What We Can Learn From Doom

Posted by Rampant Coyote on February 11, 2016

Relatively short, sweet, and good for making you think – what gameplay lessons can we learn from Doom: Now I don’t know about the magic number 7 (and after all, Doom 2 increased the bad guy count anyway), but I think this guy nails the basics of it. I remember a criticism of an early […]

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Felipe Pepe tackles the nature of the RPG

Posted by Rampant Coyote on February 9, 2016

Elitist Old Farts unite! Or… uh, not. Why should we start now? Felipe Pepe has composed a not-short article describing the nature of role-playing games, which largely breaks down into a discussion of why they are getting so difficult to define, and why they are proving difficult to… *cough* evolve. Why Are RPGs So Difficult to […]

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Design: Why RPGs Shouldn’t Be Too Short

Posted by Rampant Coyote on January 25, 2016

Several years ago I wrote an article musing over the possibility of “short-form” RPGs… like the equivalent of a short story vs. a novel.  In retrospect, I think I understand the reasons why. Live and learn. In general, RPGs are about character development. This happens on the mechanical level, as you level up from a […]

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The Jedi are Mother, the Jedi are Father…

Posted by Rampant Coyote on January 4, 2016

We’re still in a spoiler-free zone here, as this has nothing to do with Star Wars: The Force Awakens, other than having helped inspire this musing. It was also inspired by our Thanksgiving family session of the D20 Star Wars RPG. I haven’t read many of the non-canonical “Expanded Universe” Star Wars books. So a […]

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RPG Design: Drawing Inspiration from Maps

Posted by Rampant Coyote on December 30, 2015

Level 7. It was the most notorious level of the Ultima Underworld series. It was responsible for me giving up on the game for several weeks. Of course, the reason for all that wasn’t the map itself, but the anti-magic effect. But to me, this is an example of what a really awesome dungeon level […]

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Game Design: Puzzle-Solving vs. Problem-Solving

Posted by Rampant Coyote on December 28, 2015

Many types of games emphasize puzzle-solving. Adventure games, hidden-object games, and many popular indie platformer games come to mind (Super Meat Boy being one of the best examples). For me, puzzle-solving is overcoming a problem for which there is a narrow range (often only one) solution, or a “best” solution. The challenge may be in […]

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Design: Responsible Glitchiness

Posted by Rampant Coyote on December 17, 2015

Note: This is a heavily-edited (more like “influenced by”) version of an article that I wrote in 2006 for the old blog. If it rings at all familiar, that’s why. My first Game Developer’s Conference was in 1995. This was when it was still called the “Computer Game Developer’s Conference” (CGDC), and it was the […]

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RPG Design: Realistic Dungeons?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on December 7, 2015

A couple of weeks ago, we had a discussion in the comments section about using real-life castles and dungeons in RPGs. I thought I’d elaborate on my thoughts in a post. Many years ago, with access to a university library, I researched tons of actual castles – mainly European – searching for maps and floor […]

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20 Classic CRPGs Every Designer Should Play

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 23, 2015

Gamasutra reposted (re-advertised?) a classic but excellent article about 20 essential computer role-playing games (and a bonus non-computerized game) that every game designer (particularly RPG designers) should play. Game Design Essentials: 20 RPGs If you haven’t read it yet, or are just idly curious, the games are: Dungeons & Dragons (tabletop), Wizardry, Ultima, Wasteland, the […]

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RPG Design: The More You Know, the More You Know to Zip It

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 16, 2015

I was a lot more opinionated about RPG design a few years ago. I talked a lot more about experimental design ideas, pushed a lot more concepts that really went far outside the bounds (well, I thought they did, anyway) of conventional design. I’ve come to realize I don’t do that so much these days. […]

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RPG Design: Level-Limited Loot

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 12, 2015

In principle, for single-player role-playing games, I’m against the idea of having level minimums on items. This is a thing that came up in multiplayer CRPGs years ago, primarily because experienced players could “twink” a lower-level character with their high-level hand-me-downs and completely wreck the math and balance for the less experienced character. That’s a […]

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Frayed Knights 2: Drama Stars and You

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 28, 2015

One of the areas of “streamlining” for Frayed Knights 2 was the drama star abilities. To explain further, I’d like to recap a little bit for those who haven’t played Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon. Like most people, I tend to save the game frequently when things are getting dangerous. When I suffer a […]

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Making Bigger, Badder Dungeons

Posted by Rampant Coyote on September 30, 2015

Maybe it’s because of stories of Castle Greyhawk, or that my first forays into CRPGs was through the mega-dungeon of Telengard. I’ve got this irrational fondness of really big, sprawling underground complexes. Maybe I’m enamored with the idea of huge, hidden worlds hidden below our real one. I don’t know. Even though the maps were […]

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Summoning the Imagination in Games

Posted by Rampant Coyote on September 15, 2015

A friend of mine in Junior High School showed me an ad in his computer magazine for Akalabeth: World of Doom. It pictured some kind of wizard near a glowing pentagram with a demon or lava-creature rising out of the earth at the center. By the standards of the time, it was a pretty cool image. […]

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RPG Design: Granular Experience Points

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 19, 2015

Some people I know have dropped the concept of experience points from their D&D / Pathfinder campaigns. They simply allow the players to level up their characters at appropriate times. Is this a revolting idea to me, as an “old school” D&D (Dungeons & Dragons) player? Nah, not really. Sure, I think the game is […]

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[Archive] Game Design: Is Freedom Not Fun?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on July 31, 2015

This is a revised version of a post from the old blog, lost in a security clamp-down last year. Since it’s referenced by one of the Wizardry 8 articles and the topic is still quite worthy of discussion, I thought I’d post it now. Randy Smith, a lead designer at EA, once wrote about how choice […]

Filed Under: Archive, Design - Comments: 7 Comments to Read



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