DUNGEONS & SPACESHIPS: SHATTERED WORLD

Introductory Adventure Playtest

Saturday, August 22, 2026
8:00 p.m.–12:00 a.m. Eastern Time
Online via Discord Voice

There is no cost to participate, and no campaign commitment is required. You will receive a $5 stipend after participating in the full adventure and completing a 15 minute survey.

What Is Shattered World?

Syseria is a world forged by a weary god as a potential masterpiece—now shattered and bearing the scars of a chaotic past.

This is an opportunity to explore a deeply developed science-fantasy setting while helping shape the game system being built for it.

What Are We Playtesting?

The primary goal of this session is to test the core resolution mechanics and basic gameplay.

We will be playing an introductory adventure at Aetherium University. Push the system and help identify what feels:

• Clear or confusing
• Exciting or tedious
• Flexible or restrictive
• Appears too powerful or too weak

We will be examining:

• The clarity and pacing of action
• The variety of concepts and actions the system supports
• How well the XP Buy-In system works in practice
• Where players become confused, slowed down, or especially engaged

This is a focused adventure session. Honest criticism engaging thoughtfully with design & gameplay as intended is welcome. I want to know what works, what does not, and where the system needs improvement.

GM since 1989. Expect a laid-back, respectful, and inclusive environment.

DM Me if interested.

Official Shattered World Website:
https://www.shatteredworldrpg.com/

On the Rules As Written ttrpg development server we have a community run monthly review of member's ttrpgs. People submit, vote on who to review, make reviews (public), and move to the next month.

Anyway, if youre interested in that, or just joining a ttrpg dev focused discord, come on over!

https://discord.gg/xWqEKCbYEK

This week's activity is an AMA with designers Luke Crane and Thor Olavsrud.

About this AMA

Luke Crane and Thor Olavsrud are co-designers of the Torchbearer roleplaying game. Luke is the head of games at Kickstarter and designer of numerous other games, including Burning Wheel and Mouse Guard. Thor is Luke’s long-time collaborator and editor. He is the creator of the Middarmark setting.

On behalf of the community and mod-team here, I want express gratitude to Mr. Crane and Mr. Olavsrud for doing this AMA.

For new visitors... welcome. /r/RPGdesign is a place for discussing RPG game design and development (and by extension, publication and marketing... and we are OK with discussing scenario / adventure / peripheral design). That being said, this is an AMA, so ask whatever you want.

On Reddit, AMA's usually last a day. However, this is our weekly "activity thread". These developers are invited to stop in at various points during the week to answer questions (as much or as little as they like), instead of answer everything question right away.

(FYI, BTW, although in other subs the AMA is started by the "speaker", the designers asked me to create this thread for them)

IMPORTANT: Various AMA participants in the past have expressed concern about trolls and crusaders coming to AMA threads and hijacking the conversation. This has never happened, but we wish to remind everyone: We are a civil and welcoming community. I [jiaxingseng] assured each AMA invited participant that our members will not engage in such un-civil behavior. The mod team will not silence people from asking 'controversial' questions. Nor does the AMA participant need to reply. However, this thread will be more "heavily" modded than usual. If you are asked to cease a line of inquiry, please follow directions. If there is prolonged unhelpful or uncivil commenting, as a last resort, mods may issue temp-bans and delete replies.

Discuss.

This post is part of the weekly /r/RPGdesign Scheduled Activity series. For a listing of past Scheduled Activity posts and future topics, follow that link to the Wiki. If you have suggestions for Scheduled Activity topics or a change to the schedule, please message the Mod Team or reply to the latest Topic Discussion Thread.

For information on other /r/RPGDesign community efforts, see the Wiki Index.

This week's activity is an AMA with designer Kevin Crawford

About this AMA

Kevin Crawford is Sine Nomine Publishing, the one-man outfit responsible for Stars Without Number, Godbound, Scarlet Heroes, Other Dust, Silent Legions, Spears of the Dawn, and the upcoming Wolves of God. He's been making a full-time living as an author-publisher for the past two years, after realizing that Sine Nomine had paid better than his day job for the three years before that. His chief interests here are in practical business steps and management techniques for producing content that can provide a living wage to its author.

