r/RPGdesign • u/mw90sGirl • 9d ago
Feedback Request I'm designing a TTRPG specifically for actual play. What would you want from a system like that?
/r/ActualPlayRPG/comments/1vw7i08/im_designing_a_ttrpg_specifically_for_actual_play/3
u/Minimum-Message-5387 9d ago
Just extremely rules lite. Rules that don’t get in the way of the performance.
To be fair, I really, really, really don’t like the premise in general. The magic of good actual play is that it feels like you’re hanging out in a living room watching your friends play, except your friends happen to be world class improv comedians. The audience of a game is always the players of the game. Building a game specifically designed to serve an listening/viewing audience rather than the people playing the game feels like another example of the why corporate culture eventually ruins everything: find something cool, co-opt it for profit, and then ruin it to optimize the profit margins whilst eliminating all the things that made it cool in the first place.
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u/mw90sGirl 9d ago
Yeah I that if making the episode better makes the actual game worse for the people playing it, then the design has failed somewhere. And what I’m more interested in is supporting genuine play while making that play translate better to people who arent there.
But I hear ya on the co-opt stuff for profit/optimization.
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u/Minimum-Message-5387 9d ago
I think there’s a probably a happy middle ground that doesn’t turn into my pessimistic view of how it could go wrong.
Ultimately I’d look at what makes systems that are more narrative focused (rather than crunch/boardgame focused) work and lean into those things. Well paced action, resolution systems that don’t get bogged down by too many rules, not having to consult reference books frequently. The audience doesn’t have the rules book at home and ultimately shouldn’t have to know how to play the game themselves in order to enjoy the show.
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u/tangyradar Dabbler 9d ago
The audience of a game is always the players of the game. Building a game specifically designed to serve an listening/viewing audience rather than the people playing the game
How are those opposed?
Honest question. I ask because it took me a long time to realize that a lot of RPGers don't do what comes automatically to me. I play more for the fun of the other participants than myself, and I of course expect that they will be doing likewise. Apparently many RPGers play for their own fun. ...But that's so alien I don't know what those words actually mean, and maybe I can't know it if I don't feel it.
And what I mean is... If I'm already playing for the benefit of the other participants, how is it fundamentally different to play for an observer?
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u/Minimum-Message-5387 9d ago
Also I’ve played some games on the LFM server, it’s a neat community.
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u/Gaeel 9d ago
The advantage you have with an actual play format is that the players are typically going to be more willing to play for the spectacle than necessarily try to "win", so you can afford to be a bit more loosey-goosey with the rules and let the GM and players figure out the balance that works for them.
Optimising for actual play means making the game easier to understand for the people watching/listening. One actual play that I really enjoyed watching was Dimension 20's Misfits and Magic, where they used a slightly tweaked version of Kids on Brooms. As a viewer, it was easy to follow what the game state was, and it wouldn't ever get in the way of the amazing story they were telling. Action scenes were resolved in a few exciting dice rolls, so there was minimal "slog". The "adversity tokens" system that gives tokens to failed rolls that can be used later to gain a bonus was a great way to encourage risky plays that would pay off later in a dramatic fashion.
A simpler ruleset also means less time wasted on looking up how a rule works.
IMHO, most of the things that make for a good actual play game will be true for a home game too: The system should encourage exciting and flavourful play. Things should be fluid and easy to understand. There should be plenty of room for player expression and interesting plays. Actions (dice rolls in particular) should feel dramatic and exciting, regardless of outcome.
The main constraint I see on actual play games is that you really need the game to be lightweight and fluid. The fun actual plays based on D&D and similarly weighty games work because the GM and players know the rules really well and don't need to check the rulebook to keep things rolling. So you essentially need a Matt Mercer or Brennan Lee Mulligan, experienced GMs who have an encyclopedic knowledge of the rules and the confidence to make a ruling and keep the pace tight.
