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Why Dungeons Work

6/1/2015

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Another late night design session on a Saturday in Madison, Wisconsin. This time Eric* is the last person remaining besides Andrew and me. Topics jump in and out of gaming. At one point when we are actually talking about our card-based RPG, Eric says, “That’s why dungeons work.” Why Dungeons Work... That’s a great title for a blog post.

So without further ado, I present ramblings on game design, and our card RPG in particular, through the lens of why dungeons work.

The objective is clear

Very few people overthink a dungeon crawl. It’s why games like Munchkin can exist. Bash the door, (ok, listen first if you are especially cautious,) kill the monsters, get the loot. Once in a while there is a trap.

Perhaps your game has more nuance than this, but regardless, players should always be able to answer the questions where are we, what are we doing, and why. In our RPG system this is encapsulated in the focusing question. Your party is either making a pivotal choice or addressing a challenge. Do you give the sword to the sage? How do you cross the chasm? What do you do to open the stuck door? In any case, the goal is clear, and the players simply focus on how to achieve it.

Pieces are modular

In RPG circles the term module is synonymous with prepared adventure. In dungeons the modularity is taken to an even more fine-grained level; the various rooms are independent. There is one common rule, rooms get harder the deeper in the dungeon you go, but within any one level locations are mostly interchangeable. Whether you meet the group of goblins playing poker first, or the green slime falls on you first is mostly inconsequential.

One of the primary goals of our card RPG is making a set of modular components. Pre-scripted adventures are able to take advantage of some shared locations, challenges, items, and creatures. (We’ve dubbed these remixables, to avoid the overloaded term module.) Sharing components reduces the number of cards needed, and GMs running a game on the fly have access to a full library of inspiration. They can flip over a random remixable and use as much or as little of the detail as they wish.

To facilitate remixing, the component parts have very few dependencies. Just as in the classic dungeon crawl, it doesn’t matter whether you cross the chasm before or after you extract the sword from its stone encasing.

Component parts are interesting

Opening a new door in a dungeon inherently focuses players’ attention. The creatures or traps within will have to be dealt with. There may be the occasional nondescript room where the party can hole up to rest, but in a good dungeon, nearly every single room is unique and interesting.

In the card RPG trivial actions and decisions are glossed over. If you are presented with a choice or challenge, it is an important one. Ideally it is also unique and intriguing. The majority of time during a session is spent by the players imagining approaches and finding solutions. For this time to be well spent, the remixables must be interesting. As we develop more content it will be vital to curate it well. If it’s not great, it’s not good enough.

Component parts tie into a theme

This goal seems at odds with the plug and play aspect of modules, and to some extent it is. While the pieces of a dungeon can be approached in an arbitrary order, in the best designs those pieces tie together into a coherent whole. Players in the Temple of Elemental Evil can clearly identify the theme of the dungeon.

In the card RPG this goal is accomplished by tying the components into an overall story and larger world. Playing the stock adventure means traveling through a series of challenges that all contribute to the plot. In ad hoc GM mode, the detailed descriptions can be used to set each remixable within the game world.

Players are rewarded for success

In a dungeon there is typically a tangible reward at the end of each encounter: the loot. Even the lowly kobold likely has a few copper tucked away in his belt pouch. The loot provides immediate gratification to the party; they have succeeded, here is their reward.

Our RPG has far less ‘stuff’ than the average dungeon crawl. Still, there is immediate feedback and minor rewards after every challenge. Every roll results in one of four levels of success, from critical failure through resounding success. If good plans are made and fate is on their side, the characters pass the challenge. High levels of success are rewarded with information, items, or shortened paths to the final confrontation. Failure incurs damage, increases complications, or ends the quest entirely.

One thing we may wish to keep in mind is just how viscerally appealing it is to win a new card. There is the act of simply revealing it, appreciating the artwork, reading what it does, then deciding who gets it. This is a strength of the format of our game that we should be taking full advantage of.

