entomophobiac
Low Prep High Play
Ett verktyg jag använt framgångsrikt i digital speldesign är att skriva microrollspel för att försöka utforska värld, karaktärer, och även känsla. Men nu försöker jag summera detta på endast två sidor... Och det är inte skitlätt.
Förutsätt att läsaren av följande kommer ha en övergripande förståelse för vad syftet är med övningen. Det kommer även finnas ett illustrerande exempel som inte är framtaget än. (Men egentligen är både Bargains & Bloodshed och även Oathbreaker exempel på samma teknik.)
Hur som helst tar jag tacksamt emot kommentarer på detta från er som är vana vid rollspelsmakande! Framförallt om det finns saker jag borde trycka på som inte är inkluderade.
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Role Play Your Design
If your game has a player avatar of any kind, role-playing that avatar and the world the avatar lives in makes it possible to explore morality, ethics, motivation, factional agendas, and a long range of other things about your game world.
Tabletop role-playing games can be seen as a kind of formalized conversations. You say what you do and you generate outcomes that steer the conversation in different directions. Sometimes you generate additional output using random chance or other gameplay mechanics in one form or another.
Look at it as improvised make believe but with rules added for guidance, as a framework, or inspiration.
To use this as a game design tool requires a process for character creation, if only to represent the potential avatars or factions, and their motivations. It also requires rules, either to determine what you can or can’t do, or to add the potential for explicit representations of your game’s features. Guns. Gear. Experience points. Buildings. Distances. Whatever your game may need.
An added bonus of doing this work is that you’ll have a ready character generator for fleshing out your world with more individuals later on, if you need them.
Character creation starts from the 5W+H interview technique: Who, What, Where, Why, When, How. The intent is to cover the whole extent of a story, whether as a journalist writing a story or police officer interrogating a suspect.
Rules uses character creation as its base and asks you to simulate very specific things and skip everything else.
Character Creation
Förutsätt att läsaren av följande kommer ha en övergripande förståelse för vad syftet är med övningen. Det kommer även finnas ett illustrerande exempel som inte är framtaget än. (Men egentligen är både Bargains & Bloodshed och även Oathbreaker exempel på samma teknik.)
Hur som helst tar jag tacksamt emot kommentarer på detta från er som är vana vid rollspelsmakande! Framförallt om det finns saker jag borde trycka på som inte är inkluderade.
###
Role Play Your Design
If your game has a player avatar of any kind, role-playing that avatar and the world the avatar lives in makes it possible to explore morality, ethics, motivation, factional agendas, and a long range of other things about your game world.
Tabletop role-playing games can be seen as a kind of formalized conversations. You say what you do and you generate outcomes that steer the conversation in different directions. Sometimes you generate additional output using random chance or other gameplay mechanics in one form or another.
Look at it as improvised make believe but with rules added for guidance, as a framework, or inspiration.
To use this as a game design tool requires a process for character creation, if only to represent the potential avatars or factions, and their motivations. It also requires rules, either to determine what you can or can’t do, or to add the potential for explicit representations of your game’s features. Guns. Gear. Experience points. Buildings. Distances. Whatever your game may need.
An added bonus of doing this work is that you’ll have a ready character generator for fleshing out your world with more individuals later on, if you need them.
Character creation starts from the 5W+H interview technique: Who, What, Where, Why, When, How. The intent is to cover the whole extent of a story, whether as a journalist writing a story or police officer interrogating a suspect.
Rules uses character creation as its base and asks you to simulate very specific things and skip everything else.
Character Creation
- Who you are, who you work for and with, and how you fit into the world? List the types of characters and the factions you want to represent.
- What you do. List the activities you want your characters to take part in.
- Where it takes place. List the locations where you may want your gameplay to play out.
- Why the characters do what they do. List the motivations your characters may have; money, power, knowledge; something else.
- When it takes place, whether past, present, or even future. List or simply note the time and place.
- How, for a game, means the verbs. Your players' inputs and intentions as supplied to the systems of the game, and what kinds of outputs they generate. List the verbs of your game’s fiction.
- Situations. What kinds of situations you want your game to portray. Are they heists, fights, competitions, planning projects, etc?
- Abilities. This sets the stage for who you are roleplaying:
- What can they do, and what can’t they do?
- What is particularly hard for them to do, but still possible, and what is especially easy for them but still relevant to include?
- Conflict. Keeping the situations and abilities in mind, who is trying to stop you, why, and by what means. Write rules for the conflicts that are most important—but don’t simulate, only represent.