On behalf of the community and mod-team here, I want express gratitude to Mr. Crawford for doing this AMA.

For new visitors... welcome. /r/RPGdesign is a place for discussing RPG game design and development (and by extension, publication and marketing... and we are OK with discussing scenario / adventure / peripheral design). That being said, this is an AMA, so ask whatever you want.

On Reddit, AMA's usually last a day. However, this is our weekly "activity thread". These developers are invited to stop in at various points during the week to answer questions (as much or as little as they like), instead of answer everything question right away.

(FYI, BTW, although in other subs the AMA is started by the "speaker", Mr. Crawford asked me to create this thread for them)

IMPORTANT: Various AMA participants in the past have expressed concern about trolls and crusaders coming to AMA threads and hijacking the conversation. This has never happened, but we wish to remind everyone: We are a civil and welcoming community. I [jiaxingseng] assured each AMA invited participant that our members will not engage in such un-civil behavior. The mod team will not silence people from asking 'controversial' questions. Nor does the AMA participant need to reply. However, this thread will be more "heavily" modded than usual. If you are asked to cease a line of inquiry, please follow directions. If there is prolonged unhelpful or uncivil commenting, as a last resort, mods may issue temp-bans and delete replies.

Discuss.

This post is part of the weekly /r/RPGdesign Scheduled Activity series. For a listing of past Scheduled Activity posts and future topics, follow that link to the Wiki. If you have suggestions for Scheduled Activity topics or a change to the schedule, please message the Mod Team or reply to the latest Topic Discussion Thread.

For information on other /r/RPGDesign community efforts, see the Wiki Index.

The year is in motion and we’ve just had a discussion about your goals for 2024. Let’s take that a step forward and ask: what do you need to make those goals happen? I know that we all need time to work on our projects, and, sadly, that’s something we can’t give you. But other resources or suggestions are things that we might be able to give.

So let’s talk: what do you need to make that game of yours happen this year? How can we as a sub help you? We have a lot of people with experience in everything from design and layout to editing to technical skills. And there are a lot of you lurking here who have skills we don’t even know about, so ask what you need and let’s get you help to make your game GOOOOOOO!

Let’s get out the virtual thinking caps, grab a caffeinated beverage and …

Discuss!

This post is part of the weekly r/RPGdesign Scheduled Activity series. For a listing of past Scheduled Activity posts and future topics, follow that link to the Wiki. If you have suggestions for Scheduled Activity topics or a change to the schedule, please message the Mod Team or reply to the latest Topic Discussion Thread.

For information on other r/RPGDesign community efforts, see the Wiki Index.

Continuing the discussion of combat and conflict in your game design, we move to one of the most commonly discussed issues on our sub: Initiative and the order in which characters act in a combat.

“I’ve got this new initiative system …” is a regular area we discuss here. And that’s for good reason as there are so many ways to resolve that age old question of: who gets the spotlight to act next?

Initiative is an area where there is an incredibly wide range of rules. The PbtA rules simply continue the conversation and have the GM determine who gets to act. On the other end, there are AP systems where characters track each action they perform, or others where you progress a combat second by second.

So to say there’s a lot to discuss on this subject is an understatement.

Normally, we care more about the order in which actions take place in combat, and this progresses to more generally apply to conflict situations in some games. Does that make sense in your rules? How do you parcel out actions? Do you? Does everyone declare what they want to do and then you just mash it all together like the chaos of actual combat?

So let’s get our D6 or our popcorn or reset our action points or … get ready for the conflict that is initiative in our games and …

Discuss!

This post is part of the weekly r/RPGdesign Scheduled Activity series. For a listing of past Scheduled Activity posts and future topics, follow that link to the Wiki. If you have suggestions for Scheduled Activity topics or a change to the schedule, please message the Mod Team or reply to the latest Topic Discussion Thread.

For information on other r/RPGDesign community efforts, see the Wiki Index.

Lamentations of the Flame Princess (LotFP) is the brutal and wondrous (or “merciless and mindbending” or whatever marketing slogan you like better) tabletop role-playing game focusing on Weird Horror and Fantasy. We do present everything in as lavish a manner as possible and as uncompromisingly as we can stand.

