The Rise of OSR and the "Modern-Classic" Hybrid TTRPG Design Discourse: Article 12 of 14 Throughout this series, we've traced tensions: narrative versus tactical, minimal versus complex, authored versus procedural. The Old School Renaissance doesn't [...]
Why Solo Play is the New Frontier of Tabletop Gaming TTRPG Design Discourse: Article 11 of 14 We've explored games at every scale: from personal magic to wilderness exploration to kingdom management. But all assumed [...]
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 [...]
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