest score wins. If rolling against a non-player then 6 or more progresses the story in the character's favour (player narrates). Less than 6 and the GM gets to choose. Wounding is descriptive with a modifier to future actions.

The Patience and Resolve dice need to be coloured differently. If you roll 1 on one of these dice, the relevant score decreases by one. This is how you run out of Patience or Resolve. That's exceptionally neat.

Are we in a relationship?

Sympathy is a statistic that charts how characters feel toward each other between +2 and -2. Sympathy is used to modify checks. If you have negative Sympathy for the Captor and perform an action against them, you get a bonus. I like the idea but getting my brain round the positive/negative strength took a while. Using Twists, Siege allows you to change roles halfway through the game. Brilliant.

When a character runs out of Patience, they can only make Action tests (lost their wits) and when they run out of Resolve, their next scene must be their last. Bleeding resolve will force the game to end through narrative. Tracking Patience and Resolve in this way brings the game to life.

Feedback

The game is well written throughout, although the language at times is a little "happy-jolly" for the subject matter, I would keep it grittier. I would opt for a smaller font, two columns and a narrower margin. This would considerably reduce the page count, and shorter line lengths will make it easier to read. I would move the page numbers to the middle (no need for facing pages as there is no spine-friendly background). I would put rules in boxes to make them easier to refer to.

The credited imagery is very well chosen (a superb front cover), I would perhaps use smaller images and let text flow around them. The examples are well labelled as such (being indented) but I would like to see some more of them - especially around basic actions and the end-game. As the GM is used as a final source of ideas in many cases, I would include a bunch of inspiration lists. Andrew has done this for "Why take hostages" and it works brilliantly.

Intense

Siege is crafted to be an intense experience for players with their serious heads on. The core novel mechanics of Patience and Resolve ultimately drive the story. Siege is a blank canvas for the GM to seed ideas for the team, so preparation is required. It's a one-shot that should be savored. A single lamp in a dark room, a soundtrack of crickets and then dig deep to find your own moral compass. You might get flashbacks from it days after but then that's what makes it worthwhile.

Nights of the Crusades by MJ Alishah is brimming with eastern promises fulfilled

2013-04-30T12:00:00.000+01:00

Nights of the Crusades by M.J. Alishah is a gorgeous, rich fantasy roleplaying game set in a mythic-historical world of the One Thousand and One Nights and crusades. Lavishly laid out, delightfully illustrated and painstakingly researched, it is a thick tapestry of a game. The core rulebook is free and subsequent modules are paid for; but this is of no consequence. The flesh of the 100 page core rulebook will sink you deep into the world of scimitars, psychotic Knights and Djinn dunked in realistic grit. A story game feel with campaign aspirations and the most atmospheric book I've read in a long time.

Your character is a prism

Character creation begins with psychoanalyst questioning. Why are you here, what drives you? Tell me about your childhood. Did you fancy your mother? I felt like it was going to ask me to point at somewhere on a doll. You then pick allegiances, made up from faction (which side of the war), religeon, classes and an organisation (such as a gangs and so on). Each carries a "disposition", which is a positive/negative level of influence. The Knights Templar love you now but after you've gutted a hundred of them while they slept, they may not invite you round for tea and biscuits again.

Skills (facets of a character that grow over time) called Expertise and are grouped together Communication, Knowledge, Melee, Ranged and Vigor. There's a big old list to help you pick and the groups are what you roll against, a bit like Attributes but not.

Wealth allows you to purchase things but it is a statistic in itself. Being robbed, hoodwinked or bribed will all affect this Wealth statistic. If Wealth hits 0, you roll on a brutal table of poverty. If your Wealth hits an upper limit, you roll on a prosperity table, which can mean you get robbed. You lose? You lose. You win? You (might) lose. Brilliant. This creates wealth as a charming game effect beyond a custom bling suit of armour with gold boots.

Finally, your character is fleshed out by depleting Wealth with stuffs. I have a frankly filthy fetish for equipment lists and Nights of the Crusade satiates it. You can buy servants, books (with spells and skills inside), formulas (for alchemy) and intoxicants (for stoners). It is nice to see stoner culture getting RPG representation.

Gameplay

The core mechanic is Expertise group plus modifiers versus a target number (called the Apex) with criticals on a 1 and 10. There are slightly different systems for combat and non-combat, the difference being the actions you perform and the outcomes. For example, if you're negotiating (typically non-combat but not for my energy-lance-it-from-orbit-negotiation player group) then actions include Appeal, Dismiss and Fortify; the outcome being your argument is accepted.

Combat has initiative (called Awareness Test) and you can do a number of actions a round. You choose from a list of actions that include every sort of combat you might want. Injury is descriptive ranging from "That tickles! Oh, you meant to hit me..." through to "Can someone unscrew my helmet so I can scrap my brains off the inside".

Flavour is added through details like Hostile Stance, where your character tries to get into the right mood for slotting someone up a treat. Hostile Stance is an opposed action and can give modifiers in either direction. A lovely touch. On one side you might have had a bad day and want to take it out on the poor target. On the other hand, you may have got laid that morning and rather just eat a big lunch and doze the afternoon away.

The trauma of hacking foes into bite-sized giblets must also be taken into account, there's a wonderful table that reads like one of my players' medical report. In a long term campaign, your character is likely to turn bonkers but it will be fun watching them do so.

The importance of story

In Nights of the Crusades, stories are mechanised to produce a resource called Pearls of Wisdom. A story is like an adventure, made up from scenes of Adventure, Drama or Mystery. A character is a focus of a scene and generates Pearls of Wisdom for engaging in Adventure, Drama or Mystery. Pearls are spent like XP. This is where the story game feel comes in.

Symbols of Power are another neat mechanic that allows your character to grow in importance. You buy Symbols of Power with Pearls of Wisdom and see you equip your own Fief (patch of land) with libraries, marketplaces and so on.

Depth

Excellent writing and research is married perfectly in Nights of the Crusades. The world of the Middle East during medieval times is illustrated with descriptive text throughout. The imagery is good but it is the snippets of story that describe the lives of real people that bring it to life. I can imagine crafting a war weary Knight longing for the green grass of Normandy or a "Desert Loving English" Lawrence-of-Arabia character obsessed with desolate golden sands and war. Huge effort has gone into describing the horrors of medieval war and life with sensitivity, care and a style that draws you in.

A little more reference

RPGs have a difficult line to walk between being thematic and a reference. Nights of the Crusades is all about theme but is a pain to use for reference. Even referring back to the book for writing this review, I had to dig through blocks of descriptive theme text to get to the nub of a rule. Other games solve this by having rule callouts, appendices with cheat sheets and the like. The book should also cross-reference itself. I love having all the Expertise areas at the back but there should be a page reference in character creation. It is fine to have players jump back and forth to make a character but make it easy for them.

My other concern is with naming. When designing a game, you must strike a balance between naming things in line with the theme and using standard roleplaying terms. If you name everything with standard terms, your game reads like every other. If you make up a bunch of new terms in keeping with your theme then this acts as a barrier to experienced players getting to grip with your game. For example, I would like Expertise areas to have more middle-Eastern sounding names, "Communication Expertise" sounds like the sort of thing a business analyst would write.

The beautiful layout is a little low in contrast in places, and one or two of the sketches should probably be omitted. I would tend to put weaker art toward the back of the book. Also, the map (which has scale in days - great!) needs to demonstrate the difference between land and water.

Production wealth

Nights of the Crusades is a paid-for-product that is given away for free. It is clever marketing - but no trick. The core rulebook is not a taster product but a fully fledged roleplaying game that will offer thousands of hours of play. I view the extra modules more of a donation for thanks than a crutch to make the game walk. The mechanics include a few unique touches but is a familiar description-heavy roll-versus-target number affair.

It is the setting that glows. Every sentence leaps from the page and stops you. Makes you think. What was it like living back then? What if the One Thousand Arabian Nights were true? To spawn those two questions alone makes the game a success.

Gods of Gondwane by Dariel Quiogue lets you ride a Velociraptor!

2013-04-25T07:31:00.000+01:00

Gods of Gondwane: dinosaurs, humans, aliens, machines, living gods and behind it all a race of turbo-pillocks called The Shapers. Got your attention? You're probably aghast at the thought of thrusting all that into a single game, I was. How could it possibly hang together coherently? How can a single system handle that much imagination juice?

Setting First

Dariel R. A. Quiogue is a setting-first type of chap. He paints Gondwane not with dainty bristles but with pregnant clods of rich paint. Gondwane is a land lost in time, created by a race of time-travelling mega-ball-bags called The Shapers who are desperately trying to find out why mankind will eventually supplant them. Mimicking Dariel, the Shapers lob civilisations together in an experiment to understand what makes mankind so jolly good. The Shapers watch the experiment for a while and when humanity shows that they are the best (again), The Shapers 'reset' Gondwane in an Etch-A-Sketch ending. What utter gits.

You are human(?)

You are a human, born into this melting pot of exploration, survival and the wonder of the unknown. As a human, you might be from Modern Earth, Gondwane's latest experiment cycle or a previous experiment. Character creation is descriptive, concepts and ideas are forefront. Your character are defined by Roles (e.g. Toothbrush salesman), Assets (e.g. Charming) and Hooks (e.g. Compulsive liar). Your character's pulp-iness is measured by your "Guts". You assign points to these attributes, each point representing a D6 die you roll.

The rules guide you through, making plenty of recommendations, which does take the chore out of descriptive character creation. It is important to cater for the brain-worn gamer at the table, who wants to riff off suggestions rather than pull ideas from the blue and Gods of Gondwane hits the mark spot on with this.

The Devil is in the Detail

Dramatic systems require detail and as players, you will spew vat loads to earn bonus dice. Only actions that can be contested require a dice check. It is a solid dice pool system where you roll a number of D6s equal to your most applicable character Role, the enemy does the same. The one with the highest die wins. If you roll the same highest die, you narrate to too-ing and fro-ing of a dramatic draw and roll again. The winner narrates the victory.

You may add Risk dice, which are D6s of a different colour. You can ask the gamesmaster for up to three to help succeed in your action. If any of those Risk dice land the single unblinking eye of a 1, then something's gone quite wrong. Your Asset dice can be tapped to boost the pool you're rolling. Once your Asset dice are depleted, you need to perform an appropriate act to replenish them. Combat is a narrative to-and-fro and without hit points, the winner of the fight kills the opponent. Our heroes have a chance to save.

There's always more

The setting is sumptuous, the empires a numerous and feel ancient. Gods of Gondwane is not just about cruising around on a pet Velociraptor, slotting up hairy neanderthal man, there are ruined remnants of civilisations from previous experiment cycles. My favourite is Megastyros, the City of the Dreaming Lords who are addicted to dreaming. There's a bestiary (which are dinosaurs), a list of further read, example character builds and a sample adventure! Everything is laid out neatly and the writing is good throughout.

Disarming simplicity

The mechanics are simple and narrative but I think the sections describing skill checks could be rewritten more plainly and simply. I think it is best to assume the reader is stuffing their face with cookies while they are reading the mechanics and not really paying attention.

As an author, I would give the game another read through as there are a few instances where rules are referred too but have since been removed. My long suffering Icar proof readers have found many instances where I have deprecated a rule or term and not removed it everywhere.

I would include a list of plot hooks too to help the new GM to transition from the sample adventure into a large campaign. The layout could do with a tweak: increasing line spacing, moving the contents to the front, increaing the bottom margin (so that page numbers are easier to pick out) and modify the spacing between pictures. I appreciate that these tweaks can take forever but I believe that attention to detail can lift the quality.

Did I mention you can ride a Velociraptor?

Gods of Gondwane is more than a pulp one shot, it is coherent blend of ancient themes, superstitions and adventure. The system (called Vivid 4.0) labors capably under such a gluttonous insanity. I am wary of games that use exploration as a core goal as exploration is a bi-product of playing any campaign RPG. It is a bold gesture to claim that exploration is an end in itself but reading Gondwane, you can't help but be drawn into the setting and imagine exploring its broken history. Dariel fulfills the promise of exploration with so much to see! It is an imaginative, magical delight and I urge you to give it a read. Thank you Dariel for sharing!

How to use a plan to create your RPG

2012-11-20T09:24:00.000Z

Having a plan is the best thing you can do when you're engaged in any task that has an end point, like creating an RPG. There's no point in having a plan if you're not going to use it. My NaGaDeMon plan spontaneously combusted at the weekend but I'm still calm. I'm calm because I'm organised and that allows me to make a new plan. The plan is dead. Long live the plan! Let me explain how I do all that.

