I don't think any sane individual could write something like BIND without automation tools. Games with a similar scope require a team. (BIND also requires a team - everyone who's joined to comment, edit, or draw, has improved the game immensely, but that's not today's topic) Step Five A lot of people imagine they could …

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One beef I've had in games is a chonky source book which says 'changelings do this', and 'always describe the traps, don't just say 1D6 trap-damage', and then expecting the reader to create the world in adherence to these principles. "How about you do your job and write this into the adventure modules?", I find myself …

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The Problem I just wanted to rock up to the table and start the game, but the DM had other ideas. He wanted all of us to write a character back-story. Having three jobs at the time, I didn't feel enamoured with my homework. The little story meant a hurdle to jump over to get to the actual game. But let me back-up and …

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For anyone making an RPG system, I recommend the following systems/ patterns. One Roll Per Action If Alice's PC wants to kick down the door, and Alice rolls a '5', then the roll is '5' for everyone. If Alice's character has a +2 Bonus then the total would be '7', and if another character has a +4 Bonus, then their …

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The time has come to extend the Bluff System . Effects The exact effects would depend on various Skills and Attributes. Possible pre-written effects would include: Knock someone off balance (-3X to their next roll) Gut-punch (-2X to all rolls for the rest of the scene) Bone-breaker (-X to all rolls, until they can …

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The old A,D&D Ravenloft modules were some cheesy shite. Even the most sullen and macabre Goth in Gotham couldn't extract a nugget of honest fear from the campy Hammer Horror rip-offs. But we loved them. Why? Ravenloft began with Dracula-but-with-hitpoints, then added wagons of gypsies carrying plot, Frankenstein's …

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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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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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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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