There are probably many more reasons why dungeons are staples of the genre, but this completes my list. Are there any important points that I missed? How can the enduring popularity of dungeons inform your game design?
* Some of these ideas come from Eric and the resulting discussion. In addition, he has been instrumental in shaping the direction of our game through his vast experience and insightful comments. We are greatly indebted to him.
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A Tale of Two RPGs

5/18/2015

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Imagine a project you are working on. If you could peek into the future, would you see future-you making the same decisions that present-you is making? How would the intervening experiences affect what you would come up with?
It may seem like an impossible scenario, but I'm in the lucky situation of being able to do just this but in reverse. Present-me is looking back at past-me's work, created just a couple years ago but completely independently from a current project.
The project involves my foray into creating role-playing games. In particular, my co-designer and I recently listed the design goals for our card-based RPG (Herein called TBD for name to be determined.) A section with the exact same title exists in the 50-odd page manuscript for the more standard RPG I stopped working on two years ago. (It also happened to use cards, so I consider it a spiritual ancestor.)
How much have my goals changed? Do I still value the same aspects of good role-playing games? Let's see!
Past me wrote:
There is a number of philosophical goals that defines any game design. Often these goals compete with each other, so they must be prioritized. Here then, are the goals for this system in order of priority.

  1. 1. Story-driven. Too many games end up being flimsy excuses to go from battle to battle. These are more “roll-playing” than “role-playing” systems. Sessions should revolve around a compelling story, and all the action should contribute to its telling.
  2. 2. Imaginable. The best novels provoke vivid scenes in the readers’ imaginations. So too should a good role-playing session.
  3. 3. Realistic. The system should provide a sensible framework with as much realism as can be expected for a world with mythical creatures and potent magic.
  4. 4. Fast paced. Games should not bog down in minutia. This goal and the previous one form a delicate balance. Too much realism can hinder the pacing, while too fast and loose of a game loses realism. As a rule of thumb, the story should continue to be driven forward with very few lulls.
  5. 5. Open ended. The rules will inevitably be incomplete. The goal is not to model every possible situation but to provide rules by which the GM can sensibly resolve any events that arise.

In addition to these philosophical goals, the system is designed with several other design constraints in mind.

Advancing is fun....

Rolling dice is fun. 

Looking at our brainstorming for the recently created list of design goals and their consequences, I see some familiar faces.
Create a sense of immersion
Rules promote role-playing
Evocative narrative and detailed character description

Not an overwhelming number of rules

A system (e.g. point buy) for upgrading stats and skills
But none of those actually made it into the final cut. The design goals for TBD  target a very particular medium and audience. Here they are:
Primary
  1. Modules are made up of reusable/reshufflable components.
  2. Runs with little prep
  3. Pre-made modules (adventures)
  4. Easy to GM
  5. Delivers engaging stories
  6. Players become attached to their characters
Secondary
  1. Easy for novice GMs
  2. Easy for novice players
  3. Combat and non-combat mechanics are on par
As you can see, the objectives for TBD revolve around ease of play. My old system, being a standard book-length RPG, had no such constraints. Other TBD design goals: reusable/reshufflable components and pre-made adventures make sense given its card-based format. Those goals also complement the ease of prep and play aspects. Delivering engaging stories is the most similar goal between the two lists, and really isn't that the heart of a role-playing game?
Glaring omissions from the new list are realism and open-endedness. Design is a process of choosing between alternatives, sometimes with much difficulty. In the interest of creating an accessible card-based system, aspirations for a realistic, free-form game had to be tempered.
Initially I was surprised by the lack of overlap in these lists. Upon further reflection, I believe the difference is between a pie-in-the-sky dream design and a focused, pragmatic system. Rather than trying to build the perfect RPG for myself, we're working on a great RPG for our target market–busy people or novices who want to experience exciting adventures with little overhead. The constants, engaging, vivid stories, are what really matter, and TBD is going to bring them to life.
What are the most important aspects of RPGs in your opinion?
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The High of Creation

1/3/2014

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I often think about how little people create in the modern world. The lives of most involve pushing electronic bits from one place to another at work and consuming other people's creations at home. One of the great things about game design is the actual physical manifestation of an idea. A game can be held in the hand, its components witnessed in reality, not just on a screen.