What's in a plan?

A plan (in the sense I'm going to use it) is a method of achieving your goal, including time spent, your other commitments and what it is you're going to actually create. I do not view the plan as carved in granite, unchanged against any storm that mother nature throws.

A plan to me is a malleable friend that helps me control my fear of not finishing.

A friend I get to abuse, cut bits off, mock, reshape at will and set fire to. It's my plan, after all. Plans help show you what's possible from the outset and when things go badly, put into perspective what you have already done and what you can still achieve.

Set out your goals

You need to know what it is that you're going to try and achieve before you start. Obvious? Yes. Until you try and do it. On the surface, NaGaDeMon's goals are quite simple:

Create the game in November.
Finish the game in November.
Play the game in November.
Talk about your experience.

Those rules get applied depending on what you're creating and who you are - for example we each have our own perception on what "Finished" is. Goals are only useful when you can measure yourself against them. When you get rules like NaGaDeMon, it's best to extend them to make more tangible ones.

NaGaDeMon is a competition against yourself, it's only your point of view that counts. My additional goals are:

Create an RPG, system, setting and enough resources to play it with the mimimum amount of winging it*
Put it in a PDF
Make it look nice (with pictures)
Put it somewhere where people can get at it

* This is my personal definition of finished, which I only ever apply to me**.
** Except Icar, which will be finished when the proof readers are done with it.

Make a list of tasks

What goes into an RPG? Fortunately, I made a handy guide on how to do just that. I used the sections of the guide to write down a big list of tasks. I broke down the tasks into items just large enought that I could finish a task in one evening. Or thereabouts. Do not keep the plan in your head, write it down. Your brain has got enough to worry about.

Right from the start, I used Trello to organise ideas and tasks. You can check the board out with having an account. Each card on Trello has a checklist that I can tick off as a I go. Some of the research I did on my smartphone (reading Wikipedia), so I could tick them off at any time.

Organising my columns

The columns in Trello are really handy for keeping my on track. I use:

Roadblocks - for problems, things I must address but cannot think of a solution just yet. Kept in plain view, I can see they exist but they do not block my progress.
Must haves - any task that is required to meet my goal.
Like to haves - tasks that would be nice to include but not required for the goal.
Batshit crazy - any ideas that crop

I move the cards as I progress, keeping the things stopping me (roadblocks) in clear view. I also like to track crazy ideas. By writing them down, I get to work on them later rather than being sidetracked during the project.

Estimate task length

With my list of tasks, I estimate how many "evenings" each item would take. I used "evening" as a measure of time because I tend to get time after my 3 year old son has gone to bed. I worked out that in about 10 evenings, I could have the system and setting done. Knowing how many evenings I had was imperative for the next step...

Work out time left

Using your own measure of time, work out how much time you have until the deadline. For NaGaDeMon, at the start of November, you have 30 days. Or 29 evenings for me. Once you have that raw number (which will look really big in a moment), take away any commitments you know are comming up. Now you have the best case amount of time. You won't get to use all of that because life happens. Now the original raw number looks really big.

For me, I took the 29 evenings (raw number) and started hacking:

Removed evenings where I had family commitments (4 evenings)
Removed evenings where work might need me (5 evenings)
Removed evenings where I do other things (such as GMing! - 5)

Which left me with 15 evenings in the best possible case. I knew I wouldn't get all that time because life gets in the way but at least I had a feel that there was only so much I could expect of myself given that I had 15 evenings in the best possible case.

My estimate was 10 evenings, so 15 evenings should be enough.

Negotiate more time

With existing commitments, try and negotiate time off. Do so as early as you can. Last minute cancelling of events doesn't keep you any friends, especially if it is to do a fun hobby task.

Mrs Lang, the dearly-loved-long-suffering-non-gamer-wife-o-matic-unit mk1, is very understanding about my gaming problem and as such can be negotiated with. Normally, with a delicate application of crap movies and chocolate, I can negoatiate a whole day at the weekend where she disappears with offspring #1 (of a 1 part set) to leave me in peace to create. I am much more productive during the day. I also took a day's vacation too.

Set milestones

Milestones are mini-deadlines by which you know that you need to have done certain things. Splitting up a big project into a series of smaller deadlines gives you a sense of a achievement in bite size chunks as well as allowing you to chart your progress.

I set milestones for:

Deciding on the setting and system
Writing the system
Writing most of the setting (enough to play)
Playtesting - important to set up front because other people would be involved
Layout and graphics. Do it last.
Writing blog posts, although I felt those milestones could go by-the-by

Make the plan fun

Completing tasks should have a reward. Be it the pleasure of ticking a box on a check list, putting a sticker in a potty training task or a chocolate treat. If you hit a milestone, treat yourself; perhaps get a pizza one night or if you're hard up for a few brain cells, watch the latest episode in the Twilight saga. I like ticking off items in my lists, which is another reason that Trello is perfect for me.

Re-evaluate the plan regularly

The plan needs to be checked regularly, even early on when you have it all fresh in your mind. Keep updating it. Live throws stuff at you, expect it and expect to change the plan. The plan doesn't mind being hospitalised for a bit.

Plan on fire? Make a new one

If you find that your plan has combusted then that's OK. Making a new plan out of the ashes of the old one is a great thing to do; you know where you were unrealistic and you know what is feasible. You are nearer your goal, so there is less to estimate.

Wife Unit #1 took ill on the day that I was going to have alone to do graphics and my day off never materialised. But I was not disheartened. I didn't panic. I just took a look at all my lists, realised that I had jolly well completed rather a lot and brought my playtest date forward.

Do you make plans?

Do you make plans? What works for you? Is there any planning technique that is particularly useful or to be avoided? Did you make a plan for this year's NaGaDeMon?

NaGa DeMon Diary 1. The beginning is nigh!

2012-10-31T14:30:00.000Z

NaGa DeMon: National Game Design Month. Design a game, finish it, play it, tell everyone about it. In a month. Simultaneously a challenge and an opportunity to unbung the creative pipes and let the idea juice gush! I've been assisting Mr Nathan Russell on the Facebook page and Google+ Page, he's also updating a @thenagademon on twitter and using the #nagademon hashtag.

Taking part in NaGa DeMon makes you a Demon Hunter, winning makes you a Demon Slayer! I'll be charting my progress from Hunter to Slayer here. Either we can rejoice in triumph or commiserate together.

Preparation

One does not walk simply walk into NaGa DeMon. A little preparation acts as a springboard into progress. I've blogged about that on the NaGaDeMon website, so I won't repeat it here.

What I'm doing

I have decided to extract the shared dice pool mechanic from Cloudship Atlantis and write a setting to go with it. I've played the nuts off the system itself, it needs writing down properly. The setting is the greater challenge here. I have two main ideas (had some others, too ill-formed to consider):

TRONlike 2013

A TRON-like setting set in the 2013 internet where player characters lead a double life of IT geek during the day and cybercriminal at night. Wars are waged in a sub-cyberspace between huge internet corporations, governments, anonymous hacking groups and script kiddies. Characters will topple government systems, battle the bulk of Amazon and right wrongs reporting in the press "during the day".

It's quite a well defined setting idea. A digital world that runs underneath the current internet. The shared dice pool mechanic will work really well for it.

The Wall

The town of Cling is set against an impregnable wall that stretches infinitely in all directions. The population remains stable, life is very dull; precisely why the characters want to explore. No explorer has ever returned. Every so often, things fall onto the little town glued against the wall, people call it a gift from the gods. Recently, quite a lot has landed.

A medieval setting with no magic but with some materials that make life on the wall possible (eg nutrient rich water supply). The PCs will become envoys in the first trip out to another colony - and return.

Get yourself involved

It doesn't matter if you missed the start of November, you can still join in. After all, some make RPGs in 24 hours. A month should be a doddle. It doesn't need to be brand new, the idea could have been festering in your mind for year or a project that just won't finish. Now is the time. Join the roll call, get into the social media and join us.

It won't hurt, much.

Write a game and play it. In a month. National Game Design Month

2012-10-21T20:46:00.003+01:00

The NaGa DeMon is a particularly cruel beast. For eleven months of the year it lies in wait. Just as autumnal depression takes hold, it springs up like a particularly springy bastard and screams in your face:

Write a game, play it and let us know. You've got a month. Go!

November?

It's the month of inexplicable outpouring of creativity. Shocked by the cold winds from the north, it's time to dust off that idea that's been freeloading in the back of your consciousness and make a game out of it. I am not sure why November is the month of the foolish expelling of thick creation juice - but it is. So get used to it.

Competition?

It's the hardest competition there is because you play against you. You might drown in kudos on completion but at the very least you were there. You took part. You were part of something.

How do I do it?

The rules are quite simple:

Create it in November
Finish the game in November
Play the game in November
Talk about your experience

As far as 'game' goes, it means all sorts of things: RPG, boardgame, computer game, choose-your-own-adventure, card game, etc.

Why does this sub heading have a question mark?

Everything is being organised through the Facebook group by the extraordinary Nathan Russell. It's a name you might recognise: he wrote the unfinished but excellent Verge. He also dug deep into the very darkest parts of his psyche to give us the life shattering Droog Family Songbook (Winner of the 2011 24 Hour RPG compo). So, a stout fellow of considerable regard.

What am I going to do?
What are YOU going to do?

I've got a shed load of projects on at the moment but that's never stopped me before. I've wanted to write a computer game for ages - Elite in 2D. I also have 4 half-cocked RPG ideas hanging about (and a rewrite of Cloudship Atlantis).

How about you? Use November as an excuse and everyone else as support. Go on, I dare you. I double dare you.

Kickstarting a free RPG? Check out The Artefact

2012-09-10T13:02:00.000+01:00

Being obsessed with philanthropy means that I've only had a passing interest in Kickstarter. However, my interest was piqued when I learned that Emmett O'Brian had launched a Kickstarter for his free Sci Fi RPG The Artefact. I love The Artefact (you can tell from my review), not only is it a fantastically well thought out setting but from a personal point of view, it made me return to Icar and improve it.

Kickstarter... for a free game... come again?

Kickstarter is a site for community funding projects. Emmett's brilliant idea is to raise money to update the graphics throughout the book and then do a print run. Depending on your budget, you can get a floppy or stiff one (soft or hard cover), or have your name listed in-game for a dollar - which I rather like.

The more I think about it, the better the idea is.

Why The Artefact?

Science fiction roleplaying games tend to be thinly veiled reproductions* of one of the following:

Star Wars
Star Trek
Traveller

The Artefact is really something new - based on a huge elliptical world where alien races are battling for control of it. As humans arriving on The Artefact, you must discover its secrets, learn new technology and explore without being turned into vapour. The shape of the Artefact is core to its design, with all of the horrid physics worked out for you so that you can enjoy the science rather than be baffled by it.

Don't believe me? You can download it now!. Or get the Alpha for the latest version.

Put my money where my mouth is

I've chucked cash at it because I'd love to hold The Artefact in my hands. I'm not the only one who thinks this is super, Rogue Games is a huge fan as is Nils, the world builder behind Enderra. If you've ever wanted a chance to say thank you to the philanthropists, this is it.

* My Icar included. It's about as original as Andrew Lloyd Webber.

If you were to have a library of free RPGs, what would it do?

2012-09-03T12:44:00.000+01:00

I am leading the community to build a new library for free roleplaying games and I want... no, I need your ideas and feedback. Am I going about this the right way or am I barking up the wrong tree?

I do love my free RPGs. You know that by now. I've got a whole bunch of them on a hard drive at home. Most of them serve as a static and yet beautiful digital time capsule from a time when someone had an idea to share. Free RPGs have been shared online since the early usenet days and now there are a lot. 1KM1KT does a modest job of containing 669 of them - and counting. It does a reasonable job too - but it could be better. Browsing and exploring is difficult and search is fine when you know what you're looking for.

2KM2KT

This is the codename for an idea that's been buzzing around the intertubes for a while: a prupose-built repository for all free RPGs and a spiritual home for their authors. The forum does a wonderful job of supporting the authors but the games themselves need a better home.

What should it do?

I believe it needs to be like deviantArt but for free RPGs. I started putting together some concepts and got some great feedback but I want more. Coding wise, I am putting together the framework and domain. There are areas I can get working without too much input - I know there will be a shared login with the forum and that we'll need document upload.

While I am getting that sorted, I need more feedback from the community - that's you, dear Reader - about what you would want from it. Whether you're a seasoned philanthropist with 10 games to your name or someone who loves finding them and reading them, I need your feedback.

