See P. XX a column about roleplaying by Robin D. Laws A well-designed modular element for an RPG, whether we’re talking about a GMC, location, conspiracy, or occult tome, does more than extrapolate from an evocative premise. The text you write, explicitly or otherwise, indicates to the GM how it will be used in play. […]
Tag Archives: game design
A Column about roleplaying by Robin D. Laws Many moons ago I encountered a phenomenon I later termed an unrule. A rule, as goes without saying, is text the designer includes into a game to explain how it is played. An unrule is text you have to include to prevent players from making a mistaken […]
by Becky Annison It all started with Fiasco, a game by Jason Morningstar. Until then I’d loved and played many traditional games but nothing like Fiasco. It had no GM, required no pre-game prep and everyone created bits of the world and story. I’d never see anything like it before! The idea of no prep […]
See Page XX A Column About Roleplaying by Robin D. Laws A while back Cat asked me for guidance on an unheralded facet of tabletop RPG production, the gentle art of collating feedback from a group of playtesters into a single document of greatest use to the designer. After writing it up I figured that […]
Like most designers, when I get a stray idea for a game mechanic I try to exercise the discipline to make a note of it. Here’s where I can’t speak for other designers: I almost never use them, because they are misconceived by dint of their very nature as stray ideas. Mechanics for their own […]