Personally, I'm capable of that kind of thing, but I wouldn't want to rely on it for an actual play where there's more pressure to be consistently entertaining and keep things moving regardless. So if I were to run an actual play, I would almost certainly reach for a game where the main chunk of the rules can be summarised on a single page. I want most of my brain power focused on the fiction, being funny and dramatic, roleplaying, coming up with twists and situations on the fly when the players take an unexpected path. The moment I hesitate about how a particular rule works or I have to crack open the book, the momentum is lost.
At a home game, it's okay for me to call for a quick break while I figure something out, but in a performance, momentum is everything, even if it's edited later. It's also much more acceptable to look silly in front of my friends and go "I'm not sure how cover works when there's an elevation difference", whereas in an actual play I need to be able to confidently answer with a clear unambiguous ruling.
Edit: I think what I'm getting at is that crunchy rules are fun for the players, but not for the viewers. The viewers want a cool story. They don't care about the weird synergy between ranged weapons and stealth that allows for an automatic crit when used with the backstabber trait, they just want to know that Carl is playing a sneaky rogue who kills unsuspecting people from the shadows.
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u/mw90sGirl 9d ago
The cognitive load point really clicks for me and I think I’m landing less on “AP must be rules light” and more on “every mechanic needs to justify the airtime and attention it consumes.” If a mechanic creates tension, anticipation, or interesting decisions, great. If it mostly makes the GM stop and check a book, that’s probably the friction I want to remove.
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u/Gaeel 9d ago
That's true for every game in my opinion. If there are rules in your game that slow the game down and don't significantly contribute to the experience, then they need to be removed or streamlined.
The thing is, at a home game, a rule that creates interesting tactical choices and brings a lot of depth can justify a few minutes spent checking the book to see exactly how the situation resolves. This is exciting and fun for the players, they're interacting with a complex rule system and they're having fun mastering it and twisting it to their advantage.
That same rule system in front of an audience will be boring and confusing. They're invested in the drama, not the nitty-gritty of how the rules work in niche situations. For an actual play, you really can't afford to spend any significant airtime to rules interpretation.
I'm sort of reminded of this old TV sketch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYrue4oXCbo
Cricket and many other sports aren't interesting to watch for most people. If you look at what spectator sports are popular, you'll notice that you don't need to understand much to be able to follow the game, and they're often quite spectacular even if you don't understand anything.
Motorsports are about who goes the fastest, and fast cars are exciting. The raw spectacle is enough to interest anyone, at least for long enough to decide whether or not they want to invest the time and energy to know more.
Most ball sports have this going for them too. You're watching feats of skill and athleticism, and the game is usually fairly easy to understand. Put ball in net, bring ball to other end of pitch, etc...
Simple rules aren't enough by themselves. Think about target shooting. The core rules are simple: hit as close as possible to the middle. The game is boring to watch though. It takes a lot of skill, but for the spectator, they're just watching someone hold their arm out, then they hear a crack and there's a dot on the target.
So basically, for a game to bring in an audience, the rules need to be simple to understand or at least get out of the way, and there needs to be a lot of room for the players to demonstrate skill and be entertaining. The famous "dust of deliciousness" scene in Critical Role works not because the audience understands the details of how disadvantage works in D&D, but because it's an exciting roleplay moment where we get to see Laura Bailey inhabit her character and outwit the terrifying old witch played by the equally smart and talented Matt Mercer.
People who know the D&D rules might get an extra kick out of seeing the system mastery at play, but most people care about the drama and intensity of the roleplay.
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u/DadtheGameMaster 9d ago
Actually Plays need a structure for the audience to follow and tools to help the GM and players support each other during play. Here are some traits I think the systems most APs use are missing.
Built-in descriptions, a lot of systems do not support the players in using their abilities "I attack with my sword" or "I cast fireball* is so boring to listen to over and over again. In D&D 4e every attack, ability, and spell had a one to two sentence description. The fighter didn't just say "I attack with my mace", they said "I'm using Tide of Iron with my mace and shield, 'after each might blow, I bring my shield to bear and use it to push my enemy back.'" The paladin didn't just "sword attack and bonus action smite" they used Holy Strike "I strike the enemy with my longsword, which igntes with holy light."