Pictures

Here are some crayon sketches of what it might look like. On the left is a home screen with the latest games, a featured game and random ones from the archive. On the right is the "Game" screen where you get to add documents, author, description and so on. The orange bits are help bubbles. The brown lines are Felix, my son, who wanted to help.

Generally speaking, I think that the model would work a bit like this:

A Document is a file, such as a PDF or Doc.
A Document has a unique version.
A Product has at least one document. Most will have only one.
A Game has at least one product. Core rules, settings and so on.
A Document has at least one Author.
A Product or Game is authored by all the authors on its documents.
A Game has a description and a bunch of taxonomic tags
A Document has a moderation state. (This is only to avoid spammers).
A User can be a Visitor (no login), a Guest (logged in) or an Editor (logged in with permissions)

That's the core of the model and I think it serves as a starting point. You could add another layer such as a publisher, which is a collection of Games (such as Stargazer Games) but that will come later.

Technical talk

This is the bit that you either understand or it's me saying "blah blah blah" - don't worry, it'll only help anyone thinking about volunteering! I will probably end up coding the majority myself but I will be giving out the system to the community by hosting it on GitHub. Coded in PHP with MySQL database, it will be built on the Symfony 2 framework (which has Doctrine 2 for ORM and database Migrations). It also has Twig templating, which is a well featured template engine. All the styling will start with Twitter's Bootstrap, which I will override later to create the site theme.

Now it's time for your brain!

What do you think it should do? Are there any killer features you think it needs? All ideas great and small are warmly welcome. I know comments are a bit low-fi for some opinions, so feel free to blog it, pop to 1KM1KT, G+ or send me an email on brainwiped@gmail.com. Please do not assume I would have thought of something. There are implementation details I've not included here, so you might find me saying "Thank you, yes, we'll do that!". That would be cool, it means we're all thinking along the same lines.

No idea is too stupid. Alright, some ideas are too stupid but I'm really nice to people who babble madness!

Now's your chance to make a big difference.

The 1KM1KT store - in the name of philanthropy!

2012-08-29T22:41:00.000+01:00

"What is this gallivanting arsehattery?" I hear you cry!

"Has the shaven fool lost his faculties along with his follicles?"

"Has he forgotten what philanthropy means, the bald face fool?"

Your angst is understandable. Afford me a few paragraphs to allay your fears...

1KM1KT now has a store

The premier* free RPG community now has a merchandising store where you can buy sweaters (jumpers in the UK), Baby Bodysuit (baby vests in the UK), T-Shirts (T-shirts in the UK) and just about any product you can emblazon a logo onto. You want a tote bag, you got it. You want a hoody? You got it. You want a giraffe with 1KM1KT tattooed onto its hind quarters? YOU GOT IT**.

There are three designs: a simple 1KM1KT logo on the front; the 1KM1KT logo on the front and "PLAY not Pay" on the back; the In Philanthropy We Trust logo. They come in a variety of colours and shapes, sizes and products. There is stuff for the ladies or the small child you keep locked in the basement. Oh, that's just me?

Why in the name of all things clean and good have you done this, Lang?

I want to run more competitions. I want to run better competitions. I want to run competitions where the authors are bowled over. To do that, the Monkeys over at 1KM1KT need some funding. I could fund more but Mrs Lang would have to give up her sushi habit and Master Lang might have to jump school and head straight for the diamond mines. We're calling that Plan B.

All profits go towards prizes for free-to-enter 1KM1KT competitions.

You know the ones, unless you've not been paying attention. Well, there was 2012 24 Hour Little Spaces, 2011 24 Hour Movie Mashup Competition, 2010 Cyberpunk Revival Project and 2009 24 Hour Competition. The more we raise, the better the prizes!

Vapourware! Poppycock!

There are many hundreds of online stores with designs never sold. Not this one. Click these delightful images - if you dare - for bigger images of the same.

Here's a dashing gent sporting the 1KM1KT logo on the front. No photoshop here, he really is that shape.

Here's the back of the same shirt. Play not Pay. It's a bold message but one we can all get behind.

Here's a smooth faced cheeky chap - how young he looks in his In Philanthropy We Trust shield T-Shirt.

I am cheap poor, I want to help

Of course you do! If I had a hat on, I'd doff it to you. If the simplest shirts are out of budget then you can help by sharing this good news on your website, blog or scrawled across the front of your home in 10 foot text. Let those whose fireplaces are already stuffed to the mantelpiece with $100 bill fire-lighters buy the merch, for the rest there's solidarity.

Tweet it, G+ it, Facebook it, for the retro-trendy-hipster-philanthropists MySpace it***.

I have an idea for a design!

Of course you do, you're a creative type - I can see that. Perhaps there's a free RPG design hanging about you would like pasted across your chest. Pop your idea in the comments or come over to the forum with your idea held high. I can't pay for your idea but good ones do get accepted! Catty_big on 1KM1KT came up with the inspired PLAY not Play slogan.

Trust Lang with my money, NEVER!

Quite right too, I'm an utter buffoon! Cafepress.com handle all the customer service side of the shirts, I ensure that the shop is up to date and that the designs I upload look OK. After that, any beef (or pork you might have is best solved by Cafe Press!

* Well, my favourite. I can't really say premier because that would suggest that someone has done some sort of objective review of all the free RPG communities and awarded it some sort of standard.

** You don't got it really. Having said that, give CafePress 6 months and they'll be able to put your logo on a T-Rex.

*** It's hip and ironic to be in a social network by yourself.

Winner 24 hour Little Spaces competition is...

2012-08-15T21:43:00.000+01:00

SMAF-17 By Edwin Moriarty. Congratulations Edwin!

What's it about

SMAF-17 is set in a submarine prison after the apocalypse. Filled will ex-inmates, prison guards, politicians and military personnel, you are a member of gang fighting for the last resources. The system is brave, has a tasty fudge-like core but also includes some wonderful insanity mechanics and a bidding process for initiative.

The setting does a lot to fill your mind with plot possibilities and the whole game is written with a light and entertaining lilt. It could do with some more artwork and the layout is hard on the eyes in places but you have to keep reminding yourself that it was written in 24 hours.

The Little Spaces competition was difficult. The aim of creating a whole game that entirely exists in a small space is very difficult. Edwin, the £30 Amazon gift voucher is yours. I'll be in touch via the 1KM1KT forum.

And the others!

Gosh, too many great ones to mention. With so many great games, you are forced to start being really tight about the requirements of the competition. You need to do that else you would never be able to choose between them. You pour over the judging criteria and discuss the merits of each. There were some of the games that would have won if it hadn't been about the confines of a Little Space.

I'll cherry pick a few others and review them. And do a proper review of SMAF 17.

Thank you to everyone who entered and all the kind words of support across the communities.

ENnies and philanthropy and you

2012-07-18T13:52:00.001+01:00

Congratulations to the 2012 ENnies nominees.

Thank you to the judges for their exhausting and oft thankless task!

I have a problem

None of the the nominations in the Free RPG category are by philanthropists. They are all cut down marketing versions of commercial games. The ENnies are about showcasing the best of the hobby and I feel that philanthropy, which has been a part of the hobby since it began, is not being represented here.

Logically speaking

All the games are free in that category. They all belong there. The judges believe en masse that quick starts and previews are more worthy than the free games submitted.

We don't have review criteria for the free RPGs category as the judges are left to decide on their own. Judging is hard work as it is without having to solicit feedback about whether X was chosen over Y. There are no guidelines for judging a free RPG so all the judges have is the category title.

Where it grates

Justin submitted Heroes Against Darkness this year and suffering sour grapes for not getting a nomination. I can understand his frustration.

Avoid fragmentation

We don't need another set of awards to showcase the work of philanthropists, the ENnies is the correct place for that. There will, no doubt be the Golden Banana, which will be funded by 1km1kt T-Shirt sales (coming soon). If anything the Golden Banana should be part of the Ennies, or at least complement it.

Become a judge?

I would be ill-suited for judging commercial products because I don't play them. I only play free ones. I only review free ones. I only read free ones. I doubt being a judge for a single category is very useful at all.

What the ENnies is not

An opaque box. Tony Law has demonstrated that he's open to ideas, thoughts, feedback and wants to pro-actively find a solution.

Solutions?

Either the category needs caveats attached to it, i.e. that commercial marketing quick starts should be given less credence than a full game; or there needs to be a new category that represents the vast amount of philanthropic output each year.

As Tony (and others) rightly point out on Google Plus you need to keep it broad to allow the crazy free stuff equal share with the full game systems. Naming the category appears to be key in getting the philanthropic goods in there.

Once we have the category sorted out, we then need to galvanise the philanthropists for next year. Without submissions, this process is a bit moot and we might as well leave it to the industry.

We're not indie, we're philanthropists

Philanthropy is a separate beast to Indie. A niche of it but Indie also encompasses those that see PDFs for free and would include Quickstarts of Paid-For Indie products. Philanthropy is about putting your heart into something and then giving it to the world for the love of it. It is not a marketing tool.

Now we need your ideas

How do we make this work? How do we help the ENnies showcase the best of free next year? Surely, with our collective grey matter and Tony Law's help, we can solve this!

If you're a philanthropist and you're feeling disenfranchised then that's OK, it's understandable. But we can change it for next year. We can get representation for the work we do. We can applaud the best philanthropy in our hobby. It is worth it. It can be done.

Further comment and reading

Some thoughts on Ennies Nominations by Michael "Stargazer" Wolf
When is a free game not a free game by Michael Wenman
No Free RPGs Nominated For Ennies by Emmett O'Brian
Me Beard raging on 1km1kt
My comment on Google Plus with Tony Law's excellent feedback.

Know of any more articles or comment? Post in the comments and I'll add you up.

Little Spaces entries - 16 micro bundles of delight!

2012-07-13T09:01:00.001+01:00

During May and June 1KM1KT ran the Little Spaces 24 hour RPG competition. In just 24 hours, the brave philanthropists creatively splurged into PDFs with no regard for their own well being. The 1KM1KT mods are currently in the midsts of reading and judging the entries so we can award the "retire-now" £30 Amazon voucher. While we do that, you can check out the entries!

Hover over the picture for the game's name and author, click to go to it.

Heroes Against Darkness by Justin Halliday

2012-07-04T23:14:00.000+01:00

I've never really* played D&D. I've never owned any of the books. The nearest I've got has been reading Order of the Stick. Then Heroes Against Darkness fluttered into my inbox, a game that unashamedly exclaims that it is D&D seen through the Justin's goggles. Tweaked. Fixed. Improved.

I bet you have house-ruled D&D into sentience. So did Justin. He then published it for free. I was priviledged enough to see Heroes Against Darkness before its major release; and it was so good that I borrowed and read D&D 2e Players Handbook and 3.5 Core Rules. That doesn't make me an expert but it makes me a few shades less ignorant. That's why it has taken me so long. I still prefer Heroes Against Darkness, so I won't refer to D&D again.

I wanna be a Half-Elf Berserker

Your character is formed by Class (your job), Race (species) and Ability scores (attributes). Class and race are not bound together but certain races are better at certain jobs. Your attributes include Strength, Dexterity, Wisdom, Constitution, Intelligence and Charisma. They are generated by rolling or assigning or a mix of the two. Then add Race and Class modifiers. That choice is left to the group.

Typical of Heroes Against Darkness throughout, Justin has given easy to use examples of use. For example, if your campaign is going to have epic characters from the off, it tells you how to do that. Without it, playing the game is the only way to tell if the scores you've chosen are appropriate.

Derived attributes are there to speed up the mechanics and Anima Points track how much magical skullduggery those reality-bending types can get up to. Advancement is with experience points and levels. Character background generation is wonderful and applicable to any fantasy RPG.

Higher is better

The mechanic is D20, add Modifiers and beat a target number set by the GM. For everything. If you're here for spiked dice juggling or non-linear mathematical acrobatics, you're not really paying attention. The magic system is simple and just restrictive enough, your class gives you a selection of spells and you burn Anima points to cast them. There are limits on how much Anima you can pour into your spell. Limits you can break. But you might die. Which is nice. I can imagine my black hearted player group devising a way of forcing magic users to do enough magic that they explode.

Combat is opposed rolls with modifiers for equipment, the situation and attribute bonus. There are different sorts of defence depending on what's coming at you. A stabby-stabby (technical term) is defended by Armour Defense and magical artillery from the cowardly Anima junkies are against Evasion Defense. It's just enough crunch to be interesting. The power (and the crunch) is contained in the modifiers, which might get a little out of hand given combinations of whether you are prone, standing, hopping, in a volcano, distracted by a passing minstrel playing a song that reminds you of the scent of your mother's hair, extra magical sword stabbyness, etc etc.