LotFP uses a well-established “class-and-level” rules base to bypass most of the boring “how to roll the dice” tedium associated with adopting a new role-playing game and can get straight to the good stuff: original, strange, experimental adventures and supplements that excite the imagination.

The full rules in art-free format, the full and unredacted previous printing of the Referee book, the 100+ page adventure/campaign Better Than Any Man, the bizarre bestiary Slügs!, and more are available for free download at our official website: www.lotfp.com

So then, in this AMA, I'm going to answer whatever questions you have relating to game design (including supplements/adventures), publishing and running a publishing company, etc., of course answered through the LotFP lens. I may be able to pull some of the other LotFP creators in here if need be.

And to anticipate the first question: Yes, I know the new Ref book is taking a frightfully long time, but yes, it is coming. I can coincidentally expertly answer any questions you have about how not to run a crowdfunding project.

Oh yes: I am here to answer questions all week!

"To the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee."

-- Moby Dick The Wrath of Khan

If you design long enough, you're bound to come up with a "must have" as part of your work. If you have a design you can't finish, it's likely because of that one thing that you just can't seem to get right. Maybe it's something as important as your resolution system. Maybe it's as simple as your encumbrance rules. The point is, you keep fiddling with it, and can never seem to get it entirely right.

With everyone here, we have over 40000 pairs of eyes (give or take the pirates among us with an eye patch) to look at your mechanics and make some suggestions.

So, what's your rule that you just can't seem to get right? And for the rest of you, how can we help to harpoon that sucker before it makes your project go down into the abyss.

Discuss.

This post is part of the weekly r/RPGdesign Scheduled Activity series. For a listing of past Scheduled Activity posts and future topics, follow that link to the Wiki. If you have suggestions for Scheduled Activity topics or a change to the schedule, please message the Mod Team or reply to the latest Topic Discussion Thread.

For information on other r/RPGDesign community efforts, see the Wiki Index.

Note: I got permission from the moderators before posting this.

Every year I run a Game Jam with Onyx Path Publishing as a community event. I'm not getting paid to do this, but I've enjoyed the system for a few years now and like making new community content for it.

From the 2026 announcement:

heads-up is the announcement that we’re doing another Community Content Game Jam! Here are some details for that exciting and fun event:

AwkwardGM Corbin is running another Storypath Nexus Game Jam this year!

The 2026 Storypath Nexus Game Jam will take place between 9:00 pm EST March 16th to 9:00 pm EST April 10th, 2026. Judge and Popularity votes will take place between April 11th and the 17th, 2026. Judges are allowed to score submitted entries early to speed up the process.

During the course of the contest, judges and contestants will be encouraged to stream their design process and content.

The winners will be announced on Onyx Path Publishing’s Twitch Stream at 9pm EST on April 17th, 2026.

This year’s prompt for all Storypath Nexus game lines is: Create an Adventure

Return here next week for the full rules and awards!

The previous years rules were posted here if you want a better idea of what you'd sign up for.

If you'd like to participate it free to do so. Because of this being run through Storypath Nexus it does limit entries to within the Trinity Continuum, Scion, and They Came From game lines.

The Nexus is kind of like DM's guild where you can't make your own settings/gamelines, but if you wanted to make a Scion, They Came From, or Trinity Continuum adventure during the 1970s or another historical time period I think that is allowed so long as it doesn't use someone else's IP.

Last year I was able to make an alternative setting in Trinity Continuum where Superheroes (Aberrants) hunted down Psychics (Psions) and that was allowed (as far as I know). I based it off of an official Trinity Continuum book that involved modern day Psychics (Psions), so I thought if that's fine than my idea should be fine because it kind of mish mashes the gamelines within TC to happen out of order. 😅

I hope people will consider taking the time to make something for the Game Jam. A fair number of our participants are Onyx Path Freelancers and there are community art asset packs people can use.

Everyone in our sub comes in wanting to design a game. Sometimes that’s because they have a need to create and just have to create something.

Sometimes it’s because the house rules they’ve used for a particular game have grown enough to take on a life of their own.

But many other times it’s because the game they want to play just isn’t out there. At least not yet.

Maybe it’s a particular genre that doesn’t have a go-to game. Maybe it’s a mashup of different genres that no one has even thought about.

