Void Crew, Deep Rock Galactic, and Helldivers 2: three co-op games, three “shooters” (kind of, more on that later), and three games that build on their own self-contained fiction. I’ve played all three. I’ve enjoyed all three. So why do I only admire two of them?
Continue readingCategory Archives: Game Design
D&D 5e’s alignment trap
The 5e alignment system is a useful shorthand and a misleading trap. The Outer Planes as presented in the 2014 Player’s Handbook and Dungeon Master’s Guide only make the alignment system’s problems worse. The perfect overlap between alignments and planes—and the total lack of alternative Outer Planes—reinforces the alignment system’s worst inclinations: easy stereotyping, reductionist thinking, and a restriction of creative possibilities.
So what the heck are you supposed to do?
Continue readingNo more bland-aids: make your Clerics interesting
Hot take: clerics in D&D 5e feel like the blandest superheroes. Without a clear relationship with a greater power or a faith, it’s easy for them to float in the narrative void like a cornucopia of bandaids. The solution lies in placing more expectations on them, constraining them, and giving them a deeper connection with the story’s world and whatever they serve.
Continue readingGame system flavor & optional rules
This is pulled from a conversation I had recently about optional rules.
Rules combine to make systems, and systems create flavor by shaping the permissible and supported space of a game. Any skillful or willful group of players (the storyteller is a player too) can play outside the rules of the game system they’re using—that’s normal!—but that play isn’t supported by the system, and it isn’t part of the flavor the system creates.
Optional rules are opportunities…
Continue readingWorldbuilding: a swashbuckling campaign
I reviewed The Three Musketeers: D’artagnan recently, but I only realized I hadn’t yet reviewed it because I was deep in the process of creating a T3M inspired setting for an RPG. I knew I wanted the intrigue, the swordplay, the ambition, and the thrill of being small players discovering a much larger political game. So I hunted for and pulled out the themes that felt crucial to T3M’s fun, trying to find ways to create a setting that would evoke those while also incorporating the elements my players contributed.
I’ll lay some of it out for you.
Continue readingVast: The Crystal Caverns (boardgame, 2016)
What an incredible premise. What a fun game! If only it were playable without constantly referencing reams of paper on rules, errata, and commentary on the rules and errata.
Vast is admirably ambitious. It’s designed for up to five interlocking, competing, asymmetrical roles that all fit together beautifully to make this boardgame a nail-biting, neck-and-neck race toward victory. With a few important caveats, each player has their own rules reference sheet for their role, encompassing everything they could need to know in order to play the game. And with another few important caveats, everything can flow smoothly as each player chases their own victory conditions, pushing the game onward towards a thrilling conclusion.
Those caveats?
Continue readingMake Games Your Own
Always make your games your own.
I was trying to convince my sibling to play Blades in the Dark with me, and kept running into a wall. They just didn’t want to—more than that, they said it felt icky. I, like a good little sibling, kept poking at them until truth poured out.
Continue readingWhy play Diablo when you could play the Hammerwatch 2 demo?
I’m shocked I haven’t raved about Heroes of Hammerwatch (HoH) on this blog before now. I thought I had. Sorry CrackShell, you deserved enthusiastic praise for your previous work. Apparently I only shared that with some friends.
Hammerwatch 2 is the high quality lo-fi alternative to Diablo 4 coming out August 15th, and there’s a free demo on Steam right now. I’ve been having a blast playing that demo: if you want a dungeon-delving ARPG hack-and-slash, try this. It’s a hell of a lot cheaper than $70.
Continue readingUnbalanced games
Here’s a hot take I’ve flirted with before: unbalanced games are more fun than balanced ones.
I think it has to do with gaming a system, beyond even outplaying an opponent.
Continue readingSuffering, Acceptance, & Play
What the hell is going on when playing feels like suffering?
Being bad at a game often feels bad to me. That’s most true when I think I *should* be competent, or when I’m playing with my close peers, people I feel competitive with. Being bad at a game feels terrible when I’m emotionally attached to a specific outcome, especially if I think I’m failing my team.
But this suffering is worse in some games.
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Fistful of Wits 