You can use a grid and minis but you don't have to.

Two Hundred and Thirty One Pages

The first 37 pages cover everything you need to play. The other 194? Oh, nothing much really. Just armour. And equipment. Potions, prices for things, rowboats - and lodgings. Smithing, magical gizmo smithing, movement, transportation, encumbrance and terrain modifiers. Oh, then there's how to roleplay encounters with combat or surprise, nasty conditions your character can befall, recovery rules, class powers, more class powers and class powers again. And spells. Spells for Warlocks, Healers and Necromancers and golly!

More?

A GM guide at page 103, designing encounters with balance, with examples, tips, tricks and thoughts on TPK. Help with modifiers. Help with skills. Help with XP and progression. Helpful magic how-tos and rule insights.

Still hungry?

Then there's a World Building Toolkit. Governments! Medieval detail! Guilds, Cults and Orders! Seasons, taxes, laws and settlements. Inpsiration tables with pre-gen names. An illustrated bestiary with monster builder and ready-to-go template cards. Reference tables!

It is breathtaking.

Guess what's missing

There's no example setting. This won't be a surprise to Justin (or any regulars here or on 1KM1KT). The setting here is implied through the classes, races and rules but there is still a lot of work for a GM to do before Heroes Against Darkness can be run. For the time-strapped GM, I'd like to see an example setting that demonstrates its strengths and depth. You could rightly argue the world builder is good enough but there's still a lot for the GM to do. I want to be able to print it, chuck it at a GM and say GO.

Beauty

Heroes Against Darkness is beautiful. Art (used with permission) peppers excellent layout and typography. It is beautifully written, the language throughout is thoughtful and evocative. The system isn't groundbreaking but it is solid, familiar, like a moth-eaten sweater you should have torched years ago. The magic sells it for me over... errr... the-other-game-I-wasn't-going-to-mention. It's an unmissable Post-Old-School fantasy RPG. Most remarkable of all for a free RPG:

It's finished.

Congratulations Justin and thank you for sharing.

* Except now-and-again at conventions but that doesn't count.

24 Hour RPG Competition - Little Spaces

2012-04-20T13:25:00.000+01:00

They're at it again!

Ever thought of writing an RPG and couldn't find a boot up the rump to get you started? Ever wondered what £30 of Amazon Vouchers could buy you? Ever wondered what it would be like playing an RPG that was set in a really small space? Ever wondered what sleep deprivation felt like? Ever wondered what Rob says to his dearly beloved whenever £30 disappears from his account each year? Ever wondered?

Well, we're at it again! The Monkeys over at 1KM1KT (the première Free RPG community; you do know about 1KM1KT, don't you? Good... I'll continue...) have decided that a year is enough time for you all to have recovered from the brain bending exploits of the Movie Mashup Competition and get stuck into another 24 Hour challenge. Write an RPG in 24 hours. How hard can it be?

Little spaces, you say?

This year's theme is Little Spaces. We have thought long and hard and come up with a number of small geographies for you to set a game. Blend setting and system in 24 hours to give us that snug, cramped, claustrophobic feel of a packed in place to play. Fear falling from the Dirigible or cause mayhem in a Research lab, there is plenty of choice in the list. There are some other rules too and except writing it in 24 hours, they're all pretty easy. This year there isn't any need to shave yourself.

Come on in, the water's lovely!

There's no entry fee and if you're in your 30s with a family then you can blame being locked in a dark room for 24 hours on a mid-life crisis. They'll be thankful you emerged with a shiny new roleplaying game of brilliance and not wearing pink war paint and Hello Kitty lingerie.

Game Chef 2012 begins on the 7th of April

2012-04-03T16:47:00.000+01:00

GameChef provides me annual nonsensical joy as a huge number of games (often free) flood into the internets for our bewildered enjoyment. GameChef is a free to enter competition where you get given a theme and 4 ingredients to build a game around. The Chefnauts are tasked to do so in just 9 days. You have to submit by the end of the 15th of April or you're out of luck! At time of publishing the 2012 rules aren't up - the starting gun fires on the 7th of April.

You can find out more on the GameChef blog, join in the discussion on the official Forge forum (nice one, Vincent!) or have a look on 1KM1KT for previous entries.

I would love to enter (although cannot this year as Icar is gobbling up all my free time) and I heartily recommend you do.

Ever been a Chefnaut? What was it like? What was your game about? Going to try this year?

Delicious Resolute Adventurer and Genius by Andrew Modro and Jason Cabral

2012-03-31T21:20:00.000+01:00

Resolute, Adventurer and Genius (RAG) by Andrew Modro and Jason Cabral is Michael Wolf's Warrior, Rogue and Mage marinated in a tasty chilli sauce and chargrilled on adventure's barbeque. It is peppered with the taste of Indiana Jones and presented with art deco flair. A 36 page amuse bouche. Utterly confused? Read on...

All very familiar

Resolute, Adventurer and Genius takes the core of the Warrior, Rogue and Mage system and resets it in the pulp genre. This is far from sacriledge - what makes WR&M delightful is that your character's primary attributes are constructed as of proportions of typical fantasy archetypes. There is no reason this premise could be see through the coloured glass of Sci Fi, horror or The Great Typewriter Monkey Rebellion.

The title of the game denotes your three attributes: Resolute is strength, toughness and courage; Adventurer measures intuition, agility and charisma; Genius is mental acumen and creativity. Each measured between 0 and 6, although 0 in each would mean your a clumsy coward with all the intelligence of a potato. You build you character by distributing 10 points between them.

Skills give your character a role in the team (you start with 3) and a Talent gives you a certain ZING!. There's a small list of Skills - because RAG (like WR&M) isn't really about Skills. Talents are where things get interesting and it has one of those lists which cannot help but suggest cool characters to play.

Derring Do

Actions are a well known song - sing along with me (to the tune of Caribou by The Pixies):

To do a thing
Roll a...Dee-Six
Add A...ttribute
Add Skill as well
If one applies
Then modify
You need to beat

Target score...
Target scoooorreeeee!
Target scoooooorrreeeeeeee!

For any sixes that are rolled, add 5 to the total and roll again. If you keep rolling D6s, keep adding 5 and rolling again. That's called exploding die. You don't actually have to make the die explode. Opposed checks are bigger-score-wins. Combat and healing is along these lines with hit points keeping track of damage.

Luck points can be spent to change the game world, avoid a take, reroll a die or add +2 before the roll is made. All good mechanic options. You regain luck by being heroic. If you're playing a party of villains, you get points for villainy. Such as kicking cats, punching old ladies or laughing maniacally on mountain tops.

VROOOOOM!

A welcome sight are some natty vehicle combat rules, which add just enough crunch to be interesting. RAG uses the chase as its vehicle combat rules, which fits snugly into the pulp theme. I heartily chuckled at the list of vehicles provided, which includes a Cargo Ship, Dirigible and U-boat! Letting my players see a U-boat in a list of vehicles will automatically generate the goal "Let's by a U-boat".

Everything else

That poor fellow (or madam) perched at the end of the table often needs as much help as they can get. The GM is provided with pulp in the 1910s/20s/30s/40s, a bestiary, help giving out XP and words of wisdom. It even has a back cover for the new player to glance over.

The book is beautifully presented, has a back cover and contents, its license is Creative Commons, it reads well (no glaring errors). There's even a print friendly version that is black and white. I love you chaps!

Remedials

There are niggles. There always are. I would add more skills appropriate for genius characters, such as a skill specifically for dealing with the arcane. I'd use the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA logo on the website. I'd rename the PDF downloads so that they were instantly recognisable as RAG. Finally, I would add an example setting. It nearly has one but in an attempt to please all audiences with the different decades, it's actually made it more difficult to play.

The 14 Month Old Conclusion

Resolute, Adventurer and Genius is everything its title is cracked up to be. It is a strong game with charisma and a clever lilt to it. You will need to bring your own setting and adventures to the RAG party but once you've partied hard with this system you'll find yourself waking up in bed with a beauty; not on the dawn train to Scotland with hate gremlins drilling your skull.

How to write a free RPG - Chapter 8: Publish

2012-01-31T12:00:00.000Z

Finish your game. Finish your game. Finish your game. Stop procrastinating and finish it. The act of creation can be exciting and a struggle but if you don't finish it, you'll never know if it was any fun to play. Publishing is what you do once you have finished. So finish it.

Release small, release often

As a philanthropist, you do not need to wait until the game is finished before you share it with the community. By sharing early, you can draw upon the experience and knowledge of other philanthropists keen to share their knowledge. By releasing small and often, you reduce the cliff of work you need to scale before the joy of releasing. If you are having trouble finishing a large project, then release what you have. Be prepared for raw feedback early and then turn round a new version quickly. Do not dwell, sort out the problems and release again.

Licensing

Licensing is very important. You might think that giving something away for free is simple but you could leave yourself open to problems if you do not slap on a license. For example, without a licence printed somewhere, print shops might not allow a prospective GM to print it! Furthermore, if you don't add a little protection, then you might find someone selling your game.

Licensing is a personal and legal choice I am not qualified to assist you with, however I can recommend giving it a Creative Commons license. Creative Commons allows you to tailor your license to your needs and gives you a handy graphic that is rapidly becoming a standard. Most game designers choose BY-NC-SA, which means "Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-alike". Creative Commons do a great job of explaining how they are used.

Upload it

Uploading your game serves two purposes: sharing with others and backing up. When you back up, do not forget to back up the resulting PDF and the source files, images and notes. There are lots of places you can put your game for people to enjoy. If you are releasing small and often, you will want somewhere easy to update and accessible to all. If you have finished, you will want somewhere with exposure.

Backups and releasing small and often

Google Docs allows you to upload PDFs and ZIP files. There is plenty of space and you can keep revisions too. Privacy settings allow you to use it as a backup too.
Skydrive is the Microsoft solution, plenty of space and privacy options.
Dropbox cleverly automatically synchronises your files to the server. Ideal for backups and can share too.

Final Release

1KM1KT 1000 Monkeys, 1000 Typewriters, the best free RPG community.
RPGNow and DriveThru RPG are commercial sellers that will also host your free game for you.
Lulu is a service that offers print on demand. I recommend printing at least one for yourself because it is a joyous moment to see your creation in hard copy.

Get it listed and reviewed

Make sure you let the following people know:

Me, ask for a review and to be added to my free RPG directory
Eric Chris Garrison's Homebrew RPGs
John H. Kim's free RPGs on the web
Ask on the 1KM1KT forum for a review.
Tell the Reddit Community, they like free stuff.
RPG.net (the big purple) have an Ads and Open Promo forum that's worthwhile.
Enworld has a lively comunity but make sure you're posting in the right place. They've changed their policy on promo posts in the past, so have a good look before you accidentally annoy anyone.
Update your signatures on forums to link to it.
Tweet it, Google+ it, slap it on Facebook. Be proud of it, you've worked hard.

Now what? Support.

Chances are a huge hole has been left by the completion of the game. Starting the process again for a new game might feel daunting so instead, support your game. Support is the act of engaging with the community to promote its play. Supporting your game will give it longevity not only in the eyes of the world but for you too.

Start a blog, posting up characters, rule options, new adventure ideas and people's feedback. Most use either Blogger or Wordpress.
Add Google Analytics to your blog so that you can see where people are coming from. It is really handy to see if someone blogs about your game so you can then reply - with thanks!
Create a Google+ Page for your game. Use a nice graphic for the logo.
If you're really keen on regular updates, create a Facebook page and Twitter account. Make sure they're used, though!
If it is a generic system, write another setting for it.
Find other free games like yours and contact the authors.

Finally, let me know if you found my guide helpful!

How to write a free RPG - Chapter 7: Testing

2012-01-24T12:00:00.000Z

Your game needs to be tested before it’s devoured by the general public. Testing ranges from simple mechanics tests all the way through to a full blow campaign play test. If you do not have a group to test with and cannot find a kind group to test it for you, there is still testing that can be done. Testing takes a long time, be prepared for this step to take as long as the rest of the game design.

If you are following the "Release Small, Release Often" principle (described in the next Chapter) then ensure you state clearly that the game has not been tested when you perform releases.

