Hey again! Merry Christmas edition! Woo!
So this week we're doing an AMA - Ask Meh Anythang!
There's actually a fair number of
questions, so let's get right into it!
Mordomacar, which I probably mispronounced,
had quite a few, so let's get theirs out of
the way first!
Question #1 from Mordomacar is,
Your videos are more or less divided into
general rpg/fantasy design and Saorsa specific
information. I like that since I'm mostly
interested in the general musings on game design,
but is there a specific reason, such
as trying to incite conversation about your
theories and opinions?
Answer time! Lots of reasons! One of the big
ones is I like to try to keep things organized.
At least on my computer. Other than my desktop.
See, I can follow my own mess pretty easily
as I have a sprawling system that makes sense
to me, but not much sense to anyone else.
As such, when I'm dealing with other people, I try to keep things as clear and easy to follow as possible.
By breaking up the videos
into specific themes and sections, other people
can find what they're looking for pretty easily.
If someone's interested in Saorsa, it'd be
nice if they can find that information. Same
thing, if someone's interested in learning
how to design a world, it should be simple
to find the appropriate videos!
Another reason is that it's spread out to
a rotation so that every other week is purely
educational, and then the inverse is mostly
stuff about my work. The Q&A section (such
as this one) and Saorsa itself, are more open
ended so I have more leeway with such.
I also kinda like to play devil's advocate
quite a lot. For the educational stuff, I
mostly avoid it, but sometimes I'll slip something
in there just to get people thinking about
different ways to do stuff other than the traditional
method. It's best to always examine new ideas,
and to decide if each is good or not on an
individual level. Just because something's
new, doesn't mean it's good. The same is true in reverse though - tradition is a poor excuse for mediocrity.
Anyway, next question!
Question #2, What do you think are good metrics
or systems to classify RPGs by and how would
you place Saorsa in their terms?
Mmm tricky, to be honest. There's multiple
axis which could be used to plot out graphs
so this could be a mess. I think the most
useful bits of information though, are going
to be axis of fun vs realism, along with
one of power scale, one of how important the
narrative and characters are, and one of the
quality of combat mechanics.
For Saorsa, that would place it heavily into
fun over realism - it's very much a game more
than a simulation of reality. It also would
be about 3/4 of the way up the power scale
graph I'd say - you can get sillier, stronger
games, but Saorsa's fairly high end compared
to something like D&D. It's not unreasonable
for a hero to shadow of the colossus a giant
monster and bring it low for instance, with
great big flashy moves. Additionally, a lot
of games tend to be heavily to opposing extremes
of both maintaining a character and narrative
versus combat. Usually you either get one
or the other, lots of story or good combat
- Saorsa's rare, sadly, in that it's built to have
both catered to pretty heavily. Your character
design and the world they exist within are
important, but that shouldn't mean combat
has to suffer. Look at video games like DIsgaea
or Final Fantasy Tactics. Sure, there's some
translation issues there, but these are games
that had rather complex and interesting plots
with enjoyable writing, yet their battle mechanics
were amazing as well on top of that. I'm striving
to make sure Saorsa reaches that kind of a
level where players and GMs are able to build
characters and worlds quickly and easily with
a great deal of depth, and then have the tools
to be epic with those characters within those settings.
There's a lot of other metrics you could use,
but the only other one I can think of that
would really seem important to me, is how
well developed the base world is. Is it like
Shadowrun, where the world is heavily laid
out already and you play the game because
of the setting? Or is it more like D&D where
it has a rough outline but the bulk of the
world building is handed to the GM?\par
Well, in that last metric... Saorsa's kind
of both and neither. The base game will provide
GMs mostly with the tools to make their own
world as the world of Saorsa itself is fairly
vaguely defined. There's a few core concepts
there as foundations, but most of it's built
specifically for GMs to do what they want
with it. This base is going to be offered
free of charge - you can play an awesome game
and get all your friends on the same page
without having to shell out a ton of cash.
The expansion stuff, however, is the exact
opposite almost. Each book released after
the first will be set on a different planet
within the Saorsa universe, each with its
own unique flora and fauna, cultures, histories,
and setting, along with new classes and species
to play as. Or to expand the species that already exist with subspecies. (Most of the new books will focus on the homeworlds of the core species at first.)
Some planets will be high tech,
others medieval in nature, or even sort of
rennesance style. These will be provided for
a cost, though fairly cheap - I'm looking
at only about $5 to $10 apiece probably. These
are meant to cater to different genres of
play, or to just expand the universe with
some really neat ideas I wanted to include
in  the core game and couldn't realistically add.
Like to be blunt, I've got like what? I think it's like 10 pages dedicated to each species?
I'd put 100.