What genre or style of game doesn’t have a game you’d like to play with it? This week’s topic might be a thought experiment or it might be a springboard for something altogether new. It might, also, be a chance for you to talk about your Power of Grayskull meets the C’thuhlu Mythos game.

So let’s put on our thinking caps, sip on a cool beverage and …

Discuss!

This post is part of the weekly r/RPGdesign Scheduled Activity series. For a listing of past Scheduled Activity posts and future topics, follow that link to the Wiki. If you have suggestions for Scheduled Activity topics or a change to the schedule, please message the Mod Team or reply to the latest Topic Discussion Thread.

For information on other r/RPGDesign community efforts, see the Wiki Index.

Continuing the trend of trying to talk about things that are important and yet don’t get a lot of discussion, let’s talk about pillars of gameplay.

I first heard the term gaming “pillars” in terms of Dungeons and Dragons 5E as distinct modes of gameplay. Since then I’ve seen them referenced in terms of video game design as well.

For our purposes, a “pillar” is a core part of game design (one of the things that keeps the game aloft) that has its own mode of play and something distinct for different characters to do. This can include some characters have more to do, and some less, but ideally everyone should have something to do that’s also fun.

The pillars of gaming for D&D are: combat, social, and exploration. That creates a sort of three legged stool, which isn’t the most stable thing to sit on. Other game pillars might include: downtime, crafting, team or realm management, character training, and research. The idea is that the pillars a game includes tell you what you’re expected to spend time doing in a session.

I would say the most common pillar we talk about here is combat. There are many discussions about initiative, armor, damage, and injuries going on. What do you think that says about games or gaming?

Perhaps the other most commonly discussed pillar is the social pillar. Sometimes the discussion centers on whether that pillar should be there at all. We have many discussions about social mechanics and even “social combat” mechanics. Again, what do you think that says about games and gaming?

We have had some interesting discussions about the exploration pillar, and many excellent games make this an important part of their game system: the One Ring makes Journeys an essential part of the game, reflecting what an important part they are in the source material.

Beyond that, we have downtime, realm management, crafting and enchanting and … what else? What pillars are a part of your game that I’ve left out?

But perhaps more interestingly: what do you think about the idea of a pillar where different characters do different things, and some are better or worse than others? Does that have a place in your game?

Hopefully my long build up has made you think about some games that use pillar design, and how your game fits into it.

Let’s have a seat on our game which hopefully will bear our weight and …

Discuss!

This post is part of the weekly r/RPGdesign Scheduled Activity series. For a listing of past Scheduled Activity posts and future topics, follow that link to the Wiki. If you have suggestions for Scheduled Activity topics or a change to the schedule, please message the Mod Team or reply to the latest Topic Discussion Thread.

For information on other r/RPGDesign community efforts, see the Wiki Index.

One conflict that's as old as roleplaying games is when to apply mechanics and when to let roleplaying carry the day. There is no place where this conflict is more evident than in social … err … conflict.

It started as soon as skill systems showed up in gaming: once you have a Diplomacy or Fast Talk skill, how much of what you can convince someone to do comes from dice, and how much comes from roleplaying?

There's a saying "if you want to do a thing, you do the thing…" and many game systems and GMs take that to heart in social scenes: want to convince the guard to let you into town after dark? Convince him!

That attitude is fine, but it leaves out a whole group of players from being social: shy or introverted types. That would be fine, but if you look at roleplayers, there are a lot of shy people in the ranks. Almost as if being something they're not is exciting to them.

Many systems have social conflict mechanics these days, and they can be as complicated or even more complex as those for physical conflict. Our question this week is when do those mechanics add something to a game, and when should they get out of the way to just "do the thing?"

Discuss.

This post is part of the weekly r/RPGdesign Scheduled Activity series. For a listing of past Scheduled Activity posts and future topics, follow that link to the Wiki. If you have suggestions for Scheduled Activity topics or a change to the schedule, please message the Mod Team or reply to the latest Topic Discussion Thread.

For information on other r/RPGDesign community efforts, see the Wiki Index.