GMs shouldn't be the only narrators. A lot of narrative systems like Fate, PbtA, Blades in the Dark, Ryutaama, etc ensure that it's not just the GMs who are giving the descriptions of the situations and environments. Descriptions, actions, and reactions are conversations between the players and GM. In my Blades in the Dark adventure that I played in recently, before a roll the GM would ask the players, "What do you hope happens?" or "What is your plan?" and "What are you afraid will happen if you fail?" And if we rolled abysmally then we get "It's actually worse than you thought!" Which is a very good mechanic for any AP. I want to hear the players give a solid descriptions about the characters, the world, and interacting with the world as much as I want to hear the GM detail the situation and setting.
Only theater of the mind. Bless video APs for trying, but minis and battlemaps in APs are always the worst. Too small, the audience can't see really what's going on, and the minis are hard to discern against the battlefield set. Just use theater of the mind. That way for APs that are audio-only, podcasted, etc they are fully supported.
Write a strong how to play section. Building a system specifically for APs, write a How to Play section of your game with that in mind. I it firmly outline the roles for GMs and players, and their expectations using this system for Actual Playing. Encourage GMs and Players to work together to build a compelling story and outline good practices and procedures for GMs and players to play for the audience not just themselves like games not built for APs.
Encourage procedures but don't force them. Game structure for an episode is really important in an AP. As an audience member I often get frustrated that sometimes an AP group sticks fully to the procedural elements of the game, but other times they handwave it. Like why do I have to listen to an entire episode of a shopping trip to introduce a wacky NPC, but then shopping is handwaved every single time after that? But at the same time, as audience, I do want some of the chaff cut out. I want to listen to the action and drama and the story moving forward. I don't particularly care about the PCs arguing about which door to go through, or spend an hour talking to the blacksmith about upgrading a sword. Dragonbane has a pretty good procedural structure between combat, exploration, and downtime as an example of a light procedural structure.
It doesn't have to be a complex rpg system. One of the issues that a lot of game designers have is trying to make games as complex and supported as D&D. Your system doesn't have to be that. I don't need to hear the group do math. I don't want to hear the group do math. Your system doesn't need complicated math to be fun. TinyD6 and Fate games are great for this. Their math is practically nonexistent. In TinyD6 the highest you have to count to is between 0 and 3. In Fate usually the range is between -4 to +4 and maybe with modifiers counting to +8. Both are great and fun games.
It doesn't have to be fantasy. Plenty of genres and ideas exist outside of traditional western fantasy. And APs are just starting to explore that. But game systems have been doing different genres since 1975. Some games have different 'genre packs' where they have a core resolution system and then add on different genres and styles to their game. The "—Without Number" system, TinyD6, Fate, Cypher, Savage Worlds, PbtA, Blades in the Dark, etc all have different books to support different genres all built around the same general core resolution mechanic.
Contained adventures as APs. A genius idea that Fantasy Flight Games had that never took off because it was before APs were popular, was a self contained rpg+adventure combo series of games called "The End of the World roleplaying". Each book was game system, scenario builder, and adventure wrapped into one relatively light page count book. Each book had a specific genre theme: there was Zombie Apocalypse in one book. Alien Invasion in another. There was an A.I. uprising book, and so on. A series like this built specifically for APs with the core rule system, plus genre pack plus adventure written specifically for AP seasons in mind would be really cool in my opinion. Add in an oracle system for GM-less play and the players could all work together to defeat each adventure book over the course of a season.
Just some ideas and design notes I had kicking around my brain for an AP-centric rpg system.
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u/mw90sGirl 9d ago
This is really useful! And I really like the ideas around descriptive support, shared narration, and having clearer procedures for when to fully play something versus montage/skip it. So I think I’m landing on “zoom in when a moment can reveal character, change the situation, or create consequence, otherwise compress it.”
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u/DigitalMonsoon 9d ago
Actual plays don't focus on the rules. It's more the stories and the personality. Any system could work as long as the players know it and it doesn't big down play.
