Author: Stefan

Picture of a bookshelf with books who have each a prompt written on their spine. Daily Prompts 1) Patron 2) Prompt 3) Tavern 4) Message 5) Ancient 6) Motive 7) Journey 8) Explore 9) Inspire 10) Origin 11) Flavour 12) Path 13) Darkness 14) Mystery 15) Deceive 16) Overcome 17) Renew 18) Sign 19) Destiny 20) Enter 21) Unexpected 22) Ally 23) Recent 24) Reveal 25) Challenge 26) Nemesis 27) Tactic 28) Suspense 29) Connect 30) Experience 31) Reward Question Prompts (roll D6) 1) Who 2) What 3) Where 4) When 5) Why 6) How Mood Prompts (roll D10) 1) Envious 2) Nostalgic 3) Proud 4) Enthusiastic 5) Confident 6) Optimistic 7) Lucky 8) Grateful 9) Contemplative 10) Excited Subject Prompts (roll D8) 1) Adventure 2) Character 3) Genre 4) Rule 5) Accessory 6) Art 7) Person 8) Lesson

#RPGaDay2025 Day 12: Path

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Railroading is good, actually.

Not for every group; probably not even for most groups. But it can work. It’s can be a great tool for any GM.

A set path for the campaign/adventure/quest ahead. Maybe you’re short on time, or don’t get to get together all that often, or you just need a quick game to run to break things up. A well intended railroad can enhance a game rather than detract from it.

Here’s the key, though: Tell your players. Tell them, ask them what they think, and make it clear why you think this is a better approach for what you’re doing. Trust me, it works.

I once ran D&D 5e Curse of Strahd for a group in the before-days, before in-person games just stopped. It was a great group, though. New players, veteran players, people that like the mechanics, people that love the fluff of it all. Unfortunately, we could only play every other week for work reasons. And even then, we only had 2-3 hours a session. Scheduling was tight, but the game was fun.

A bit of a way into the campaign, which I ran mostly as written (as far as anyone can run a published 5e campaign as written), I realized that, maybe, I needed to switch things up. Just to keep the pace up, keep things exciting and the fiction tight. A two-hour session only really has time for a set piece encounter, combat or otherwise, and some free play. And only playing every other week made it harder to keep things engaging, as people have lives and forget things.

So I suggested to them to trim the campaign down a bit and run it more like a railroad. I used that word and all. I explained that, instead of letting them explore the map freely as a sandbox point crawl, I would guide them more strongly from set piece to set piece, plotting their path through this campaign more tightly and intentional. Now, that didn’t mean they won’t have influence over the story–it’s their story, not mine, after all. Their choices and decisions would carry forward, just that the main set pieces are laid out by me ahead of time.

One of the important bits is to provide choices for the players, just not an open inventation to do whatever. Whenever more than one logical set piece could come up next, ask them which path they want to take. Kind of like a choose-your-own-adventure book. See, even a railroad has switches that change the path ahead.

Think of it as playing Baldur’s Gate 3. It’s a good game. Great even. You have so many choices, paths to take, people to meet or kill or fuck, and do whatever the hell you want. But every act, you end up in the same place, the same narrative, the same things. Just, your previous choices might carry forward each act. It’s a video game, so you’re on at least some rails. You can’t really change where you end up, just how you get there.

I recall the final fight of Critical Role season 1. The fight against Vecna at the top of his evil tower. The party was smart. They rested up and used powerful magic to topple the entire evil tower. Mercer let it happen, obviously. But then, he describe how the top of the tower, where the Vecna fight was going to happen, was shielded from the magic and floated to ground gently. He had to do that because he created the encounter using physical pieces for the battle map. That fight was always going to happen, right there, at the top of the tower. The players were still rewarded. They bypassed the entire interior of the tower, which was meant to reduce their resources before the final fight. It’s 5e, after all.

Is that railroading? I think so, yes. Mercer probably pulled a lot of these tricks throughout. Shape the fiction, present the goings on in just such a way to ensure the set pieces he planned for can fit it in.