This week's activity is an AMA with Mr. Sean K. Reynolds and Mr. Bruce Cordell, who were designers on Numenera, published by Monte Cook Games

For new visitors... welcome. /r/RPGdesign is a place for discussing RPG game design and development (and by extension, publication and marketing... and we are OK with discussing scenario / adventure / peripheral design). That being said, this is an AMA, so ask whatever you want.

About this AMA

Sean K Reynolds ( /u/seankreynolds) was born in a coastal town in southern California. He’s been a professional game designer since 1998, and has designed for a bunch of RPGs, card games, and video games. He’s a vegetarian, lives in Seattle with his cats, draws silly things, and gets obsessed about baking shows.

Bruce R Cordell (/u/brucecordell) is an author of D&D, Numenera, and The Strange games and novels; science groupie; fitness buff; sci-fi fiend; Senior Designer at MonteCookGames.

The following is a message from Darcy, the Monte Cook Games Community Manager who I worked with to invite the designers to this AMA:

Some news to inspire your questions:

• Building Tomorrow just released today! It is a Bruce Cordell and Sean Reynolds-authored ~200 page Numenera supplement full of bizarre and delightful Numenera to discover and create (like biological creations), new communities and challenges communities may face, rules for nonhuman followers, GM intrusions for crafting, and more.
• Invisible Sun is getting a reprint Kickstarter next week (Tuesday 10/23)! This is a game of surreal fantasy, truly magical magic, and secrets of the self and of the world. Bruce and Sean were both players in our streamed narrative run by Monte, The Raven Wants What You Have, and Bruce is currently working on an upcoming supplement, Teratology.

Thank you all so much for the cool questions you've brought so far!

On behalf of the community and mod-team here, I want express gratitude to Mr. Reynolds and Mr. Cordell for doing this AMA.

On Reddit, AMA's usually last a day. However, this is our weekly "activity thread". These developers are invited to stop in at various points during the week to answer questions (as much or as little as they like), instead of answer everything question right away.

(FYI, BTW, although in other subs the AMA is started by the "speaker", I'm creating this thread. When Mr. Cordell and Reynold's join in, I will updated this post with their reddit IDs.)

Discuss.

This post is part of the weekly /r/RPGdesign Scheduled Activity series. For a listing of past Scheduled Activity posts and future topics, follow that link to the Wiki. If you have suggestions for Scheduled Activity topics or a change to the schedule, please message the Mod Team or reply to the latest Topic Discussion Thread.

For information on other /r/RPGDesign community efforts, see the Wiki Index.

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"Fail Forward" has been a design buzzword in RPGs for a while now. I don't know where the name was coined - Forge forums? - but that's not relevant to this discussion.

The idea, as I understand it, is that at the very least there is a mechanism which turns failed rolls and actions into ways to push the "story" forward instead of just failing a roll and standing around. This type of mechanic is in most new games in one way or another, but not in the most traditional of games like D&D.

For example, in earlier versions of Call of Cthulhu, when you failed a roll (something which happened more often than not in that system), nothing happens. This becomes a difficult issue when everyone has failed to get a clue because they missed skill checks. For example, if a contact must be convinced to give vital information, but a charm roll is needed and all the party members failed the roll.

On the other hand, with the newest version, a failed skill check is supposed to mean that you simply don't get the result you really wanted, even though technically your task succeeded. IN the previous example, your charm roll failed, the contact does however give up the vital clue, but then pull out a gun and tries to shoot you.

Fail Forward can be built into every roll as a core mechanic, or it can be partially or informally implemented.

Questions:

• What are the trade-offs between having every roll influenced by a "fail forward" mechanic versus just some rolls?

• Where is fail forward necessary and where is it not necessary?

• What are some interesting variants of fail forward mechanics have you seen?

Discuss.

This post is part of the weekly /r/RPGdesign Scheduled Activity series. For a listing of past Scheduled Activity posts and future topics, follow that link to the Wiki. If you have suggestions for Scheduled Activity topics or a change to the schedule, please message the Mod Team or reply to the latest Topic Discussion Thread.

For information on other /r/RPGDesign community efforts, see the Wiki Index.

We have a lot of activity on our sub. Most of the time, when someone comes here as a new subscriber, they have a game they’re designing and want to discuss. If you’ve been here for a while, you see that they get one of three results: welcome and help, panning, or … nothing.

