Domain Play and the Quest for Meaningful High-Level Gaming TTRPG Design Discourse: Article 10 of 14 From hexcrawling's exploration of wilderness, we ascend to kingdom-scale play. Most campaigns die at mid-level because designers don't know [...]
One of the purposes for building AxiomRPG was distilling the core mechanics from genre specific details. We have enough collective setting content for various genres that we wanted a central mechanics system to power them [...]
Hexcrawling and the Art of Procedural Exploration TTRPG Design Discourse: Article 9 of 14 After examining magic systems and their varied mechanical implementations, we shift to a different kind of systematization: exploration itself. Hexcrawling represents [...]
The Art and Science of Magic System Design TTRPG Design Discourse: Article 8 of 14 We've examined narrative and tactical design philosophies as abstract principles. Now we apply them to a concrete challenge: magic systems. [...]
Now we're beyond a character's origins and why they are; we're moving into what role they play in a setting or group. This provides both mechanical benefits and guidance in their motivation as an adventurer. [...]
The Evolution of Tactical TTRPG Design TTRPG Design Discourse: Article 7 of 14 After exploring narrative-first and rules-light approaches, we turn to the other side of the design spectrum: tactical complexity. For millions of players, [...]
Many systems have shifted to using Ancestry in place of what used to just be Race. I understand the why, I've decided to use Lineage instead. I'm making a further distinction between Culture and Lineage. [...]
How Minimalism and Rules-Light Design are Defining the Future of TTRPGs TTRPG Design Discourse: Article 6 of 14 We've explored narrative-focused design and its emphasis on story over simulation. A natural companion to this philosophy [...]
A Note: I very much dislike math, calculations and fiddling with averages or ratios. Please forgive any glaring mistakes. In the last post we broke down some fairly basic combat mechanics. Now let's explore the [...]
Narrative-Driven Design in TTRPGs TTRPG Design Discourse: Article 5 of 14 Having explored the narrative versus tactical divide, we now deep-dive into narrative-driven design. These are systems where story isn't just flavor text for mechanics—it's [...]
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