The Alien RPG’s greatest strength are pre-written scenarios. They come with premade characters, each having their own secret agenda. They’re played out over three acts with set triggers for when to switch to the next act. Every act, the secret agenda of each character changes, advances. Players are strongly encourage to play into these agendas, which get worse with each act. These cinematic scenarios are as much of a railroad as a TTRPG can be. But they’re fun. They really let you explore the horror and humanity of the Alien universe within a very tight, very strict framework. You’re playing out an Alien movie! It’s the dream!

Railroading works. it works well, actually. As long the context is clear, the players are aware of the constraints of the game they’re engaging in, and as long as their choices and moments still matter. As long as they’re still the focus of the game, it’ll be fine.

That Strahd game was great, by the way. Lots of cool moments of Strahd causing trouble, an emotional character death, and a grand finale against the vampire lord. It all came together so well, and we did it in just a few months, playing every other week for 2 or 3 hours. Each session mattered. Everyone had fun. Did we explore all of the campaign? Probably not, but the bits we did served the story and the characters, and the conclusion made it all worth it.

Picture of a bookshelf with books who have each a prompt written on their spine. Daily Prompts 1) Patron 2) Prompt 3) Tavern 4) Message 5) Ancient 6) Motive 7) Journey 8) Explore 9) Inspire 10) Origin 11) Flavour 12) Path 13) Darkness 14) Mystery 15) Deceive 16) Overcome 17) Renew 18) Sign 19) Destiny 20) Enter 21) Unexpected 22) Ally 23) Recent 24) Reveal 25) Challenge 26) Nemesis 27) Tactic 28) Suspense 29) Connect 30) Experience 31) Reward Question Prompts (roll D6) 1) Who 2) What 3) Where 4) When 5) Why 6) How Mood Prompts (roll D10) 1) Envious 2) Nostalgic 3) Proud 4) Enthusiastic 5) Confident 6) Optimistic 7) Lucky 8) Grateful 9) Contemplative 10) Excited Subject Prompts (roll D8) 1) Adventure 2) Character 3) Genre 4) Rule 5) Accessory 6) Art 7) Person 8) Lesson

#RPGaDay2025 Day 11: Flavour

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You know, I actually like to cook. I’d say I’m pretty good at it. I got a few staples my spouse likes to ask of me regularly, and I like to try out new methods and inspirations. My spouse’s the real explorer, always finding new recipes and different dishes to try out. And whenever we do, I can’t help but think of ways to change these new recipes up. Not to make them better, but to make them different. I get these inspirations of flavors and textures that, I would think, would make this new recipe something interesting, something different. Again, not better.

Trying out one recipe somehow reminds me of an experience with another. And wouldn’t it be great if those two could work together to make my own weird creations?

See, I don’t actually cook using recipes, not really. Foundational, sure, I get all the base ingredients and know not to break the spaghetti. But I never measure anything, never cut to size or do it exactly so it’s looking like the picture in the end. Cause it doesn’t have to. I got that from my mother. A pinch of this, a bit of that. Search your feelings, trust your tastes. It’s just how we do things. Cooking is as much an art as it a science. Unlike baking. I don’t bake, because it requires me to learn measuring units. But cooking, that’s a sweep of a brush across colorful canvas. There are these rules and concepts and traditions, and they’re all great, they make for good food and consistent success. But once you get that, once you understand what makes things great–even if just by instinct–you go from making food to cooking your own meal.

Put a pinch of yourself in every recipe you find. Try something. Be inspired to take a flavor and texture from one dish and add to another. Mix it up. Create something new. And trust the process.

This post is about homebrewing in a TTRPG.