I recently came upon an article that neatly summarizes some of my thoughts on this topic. Here is a snippet:
"What’s the last thing you built when you got that high? You know that high I’m talking about? It’s staring at a thing that you brought into the world because you decided it needed to exist."

Of all the selfish reasons for making games, the high of creation is a great one.
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Trick Rummy

11/3/2013

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Picture
A few weeks ago I posted about a new casual game idea I was testing. Yesterday at the Unpub within Gameholecon I got a chance to try it out further, and thanks to great feedback from Andrew Hanson and Steven Dast the game has progressed and somewhat morphed.

The game was playable as it was, but a few of things struck us as being suboptimal. The betting phase seemed disjointed from the rest of the game, and the goal of a 5-card poker hand seemed restricting. It also seemed difficult to get new cards into play. After much deliberation and some additional play testing we think we addressed the issues while maintaining the heart of the game. I've dubbed the new iteration Trick Rummy.

Rather than being constrained to just two poker hands to receive a payout, in the new game you are dealt 10 cards and have to get at least nine of them into sets. The sets are of the typical Rummy variety; three or more of a kind or suited runs of three or more. This gives the players much more flexibility in choosing what cards to keep.

For the betting phase problem a different mechanism entirely was adopted. In some trick taking games it is common to bid on how many tricks you can take and/or to get the lead. We incorporated this idea in the following way. First, there is an ante. In order to have the game ramp up over time, this amount is based on the number of face up cards any player has on the table. Then the players bid in auction style. Only the winning bidder puts additional money into the pot. They get to lead. Essentially, they are betting how much more likely they will be to win the hand if they have the lead.

This notion was counterintuitive to me. It seems like you'd need the other players to put in money in order for coins to change hands. In practice, however, this system seems to work. Increasing the ante over time will address the free rider problem where people never bid and ignore the whole trick taking aspect of the game.

As far as the set collection aspect, the primary issue was a lack of new cards entering play. It was easy to get stuck in a situation where you need a particular card but just had to wait for it to appear by luck given very few opportunities. To address this, additional cards are added to the draft. The number is equal to the number of players. In addition, drafting continues for a number of rounds equal to the number of players minus one. This is for scalability because with more players there are likely to be more tricks taken during the trick taking phase.

As usual, the resulting game is different from what I would have come up with on my own. However, I think these differences are positive. Having other designers work on an idea with you is a great experience. If you haven't attended a Protospiel or Unpub, you don't know what you're missing!
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Poker Meets Sheepshead

10/11/2013

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Aces
In my neck of the woods sheepshead is a very common card game. Two things in particular are nice about it: you can play without a whole lot of attention (a "beer and pretzels" game), and it keeps a running tally, so "games" can last hours or even years.

But those same advantages also come with down sides. For mediocre players most plays are fairly pre-determined. Long running tallies mean there is little chance for the loser to catch up, and there is never any logical place to stop other than who dealt first.

To address these concerns I thought about merging aspects of sheepshead with aspects of poker. The average poker player has many decisions to weigh during betting and card selection. The fact that people can go bust means there are natural stopping points to games.

It was with these factors in mind that I started thinking of my latest game (as yet untitled.) My merger game takes the betting and set collection aspects of poker and combines them with the trick taking aspect of sheepshead. To make things more interesting and strategic, a card drafting mechanic is also thrown in.

Here's how it works. The cards are two standard poker decks, jokers included. Players start with X amount of money or chips and maintain an 8-card hand. The game goes until someone has collected a hand with 5 of a kind or a 5-card straight-flush, at which point a payout occurs, and play can continue or end.

Each hand begins by flipping over a card from the top of the deck. Its suit determines the trump for this hand. Then there is a betting phase. The standard ante is one, only one time around, and a maximum bet or raise of three. Players who drop out of betting can still play the hand, but they do not get the payout if they win.

