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Player’s Toolbox: The Three-Sentence Character | Justin Achilli
https://justinachilli.com/2015/01/08/players-toolbox-the-three-sentence-character
Player’s Toolbox: The Three-Sentence Character. It’s different at the table, though. When you’re a player in a specific gamemaster’s campaign, you want gameplay and your GM wants a way to engage you. As fulfilling as it can be to write an 8,000-word biography of your character, that’s an endeavor entirely separate from playing the game. A lengthy character background doesn’t guarantee a playable character. Create them with the intent to be used in the game. Check out some examples:. That must have been h...
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What is the Prince’s Gambit? | Justin Achilli
https://justinachilli.com/2015/01/23/what-is-the-princes-gambit
What is the Prince’s Gambit? But who can you trust? You’re all blood-drinking monsters, after all. Your loyalty to your sect is a secret, and those who make a grand show of fidelity may be hiding ambitions of their own. Vampire: Prince’s Gambit. Inspired by games like the Prisoner’s Dilemma. Vampire: Prince’s Gambit. In Vampire: Prince’s Gambit. You might encounter situations like these:. As well, so keep an eye on that if you don’t already. Vampire: Prince’s Gambit. Is designed for sessions of 30 minute...
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Invoking Fail States | Justin Achilli
https://justinachilli.com/2014/12/29/invoking-fail-states
When it comes to game resolution systems, the question each system attempts to answer is fundamental: Is it interesting to either fail or succeed? If either the failure to perform an action or the success in performing an action is interesting in terms of the game outcomes, that’s when you allow fate to intervene (i.e. roll dice or use whatever resolution mechanic exists). Certainly, acknowledge the player input:. 8220;I use Egyptology to search for clues.”. With this construction, the players know what ...
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Distinctions: Deeds Make the Character | Justin Achilli
https://justinachilli.com/2015/01/01/distinctions-deeds-make-the-character
Distinctions: Deeds Make the Character. One bit of emergent setting from the earliest days of. That intrigued me have been the titles characters earn upon attaining levels. Older versions of. I’ve been working on some systems to model these personal distinctions with an eye toward addressing the “big three” player motivations of Mastery, Autonomy, and Relatedness. The distinction should provide a system that allows the player to perform acts of greater expertise (whether as a player or character). You...
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Randomizers and the Essential Experience | Justin Achilli
https://justinachilli.com/2014/12/30/randomizers-and-the-essential-experience
Randomizers and the Essential Experience. Hobby gamers of a certain age know exactly what this is:. It’s the bell curve for Attribute distributions generated by rolling 3d6, which was how many a. Session began. Throw three dice six times, record the scores next to the Attributes in sequence, and charge into the dungeon with your voulge drawn. Now, everyone around the table is disappointed when a cleric calls up a healing spell and, after much anticipation, rolls a 1. Rolling 1d8 for. For example, a Story...
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RPGs by Threes | Justin Achilli
https://justinachilli.com/2014/12/26/rpgs-by-threes
If you’re familiar with video games, you’re probably familiar with Shigeru Miyamoto, or at least his work. He’s the designer and producer behind some of Nintendo’s classic titles and game lines, including Super Mario Brothers and The Legend of Zelda. His design foundation consists of three steps that allow the player to learn and use game mechanics:. Introduce the feature in a limited environment. Require the player to use the feature as a benchmark to progress to the next challenge. So, for example:.
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Start Ugly | Justin Achilli
https://justinachilli.com/2015/01/29/start-ugly
The early drafts of a game you’re designing probably won’t resemble the final game. You’ll be testing rules, ideas, even the essential experience. Focus on improving it. Visually, that means you’ll want to keep things cheap and ugly. Don’t spend a lot of time or money finding or buying art to use for those Space Marines until you know damn well for the production version of the game that they’re going to. Cheap You want to minimize the loss each time you commit some element of a given draft to the trash.
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Money Problems | Justin Achilli
https://justinachilli.com/2015/01/13/money-problems
The dragon’s hoard is a mountain of gold pieces. Who doesn’t want a mountain of gold pieces? It’s a fairly safe assumption that almost every player wants a mountain of gold pieces. Given that the hobby grew out of fantasy stories, and that piles of money are a staple of the genre in both fiction and visual arts, money is a very common element of games, for better or for worse. What’s not so safe an assumption is why each player might want them or what each character might do with them. Players almost alw...
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jachilli | Justin Achilli
https://justinachilli.com/author/jachilli
Minimalist Character Sheet for an Undefined Game. It’s rare to see someone push through the a new idea in that realm. Do you know how’d you’d tweak it? Derek Guder (@frequentbeef) May 5, 2016. I think this would work really well for narrative- or setting-focused games like Vampire. Or maybe even power something like a tabletop trip through. The Legend of Zelda. Shadow of the Colossus. A character’s abilities and vitality are a function of each other. So, back to the example, the character has suffered on...
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GM’s Toolbox: Just the Facts | Justin Achilli
https://justinachilli.com/2015/01/05/gms-toolbox-just-the-facts
GM’s Toolbox: Just the Facts. Managing a sandbox game can be hard. Although they’re my favorite types of RPG, sandboxes ask a lot of a GM. Unless the GM plans to improvise, sandboxes require that the GM have a great deal of cause-and-effect committed to memory, and portray a broad ensemble of NPCs, each with their own objectives and motivations. Immediately important to play. And extending from there, you can apply the bullet-point highlight method to any concept your game seeks to explore. The value...