But, you know, that would take forever.
I'd like to go over their homeworlds and stuff, but that's going to have to be relegated to uh,
expansion content, so yeah. Anyway, next question!
Uh... Question #3! What is your definition/understanding
of and opinion on the so called "rule of cool"?
To be clear to those who may not recognize
this concept, the rule of cool generally states
that if something is awesome enough, you're
allowed to do it, even if maybe it's not that
realistic or fitting. Whether this's a good
idea or not depends heavily upon the nature
of the game in question. In a game like Legend
of the 5 Rings, the concept of the rule of
cool would be a terribad idea since it'd more
or less ruin the whole game. In something
like Anima: Beyond Fantasy, they literally
have a "style" skill which does absolutely
nothing in terms of the gameplay, but can
be rolled to be fancy and show off... and
has exploding dice on a d100 roll. I have
seen people nail 600+ on a style roll before,
and it's AMAZING. Saorsa's a bit in the middle
of those two extremes. I want players to be
able to do some over the top stuff, but I
also want it to be balanced. As such, the
mechanics are being built in such a way that
you can generally invoke the rule of cool
so long as it's within one order of magnitude
of the power scale that's being used in the
game itself, and the rules can actually handle
it in a fair manner. Meaning if you want to
swing from the chandellier across the room
and kick an enemy out a window and over a
cliff, yeah, sure, you can do that. It's not
even difficult for a GM to come up with the
effectiveness of what that kind of an attack
would do. Heck, if you wanted to pick a kobold
up by the ankles and use it as a baseball
bat to smack another one THROUGH a wall, no
problem! It's not in the rules directly, but
the rules can handle that kind of stuff with ease.
Not every game should be built to be able to handle that
kind of stuff, and the more serious and closer
to a simulation of reality you get, the less
applicable the rule of cool becomes. Saorsa,
however, is more than willing to indulge players
in some crazy stuff, and encourages GMs to
let them go a little wild with it... but to
also let the enemies do some off the wall
stuff as well sometimes. Consider that your
warning for the first time you try to protest
an ogre using a goblin as a battering ram
to break down a door with its skull.
Question #4! Especially with the popularisation
of HEMA (or, Historical European Martial Arts,) what's your opinion on higher demands
for verisimilitude in terms of rules for martial
engagements and equipment - also in their
interactions with typical fantasy concepts
(such as a weapon of sword size not being
particularly useful against a house-sized
dragon, no matter the wielder's strength)?
I like for combat to have some realism to
it in the sense that "I swing my sword" is
kinda boring. Having to wind up a big attack
or actually making use of weapons for what
they were designed to do is something I have
been working on. Whether they're realistic,
however, is another matter entirely - I'm
going for what's entertaining more than what
would "really" work. Meaning yeah, you can
climb the back of a dragon and stab it in
the head and it will hurt, but the tricky
part is getting the dragon to let you climb
on its back and stab it in the head in the
first place.
The accuracy of weapons themselves is centered
more around what they did for realsies to
a degree. A maul is a big, heavy and slow
moving weapon, it's not meant for rapid blows,
it's meant to knock someone on their butt
on the first swing. It bashes through heavy
plate making it much more effective at such,
instead of a sword that would bounce off harmlessly.
More complex weapons and martial arts styles
take these into account and allow for more
interesting combat styles.
That's just how I'm doing it for Saorsa though.
In terms of how it matters overall? Mostly
I'm a stickler for weapons feeling different
and having distinctively different purposes
and play styles. I'm not so picky about them
being super realistic in other games, unless
the game itself is centered around realism,
I'm mostly just insistant that a sword and
an axe don't just wind up both dealing a generic
1d8 damage with no real mechanical difference
to them is all, because that really annoys me.
Treating a buckler and a tower shield differently
as they were meant for rather different purposes
is icing on the cake. Fortunately, I love icing.
So we're onto question #5: How do you playtest Saorsa and what are your experiences with it so far?
Saorsa's still in a pre-alpha state, in that
it's not quite 100% possible to build a character
from scratch in the system and do much with
the character yet. Some of the mechanics are
still being reworked and some concepts are
still being tested for basic validity and
player appeal.
What this means is that a lot of the "play
testing" at this stage of the game isn't truly
play testing - some of it is, but it more often means showing
off ideas to my test groups and getting their
thoughts back on such. The majority of the
actual play testing is done by myself personally
by running through test numbers on characters
I've built by the rules which exist so far
and testing to see how they work in a theoretical
situation, such as a group of four players
surrounded by 15 kobold-esque monsters at
level 1. Do they actually stand a chance or
are they doomed to failure from the start
kind of thing.