Smoke Test

A smoke test ensures that the system won’t catch fire when you try to use it. It will only find glaring holes, not mechanic niggles (see Mechanic Edge Cases) To smoke test the game, do the following:

Make 10 characters.
Write out 4 full combats step by step. Write out what everyone says and does and draw a battle map of what happens. Ensure each combat is different from your rule examples.
Find a non-gamer to read through the whole game to check for grammar and spelling.
Update the table of contents and index.
Check your table of contents and index by randomly picking 6 items from each, located at different places in the book and check the pages are correct.
Make sure that images are near the text that talks about them.
Print out some test pages, is it too dark or too light? Is the font large enough? If you're using a background image, does it obscure the text?
Ask a friend in a different country to print out on a different size, if you're in the US, try A4. If you're elsewhere, use US Letter.
How does it look on screen? If a friend has a tablet device, check it on there too. If not, ask the internet, a friendly RPG geek will check it out for you.

Read it again

But before you read it again, check back to the style section of Chapter 3 then read through the entire game, contents, index, everything. Make notes as read through go, do not stop to edit. Check all the captions on the images and headings on the tables. If you are linking sections of the document together (in HTML or PDF) then click every link. You might be sick of your game by now but this is a very important step, so do it. Then ask yourself these questions:

Does it fit the concept I was aiming for? Go back to when you wrote it down in Chapter 1 and check each item off.
If it does not, have I still made something worth playing?
Does it feel like the genre I am trying to represent?
Did I solve the mechanic problems I was trying to solve?
What’s best about the game?
What’s worst about the game?
Can I add any more images to spruce it up?
Is all the information I need on the Character sheet?

Trim

You’ve used too many words to describe your game. It is normal to do that, your brain is not wired for brevity when it is describing concepts. Cut down every paragraph to its bare form. Is it still intelligible? If so, keep it that way. Your second draft should be 10% shorter than the first.

Mechanic Edge Cases

The success of a mechanics system can be judged on its ability to still operate when under stress. You can stress test your system by seeing what happens when the parameters are at their limits. You cannot test all possible edge cases (especially when it comes to combinations of spells) but you can certainly pick some example worst/best case situations.

For example, if the mechanic is combat what happens when a character has maximum strength, the best weapon, highest skill, excellent armour and so on. Do you have a monster that will challenge a character like that? How many rounds will it take to kill a character like that with medium monsters? How many medium monsters will it take?

A team of 5 people all firing guns that have been upgraded 5 times should be able to kill a monster in 5 combat turns. "Upgraded 5 times" guns do 5 damage, that's 25 damage a turn. So a normal monster should have 125 hit points. Basic characters have weapons that do 1 damage will take a staggering 25 combat turns.

Ask yourself these sorts of questions for all the mechanics, paying particular attention to modifiers and special items. A sword might have a reasonable power but may unbalance the system when enchanted by more than one spell. If you find that it is difficult to find edge cases with your mechanics then perhaps the system is too complex and consider simplifying it. Spreadsheets can be useful for testing out the range of dice roles and probabilities but do not forget the affects of special powers or feats on the numbers.

Imaginary game

A good way to test your game is to run an imaginary game. Take 4 of the 10 characters you created earlier and then run through your example setting and adventures. Ensure the characters have goals that fit your setting, is it easy or difficult to create goals that are possible. Try all of the mechanics, use the characters to defeat the monsters without using your imagination (by grinding) and using imagination. During your game, try and answer the following questions:

What is the quickest way to end an encounter?
What is the best combination of skills, spells, weapons and equipment to solve each encounter?
Is there anything missing from the starting character setups that make the game impossible?
Is it fun?

Play Testing

Play testing is the act of playing the game to see if it meets your concept. It’s important to remember that a play test isn’t really a normal game. Most GMs will bend rules, ignore sections and only use 50% of a ruleset in ten sessions worth of a play. A good play test should be precisely by the rules and use as much of the ruleset as possible. You should reward the playtesters with a credit in the front of the book, or a signed copy if you are feeling flush. Make sure that your playtest group is made up of your target audience (see Chapter 1). You should playtest only when you feel the game is complete, playtesting should not be used as a tool for design, only for verification.

Playtest Pack

A playtest pack is a ready-to-go pack of information that makes it easy for the playtest group to test your game and provide feedback. To get the best from the group running your game for the first few times, you must provide additional support. When compiling your playtest pack, you can do so assuming that the player knows roleplaying games well. It should include:

A form for the player to put their name and contact details on. Give them the opportunity to opt-out of being included in the book credits.
A one page rule summary detailing the main mechanics.
Character sheets. Both blank and pre-generated. Although character creation should be part of the playtest, the players may not have the luxury of making a character.
A sample adventure that makes use of as many of the mechanics as possible.
A feedback form (see below).
A summary of what is required by the playtesters.
A Non Disclosure agreement (NDA) - optional as this is a free game after all.
Your contact details for the player to leave with.

Feedback

It is important to get feedback from everyone who plays the game. Feedback forms are the simplest way to garner information but if possible socialising with the group in a relaxed atmosphere (in a pub/bar) is a good way to dig into details. Players more likely to focus on the good things if confronted but at least you can question about particular mechanics this way. Have your notebook with you when talking to play testers, write down their good ideas then and there. Do not trust your memory to remember the details. The playtesters won't mind, they will appreciate their point of view is important.

Feedback Forms

Your feedback form is there for you to gauge whether or not you have managed to satisfy your concept. Player/GM fun is important too but it is important to note that not all players like new systems at first and the act of learning them can be tiring and less fun. You can provide two sorts of questions, check box ones and written replies. I would recommend having both as play testing can be tiring and lengthy prose without inspiration from pointed questions can be difficult. Here are some example questions:

Questions to be used with tick boxes under the headings "Strongly agree, Agree, No preference, Disagree, Strongly Disagree"

The game's rules are too light
The game's system feels like [game's genre]
The setting feels different to other games
I understood the rules
The game looks good
I was surprised that the game was free
I would play this game again

Questions to be used with plenty of space to reply.

What I liked about the game was...
What I disliked about the game was...
What I thought was missing was...

What to do with feedback

All feedback is valuable, not all of it is useful. For each of the forms and notes you have made, assign them a priority and then use your concept to check to see if you feel the feedback is useful. Concentrate on the problems that are raised rather than the solutions that the players offer. As the game designer, you are the expert. Mechanics changes will mean restarting your mechanics testing (easier if you have used a spreadsheet). Be prepared that not everyone will like your game. Thank them for the feedback but do not dwell on it.

When to stop play testing

Play testing must end when you feel that the game meets the concept you originally set out. Play testing cannot be used to find every rules hole and it is possible to play test too much. Too much play testing is procrastination, pick an end date and finish your game.

Post play test release

Ensure that you schedule time after your play test is over to update the rules and put out another release of your game. Do not make the playtesters feel that you have wasted their time by sitting on the changes for a year.

Resources

rpg.stackexchange asked What can I learn from Playtesters.
Ben Lehman argues that playtesting should be directed at a finished product, not as a means of design. And storygames discussion
Playtesters.net a place for finding tester for your game.
Wikipedia rather banal entry.

How to write a free RPG - Chapter 6: Organisation

2012-01-17T12:00:00.000Z

In this Chapter, you'll learn how to organise your free RPG. Organisation is very important because a poorly organised game can be confusing and will put people off playing it. An RPG is both read and referred to. It needs to be reference material as well as something enjoyable to read. To achieve this, you must be careful to choose a logical structure and a layout which is both pleasing and useful. This is an improved version of a previous guide to organisation.

The Structure

Organise the game in a logical structure such that it reads clearly. Explain concepts (such as Attributes) before you use them (in mechanics). You game should include the following sections in this order:

Front Cover

At the very least, it must contain the name of your game. It does not need to be a graphic but the name is a nice font. You've put a lot of work into it, I do hope you're proud of it so put your name on it, or use a pseudonym. If a GM is printing your game to convince their players to play, the better it looks the more likely the prospective GM will be able to run it.

Contents Page

A contents page should include all the major headings and sub headings. Lists of tables, images and diagrams belong in the Appendix. Try and keep the contents to a couple of pages and compress the font or line space to fit more on a page. Contents pages are used to scan from front-to-back for topic headings, if you make it too large, it does not become useful for this. Lines can be compressed as people will only scan through the Contents, they are unlikely to read it like paragraphs of prose. This is only optional if your game is under 7 pages.

Thank you / Version / Dedication

(Optional). Chances are you're going to need to thank someone for helping you through the game and this is best place for it. Might be a spouse, girlfriend (if you have both, don't include both here). Try and keep it to a page. Always put on a date. If you feel you need more than a date to uniquely describe your game, put on a version number. If you don't like software versioning (1.1, 1.2 etc) use round numbers (1,2,3,4,5...).

Introduction

The introduction is likely to be the first thing that the reader will go to after the cover, avoid fluffy marketing speak. It must include the following:

What is in the book? System? Setting? Sample adventure?
What is the genre of the setting? What are the major themes?
What will the characters do?
What sort of mechanic is it (dice/diceless/pool)?
If you game requires another book to use (such as Fate core rules), then say so here.

Character Creation

Begin this section by listing all of the steps so that the reader knows what is coming. Then describe each of the steps, giving examples when needed. Optionally, include a start-to-finish character generation. Make sure your example character will fit into the example adventure you provide. Don't put your skills inline unless there is only half a page of them. Put them in the Appendix.

Mechanics

If you have designed your own mechanics, start with an introduction to them. What sort of mechanic is it? Target number? Dice pool? After this brief introduction, deal with each mechanic area in turn. Beginning with unopposed action resolution and then opposed actions. Combat / magic / narrative mechanics last. If you have a core concept that runs through them all (such as rolling dice to meet a target number), deal with that first.

Setting

For more information on writing the Setting, see the Chapter on Settings.

Gamesmaster Section

GM sections are important and at the very minimum include an Example Adventure. The example adventure should showcase your setting without relying too much on the system. Imagine the experience the roleplayers will have: They'll sit down. Make characters and the GM will begin. Make the adventure simple to understand and also get the point of the setting. Perhaps give example characters too.

Additional setting information should also be included. If there are things the players should not know but the GM should, then include them. It is normally the GM that presents the game to play to the group so make it delicious for them too.

Appendix

Any item that disturbs the flow of explanation should go in the Appendix. Lists are the biggest culprit. Put them at the back, they won't get read through from start to finish and are used more like reference. It might feel a bit jarring to move the skill list from inside the character creation section but I assure you that it will be better off in actual use.

Examples of things that should really go in the Appendix are:

Skills
Equipment
Spells
Bestiary
Charts and Tables
Character Sheet

Back cover

I would have a bit of advertising blurb on the back and perhaps instructions to the print shop that it is ok to print for personal use. If a prospective GM has printed it and bound it nicely, the players will soon go to the back cover. Avoid suggesting that it is the best game in the world and that it will change the way people live their lives, instead pick out things that the characters would do and make those things sound exciting. Is the game about sticking a giant sword into the face of a particularly shifty looking dragon? Great! Tell us on the back cover.

Layout

Layout is a very subjective part of game design and as such, this section is really intended for those who do not know where to start. When deciding on your layout, take the following into account:

The first time your game is seen, it will be on a monitor
Many people still print the games for use at the table
Printer toner and paper are expensive

A stock layout

A stock layout is a portrait page with two columns evenly spaced. Images are placed within the text. Some packages allow you to curl the text around the jagged edge of the image (rather than being square). To maintain readability, leave a gap of at least 4mm between the graphic and your prose.

Margin thick enough to allow someone to bind the game.
Number of the chapter at the bottom in the middle. Putting it in the corner means that the person printing it cannot choose between single and double sided paper print.
Chapter names in the header are useful when used as reference.
Two columns is normally easier to read, long lines make it difficult for the eye to find the next line.
The above is portait, if you're going for landscape then consider 3 columns.
The eye naturally tracks to the top left and bottom right of the page. Put text there to keep the reader's attention. If it fits the layout well, aim to put images in the top right/bottom left of the page.

How to write a free RPG - Chapter 5: System

2012-01-10T12:00:00.000Z

The mechanics of your game provide the players with tactical and strategic choices. They will spend resources, take risks, win and lose. The mechanics must mesh with the concept of the game and support the setting. The first question you must answer is:

Do I use an existing system?

There are hundreds of free RPG systems available, all of which can be extended and modified to meet your needs. By choosing an existing system (especially a popular one), you begin with a solid, playtested base. However, you then rely upon your setting and rule extension being novel enough for people to want to play.

Before you dive in and create your own system, check the list of systems I gave in Part 2 and make sure yours is truly novel. It is much better to extend an existing system that start from scratch.

How to make mechanics

Only include mechanics for things you want the players to do in the game. Reward for the style of play you want to foster. Mechanics are a set of steps that achieve a specific outcome. You do not need to use dice, the steps can be purely conversational or use bartering with resources.