Next, a sheepshead style hand is played. Rather than diamonds and queens/jacks being trump, the flipped up suit is trump. Rather than counting points, the winner is the first person to win two tricks. The winning player is first for the card draft and assuming they stayed in the betting, gets the pot.

The card draft redistributes cards played during the preceding hand. All the taken tricks plus the initial trump card are put face up on the table, and players take turns choosing one. Chosen cards stay face up on the table in front of the player and count toward their hand. This goes for two rounds regardless of how many tricks were played.

Finally, players draw back up to eight total cards including those face up. At some point a player will have collected 5 of a kind or a 5-card straight-flush. All other players must pay them; 5 for the former or 10 for the latter. At that point a new game can begin (not resetting the money/chips), or play can end.

The game has gone through one 3-player play-test, which worked out a few kinks and clarified some details. It also proved to be quite fun and much more strategic than sheepshead. You have to balance playing your powerful cards versus saving them for the big payout. There is also the tradeoff between offense and defense during drafting. But the game still has a "beer and pretzels" feel. Players can skip a hand and still stay in the game, and a losing player still has chances to catch up. There can be a running tally, but there are logical ending points.

Hopefully the game can get a full test next month at my buddies' "Bacon Weekend". There will definitely be beer and probably pretzels. And maybe the jackpot will include some bacon.

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How to Market a Game

3/21/2013

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Picture
I came upon this article that talks about marketing games and toys.

Most of the advice was good, with one caveat.
One of their early steps is "Get a patent." This might make sense for toys, but for games it's neither necessary nor practical. Board and card games are built upon common mechanics that can't even be copyrighted let alone patented. There is much prior art involved for just about any game. The big exception that I know of is Magic: the Gathering. It introduced the concept of collectible card games and received patent protection for several aspects of the game. In general though, board game designers will tell you to forget about patents and worry about creating and selling your game.

Aside from this quibble, it is a good article with some pertinent advice. Go have a look and let me know what you think.

-> WikiHow site

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Links and Resources Part 5: Facebook

1/15/2013

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This is the last segment of my links and resources series. Here I will cover Facebook pages related to gaming. These pages can be a great way to join in conversations with other designers or post updates when your games get to the testing or publication phase. The blurbs listed here are taken from their "about" pages.

  • Protospiel group
  • A group to keep track of friends and contacts made at the Protospiel Game Design Convention

  • The Alliance of Independent Game Designers
  • ...a place for any and all game designers to come and collaborate, seek & offer help to fellow designers, and promote their products! We assist in development and play-testing as well as offer game reviews and a place to promote your games.

  • Midwest Board Game Designers
  • This is an open group for modern board game designers based in the Milwaukee, WI area. You bring a game you're designing and we all play it, but in return you must play other people's games and give honest and constructive feedback.

  • Pizza, Games, and Zombies podcast
  • We eat pizza, play table top games, talk about zombies every week! Mission: To Eat, Play and Keep our brains!

  • All Us Geeks podcast
  • We talk all things related to geek culture and what it means to be a geek. Movies, Books, Comic Books, Television, Board Games, Video Games, etc... We give voice to your inner geek.

  • Nightstalker Games
  • ...an independent card and board game developer founded by Eriberto Rodriguez. 

  • Minion Games
  • We are small group of game designers and artists that simply wish to get our products to market for all to enjoy. The easiest way to do that was to publish them ourselves.

  • Garrison Games
  • A Tampa, Florida based board game and card game company.

  • Print & Play Games
  • New games and old reprints, Game Parts, Prototypes

  • We Don't Know Games
  • Two old friends who make games when we can!

  • Nathan Bryan's Games
  • ...an Indy Game Design label that designs board games and currently the games are released through thegamecrafter.com.
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Links and Resources Part 4: Misc

1/15/2013

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This is another segment of my series of links and resources. This list covers some notable podcasts plus information on running a Kickstarter campaign.

