A Dungeon Crawler Recipe?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on January 23, 2013

It’s a start: The Dungeon Crawler Recipe I think you need more to it than this. And “theme” – I dunno. Some of my favorite games of previous eras played fast and loose with this, and that was part of the fun. It seems modern players get much more hung up and demand a purity […]

Filed Under: Design, Retro - Comments: 4 Comments to Read

If It Weren’t For Bad Luck, I’d Have No Luck At All…

Posted by Rampant Coyote on January 17, 2013

A few weeks ago, I joined my family for the board game Talisman. It’s the new version, released a couple of years ago, based on the classic 80’s board game that just so happens to be one of my wife’s favorites. My memories of the game were a bit less favorable. I remembered it being […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 6 Comments to Read

RPG Design: Hard or Soft Progression?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on January 3, 2013

RPGs have an inherent bias towards linearity, if only for their story and the fact that characters make (generally) move along a major axis of weak to strong. Even with a threadbare story, the dreaded Foozle or end-goal amulet is always behind some extreme challenges that you can’t just waltz in immediately and take to […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 6 Comments to Read

Game Design: The Same Game, Only Different

Posted by Rampant Coyote on December 28, 2012

Today, I’m running a D&D game for my family – well, okay, Pathfinder. Which in and of itself is a very cool thing. My twelve-year-old self would be so impressed. We’re playing the second part of the Age of Worms campaign that came out in Dungeon magazine about seven years ago. It’s pretty well-written and […]

Filed Under: Design, Geek Life - Comments: 4 Comments to Read

The Line Between Controversy and Exploitation

Posted by Rampant Coyote on December 17, 2012

Brian Moriarty once inspired me in a Game Developer’s Conference (back when it was CGDC, I think) by talking about the wonderful potential of the medium, how it would be the dominant entertainment medium of the 21st century, and the power of the medium to educate and provoke thought. He said something about how you […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 8 Comments to Read

How Fast Should Characters Level Up?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on December 7, 2012

Back in the (somewhat) earlier dice & paper RPG days, one of the key differences between skill-based RPG systems and class/level based systems (which have now married and have had lots of hybrid babies) was the pace of character progression.  In a skill-based system, you typically gained abilities, or points to spend on abilities, after […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 14 Comments to Read

Game Design: Decisions and Execution

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 23, 2012

Just some random musings for your Friday’s entertainment. I posit that “gameplay” is a combination of interesting decisions and challenging execution. In a game like Rock Band or Dance Dance Revolution, it’s almost all about the execution. You may need to consider when to go into overcharge mode, or how to move to hit those […]

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Game Design: Verb Consolidation

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 13, 2012

The text adventure genre provided a wonderful deception to a generation of gamers  – or to be honest, multiple generations, as the Interactive Fiction community still manages to provide some pretty interesting games for a niche audience. The grand illusion of text adventures – and certainly one of the things that most endeared me to […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 4 Comments to Read

We Need to Kill WHAT to Make Better Games…?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 12, 2012

I said on Twitter that there was so much wrong with this article I didn’t know where to begin. But now I’ll begin. First off, the article in question Why We Need to Kill Gameplay to Make Better Games First I’ll cover the points of agreement. The author is absolutely right when he says, “I […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 20 Comments to Read

Randomly Speaking

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 9, 2012

Craig Stern of Sinister Design had an insightful essay on randomness (or, rather, non-determinism) in games this week. I thought I’d talk about it a little bit. I’m a big fan of Go (I even dropped a serious chunk of change on Many Faces of Go – which was well worth it, IMHO). Chess a […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 10 Comments to Read

Frayed Knights 2 Update: Cranking Spells Up To Eleven

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 25, 2012

I wanted to run an idea off you. This kinda runs contrary to my talk about simplification, but not really. Technically, I’m already going down this path, but nothing is final. But now that it’s looking more and more feasible (and likely), I thought I’d solicit some input on the spell system – definitely one […]

Filed Under: Design, Frayed Knights - Comments: 15 Comments to Read

Something Old, Something New… And Everything Else!

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 24, 2012

I recently confessed that I really don’t know what “old-school RPG” really means, mainly because it’s something that represents different things to different people. In the latest issue of Knights of the Dinner Table, comic creator Jolly Blackburn confessed the same kind of quandary in an editorial about the “old-school” mentality of dice-and-paper gamers. He […]

Filed Under: Design, Mainstream Games, Retro - Comments: 5 Comments to Read

Parlay?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 16, 2012

You know what few RPGs have anymore? Or really, what few RPGs ever had, the D&D Gold Box games by SSI being one of the more prominant counterexamples? The ability to talk yourself out of a general encounter. Or to parlay, in general. Nowadays, you may get the option as a special, ‘canned’ option. But […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 12 Comments to Read

Matt Chat: Josh Sawyer and Project Eternity

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 10, 2012

I wanted to point you folks to this week’s Matt Chat. With only six days to go on the Kickstarter, Project Eternity, which is already at over double its goal, it’s worth taking a look at if you want to take the potential risk to get in early on this one. Because the game is […]

Filed Under: Design, Interviews - Comments: Comments are off for this article

Retro Required!

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 5, 2012

We game developers are ALWAYS copying past games. We have to. There’s simply far too much that has gone before for us to even be capable of reinventing the wheel.  Even the most innovative games out there borrow from tried-and-true examples. We always build upon a foundation of what has come before us.  Anything else […]

Filed Under: Biz, Design, Indie Evangelism - Comments: 9 Comments to Read

Build, Buy, Bestow, or Bereave: Equipment Acquisition in RPGs

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 2, 2012

Back in the old dice & paper days, equipment upgrades – the cool, magical kinds – were things you acquired as loot and as rewards. Occasionally there’d be some low-level, generic magic swords for sale at a shop, but magical gear was mainly a reward bestowed by the DM or module designer for surviving and […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 17 Comments to Read



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