The three points of the mechanics spectrum are resource, traditional and verbal. Resource mechanics are where the player trades an in-game currency for control of the game or success. Traditional mechanics involve rolling dice and comparing to a target number. Verbal mechanics reward good ideas and rhetoric with success.

Your mechanic can be a mix of these three things. Traditional mechanics are the most widely used.

Your mechanic must give the player choice. They must choose to do something and be able to understand the likelihood of an outcome. Avoid mechanics where a single roll can cause the sudden death of the character. You do not need to have a random element to a character's action but avoid making everything automatically easy.

Make the player earn a success though clever use of their brain, either by manipulating the mechanics, setting or putting effort into the game.

Working backwards

Often it is wise to work from the mechanic you are trying to achieve back to the statistics of the character. This will avoid you getting dump statistics. Write down what part of your concept (you decided in Chapter 1) you are trying to emulate then decide on a mechanic in words that satisfies that. Finally work out what combination of skills, statistics, feats and randomness will achieve it.

I want the characters to be able to hurt the monster in imaginative ways. They must be able to inflect more damage by clever use of their gadgets, skills and environment - shooting it over and over should not lead to a win. I will need a statistic for using gadgets, skills for different gadgets (to allow specialisation) and a mechanic to make it worthwhile combining ideas and gadgets together. I'm going to use a shared dice mechanic, so the players should able able to gain more dice for working together.

The Meta Game

The Meta Game is what player-to-player interaction is called. If two players are talking about the situation from their point of view then they are Meta Gaming. If the players talk in character about the situation then that is regular roleplaying. All mechanics sit on a scale between the in character point of view and the Meta Game.

Meta Gaming mechanics can add variety to your game but must be used with care as they are often outside the sphere of knowledge of the character. The upshot is that the character may be taking actions for which they have no justification. A mantra for many roleplay groups is "What would your character do?" and that is often broken by the meta-game.

Only you can be the judge of whether Meta Game mechanics fit into your system. The mechanic types listed below include how "meta" they are.

For Chgowiz, I have a Meta Game mechanic where the players share dice. The characters do not know about the pool of dice that is being used for their actions, so it sits firmly in the Meta Game. A description of it is at the end of the mechanic types section below.

What to make mechanics for

Only make mechanics for things you want the players to do in your game. Some typical ones are:

Character creation

The creation of a character sets the benchmark against which everything in the world is judged.

Unopposed actions

The character interacting with the world alone are actions. These include riding a horse, sailing and navigation. In these cases, there is no-one opposing the character, its just the character against the world. These actions will be performed a lot.

Opposed actions

Where a character is trying to do something and another character is trying to stop them. These include persuading an NPC to open the gate to the castle. A character is trying to get the NPC to do something and the NPC's sense of duty is opposing it.

Combat

Combat can come in may different forms: unarmed, with close quarters weapons, ranged, vehicle, space craft and so on. Combat also should have a method of doing harm to the opponent. This can be the same mechanic as an opposed action. Combat is usually broken up into rounds where each character takes it in turn to do an action.

Help the players make quick choices and keep the game moving by presenting the choices in a combat action clearly. The player can then spend their thinking time working out what their character would do rather than what options there are.

Wounding and healing

Invulnerable characters are less interesting to play than vulnerable ones. Have a mechanic to keep track of how much hurt the character has been through and how much more they can take before they can take no more actions. Having a decreasing point value (Hit Points) is a traditional solution but you can also choose narrative effects that affect the player's decisions. Taking damage might also incur a penalty to performing actions. Ensure you include a way for the characters to heal too.

For Chgowiz, I want the effect of being damage to be more narrative. As characters take damage, they can pick up disadvantages - making it more difficult to play. As the characters are clones, dying is not a problem, so the damage affects can be outrageous.

Lethality

Measure lethality as the amount of game time it takes for a healthy character to die with average weapons/equipment in an average fight. Is lethality so high that the player will never get a chance to retreat? If that's not part of your concept then consider changing it.

Performing "Magic"

Magic (or doing technical actions in modern/Sci Fi) does not need its own system but you can add novel flavour to your system with it. Ensure that the magic system related to the setting - a society based on magic being easy should not have a system where runes need to be drawn accurately over several turns.

Controlling the narrative

Controlling the narrative means that the players get to decide the outcome of things.

Character improvement

If the roleplaying game is designed to be run over a series of sessions, then it is important to hand out a reward that can be used to improve the character.

Character Creation

Character creation is the cornerstone of any system. Do not stint on it. A prospective GM might well make a few characters to see what it is like. Ensure it is slick, majestic and well described. For the players, it is the first time they will interact with your game and it is important that the process is well explained. Character creation does not need to be quick, some players enjoy an involved creation session, especially if the character will last through a long campaign. Be true to the concept you laid out.

Characters tend to made of some or all of the following parts:

Attributes - a fixed number of inherent abilities of the character. Include: Strength, Intelligence and so on.
Skills - a list of learnt abilities, often picked from a list in the setting.
Feats/Traits - extraordinary abilities that the general populace do no possess, these can be both disadvantageous too.
Health - a way of tracking the amount of damage the character can take before they fall over.
Fluff - description, character name, organisations they belong to, age or anything pertinent. It's the only place in the RPG where fluff is acceptable and prompts the player to flesh out the character.

If you want the game to be learnt quickly, try and keep to familiar terms. If your game is more epic in scale, feel free to break out the Thesaurus and pick words more familiar to your genre.

Avoid adding one of the above unless there is a rule that makes use of it. If you have a 'Psyonic strength' ability and no psyonic rules then the Attribute will be useless.

Ensure you include an example character creation, explaining the choices made at each point.

Random roll vs Point assign

Most roleplaying games use either random roll, point assign or a combination of the two (sum the rolls of 10 dice and assign). Random roll mechanics lead to faster character generation but can leave the player with a character they didn't want to play. Point assign creation tends to be slower, leads to optimisation but leaves the player with the character they think they want to play.

Backstory creation

Flow charts or randomly rolled tables can be used to create the backstory of your characters. Some players might find it too restrictive, others liberating. If you include one these mechanisms, I recommend it is optional.

Collaborative creation

Some character creation mechanisms use play a way of creating a character. In these collaborative methods, players play out scenes. The outcomes of those scenes determine or modify the facets of the character.

For Chgowiz, the players will create a 'Genome' - a root from which each clone is then generated. The Genome will have attributes and skills and will be chosen with point assign. Advantages and Disadvantages will then be randomly rolled per clone. If the clone is difficult to play because of a tough combination Disavdantages and Advantages, it is ok because Clones are expendable.

Types of mechanics

There are an enormous number of variants of dice, resource and narrative mechanic. Below are just a taste of four of the simplest mechanics many systems build upon. Most roleplaying games depend on mechanics using character properties (attributes and skills) combined with a random element.

Target number

Used for: Unopposed actions, Opposed actions, combat, magic
Format: Character Properties + Modifiers + Dice roll >= Target number

A target number mechanic is the simplest form of mechanic. A Character's Properties are combined (such as the sum of appropriate Attribute and Skill) with modifiers and a die roll. The result is then compared to a target number that is set by the Gamesmaster. In most cases, the higher the target number, the more difficult the task. For opposed rolls, the target number is a roll of the opponent. This can be slower as two dice are rolled, two equations summed before the comparison can be done.

As long as the properties are kept in low digits, the calculations are easy. Avoid applying too may modifiers. Some systems use tables to set the target numbers, this improves simulation of the mechanic but can be slow.Speed can be maintained by having the result of some calculations written on a character sheet. These are sometimes written down as secondary statistics.

Pros

Easy to balance
Quick
Versatile

Cons

Linear probability scale
Mathematics can be difficult with large numbers
There is a temptation to add many modifiers elsewhere (such as modifiers on weapons)
Does not foster communication at the table

Meta Gaming?

This is not Meta Gaming because the rolling of dice represents the actual actions of the character.

Dice pool

Used for: Unopposed actions, Opposed actions, combat, magic
Format: Roll as may dice as you have in character properties, remove dice for modifiers, count the number of dice that roll over a given number. To succeed, you need a number of successes.

Dice pool mechanics rely on counting the number of dice that successfully roll over a number. This can be a length process when you are rolling 20 dice but the mathematics remains simple because you are not performing additions or subtractions. Modifiers are applied by removing dice (either before or after the roll).

Pros

Quick
Modifiers do not involve maths
Versatile
Feels good to heft cupped hands full of dice

Cons

Can need a lot of dice
Counting can take longer than comparing a single number
Balance is more tricky
Does not foster communication at the table
Probability of success more difficult to estimate than for target number rolls

Meta Gaming?

This is not Meta Gaming because the rolling of dice represents the actual actions of the character.

Resource Pool

Used for: Boosting actions, controlling the narrative
Format: Character has a pool of points that they can spend when required

Resource pools reduce the randomness in your game by giving the player a tactical choice whether to spend the points from their pool or save them for later. This mechanic is sometimes used to allow the player to control the narrative. It can also be used to re-roll dice, boost outcomes.

Pros

Gives the player an tactical choice
Simple to understand
Player feels an element of control
Fosters communication at the table

Cons

Slower than dice rolling
Balance difficult

Meta Gaming?

Resources management tends to be a Meta Gaming task because it is not the character who is spending a point to boost an action, or taking hold of the narrative. The player is the one that is deciding to spend the pool point. If you use a resource pool for something that the character controls (such as a magical pool of energy) then this is not a Meta Game mechanic.

Voting

Used for: Controlling the narrative
Format: Players vote on the outcome

Voting reduces the randomness of outcomes by putting those back into the hands of the players. Some voting mechanisms are used with resource pools so that players have to use their votes tactically. Voting can be secret or public. This mechanic can add a level of competition at the table, make sure that fits in with the concept of your game.

Pros

Gives the players the feeling of more control
Adds tension and atmosphere to the table
Fosters communication at the table

Cons

Slower than dice rolling
Slows the pace of the whole game if used liberally
Secret voting even slower!

Meta Gaming?

This is a Meta Game mechanic. Players voting on outcomes is detached from the characters themselves.

Chgowiz uses a modification of the Target Number mechanic. To do an action, they add Attibute, Skill and a die roll versus a target number. Even if the Attribute and Skill combined are more than the target number, they still much roll a die. Where it differs is that all the players share a pool of dice in the middle. When someone does an action, they take a die from the middle. By doing so, they are depriving other players of dice. This is a Meta Game mechanic because the character do not realise that they are about to fail because the players have run out of dice!

Crunch

Crunch is the name given to the feeling that there are a lot of rules to remember to play the game. You should try and strike a balance between a simple system where the tactical decisions are quick and a crunchy system where there are lots of options, modifiers and special rules. Too few rules and you're giving the player fewer tactical options, there is less game system to manipulate. Too many options and the system becomes overwhelming. Lite rules tend to be quicker to player whereas crunchy rules do a better job of representing the game world. Only you can decide whether the system fits the concept you decided on at the start.

Crunch often creeps into a system in the form of special rules for spells, monsters or equipment. These extra rules might look innocuous on their own but when the GM tries to apply all the caveats from different parts of the rules then the game grinds to a halt.

How to write a free RPG - Chapter 4: Setting

2012-01-03T12:00:00.000Z

In this Chapter, you will learn how to write an unique setting; what to include and how to avoid common pitfalls. The setting is the imaginary world that will act upon the characters and that the characters will change with their actions. Even if you are writing a generic roleplaying game system (such as Fate, Risus or Five by Five) then you should still consider writing an example setting that showcases the unique features of the system. Show the prospective GM what can be done with the system, it will help you differentiate your game from all the other games out there. Make sure your setting is a place where things happen, fill it with conflicting organisations and danger.

Creating a setting is a huge task and this guide is far from complete, acting only as a starting point.

Implicit vs Explicit Settings

Your setting can either be explicit or implicit. An explicit setting is one where you create maps, locations, a range of NPCs, plot hooks and so on. An implicit setting is where you do not write any of that but you do create a bestiary, spells or rules that constrain how the game is played. For example, for spell casting, the difference might be:

Explicit Setting: Magic is rare and difficult to perform, it is controlled by an Archmage who lives in a tower.
Implicit Setting: To cast a spell, roll 2D20. On two rolls of 20, the spell passes. Otherwise nothing happens.

The explicit setting lays out in black and white that magic is difficult but adds the flavour of the Archmage. The implicit setting makes spell casting difficult through rules but means that the GM is free to decide on how it is implemented in the setting they create.

If you are not writing a full setting, I recommend you take the middle ground, noting that magic is difficult and then demonstrating why. A free RPG should make life easy for the GM and as such create an explicit setting and let the GM ignore it if they wish. Be aware that you may inadvertently write an implicit setting by system or resources.