If you missed the rest of the series, go back to part three: indie blogs. If you have sites to suggest, please add a comment.

Miscellaneous
  • The Gamers' Table
  • Check out their Indy game reviews.

  • Board Game Podcasts
  • A good consolidation of podcasts related to board gaming.

  • Father Geek
  • Parent and child reviews. They often look at indie games.

  • RPG Podcasts
  • A directory of podcasts related to RPGs. Many cross over into the world of board and card games as well.

  • Building the Game
  • "Join Rob Couch and Jason Slingerland as they take the journey to become first time game designers.  On each episode we  talk about games we play, game mechanics that we love and pitch our own game ideas to one another."

  • Kickstarter Conversations
  • A site that interviews people involved with Kickstarters.

  • Kickstarters HQ
  • "Our aim is to use all of these skills to help you learn how to find your passion, build a following and get funded on Kickstarter.com. Whether you've done this before or you're just thinking about it, we'd like to help you get funded easier, faster and for more with free audio, video, articles and events."


  • Funding the Dream on Kickstarter
  • A great resource for game designers hoping to Kickstart their products.


Go on to the last section.
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Links and Resources Part 3: Indie Sites

1/15/2013

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There are tons of indie game designers out there. Many of the maintain blogs with interesting information on their design process. It may also be possible to arrange co-marketing deals with these other small scale game creators.

As always, please leave a comment if you have other sites to add. If you missed the earlier parts of the series, you can go back to part two: blogs here.

Indie Sites
  • Grey Gnome Games
  • News from the maker of Plague and Zogar's Gaze.

  • Games of Muu
  • Design blog by Fish of Muu.

  • TCN Games
  • Game design blog by SBoy of TCN Games.

  • Sugar Pill Studios
  • Sugar Pill Studios is the independent one-man game development company of Gary Dahl. Blog and a few articles.

  • Designed for Play
  • Designed for Play's design blog.

  • Stone Manah
  • Design blog of the maker of Of Power & Glory, Of Feast & Famine, and other games.

  • Chevee Dodd
  • Blog and game information by Chevee Dodd.

  • Hyperbole Games
  • Blog, news, and Hyperbole Games information including play-testing round robin.
  • Also of interest, he aims to "Showcase great designs from other designers. I want publishers and players to know that a visit to HyperboleGames.com will result in something special. We have a great community of designers and players and I want to do my part."


  • Grow Giant Games
  • Grow Giant Games's blog.

  • Battle of the Aces
  • A blog specific to the board game Battle of the Aces.


  • Stone Maier Games
  • Makers of Viticulture, a game recently Kickstarted.


Go on to the last segment, part four: miscellaneous.
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Links and Resources Part 2: Blogs

1/14/2013

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This continues my series on game design links. Here we have an assortment of blogs. I have focused on general gaming news blogs, while specific design blogs by indie developers will be covered in the next installment. Several of these take submissions where you can pimp your games.

Again, if you have additional links, please leave a comment. Also check out part one: forums if you missed it.

Gaming Blogs

  • Cardboard Edison
  • A great news feed with articles, quotations, and other links related to board game design.

  • Penny Arcade Tabletop Gaming
  • "Our focus will be on longer form journalism with in-depth research, interviews and data, highlighting aspects of the gaming lifestyle that many would miss at first glance."

  • Meepletown
  • They "bring you editorials, game reviews, session recaps, interviews, and more. While there will probably be a slant toward Eurogames, our goal is to cover virtually everything that can be played on a tabletop..."

  • Tabletop Gaming News
  • News blog. They take submissions here for just about any gaming news, including new releases and Kickstarters here: http://www.tabletopgamingnews.com/submitnews/

  • The Game Crafter News
  • Items specific to the site plus industry news and links to reviews.


Go on to part three: indie blogs.
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    Dusty (CrassPip) has been playing geek games for 30 years(!) and making his own for nearly as long. Recently, he's actually gotten games beyond the imagination stage.

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