I've tried to find good game design theory/blogs, but it's all GNS-type crap. I don't want to look at "what kinds of players like what" crap. I want perverse incentives, balance, tactical decision-making; discussions of things like death spirals, action economy, rocket tag, quantum bears, etc.
Basically, more nitty gritty stuff than vague theories on "player types" that don't seem to actually relate to anything. It only seems to come up when directly criticizing particular RPGs, but I'm hoping someone has actually written/done some stuff that covers these as general topics.
I generally hate GNS and Bartle's Taxonomy type stuff, too.
If you deserve the knowledge, you can come up with it yourself. Normally I don't buy into that kind of thinking, but in this wheelhouse it's something like 98% true.
Noah Evans
If you google "rpg design" you just get a bunch of GNS type crap. Thus this thread.
That's a completely ridiculous notion and is definitely not even 50% true, much less 98%.
Christopher Perez
Not as much writing as much as a tool, but you should use anydice.com/ for rolling analyics.
A game's feel is highly dependent on the way the dice roll, so knowing the dice means knowing the gameplay.
Thomas Moore
>>If you deserve the knowledge, you can come up with it yourself. Actually, its about experience and it's much harder to find manuals because the people who usually need those already understand most of the stuff anyway. Other than that you can look up for specific details and examples on each aspect you are exploring, usually they are very simple by themselves, but very complex when you put a few of them together.
That's why GDG is still around (once in a while) despite all of its problems....
Gavin Ortiz
Read this a few times, and then get back to us.
Aiden Walker
What the hell is the matter with the author of this.
Cooper Mitchell
Try again, but this time convey information.
Luke Morgan
It's incredibly ludicrously dense with all kinds of weird ass terminology but then ultimately winds up with generic ass terminology and groupings that are so overbroad they contain wildly different systems in the same set. Like, it's 272 pages long or whatever and seems to spend most of its time explaining that sometimes game systems use variables which affect other variables, and sometimes they have contests which are actually a series of contests that eventually end in an overall victory, and other shit like that.
It's the same kind of incredibly base level shit that GNS is, just from an alternate direction (autistic engineer rather than wannabe market analyst).
Dylan Young
Serious question here: Are you sure you're ready to start designing your own homebrew system
Second serious question: How many different RPG systems have you used
Levi Green
I forgot this one existed...even if it looks a bit convoluted at first it does explain most of the "basics", good entry-level stuff
Lincoln Adams
>Serious question here: Are you sure you're ready to start designing your own homebrew system Did I say I'm "ready to start designing my own homebrew system" at any point in here, bitch? No. I asked for shit to read.
>Second serious question: How many different RPG systems have you used Six off the top of my head. Probably a couple more I'm forgetting about.
None of that addresses the point that this is completely insane shit to get hung up on and offers minimal actual advice for anything. It looks like a damn electrician's handbook.
The only case in which I want to read about how some games make you spend points on attributes, is pointing out the advantages and disadvantages of this system (compared to array, random roll, etc). Which, from trying to skim this book, it doesn't really do in any effective manner because all its subcategories are so overly broad that one is "a player's character sheet has a variable which can have one of multiple discrete values that the player sets."
Liam Gray
There are no advantages and disadvantages, there are only "tools", comparing stuff can only be done when having a potential game in mind, otherwise you just have definitions and those are easy to find on the web.
Even balancing that should be more of a straight forward subject is pretty subjective to the game you're trying to develop. Compare the bard in 3.5e and 4+e, do you think that it was an accident that it used to be underpowered in combat?
Ask specific questions here or on gdg, that's the best you gonna get I believe
Adrian Thomas
GNS theory is just misunderstood Doo. It's a sound theory that got used to push a toxic movement. It's like Darwinism bro.
Ryan Butler
Listen OP, what exactly are looking for here?
I'm sure you know games, but you sound ignorant of the nature of design schools.
The basic stuff *is* going to be a dry rudimentary primer that serves mostly as a definition of technical jargon, the 'advanced' stuff is going a few gems of wisdom trying to shine out of the darkness of it own ass.
It's the same from fashion, to games, architecture and wallpaper. It's the just nature of the beast.
Blake Young
tgdmb.com
They know their stuff.
It is not a hugbox, but neither is Veeky Forums, so you should be fine.
Wyatt Jenkins
Isn't that place Frank Trollman's game design cult?
Jace Rivera
>It's a sound theory Not really, it's a really loose framework of an idea that completely falls apart once analyzed and has little to no practical application on its own.
Honestly even calling it a "theory" is giving it way too much credit.
Jason James
Anything that talks about actual design is going to make you question your reliance on things like attributes right off the bat in an effort to analyze the outcomes of placing that in your game.
If you're looking to make a clone of a popular game, you have no business looking into anything other than market appeal. Hence, GNS.
Jeremiah Fisher
Go read theangrygm's blog. Shitty persona but the best session design advice you will find on the internet.
Chase Gray
just like
play lots of games and steal shit you like from them. come up with a strong concept and find mechanics that induce that concept in play
then playtest, diagnose, tweak, repeat
you seem like you're really overthinking this
Nathan Myers
Well you have to analyse why you like a particular mechanism or system to understand and implement it. Overthinking it is a requirement not mistake.
GNS is making sure your design goals and intended play style match your actual mechanics.
The GNS Theory simply identifies the three main style of play that the game mechanics encourage.
If you look at a rule (any rule at all, be at bonuses for role-playing or on the restrictions) you'll find it's there with one of three aims in mind.
It's either there in an to attempt to balance a game, an attempt to reflect the setting, or an attempt to make the player engage with the narrative.
Identifying these three models helps you create better games and game systems.
If you're trying to run a game of about the political intrigue of court nobility and you using a system designed around dungeon crawlers it's not the players fault they still act like murder hobos.
You're using a system that was designed primarily around killing things and taking their stuff.
Jordan Miller
>It's either there in an to attempt to balance a game, an attempt to reflect the setting, or an attempt to make the player engage with the narrative.
Mechanics can do two or three out of those.
Liam Hill
And they rarely do, and the ones that do arguably do it poorly, or are misrepresented. 3.5 D&D is a good example of this.
William Perez
>500x500 image with more than 10 characters of text Jesus Christ
>bullying What
Owen Sanders
Instead of wasting time on theory you should go out and play/run games instead.
If you've got time to read that shit, you've got time for tabletop gaming.
Luke Gonzalez
Basically anywhere where you need to spend points for something is both gamist and often narrative or simulationist as well. Say, fate points.