As an additional form of play testing, even
though the game's not really ready for use
as a playable system yet, the species concepts
have been being put through their paces just
to see how they feel as a personality and
culture, with some of their core mechanics
being put to use by putting them into other
games for the time being. I build a character
using my rules, then convert them over to
a different system or freeform RP them out
for a bit to see how they actually work in
practice as a concept. Do they feel fun to
play? Is the overal purpose behind the species
actually enjoyable? Do they properly give
off the kind of vibe I expected them to and
do they integrate as expected with other players?
As more of the rules are more fully fleshed
out, I test them against a combination of
people who have played other tabletop RPGs,
and some who have no real notable experience
to speak of to gauge reactions from both people
who have set expectations, and those who don't
even know what an attack roll is.
I've done play testing for video games before,
both as a tester and overseeing the testers
playing my game, so some of the concepts from
there are carried over as well. Things like
"Here's the rules for dragons. See if you
can come up with 3 completely different dragon
characters you'd like to play as while still
being disctinctively dragonyish."
A good chunk of that's internal play testing
by myself at the moment as they're not fully
100% ready for being put into use in that
manner yet, and if I go to reference something
but it's missing, I can write it up on the
spot because I generally already know how
most of the game works at this point, it's
mostly just the act of actually writing it
out because there's so much that still is
only in note form, not fully fleshed out written
mechanics format yet.
Ah... question #6! What's your opinion on player
basebuilding? Do you prefer to represent the
development mechanically or purely narratively?
I luuurve base building! It's built right
into Saorsa as a narrative element and as
a mechanical benefit for players. It helps
to get players involved in the location, the
NPCs in that area, the struggles they face
and the factions that are present. It also
helps to have a base of operations to spend
all that money they get on, for upgrading
things like their private library or their
personal forge, or defensive structures in
case someone decided their castle or ship
or whatever would make for a great target
to attack with an actual army.
Not every game is well suited to such, but
it's a core component of Saorsa's gameplay
and I personally love having a home base to
operate out of, and to build it up over time. It would be nice if it showed up in more games, honestly.
Question #7 Finally since you mentioned it:
what games have you worked on and what are
you especially proud of?
Ooh, there's a few I'm really pleased with,
but I'm going to cut this down to just one
or I'll be here all day. =P
I think my absolute favourite game I worked
on was SALIGIA, which had previously been
called How tO Throw Snow, with the O in "to"
being a big snowball, but the name had to
be changed a week before announcing it once
Blizzard announced their game Heroes of the
Storm was going to be called HOTS as well...
and we'd never, ever show up on any search
engine result with the same acronym in use.
SALIGIA was the first game where I had near-absolute
creative control of... almost everything.
I had dibs on the world design, most of the
game mechanics, artwork, writing, the tutorial,
even the music I had final say on and got
to talk with the musician directly to build
up progressive works where the music gradually
became more epic with additional instruments
and sections added based on the player's progress
in a given story chapter.
The basic idea was a simple snowball fight
on iOS for phones and tablets and such. Simple
enough concept. It evolved into an epic story
about a new kid at a school ending up battling
the seven deadly snow ninjas, side plots involving
a mafia-controlled alien space ship mutilating
cows into lawn gnomes, a bizarre knights-templaresque
faction who worshiped the flying spaghetti
monster selling meatballs door to door,
pirate ships, giant robot fights and so on.
It got a little silly, to say the least. But
hey, that was the idea. In short, it was a
bunch of kids with overactive imaginations
coming up with a ridiculous communal story
behind their snowball fight over the course
of the winter at school. It also covered a
lot of more serious things as well, from child
abuse and negligence to trying to live up
to unrealistic standards set by others and
bullying, each done in a realistic manner
in terms of how to actually deal with such,
but covered in a more fantastic, silly veil
so it didn't get too serious for younger kids to play.
The gameplay involved swiping across the screen
to dodge out of the way of snowballs, to toss
them with both strength and aim, and various
hazards like ice or piles of heavy snow to
wade through. There were things like bells
that could be hit to ring out loudly and cause
snow piled on rooftops to collapse, and a
few minigames gradually introduced over time, including a co-operative campaign and boss fights.
So yeah, SALIGIA was my favourite! I've also
worked on Giddy Cook and SideQuest, along
with a few other minor titles in lesser ways.
I also worked as the lead editor for the now-defunct
gaming news website 20oz, and have done a
fair bit of ghostwriting - both for novels
and the occasional RPG. Unfortunately, I can't
say much about those due to rather strict
non-disclosure agreements.
Anyway, that's it from Mordomacar! Lots of
questions, whew!
Next up we have silencecoder with a few more!
Question #8 Task Resolution or Conflict Resolution and why?
