My RPG games follow a format which avoids railroading, without any need for elaborate settings or difficult NPC relations. I call it 'story weaving', because it lets me stretch the metaphor.

Railroads are Inevitable

For all the complaints about railroading, computer games suffer from railroads far more than RPG …

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Ronald Knox wrote ten rules on how to avoid ruining a murder mystery with an unsatisfying solution. They apply very well to writing and running RPG modules, with a little alteration.

And just like any module or murder mystery, I'm going to start with a problem, then undress it slowly.

How to Ruin a Story

Suppose your …

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Standard Initiative rules are the devil.

Your basic combat action is an Attack roll. If you roll Damage at the same time as the attack, then adding another roll for Initiative means every combat takes twice as long. If you just spent 20 minutes on a combat scene that would have been 15 seconds of screen-time in a film, …

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My third BIND campaign ended in glorious disaster and nonsense which forced me to reforge magic.

Lax Theory

I had a magic system with a bit of metamagic 'bend', where people could do basic spells (fwoosh, fire!) then add a little metamagic to boost literally any spell (fwshhHHH FIREBALL!). No more 'control person', …

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This dungeon has no map. You know the entire layout by heart, because it looks exactly like the place you grew up. The yawning, rocky entrance leads into a maze of tunnels, which change shape as weak, gritty rock collapses piece-by-piece. Stretching off the long maze, a wide, lazy river flows from the kitchen to the …
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Parallel actions speed up resolution in a way nothing else ever could.

5 Players vs 10 Bandits

Look at how the table acts, focussing for a disturbing moment on the players, rather than characters.

Standard One-at-a-Time Initiative

The GM calls for initiative:

1. Alice, Bob, Charlie, Drake, and Emily roll Initiative.
   • The …

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I don't think any sane individual could write something like BIND without automation tools. Games with a similar scope require a team.

(I also require a team - everyone who's helped me with editing has improve the book immensely, but that's not today's topic)

Changing Rules

Starting small - these rules appear in the …

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They say you have to playtest, but they forget that I'm a lazy man, so when it came to travel rules, I didn't feel like simulating a bunch of journeys. So it's time to get the computer to do the work for me.

Setup

An encounter roll occurs every 1D6 intervals in BIND (where an interval = 'one quarter of the day' = '6 …

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A random RPG mechanic popped fully-formed into my head, so now it will pop into yours.

The player first states what the character will do:

• I cut the heads off three goblins.

• I stab him in the neck.

...and the opponent makes a counter-proposal.

• I shoulder-barge a bandit, and throw him into the river.
  • Or he could …

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