Picture of a bookshelf with books who have each a prompt written on their spine. Daily Prompts 1) Patron 2) Prompt 3) Tavern 4) Message 5) Ancient 6) Motive 7) Journey 8) Explore 9) Inspire 10) Origin 11) Flavour 12) Path 13) Darkness 14) Mystery 15) Deceive 16) Overcome 17) Renew 18) Sign 19) Destiny 20) Enter 21) Unexpected 22) Ally 23) Recent 24) Reveal 25) Challenge 26) Nemesis 27) Tactic 28) Suspense 29) Connect 30) Experience 31) Reward Question Prompts (roll D6) 1) Who 2) What 3) Where 4) When 5) Why 6) How Mood Prompts (roll D10) 1) Envious 2) Nostalgic 3) Proud 4) Enthusiastic 5) Confident 6) Optimistic 7) Lucky 8) Grateful 9) Contemplative 10) Excited Subject Prompts (roll D8) 1) Adventure 2) Character 3) Genre 4) Rule 5) Accessory 6) Art 7) Person 8) Lesson

#RPGaDay2025 Day 10: Origin

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The prompt, Origin, didn’t spark an idea right away, except for maybe talking about Backstories in a TTRPG? So I rolled on the inspirations provided on the bottom. Got why – confident – person.

So, let’s talk about background stories in RPGs. What makes your character a real person that exists in the world of the game? What’s their relations to the themes and motifs; what makes you excited and curious about exploring this character?

Since it’s brand new, and also happens to be my group’s choice of game for the next while, let’s take a look at how you create your backstory for a Draw Steel character.

A Draw Steel character is made up of four key pillars: Ancestry, Culture, Career, Class.

Ancestry is straight forward, of course. Elf, Orc, Human, you name it. They give you some choices to customize ancestral traits, which is nice. Nothing all too new here in terms of what an Ancestry is. Though the options are cool, and Matt Colville has some interesting and unique takes on some of the more common tropes like Elves. While your Ancestry won’t and shouldn’t tell you who your character is, it does give you an initial, general impression of who your character is. Thanks to their fey relationship to the fabled Star Elves, Wode Elves will generally look at the world differently than a Devil, which got stuck in the world after a bad deal went worse. Humans have an interesting relationship to magic, naturally resistant and yet sensitive to it, while Dragon Knights are diminished survivors of an invasion by the big bad evil guy of the setting, Ajax, The Iron Saint.

Class is about as clear-cut as a game of this genre could be. Though, Draw Steel has some more flavorful and unique takes on the tried and true classics. You’re not just a Fighter, you’re a Tactician able to lead your party through danger. You’re not a just a Rogue, you’re a Shadow, using black ash magic and alchemy to outsmart your opponents. You’re not a Paladin, you’re a Censor on a holy crusade to judge the evils of the world. With that comes a lot of identity and flavor, and even the ability names are often evocative and wild.

“Halt, Miscreant!” “My Life For Yours” “Hesitation Is Weakness” “The Flesh, A Crucible”

Finally, your class starts with a lot of cool and interesting things even at level 1. In fact, level 1 has the most amount of choices to make, which takes a bit of time, but gives you a fully capable hero that has already seen a fight or two, saved a person or village before even sessions 1 takes place. Levels beyond 1 usually give a few more minor perks and a choice of an ability. Nothing as complex as level 1.

Culture is your first step into creating a truly realized character. Your background is split into three categories:

  • Environment, such as nomadic, rural, secluded, urbane, wilderness. It’s where you community or communities are generally found, their place in the world.
  • Organization; Bureaucratic, Communal. This describe the functional form of leadership of your culture.
  • Upbringing, which tells you how your character specifically was brought up in that culture. Academic, Creative, Labor, Lawless, Martial, Noble.

All of these options give you insights into where you character came from before becoming a hero out to save the world. They also give you skill choices to round out your character mechanically.

Career describes the things you did before becoming a hero. Your normal life before something forced you to give it all up in pursued of fighting monsters and saving people. Besides more skill options and some other perks, careers make you choose/roll on/invent an inciting incident. The thing that happened to you that changed everything. Something that was taken from you, that set you on a new path. Whether it’s fame and fortune you seek, revenge, or hope, your old life is behind you, and the life of a hero awaits.

