Engine Trouble
DANIEL WILKS is going back to the drawing board
Following in the footsteps of a former PCPP editor, I am making a game. Unlike Dan Hindes, I’m not jumping feet first into the digital world but instead reaching back to my roots and putting together a tabletop roleplaying game. I’ve been working on the design document and the core concepts for a few months and now I’m getting stuck into the first steps of prototyping. The more of this I do, and the more I talk to people in computer game design, the more I realise that creating a tabletop game and creating a digital game are far more similar than I would have ever expected.
The inspiration for my game is simple. I run two different campaigns, one at my flat and the other over Skype, but in both cases it’s nigh impossible to get everyone together at the same time, making it hard to have continuity in stories that last more than a few hours. One of the campaigns has been on permanent “maybe next week” hiatus since last year, and the other, originally planned to be fortnightly, is closer to maybe once a month or two. My solution, or at least the solution I’m trying to make with my game, is something that has a larger but looser group of players, allowing games to be played with whoever can make it on the day but still have a sense of continuity for campaigns. I have a planned setting that explains the large character pool, only a few of which will be available at any given session, and a framework of how continuity can be maintained when the players present are essentially unknown until the day of play. What I don’t have is a core set of rules.
Early in the project I decided that I wouldn’t be creating the core rules set, or the engine of the game, by myself, instead streamlining my development process by either licensing an established engine or using one of the open source ones on the market. When it comes to roleplaying engines, the terminology may differ, but the differences between tabletop engines are much like those of the commonly available game engines. Each engine has strengths and weaknesses, and is more suited to certain styles or jobs rather than others. Some allow for deep modification and customisation, whilst others are far more
the differences between tabletop engines are much like those between game engines
direct in purpose and have most of the base mechanics for a game already built in – Unreal 4 and the Cryengine allow for much more customisation and modification than something like RPG Maker or GameMaker: Studio - but more often than not more complexity and customisation options means more required experience or knowledge.
When it comes to tabletop RPGs, rules sets are often broken into two categories according to the types of rules they use. They are referred to Crunchy and Fudge systems. A Crunchy system contains a thorough set of rules that encompasses nearly anything a player or GM can do, with little need for interpretation. A Fudgey system, on the other hand, relies on more simplified or streamlined rules that require a mix of justification and interpretation. There are a number of open source of open license RPG engines out there, many of which are the engines of popular games such as Dungeons & Dragons or Pathfinder available through OGL (Open Gaming License), as well as a number of lesser known engines such as Gumshoe, WaRP, Open D6, PBtA, Fate, OSRIC, Open Legend, Dominion and more. What I’m after for my game, is a rules set that combines elements of crunch and fudge – having enough mechanical complexity and thoroughness that it can support pretty much any action players want to take, but also leaving outcomes open to context and interpretation. Since late last year when I started working on the project, I had been working using the Fate system by Evil Hat Productions. Mechanically the game is pretty deep, but the way the game works, players have as much to do about determining outcomes as dice rolls. While I was happy with the progress I was making in making a working prototype, I came to realise about a month ago that I had probably made a wrong decision regarding the engine. I love the Fate system, but it requires a level of rules knowledge in players, as well as specific dice, that would negate one of the key design aspects integral to my game – a simple pick-up-and-play core that can be expanded on with experience. One of the problems with the Fate system is that for all its strengths, it not only requires some rather deep system knowledge, it also uses tokens and proprietary dice for rolls. In PC gaming terms, it’s like a game that has a learning cliff and requires a specialised controller. Although I haven’t made a final decision, and I’m heavily researching a new engine, I’m strongly verging towards the Apocalypse Engine for a number of reasons. It uses 2d6 for all rolls, character sheets are specifically designed to contain all the rules the player needs to know, the engine is designed to be hacked and modified and finally, it’s totally free. Once the decision is made and I have a rough working prototype, the next step will be to hire an artist.