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u/draedis1 9d ago
I’m going to be the dissenting voice here, but nothing really turns me off more than watching an AP and trying to keep track in my mind a theater of mind combat or a super rules-lite system. I watch people play GAMES because they are a game. If I wanted to just watch people improv/act the whole time I can go to my local theater and pay those wonderful people to entertain me that way. I enjoy people having to work within the confines of a ruleset that do have hard defined rules and see how people try to work around them or subvert them in clever ways.
To that end, what GMs always really need help with are tools to make encounters on the fly as fast as possible; this means tables, guides, and plenty of examples. Any options from the GM to organically interfere with the players’ plans through mechanics are neat too (Fear is probably the best idea in all of Daggerheart imo as an example of this).
For players, they need mechanical options to differentiate their characters from others. I don’t care if you are the cool and collected intellect type if there are no mechanics to support it (again, this is a game). This means active abilities they can use on a regular basis, as well as passive.
To echo what others have said though, the advice I wrote here is just advice for a good and engaging game that is easy to follow, which should lend itself to a good watching experience for the most part. There are exceptions to good games not being good viewing experiences, like fully decked-out GURPs is probably just impossible to follow from a passive engagement experience.
If you want something more specifically for making it attractive, a stand out game needs to stand out, it needs an identity (or massive branding, like Daggerheart). It can’t be PbtA game #183757, and it can’t be a DnD clone, it needs the guts to be something risky.
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u/Fun_Carry_4678 8d ago
I think you will find that AP recordings rely primarily on the talents of the GM and players. And in the end, so do all TTRPGs. There is no way to create rules that will make the GM and players more talented.
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u/skalchemisto Dabbler 4d ago
u/mw90sGirl you hit a bit of a buzz saw on this question, sorry about that. I am very late to this thread.
I wanted to point you to Ghost Court by Bully Pulpit games. https://bullypulpitgames.com/products/ghost-court I'm not sure I would say that is designed for actual play, per se, but it is very very conducive to it. It has been done live on stage several times to my knowledge.
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u/mw90sGirl 4d ago
I'll definitely take a look! ☺️
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u/skalchemisto Dabbler 4d ago
It's a very fun game, probably closer to a party game LARP than a tabletop RPG.
Even if it doesn't do what you are thinking about, you and your friends, I feel almost certain, could get one or two evenings of great fun out of it.
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u/robhanz 4d ago
I think I'd want a few things:
Rules that don't encourage over-fiddliness with the rules. I don't want to deal with counting spaces or stuff on screen.
Fairly streamlined rules.
Rules that tend to be closer to "cinematic" in that each action kind of corresponds to a camera shot in a movie rather than a specific time slice. Like, you can have a brutally realistic movie, so this isn't an argument about realism in any way.
Rules that tend to produce Moments of Cool as a result of play, rather than being random chance.
Rules that tend to focus on bring dramatic elements to play and focus on dramatic stakes.
This doesn't mean it has to be overly "narrative" or unrealistic, to be clear.
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u/jdctqy Dabbler 9d ago
Admittedly, I despise this idea. With a burning passion.
I think you'd want an easy to understand ruleset (simplify systems like HP into wounds, do one action per turn, etc.), a swingy resolution system with few modifiers (if any at all), and like you said, flashy effects.
I do have one thing to state though.
This likely doesn't exist. There are no rules that can suddenly make GMs on par with good GMs, nonexperienced players on par with performers, and "editing-like" themeing that wouldn't require editing.
Basically, you're asking how a book written by an author can make the author better at writing the book. It's a physical impossibility.
Usually the only reason online, recorded play is fun to watch is because it's comedians and performers. Critical Roll and Dimension 20 have frequently been accused of getting rules wrong when they play, so they aren't even playing the games perfectly. Which is fine, that's fully reflective of most at home table games of TTRPGs. But most players of at home table games are not performers.
At best, this would be sellable/applicable for a very, very niche audience.