All these four parts taken together gives you such a well-rounded character right out of the gate. Yeah, it might take a bit longer, you have to make a fair amount of choices, but it’s worth it. You know who your character is, where the came from, and why they’re here now.

I don’t think it’s needed, or even useful, to write long backstories. No one ever really reads them, and it’s not fair to ask your GM to figure out a way to include all of that information somehow into their game. Unless they asked for this, of course. Draw Steel’s character creation gives you just enough insight into your background to imply a backstory. Not much more is needed, not really. Your culture, with its environment, organization, upbringing, will give the GM enough to build on should the adventure ever take you home. Your career and inciting incident gives you enough inspiration to roleplay your character and explore why they would make the choices they do.

It’s honestly great. Not so much that it becomes overwhelming; just enough to make your character feel real.

Interlude – When Less Is More

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This is a post about finding my own design flow while making a game, and how that relates to talking about it online.

As I begin posting more detailed design journals, I need to start figuring out what I actually want and need to present about the game. Early on, I could be abstract and vague, as I was just setting the stage as it were. Now, things start to become more technical, more in-the-weeds. Already, I have a handful of drafts talking about this rule or that system, and it’s all …fine? It’s a little dry. Little boring. I’d like to tell a story with my posts, not just present the mechanics. Otherwise, I could just post excerpts of the WiP manuscript of the rules.

Maybe it’s time to carve out specific and interesting things to talk about, instead of just presenting more and more rules of a game that is not finished. After all, as a tactical combat game, a lot of the basics are just the same as in any other tactical game. A grid, line of sight/effect, cover, and so on. While I approach these foundational things in my own way, which is informed by the larger design intent, they aren’t revolutionary either.

See, when I design parts of a game, I always reach a point where I need to stand back and ask myself, “Do I actually need this?” I once worked on a mech-style game which I pitched as Lancer meets Borderlands*. A looter-shooter style, hyper-violent mech TTRPG. One of the systems I wanted to have for it was hacking. After all, Lancer has hacking as part of the core gameplay alongside shooting mech guns. But I always wanted hacking to feel different than launching rocket clusters or punching with your mech-fist. And I just couldn’t make it work within the core system without feeling forced, bloated, and just more complex than I wanted the game to be. So I cut it out. It’s gone. No more hacking. Until, that is, a player decides to buy character advancements and mech upgrades that add hacking back into their personal experience. In other words, I removed the complexity of hacking from the core rules, and added it back as a player choice they can add if they so desire.

I think that approach of cutting things back and focusing on the things that improve the experience is a valuable lesson I’ve learned. And I want to apply the same sort of thinking when posting about my game design journey here. Instead of just presenting parts of the manuscript of an unfished game, I want to instead zoom in to specific design choices I made, solutions I came up with for running and playing the game.

I have a lot of thoughts on what would make a tactical grid-based game more fun, friction points of traditional approaches I want to innovate on, and even some entirely unique (far as I know) systems. So why not single those out and highlight what I think makes my game stand out? Cut back the stuff that just bloats my posts and doesn’t improve the story I’m wanting to go on with this blog.

There’s a part of me that feels like I must present as much detail as possible to provide context. But I think it’s fine, right? I mean, game systems usually exists holistically with the rest of the game, but for the purpose of just presenting my design approaches and ideas, I should be able to single out specific parts of it without spending 10,000 words on setting it up first.

Can’t be that difficult, right?

*The game was called Borderlance, by the way. I’ll get into it eventually, it was quite something.