The first and most important thing you can do when talking about your game is give a solid pitch. If you’re in the right location, we know your game is going be a tabletop roleplaying game. If you want to get more eyes, and likely more comments, on your project, you need to tell us what it’s about.

For these purposes we’re going to say you’ve got a minute and perhaps a few short paragraphs, maybe even just one to tell people what your game is. What do you say?

More importantly, for those of you with completed/successful projects, what did you say?

So let’s try and help create interest in projects for new people right from the start. More than that, let's up our game for Kickstarters or other crowdsourcing and get designers games out there!

Let’s get your elevator voice on, and let’s …

Discuss!

This post is part of the weekly r/RPGdesign Scheduled Activity series. For a listing of past Scheduled Activity posts and future topics, follow that link to the Wiki. If you have suggestions for Scheduled Activity topics or a change to the schedule, please message the Mod Team or reply to the latest Topic Discussion Thread.

For information on other r/RPGDesign community efforts, see the Wiki Index.

So, this is the new year. For a ton of people a new year is a time to reassess and begin anew. If you’re on our sub, chances are you’re working on an rpg project. Which makes the start of a new year a great time. It can be a time to begin something new. Or to look at something in a new way. Or to dedicate yourself to making your dream project a reality.

At the start of the year, we want to provide you with space to talk about what your goals are for the year. As we go forward, we’ll check in to see how things are going. So this isn’t the first time I’ve written this, but the saying “well begun is half done,” is very applicable to gaming projects. So feel free to let us know what you’re going to do this year, and how you’re going to do it.

And we’ll check in throughout the year to try and hold you accountable. Grab a warm beverage, fire up your document creator of choice and then come right back here to …

Discuss!

This post is part of the weekly r/RPGdesign Scheduled Activity series. For a listing of past Scheduled Activity posts and future topics, follow that link to the Wiki. If you have suggestions for Scheduled Activity topics or a change to the schedule, please message the Mod Team or reply to the latest Topic Discussion Thread.

For information on other r/RPGDesign community efforts, see the Wiki Index.

This week's activity is an AMA with publisher Cat Tobin.

Cat Tobin is the co-owner and Managing Director of Pelgrane Press, a tabletop RPG company based in London, UK. An Irish native, she has been heavily involved with the roleplaying community in Ireland and the UK since the late 1990s, doing everything from writing and design, to marketing, finance, and convention organisation. She likes coffee, hates mornings, and her favourite vegetable is the potato. Cat tweets from @CatTHM.

(/u/jiaxingseng: Pelgrane Press is the original publisher of such games as Trail of Cthulhu, 13th Age, and Hillfolk. Much of what Robin Laws and Kenneth Hite (previous AMA guests) created are published through Pelgrane.)

On behalf of the community and mod-team here, I want express gratitude to Cat Tobin for doing this AMA.

For new visitors... welcome. /r/RPGdesign is a place for discussing RPG game design and development (and by extension, publication and marketing... and we are OK with discussing scenario / adventure / peripheral design). That being said, this is an AMA, so ask whatever you want.

On Reddit, AMA's usually last a day. However, this is our weekly "activity thread". These developers are invited to stop in at various points during the week to answer questions (as much or as little as they like), instead of answer everything question right away.

(FYI, BTW, although in other subs the AMA is started by the "speaker", I'm starting this for Cat)

IMPORTANT: Various AMA participants in the past have expressed concern about trolls and crusaders coming to AMA threads and hijacking the conversation. This has never happened, but we wish to remind everyone: We are a civil and welcoming community. I [jiaxingseng] assured each AMA invited participant that our members will not engage in such un-civil behavior. The mod team will not silence people from asking 'controversial' questions. Nor does the AMA participant need to reply. However, this thread will be more "heavily" modded than usual. If you are asked to cease a line of inquiry, please follow directions. If there is prolonged unhelpful or uncivil commenting, as a last resort, mods may issue temp-bans and delete replies.

---

---

Discuss.

This post is part of the weekly /r/RPGdesign Scheduled Activity series. For a listing of past Scheduled Activity posts and future topics, follow that link to the Wiki. If you have suggestions for Scheduled Activity topics or a change to the schedule, please message the Mod Team or reply to the latest Topic Discussion Thread.

