Our introductory exercise, The Alchemist & the Golem, represents one way to build a simple roleplaying game: one player in charge of conveying rules from a short text while another attempts to interpret them while playing a role and exploring the nascent world growing between them.
At the core, roleplaying games involve players conveying their ideas and imaginations to one another through an extended conversation intermediated by shared rules. For some folks, this dynamic is enough: a freeform style, it’s sometimes called. For most folks, more structure is required. The first element of structure added is typically one of meta-roles and authority. This structural level often addresses questions about which portions of the narrative each player is charged with, where responsibility for rules and state tracking lie, and similar questions—even if in an unspoken manner:
Which player undertakes the role of inhabiting a singular character?
Who is in charge of creating opposition for that character?
Who sets the frame for action?
Traditionally, the answers to these questions get bundled into the roles of “game master” and “player.” The game master (or dungeon master, judge, storyteller, master of ceremonies, etc.) has certain duties and responsibilities around world-building and conflict. Whereas player’s duties focus on operating their singular character.
Even so, that’s often not enough for folks who regularly play these games. In the dawning days of roleplaying games, the aficionados of the incipient hobby asked another question: “What if outcomes weren’t solely determined by the decision of one player or another?” Which quickly led to yet another question: “What if there was some variability or uncertainty to the result of a conflict or challenge?” It’s easy to imagine that they opted to use coin flips to decide certain things, but coin flips are little more than luck. So from there, they made the small leap to die rolls to represent greater uncertainty and variability.
Thus even primitive roleplaying game designs contain rules for the distribution of power among the players backed with a simple but flexible way of resolving uncertainty. Are these bones enough to produce a satisfying experience?
For the sake of example, we’ve created a simple fantasy roleplaying game called Blightlands. This example game assigns the power of description of the world and its peoples to one player, called the Majordomo. The other players of the game each controls a character referred to as an adventurer. To begin, the Majordomo describes an expanse of brooding, ancient forest from whose loamy floor sprouts lobes, stalks and caps of massive, primordial fungi. The Majordomo places the player’s adventurer standing on a trail that winds through the forest, between towering trunks and clusters of mushrooms. What the player does not know is that the fungi have evolved into sophonts: myconids! The Majordomo describes a large mushroom cap stirring, its stalk swaying, as the creatures wake from their slumber, and asks the player, “What do you do?”
“I slowly draw my sword and speak in a low voice, ‘Is there someone there? I mean you no harm.’”
The Majordomo squints. They did not anticipate this particular ploy by the player. How to resolve it? They could decide the creatures don’t speak and ignore the voice—or that they are peaceful and in search of conversation partners. But after some consideration they respond, “Hm. These are Myconids—products of a fallen civilization—maybe they remember your language. Flip a coin. Heads and they understand you.”
The player grabs a coin and blows on it for luck before tossing it to the table…
For many people, this type of game is enough. Hours of enjoyable play can be had using these basic tools and structures. Yet, a hunger for richer experiences has driven us to seek deeper satisfactions. If those simple tools and structures are not enough for some, what more is there? What recourse do we have to carve deeper into this medium? What techniques are contained in the arcane art of roleplaying game design?! Read on to reveal mysteries of our subject matter.
Premise of Our Work
We seek to provide you with guidance, instruction and techniques for creating a roleplaying game. However, “roleplaying game” is an expansive concept, so we must be more specific.1 Therefore, we set out to teach you how to create roleplaying games for play through the medium of conversation—rather than over a board or through a digital contraption like a PC or console. Essentially, we think the form has been around long enough that we can break it down for you and show you how to build your own.
In this essay we cite and reference a number of works that the reader may or may not be familiar with. We refer often, but not exclusively, to A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K LeGuin and The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien as well as Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set edited by Tom Moldvay. We consider these to be exemplar and foundational works in our world of fantasy roleplaying, and they are our ur-texts for this work. While knowledge of these texts is not necessary to understanding our premise or theories, an enterprising ludic alchemist may wish to enrich their experience by exploring all of the canonical lore that we bring to bear on the subject.
The Critical Medium of Conversation
Our friend Jon Peterson proposed that a defining characteristic of roleplaying games is that they convey information about the game state through the medium of live conversation between the players—rather than through moving pieces on a board, submitting instructions in text or manipulating a hand-held controller. Crucially, he clarifies that talking about the game is not enough. Players of roleplaying games must be able to change the game state through conversation alone. It’s a simple but subtle concept. Continuing our example of play from our Blightlands game, in this game, the role of description and rules adjudication falls onto the shoulders of a player called the “Majordomo.” The game also uses pre-established scenarios containing outlines of action, adversaries and geography for the Majordomo player to follow and describe to the player (not for visual reference). In this case, we’ve provided you with a map of the scenario (below), so that the Majordomo may refer to this map as they describe the scenario to the player. Thus we might hear the following exchange:
Majordomo: “You stand in a low, narrow doorway. Stairs descend down into the darkness before you. Your torchlight dimly flickers across the damp stone. Ahead, you see the dim shapes of broken blocks of stone. And breaking the silence, you hear a persistent drip of water somewhere deeper in the gloom.”
Player: “Uh, I carefully approach and look for the source of the sound. Do I see anything?”
Their description translates the reference material into conversation and sets the game state for the player. The player’s verbal response, however, changes the state. They’re not moving a piece on a board; instead they narrate or describe their actions. The Majordomo situates the character at the entrance to the family tomb, but the player’s response to the description moves them deeper into the antechamber so their character can gather more information. Thus through a simple exchange, the game state changes: the character is now deeper in the dungeon and the implication is that they are deeper in danger.
It’s a simple trick, and perhaps self-evident, but for now let us posit that this trick sets the following requirements for a roleplaying game: A roleplaying game must present encounters or scenes that necessitate and frame the player’s narrative response, and it must provide a framework to interpret those responses—on a moral, social, tactical and strategic level. In a roleplaying game, each response changes the situation, and the intention of that choice frames that change.
Recall our adventurer in the ancient forest as the myconids shake themselves to life, spores drifting from their gills. This description constitutes the encounter or situation in which the adventurer finds themself. Reconsidering their course of action, the player decides their adventurer must hide from these strange creatures (narrative response). As the player asks questions the Majordomo offers a set of expansive responses. For example:
Where can I flee to?
Well, you’re in the forest between a rotting manor house, a chalk cliff and a bog.
The player, whose character is skilled in wilderness survival, determines to go to ground in the bog, despite the obvious dangers (framework). And this player then turns to the Majordomo and describes how their character’s skills are suited to this situation (tactical choice). The situation has now changed from an adventurer encountering strange creatures in the forest, to an adventurer sinking up to their hips in the muck of a bog, hiding from the shambling fungus-people who seek to locate their new friend (new situation). The majordomo may now invite the player to roll the dice to prove their point.
Next week, we continue our series on the elements of roleplaying game with a discussion about the fantasy genre. Until then, we hope that the mycelium that control your thoughts are kind to you.
If you enjoyed this essay, you can listen to more of us rambling on far too long about game design on our podcast, The Hypothesis..
Often, folks refer to these games as “tabletop roleplaying games” but we acknowledge that this type of game is frequently played over video chat without use of a table, and this form can also be adapted to be played in person without a table, with players standing and performing their roles. For simplicity’s sake—and since the tabletop version is the elder form—we shall refer to the games we design as roleplaying games and leave the taxonomic subcategories to taxidermists and those who enjoy such academic exercises.