Picture of a bookshelf with books who have each a prompt written on their spine. Daily Prompts 1) Patron 2) Prompt 3) Tavern 4) Message 5) Ancient 6) Motive 7) Journey 8) Explore 9) Inspire 10) Origin 11) Flavour 12) Path 13) Darkness 14) Mystery 15) Deceive 16) Overcome 17) Renew 18) Sign 19) Destiny 20) Enter 21) Unexpected 22) Ally 23) Recent 24) Reveal 25) Challenge 26) Nemesis 27) Tactic 28) Suspense 29) Connect 30) Experience 31) Reward Question Prompts (roll D6) 1) Who 2) What 3) Where 4) When 5) Why 6) How Mood Prompts (roll D10) 1) Envious 2) Nostalgic 3) Proud 4) Enthusiastic 5) Confident 6) Optimistic 7) Lucky 8) Grateful 9) Contemplative 10) Excited Subject Prompts (roll D8) 1) Adventure 2) Character 3) Genre 4) Rule 5) Accessory 6) Art 7) Person 8) Lesson

#RPGaDAY2025 Day 9: Inspire

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Let me tell about some of the people that inspire me to play games, make games, and love games. I’m sure there are many more I could mention here, but these are the ones that come to mind at the moment. In the end, everything we engage with, whether we love it or hate it, will leave an impression on us.

MCDM

Matt Colville, James Introcaso, and the rest of the MCDM team just released their flagship heroic monster fighting game, Draw Steel. What I find so inspiring about them is their entire process of developing this game. They were open and transparent about the entirety of development, doing constant updates and blog posts and even playtest when those became viable. It’s a tactical game designed from the ground up, from first principles, while also being true to their inspirations, to where they came from. A big part of me wanting to do this blog was MCDM’s open communication about everything they do.

Spencer Campbell, Gila RPG

Spencer is an indie game designer with a host of games under his belt. Slayers, Thorn, Rune, Nova, and many more. Most of his games are of the rules lite kind–few rules, full of vibes. And while I don’t play these games much myself, I can’t help but be inspired by Spencer’s design streams and products. He’s just so excited about what he does. He gets an idea, and he just follows it wherever it leads. He’s not afraid to switch between WiPs as inspiration strikes, but always follows through with his plans. Just a beacon of positive vibes in the indie industry.

Trevor Devall, My, Myself & Die

Trevor is a voice actor who started a Youtube channel to play games by himself in front of a camera. Actually, it’s multiple cameras. He’s the one who got me into Mythic GME. I find his constant flow of ideas when using random prompts to create compelling narratives within a roleplaying game inspiring. He’s currently in the process of finishing his own bespoke Sim-Lite TTPRG, The Broken Empire.

Rodney Thompson, Scratchpad Publishing

Spectaculars is one of my all time favorite games. A comic superhero TTRPG of your own design. Rodney’s vision and insights of the genre of his games are something I always strife to achieve in everything I do. His game has lead to long friendships and an appreciation for allowing players to take control over the narrative and the fate of their characters.

Shawn Tomkin, Ironsworn

The design of Ironsworn (and Starforged) is absolute perfection. Shawn created this amazing game and just put it up for free as PDF for people to enjoy. The design insights of what makes solo play work are invaluable, and Ironsworn will always be one of these games that I will reference when coming up with interesting narrative mechanics.

Quinns, Quinns Quest

Quinns is titan in the gaming industry. From video gaming journalism, to boardgame reviews, to now having his own Youtube channel where he dives deep into a TTRPG. He guarantees that he has played every single game he reviews, adds creator interviews into the mix, and is as genuine as one can be in the process. He’s also funny. His ambition and professionalism is out of this world, and his love for the hobby is nothing but inspiring.

Rowan, Rook, and Decard

Creators of Spire and Heart, among many other things. Their approach to fractured world building, which is peppered throughout the entire rulebooks is fascinating. It reminds me of the incomplete, scattered story telling of games like Elden Ring. Every page has pieces of lore and story built into the rules and systems. Spire and Heart also games about heavy topics. The former is about a doomed revolution against the powers that be. The latter is about seeking your heart’s desire, and die trying. Their games are wild, but strangely focused in their chaos. One can only aspire to create worlds like that, and craft a system around it to make it memorable.