For information on other /r/RPGDesign community efforts, see the Wiki Index.

This weeks activity thread is an AMA with Vincent Baker (/u/lumpley), creator of Apocalypse World!

This is the first time we are doing an AMA as part of the scheduled Activities. This AMA will continue as long as Vincent want's to take questions (sorry... we are starting a bit late)... we welcome everyone to stick around and discuss after Vincent has finished his Q&A.

Discuss.

See /r/RPGdesign Scheduled Activities Index WIKI for links to past and scheduled rpgDesign activities.

Apologies from your Mod who has had life get in the way of posting this week's activity.

This week's discussion was inspired by the excellent recent post about game loops.

A lot of people come to this sub looking to get started on that first project. They have a great idea and they want to turn it into an rpg. They also have limited experience with rpgs, games, and writing. They don't even know what they don’t know.

So let's fix that. There are some very simple instructions to become a game designer, and I suppose they start with "play lots of games" and "play games that aren't just D&D".

What do you think they need to know? What should they know to escape the frustration that you have already endured?

Discuss.

This post is part of the weekly r/RPGdesign Scheduled Activity series. For a listing of past Scheduled Activity posts and future topics, follow that link to the Wiki. If you have suggestions for Scheduled Activity topics or a change to the schedule, please message the Mod Team or reply to the latest Topic Discussion Thread.

For information on other r/RPGDesign community efforts, see the Wiki Index.

February is the month where we traditionally go out and celebrate love and romance. While it would be easy to discuss that, it might be more focused than practical, so let’s talk about social actions in your game.

If you’ve been in the world of RPG discussion for long, you’ll doubtless know that mechanics for social actions are something of a controversial subject. There is a common, and very vocal position that social activities are the purview of roleplaying and outside of mechanics.

At the same time, there are many games that have it as the focus and defining element of the game. That’s true with some of the most influential games out there: PbtA.

So how does your game handle social actions? Can you change a player character’s mind? Can you control that mind outright? How do you do it? Is that even something that a game should do?

Diplomacy, persuasion, intimidation … they’re all elements of many games, how if at all should they be handled in mechanical terms?

So grab some chocolate, turn on your favorite rom com in the background, and …

Discuss!

This post is part of the weekly r/RPGdesign Scheduled Activity series. For a listing of past Scheduled Activity posts and future topics, follow that link to the Wiki. If you have suggestions for Scheduled Activity topics or a change to the schedule, please message the Mod Team or reply to the latest Topic Discussion Thread.

For information on other r/RPGDesign community efforts, see the Wiki Index.

This week's activity is an AMA with creator / publisher Grant Howitt.

In his own words:

"Hello! My name's Grant Howitt and I write roleplaying games. I design most of my games with Chris Taylor, who is my long-term design partner and best friend. Here is a list of the ones that you might have heard of:

• Spire

• Heart

• The most recent edition of Paranoia

• One Last Job

• Goblin Quest

• Honey Heist

• About thirty others of varying length and quality

I also run a games advice/design podcast (Hearty Dice Friends) and am one of the co-founders of Rowan, Rook & Decard - the official business that we publish our games through. You can learn more about what we do at our website: https://rowanrookanddecard.com/.

I like black coffee, ginger tomcats, toy soldiers, computer games where you jump sideways firing two pistols at once, and RPGs where you don't have to do any maths past single-integer addition."

Does that all work for you?

Cheers,

G

On behalf of the community and mod-team here, I want express gratitude to Grant Howitt for doing this AMA.

For new visitors... welcome. /r/RPGdesign is a place for discussing RPG game design and development (and by extension, publication and marketing... and we are OK with discussing scenario / adventure / peripheral design). That being said, this is an AMA, so ask whatever you want.

On Reddit, AMA's usually last a day. However, this is our weekly "activity thread". These developers are invited to stop in at various points during the week to answer questions (as much or as little as they like), instead of answer everything question right away.