Building your world

Novel settings are best described from a top down point of view. Begin with the major themes of the game and how they interact. Try and keep the themes limited in number and intertwined. Expand on each of the themes, adding only detail that the GM or players might need to play. Stop when you have described the parts of your setting that the player characters directly interact with. Unless going to the toilet is something the player characters will be asked to do a lot, do not describe it. World building is a huge topic, which is very dependent on the genre of RPG you are creating. Here are some general tips:

Make the world exciting. If the world is mundane, there will be no desire to explore it.
Ensure that organisations, Gods, nations, NPCs are in conflict with others. Give them opposed goals and motivations. This conflict will make your world more interesting.
Before you start writing, list all the aspects you want in the setting and then list the things you do not.
Give the characters something to do that is interesting.
Avoid absolutes - it is better to say that there are few Gnomes left after the Gnomageddon rather than none at all.
Assume that if you include a location, the players will try to go there. If you include an NPC, assume that they will shoot it in the face.
From top-down, you don't have to draw the whole map or include all the races, you're only specifying the big themes.
Give your places, organisations and NPCs more than one weakness. A single weakness can be difficult for players to spot.
If providing a broad description, use an adjective. 'On a mountain' is less inspiring than 'On a craggy mountain'. Big list of adjectives

Be as fantastical as you can. If you want a flying upside down mountain, then do so. If you want the heads of state of two major nuclear powers to be having an extramarital affair then go for it.

The Chgowiz RPG is set in your home town and your home set in a world seen through the eyes of a crazy person. The Government are all powerful and view the people of your fine town as worthless test subjects. As a Chgowiz Clone, you are part of an elite army and fight for the Government to protect the people against huge mutant monsters, who want to trample and burn your home town! Little do you know that the Government sent the monsters in the first place.

What to include

Only include the minimum setting description needed to meet the themes you specified in your concept. Settings are typically where game bloat occurs. When defining the concept in Chapter 1, you defined a number of themes (such as dangerous magic, continents at war or space federations) start by describing these themes. When describing a theme, begin with what is known from the general populace's point of view and then add information that the heroic characters would know. Here is a list of entities you might wish to include:

Locations

Locations should act as seeds for adventures as well as the places they take place. If you cannot think of a good plot or reason a player might want to go there then don't include it. To create the a location:

Begin with the geography and an adjective. Examples: on a windswept glacier, on the edge of a cliff, surrounded by rivers, on a lonely plain, snug in a valley, clinging to the side of a mountain, sprawling across a savanna, by the golden beach or in a sweaty jungle. If you are having difficulty, put the noun of the geography (such as Jungle) into Google Images.
Provide an overview mention its architecture (broadly). A tall stone tower of arches and pillars, a squat village of stone and thatch buildings or a gleaming metallic space station.
Describe its prominent (or extraordinary) features. These should be places the players will want to go. Try and make the prominent features unfamiliar. If you describe Sauron's Tower then the players will automatically associate the tower with the Lord of the Rings.
Give the purpose of the place. Why does it exist? Who made it? Why should there be a village there? What purpose does it serve? Do not feel you have to explain away every location but purpose can make a mundane place feel special.
Give the place a name. Use a thesaurus to help find a word that describes it.

In the Chgowiz RPG, I am cheating here. The players will be playing in their home town. Building a map of local places and roads will be part of character creation. To make it more interesting, some locations will have a previously unknown secret fact. For example, the mall might be a meeting place for a Druidic chapter.

People and races

Describe the people who live in your world. The people will make up the majority of the people your player characters will interact with. You can add flavour to your setting by introducing different races with physiology, philosophy and wisdom. Racial differences do not need to be large and can be the source of great prejudice. With prejudice comes conflict, which in turn makes your setting more interesting.

It is wise to keep in mind the role your player characters have in the setting: Are they the good guys or bad? Are they made up from the different race or all one?

Organisations

This is a generic name given to groups of NPCs that work together. An Organisation might be the inhabitants of a place who share a common goal or a secret society.

Aim: what do they want to achieve?
Resources: What resources do they have at their disposal? Use general terms such as 'Can influence the creation of law.' rather than 'Has 4 councillors under payment'.
Public knowledge: What will the characters know about the organisation?
Reach: Do they operate only in the city or countrywide, across a continent or throughout the galaxy?
Activities: What do the organisation get up to? What do they not do? How do they raise cash?
Allies and Enemies: Who are the organisation friends with, who do they hate? How do they interact, is is subtle or openly hostile?

For the Chgowiz RPG, The Government are the most important organisation as they provide the monsters, the Clones and the Gadgets!

Aim: To take over the world with an amazing army of either Chgowzi Clones or Giant Monsters (whichever comes off best).
Resources: Huge amounts of gadgets and monsters. They can do all the usual stuff a Government an do too.
Public knowledge: The public are thick, they think the Government are nice and care about them!
Reach: The Government are countrywide but like to think they have global reach.
Activities: Sending in Monsters into small towns to see how destructive they can be. Sending in Chgowiz cloned soldiers to mop up the monsters.
Allies and Enemies: The Chgowiz RPG is too simple to have them fight another organisation. In a sense, they are constantly fighting themselves.

Flora and Fauna

Plants and animals breathes life into your setting. Avoid creating an entire ecosystem. Choose some plants and animals and give them a twist to make them different. Then decide how they interact with each other. Include a Bestiary too

Pantheon

If Gods figure in your setting then be sure to describe them by what they do and why people praise them. Long back stories and history are only interesting to Classics scholars.

Common NPCs

Kings, Lords, famous heroes, arch villains, well known craftsmen, heads of guilds, merchants can all add to a setting's depth. Don't forget that if you include an NPC, you should expect someone to shoot it in the face. For an NPC to be interesting, they must have a goal, stereotypes are fine but the goal must be easy for the GM to understand. The complexity will come when the game is played. Make sure you include at least two NPCs that have conflicting goals. It is through conflict that interesting stories are formed.

Agent Backstard is the Clone's contact at the Government, Backstard will provide them with just enough information on the monsters. He's a tall, gaunt man with shiny black hair that begins every answer with 'Yes yes yes', even if the answer turns out to be 'No'. He doesn't come across as trustworthy because he isn't.
T is the equipment man and called only by his codename "T". He is scatterbrained and finds it difficult grasp that his creations are used for fighting. He can be contacted at any time over the radio and can parachute equipment in.
Doctor Socks is a fictional man created by the Government. He is blamed for creating the giant monsters. He is pictured as a cackling old man in a plaid arm chair.

Geography

A map is a useful tool to show the scope and scale of the play area. Concentrate detail to one area of the map rather than spreading it out, you should give the GM somewhere well described to start their campaign and yet allow plenty of area for them to expand.

Recent History

Include large events in the recent history, particularly if they explain why the world is the way it is. Try and include a couple of events in the recent couple of weeks that would effect everyone or that would signal that there is going to be a big change. Recent History can be useful for the GM to create plot hooks.

GM Information

Give the GM some extra details on the places you mentioned. Help the GM create adventures by providing plot hook ideas by posing "What if..." questions. Explain how you intend the setting to be used and what themes you had in mind when you designed. You need to be explicit because it is difficult for a prospective GM to understand the nuances of a new setting through the text.

Sample Adventure

A sample adventure should showcase the novel parts of the setting (and system) and demonstrate why the GM should run the game. The sample adventure should be aimed at starting characters so that the GM can run the adventure straight off. Keep the adventure simple to achieve and include some combat or excitement.

Making your game different

During the ideas phase, you had to ask yourself "What's its closest rival and how is it different?". Many free RPGs go ignored because what they offer is barely distinguishable from commercial PRGs that the prospective GM already owns. Here are some techniques you can use to avoid common themes. I refer to genres specifically here but only because it is fantasy where the greatest overlap occurs.

Avoid standard fantasy elements

The definition of player character races is the first place where you can depart from fantasy lore. You may have an excellent idea for Elven creatures but the word 'Elves' brings along a huge amount of baggage. Use a different name and you are free from the strictures of fantasy canon. The only exception is 'Humans'. You don't have to put Humans in your game but if you do, then it is an understandable benchmark. If having Elves, Humans and Dwarves defines fantasy to you then do put them in but be aware that your game is running down a well trodden path.

Go back to the folklore source

So much of Eddings, Tolkein, D&D and other great fantasy proponents is inspired by northern European folklore and history. So can you! I'm no expert in folklore, and neither is Wikipedia. You don't have to be to pillage for inspiration.

For Chgowiz, there are two folklore sources: Godzilla (the original 1954 film) and Chgowiz himself. I've got hold of the original film (trailer below) and emailed Chgowiz for source information.

Japanese version is way more terrifying - probably because my Japanese is minimal!

Read other games

In research, there are two schools of thought: Ignorance provides you with freedom and knowledge allows you to avoid other's mistakes. Having tried both academically and in roleplay, I can recommend the latter. By reading other games, you will be able to find a niche for your own game by reading what is already out there. You might think Norse mythology is different enough but then you find Midgard by Ben Redmond or The Beast of Limfjord by Nathan Russell.

Invert a popular theme

By taking a popular theme and turning it upside down you can end up with a very different type of game. For example, magic in most games is wielded by Wizards. Instead, what if magic was the purview of the general populace? Or in Science Fiction what if the human race could not survive on planet surfaces and were stuck in space craft forever.

Borrow from outside the genre

With care, you can take concepts from outside fantasy and build them into your fantasy universe. While watching a Sci Fi or CSI:Miami, think about how various things would look in the fantasy world. Robots might be magical constructs - beings moulded from natural detritus and bound together as a servant. Perhaps your game is about fantasy Crime Scene Investigation: the Dwarf is missing a head, find the head, find the killer. To go further with this idea, you might want to crash two (or more) very different genres head on. Steam-punk-fantasy, Space-Opera-Supers, Cyberpunk-Anime-Supers, Modern-Fantasy.

Take from the natural world

The natural world is an awful place. So inhumane! Lift some of the terrible things animals do to each other and place them into societies. Imagine a player group stumbling into a society of mostly ladies and young boys only to find out that the local custom is for the woman to eat her lover after conception! When projected onto sentient species, the actions of nature reads like a nightmare.

The Chgowiz monsters will be taking a lot of their inspiration from nature. I used the BBC's Live n Deadly programme for inspiration.

Other resources

Writing a Campaign Setting Sourcebook - more geared towards published settings but poses interesting questions
Wikipedia article on settings - useful if you are looking to avoid common themes
RoleplayingTip.com advice - scroll half way down to World Building section
Fantasy Worldbuilding Questions - a huge list of questions that urge you to make sense of your setting
The Habitable Zone - useful for hard Sci Fi, where planets with terran
Gnome Stew - Modular Campaign Settings
Gnome Stew - Collaborative world building

How to write a free RPG - Chapter 3: Writing and style

2011-12-27T12:00:00.000Z

In this Chapter, we will look at the act of writing itself. By the end you will know some habits to keep and pitfalls to avoid. The second part of this chapter focuses on style and details how writing in a particular way can help the GM and players pick it up.

The first rule of writing an RPG is to keep writing. Do not edit until you have a full first draft of the game. The first draft will be poor but you need to have a complete game before a proper edit can occur. If you get stuck on an area, make a note in the document (I use a load of Xs like 'XXXXXXXXXX' to make it easier to pick the notes out) and move on. Writing a roleplaying game is a little like writing a novel, some of the ideas included here are applied to both and you can plunder novel writing resources if you get stuck.

Getting it finished

Any large project requires dedication to complete. Initially, you will have a fire and passion of enthusiasm, which will last about one third into the project. If you manage to force through that barrier, the next drop in enthusiasm comes at two third through. If you can get through those then the chance of you completing is extremely high. Here are some habits and tips to help you push through those barriers.

Set a deadline to have a 'test' version of the document. Stick to it. Produce whatever you can by that date. Whatever you have at that date, release it to the community - even if it is far from finished.
Schedule small releases to the free RPG community. Release small, release often.
Collect feedback from the community but don't edit your game right away - wait until it is finished.
Don't re-read the game until it is finished.
Set aside a time each day or week when you sit down to write. Do write outside of this time but never miss it. Use a calendar to set a regular appointment with a reminder to send you an email/text/tweet.
If you have control over the computer you're writing on, set up a new user account that does not have access to games and puts parental filters on games/RPG forums sites to reduce the distraction.
Use whatever time you have, great progress can be made even in a half-and-hour lunch break or while the newborn baby is sleeping.
Schedule what TV programs you are going to watch and watch only those. Never channel-hop.
Open a dialogue with friends and family (non-gamers too) about what you are trying to achieve. By talking about the game, you will find it easier to keep motivated. They might also enquire how it is going and that acts as a softly softly pep talk. Show them the work you have put in.
Write the game in any order. Later in this guide, you will learn about ways to organise your game. Organise it last, write it first.
[Optional] Play appropriate music to the genre you're writing in for inspiration. Soundtracks to films that inspire your genre are useful.
When you feel like you’re flagging, print out an attractive chunk of your game (like a picture you found) and put it on the wall next to where you create.