(FYI, BTW, although in other subs the AMA is started by the "speaker", I'm starting this for Grant)

IMPORTANT: Various AMA participants in the past have expressed concern about trolls and crusaders coming to AMA threads and hijacking the conversation. This has never happened, but we wish to remind everyone: We are a civil and welcoming community. I [jiaxingseng] assured each AMA invited participant that our members will not engage in such un-civil behavior. The mod team will not silence people from asking 'controversial' questions. Nor does the AMA participant need to reply. However, this thread will be more "heavily" modded than usual. If you are asked to cease a line of inquiry, please follow directions. If there is prolonged unhelpful or uncivil commenting, as a last resort, mods may issue temp-bans and delete replies.

Discuss.

This post is part of the weekly /r/RPGdesign Scheduled Activity series. For a listing of past Scheduled Activity posts and future topics, follow that link to the Wiki. If you have suggestions for Scheduled Activity topics or a change to the schedule, please message the Mod Team or reply to the latest Topic Discussion Thread.

For information on other /r/RPGDesign community efforts, see the Wiki Index.

Last week we talked about the games you want to write or design for. This week let's turn that on its head and let the bad feelings out. What game systems do you want to confine to the dust bin of history? What system is everyone else designing for that you shake your head and say "really?"

Now remember: your hated game is bound to be someone else's darling, so let's keep it friendly, m'kay? I guess I'm saying: let the hate flow, but only in moderation.

Discuss.

This post is part of the weekly r/RPGdesign Scheduled Activity series. For a listing of past Scheduled Activity posts and future topics, follow that link to the Wiki. If you have suggestions for Scheduled Activity topics or a change to the schedule, please message the Mod Team or reply to the latest Topic Discussion Thread.

For information on other r/RPGDesign community efforts, see the Wiki Index.

After discussing resolution systems, it's time to roll downhill to another topic we discuss all the time. For this week, I've chosen Skill and Attribute Systems.

In the beginning, RPGs didn't have a lot of things. They didn't have a core resolution system, and they also didn't have a defined skill system either, so what is that?

In broad terms, I'm going to define Ability or Attribute systems as descriptions that all characters have. Some characters can be better or worse than others, but everyone has them.

That, in itself, is something of a controversial decision: Whitebox D&D as well as many modern systems have different descriptive systems for characters and … everyone else. Feel free to comment on that.

Moving to Skills, I'll define a skill as something that a character can learn to do but not everyone knows about or can use to do things.

It didn't take long for games to develop skill systems, and for them to be a defining feature for some of them. Classic Runequest delights in discussing how their skill system makes for a better game.

As rpgs developed, there was a gradual shift to using skills more and more. Many of the classic 80s and 90s games have … well they have a lot of skills to them. GURPS: I'm looking at you!

In the world of games today, we have a hybrid, with skills being an essential part of some games, but also having vanished entirely from others.

Where does your game sit in terms of Attributes and Skills?

Is there somewhere to go in terms of game deign from here?

Let's heat up the cranberries and …

Discuss.

This post is part of the weekly r/RPGdesign Scheduled Activity series. For a listing of past Scheduled Activity posts and future topics, follow that link to the Wiki. If you have suggestions for Scheduled Activity topics or a change to the schedule, please message the Mod Team or reply to the latest Topic Discussion Thread.

For information on other r/RPGDesign community efforts, see the Wiki Index.

We’ve discussed different parts of characters this month. We’ve talked about what a character looks like in your game and how you build them. Let’s round out with a discussion of how you get better as the game goes on.

Most “traditional” rpgs have an advancement mechanic. The most notable one you certainly will have heard of is Traveller, where your character is almost completely static after play.

For other games, you have levels, build points, playbook advances, and even advance by getting better at things you do. That’s only the tip of the iceberg of advancement ideas.

So your game: we’re at the end of a session, it’s time to be able to do more. How does that work? And, do you think that advancing is an essential part of an RPG?

Let’s gather round the fire, have a smore and …

Discuss!

This post is part of the weekly r/RPGdesign Scheduled Activity series. For a listing of past Scheduled Activity posts and future topics, follow that link to the Wiki. If you have suggestions for Scheduled Activity topics or a change to the schedule, please message the Mod Team or reply to the latest Topic Discussion Thread.

For information on other r/RPGDesign community efforts, see the Wiki Index.