Good practise

Write these best practise tips on post-it notes and stick them near the place where you write.

Never delete text forever - when cutting a section, copy into a 'scraps' document, label it and leave it for later (I do this with graphics too).
Do an off-site backup your work weekly. Either upload to a free file storage (such as Google Docs) or put on an old USB thumb drive and hand to a friend or put it in your desk at work/locker at college.
If you are stuck finding a name for something, use Thesaurus.com to help find similar words. Mash similar words together.
If writing starts to slow, move onto the next section.

Writing rule Examples

A good example is essential to making your game playable. Examples should be both compound and independent. Compound examples are where one example leads on from a previous example, for example, if you describe an example character John Smith with a Strength of 9 in one example, John Smith should have a strength of 9 in all examples thereafter. Independent examples do not rely upon previous examples to be understood. A single example should be enough to demonstrate a ruling. Remember that the GM uses the book as a reference, so lean towards independent examples or repeat the important parts of John Smith.

A good example takes a small part of the rules and demonstrates it. Larger examples can build upon the simple, atomic examples but be sure to include both. Atomic examples are good for reference, longer examples are better when the book is read through at first.

Good rule example for 'Choosing to fail':
Chgowiz Clone 4123 wants to shoot at Godzilla with a Turbo-Mega-Cannon. His Brawn attribute is 5 and his Guns skill is 5, giving him 10 (Attribute + Skill). The shot is normal difficulty so he needs 12 to pass. There are only 2 dice in the pool in the middle and shooting will burn one of those.

The player knows that although shooting Godzilla would hurt it, one of the other players is going to try and ram Godzilla with a tank next turn and will probably need all the dice he can get to pass it! Instead, Chgowiz Clone 4123 decide to choose to fail. The other players decide that the shot misses and blows a chunk of the Post Office away, removing cover for another Clone character. Oops! The GM awards another die into the middle for comedy of it all. There are now 3 dice in the middle and the tank driving Clone is much more likely to hit!

Actual play examples can be useful but be careful to keep them curt and to the point - you do not have to write precisely how people speak. If you have particularly tricky parts to your system, include more than one example. It is unlikely that your audience will be completely new to roleplay.

Style

Poor writing style can make your game inpenetrable. Good style can make a complex game appear simple. Write the book the way it is supposed to be played:

Optional rules are fine, mark them clearly as such.
Do not load down the game with 'The GM can ignore this if he/she likes...'
Avoid an overly chatty style of writing, it adds words and does not help the reader. Strike a balance between being interesting to read and being informative. Check the example below.
Justifications of why a rule is prefered over another belongs on a website.
Describe your game objectively and compare it to others only if you are extending the rules or using it as a basis. It is OK to say "Using Fudge rules but with more dice rolling" but not "It's like D&D but lighter and more fun".
Avoid elaborating in too much detail on a part of the system which is not core to the concept.
Do not add anything to the RPG that is not going to enhance the concept. If you have an idea for a tangent, write it in a notebook and use it later.
Avoid including your design process, that is best left on the website or internet forum.

Bad writing example:
Chgowiz uses a completely new and brilliant system where the players share a bunch of dice in the middle of the table. It's so much better than all other roleplaying games because there is normally no penalty to just rolling a skill as many times as you like, here you use up a shared dice when you do it. Sure, fewer dice are rolled but then it means more when they are. I chose this rule to force people to work together, which works really well. The GM puts more dice in when the players have good ideas or do cool things or have fun but you can ignore than if you want. It's up to, it's your game.

Better writing example:
Chgowiz uses a shard pool of dice in the middle of the table. When the game starts, 2 for every player are put into the middle. When a player wants to do an action, they must roll a dice from the centre of the table. This dice is 'burnt' and handed back to the GM. When the players do something fun, clever or choose to fail an action, the GM awards them by putting dice back into the middle. When the dice run out, all actions fail until the GM puts more back in.

Writing Chgowiz the RPG

I am frighteningly verbose (you've probably noticed in other posts) almost to the point of being lost in a paragraph of text and completely forgetting what it was I was trying to say in the first place. The style tends to lean toward the scientific, which is OK for Icar but didn't feel right for Chgowiz. I lightened the tone by writing quotes and paragraph-long stories in callout boxes for flavour. The rules could remain clean of chatty text while lightening it for those reading through.

I have also had time issues recently, given changes in job (for the worse then for the better) and being the father of a toddler who likes to play with parents. Also Minecraft has consumed my soul. In a nice way. I am getting back my routine that involves writing for an hour once my son is in bed.

Rather than write straight into InDesign (which is how I wrote Cloudship Atlantis, Commando and Icar), I used Google Docs, as a simple text editor. This way there are no distractions by messing around with graphics or layout.

How to write a free RPG - Chapter 2: Research

2011-12-20T12:00:00.000Z

Research is the act of gathering information to strengthen your game. If approached with gusto and the right mindset, research can be very enjoyable. By the end of this chapter, you will know how to research, what to research and when to stop.

The benefits of researching before you design are:

Helps avoid reproducing a game that's already out there
Ensures your facts are straight
Aids inspiration

How much research?

It is important to set a limit on the amount of time you spend researching. By capping the amount of research you do, you will limit the scope of information you have to sift through. Do not set a cap on quantity as it is quality that matters. Set one of the following caps.

By date. Set a date and be finished by then.
By duration. Set a number of hours and stick to it.

How to research

The method I prefer to use (both for RPGs and academically) has three steps: Grab, Sort and Filter. Repeat this process until you run out of your self-allotted time.

Grab

You run round grabbing whatever you see that is appropriate. This requires a lot of Googling (see Where to Research) followed by pasting into a note taking tool. Good tools I've used are Google Docs, Evernote and your notebook. Don't worry about tagging, organising or even reading your information in depth. Just collect it: text, images, quotes, search terms, links, YouTube videos - anything!

Sort

For each piece of research you find, group it into one of these categories:

Core. Information that you know you will need.
Inspiration. For those items that just light your mind up but does not have an obvious application.
Off Topic. Some of the things you grabbed might turn out to be not useful. Don't throw them away because you might need them for another game.

Filter

For each of the categories you sorted, order them in importance. The very top item should be absolutely key to your game. Be ruthless in your filtering, too much information is overwhelming. Get to the nub of what your game is about.

What to research for?

Research is best performed in those areas where you are going to diverge from what you already know. For example, if you know what roleplaying system you are going to use then do not research lots of roleplaying mechanics. If you are creating your own diceless system or you do not know what system to use then it is worth researching those areas. It is comforting to read research that is familiar but that comforting feeling normally means you are wasting time cementing what you already know.

A list of things to research for:

For each of the main themes of your game, find five relevant web pages. Try finding a YouTube video that represents part of your game concept.
Read around inside the genre of your setting. For example, if its Fantasy, read something other than Tolkein.
Find an existing game that is the closest match for your concept. What does it do well? What does it do badly? Is your concept different enough to be worthwhile?
If your ideas are based around a new System, try and find an existing system that has the same benefits or drawbacks.
Read a few other free RPGs that are similar to yours. Take notes on how they are organised and how they describe complex things. Do they do it well or poorly? You can find lists of free RPGs in either my free directory or the venerable John H. Kim's Free RPGs on the Web.
Read those free RPGs that people are always recommending (Risus, Sketch, Fudge, Fate, Dungeonslayers, Five By Five, Lady Blackbird, Warrior Rogue and Mage). What makes them good? Why do people like them? What can you do in a similar way?
Read a few reviews of Free RPGs (from this blog or elsewhere) and check out the common themes. Most of the common problems I have found will be listed in the course of this guide but other reviewers come up with excellent points too.
Collect a bunch of images (or deviantArt or Flickr) that help you define the feel of your game. These are not images you necessarily use in the final game (so can be copyrighted images you find at random) but will be useful for inspiration.
Ask on forums about the concept, do people think it is a good idea? Perhaps someone may know that it has been done before.

Where to research?

The best research is from the source. If you are creating about a place, go there. If it is media (Books, TV, film) then consume that media. The local library and Wikipedia are also useful but beware that these sources can be third hand. If you are writing a game about the world in which we live, try and find an expert in the precise area - for example you might want to ask a grandparent about life in the 1950s.

Google can also be a wealth of information. Google Streetview can help you describe a place in the modern world (if you cannot go there) and Google Maps can be used for inspiration. Be careful not to copy copyrighted material. Google Images can be used to help inspiration by typing in keywords associated with your concept.

Research for chgowiz: The RPG

For research, I gave myself just two evenings (about 4 hours). Below is the end result of my grab, sort and filter. I have grouped them by some of the What to Research topics and have left out things that are Off Topic.

For each of the main themes of your game, find five relevant web pages

Giant monsters:

Cloned soldiers:

Corrupt Government, City Desctruction (regarding science and military)

Gadgets

Find an existing game that is the closest match for your concept

The Paranoia RPG did cloning well but I want death to be more of a pain in the rump. I also want each clone to be slightly different to the last one. This means that when you die, you might end up with a clone that isn't as good as the last one. I could add a little mutation in with each Chgowiz, giving every character a unique trait. I don't want them to be mutants, though - that's too far. Perhaps a stat boost or different special power.

If your ideas are based around a new System, try and find an existing system that has the same benefits or drawbacks.

My ideas are based around a new system (for the purpose of the guide). The action/combat system will use a similar system to Cloudship Atlantis, which has a bunch of dice all the players share. The benefit is that players have to work together and sometimes choose to fail. The drawbacks is that if the players are tired and not getting into the game, they will find it difficult to generate more dice. The city will need to be created in a joint story-games way. The monster will be randomly rolled like in Elliot 'Kumakami' Brown's wonderful Feast of Goblins.

Collect a bunch of images

Ask on a forum

Here's my thread on 1KM1KT.

The Free RPG Blog

Wushu Open by Daniel Bayn kicks bottom - through a window on fire

Put reality away for a minute...

It's a core mechanic, you say?

Choppy and Kicky

Freedoms

Stuck between free and a paid place

Super whizzy choppy

Light and tight: Mutants and Machineguns by Robertson Sondoh Jr and Daniel Marcus

Brevity

The Interesting Stuff

Hungry for more

Crank up the intensity in Siege by Andrew Smith

Character Creation

Gaming story style

Are we in a relationship?

Feedback

Intense

Nights of the Crusades by MJ Alishah is brimming with eastern promises fulfilled

Your character is a prism

Gameplay

The importance of story

Depth

A little more reference

Production wealth

Gods of Gondwane by Dariel Quiogue lets you ride a Velociraptor!

Setting First

You are human(?)

The Devil is in the Detail

There's always more

Disarming simplicity

Did I mention you can ride a Velociraptor?

How to use a plan to create your RPG

What's in a plan?

Set out your goals

Make a list of tasks

Organising my columns

Estimate task length

Work out time left

Negotiate more time

Set milestones

Make the plan fun

Re-evaluate the plan regularly

Plan on fire? Make a new one

Do you make plans?

NaGa DeMon Diary 1. The beginning is nigh!

Preparation

What I'm doing

TRONlike 2013

The Wall

Get yourself involved

Write a game and play it. In a month. National Game Design Month

November?

Competition?

How do I do it?

Why does this sub heading have a question mark?

What am I going to do?What are YOU going to do?

Kickstarting a free RPG? Check out The Artefact

Kickstarter... for a free game... come again?

Why The Artefact?

Put my money where my mouth is

If you were to have a library of free RPGs, what would it do?

2KM2KT

What should it do?

Pictures

Technical talk

Now it's time for your brain!

The 1KM1KT store - in the name of philanthropy!

1KM1KT now has a store

Why in the name of all things clean and good have you done this, Lang?

Vapourware! Poppycock!

I am cheap poor, I want to help

I have an idea for a design!

Trust Lang with my money, NEVER!

Winner 24 hour Little Spaces competition is...

What's it about

And the others!

ENnies and philanthropy and you

I have a problem

Logically speaking

What am I going to do?
What are YOU going to do?