Generally I aim for task resolution - tasks
have a specific start and end and you can
tell when they've been fully resolved pretty
clearly. Conflicts can go on for quite some
time, and as conflicts tend to provide a source
of character growth, it's not actually always
in your best interests to, you know, resolve the conflict.
Sometimes it's better to let
a grudge last for a long time in a game, though
I try to avoid such in reality.
Question #9 Two equally matched warriors fight
each other, using a longsword and a flail
respectively. In Saorsa, how this fight will
play out and in whose favour?
Mmm, depends on a lot of factors, actually.
What kind of armour are they wearing, for one,
since longswords deal "normal" damage and
flails are crushing damage - normal's great
against unarmoured targets but has problems
punching through heavily armoured enemies.
Crushing damage has a higher base damage,
but instead of scaling for damage with more
strength, it ignores armour, making it ideal
for knocking those heavily armoured targets
senseless. Flails also are a lot better at
knockback, and can be used to shove enemies
into walls for bonus damage, so the terrain
would be a factor as well.\par
Toss in that both weapon types have their
own unique attack types they can use, with
swords having a wider mixture of status effects
compared to most other weapon types, and flails
focusing more on stuns and knockbacks, it
may be a bit less obvious who the winner is.\par
Generally speaking though, if we're considering
unarmoured targets, I'd typically say the
sword would probably win out simply because
it scales for damage better and is a bit faster
on the swings it makes so would outpace the
flail. If both combatants were in heavy armour,
then the flail would probably be the winner,
especially if there was some good, solid terrain
to slam the longsword weilder into.\par
The specifics of how it would play out would
likely involve the longsword user trying to
stack up some bleed effects and then keeping
the flail user off balance while the flail
user attempts to ragdoll the longsword user
into a wall, or a tree, or pretty much anything
else in range.\par
Flails are kind of built to be more of a "tanky"
or support weapon in Saorsa than an upfront
damage weapon so yeah, it'd probably wind
up going to the longsword in most cases I
think.\par
\par
Question #10 Which common thing people tend
to miss during a world building?\par
I think the biggest one is not knowing how
stuff works. Even if the readers or players
don't need to know, the world designer should
know why stuff works and how it works because
it avoids plot holes, allows for lots of narrative
building, and you can foreshadow stuff and
reference it if you know it exists and how
it works. Magic is an especially bad offender
for this, where people just tend to shrug
and go, "I dunno, it's magic." - if you don't
know how it works, you're just walking into
a nightmare of problems for yourself later
on down the road.\par
And sorta tangential but related, is how magic
affects the flora and fauna of a world. If
you have high background mana levels, it's
going to affect the other living creatures
present. Some games do this well, such as
shadowrun and world of darkness, but a lot
of writers of generic fantasy have a very
bad habit of not actually using magic in any
sort of meaningful manner most of the time.\par
\par
\par
Question #11 Which aspect of CRPGs hasn't
been changed for ages while it clearly should
be?\par
I had to check for clarification on this one
and it means things like Planescape Torment,
or Gothic. So... I think honestly the biggest
thing computer games have stuck to but shouldn't
have, is clinging mindlessly to rules that
only work with a GM present. Like shadowrun
returns is a great game, but it's clinging
too heavily to the rules for actual shadowrun
and it doesn't work that well. Planescape
torment is one of the best games ever made,
but it really showed how blindly following
D&D's rules made it sorta... suck. Neverwinter
nights, same deal, as is the same with so
many others.\par
If you're going to make a computer game, then
put the fact that you have a computer instead
of a GM to work for you! Don't just carbon-copy
over rules that don't really work properly
without a GM there to fudge the dice and tweak
things. More than that though, a computer
game can be amazingly complex under the hood
- it doesn't have to worry about players being
able to figure stuff out in their heads, the
players just need a final estimation of their
changes with like a % chance and that's about
it. They don't need to know the specific details,
but those details should be available for
players who love that kind of stuff. LIke
uhm... me. Yes, I will read a 500 page document
of mechanics formulae because... I guess I'm
weird like that. So are probably a lot of
other game designers, but the average player
doesn't care.\par
Anyway, the point is that CRPGs that try to
pretend they're TTRPGs, pretending they have
a GM when they don't, and not making use of
the C in the CRPG part is just ridiculous,
and has been going on for like twenty plus
years at this point. That crap has to change.\par
\par
\par
Question #12 What's your favorite plot? =3\par
Ooh, this's open ended. I'm going to take
it as such and say my favourite plot is...
oh it'd be unfair to say one of mine I've
written. ^.~ Alright, alright, I'm going to
go with a novel, actually. Ghost War, of the
mechwarrior dark age series, written by Michael
A. Stackpole is probably one of the best plots
I've ever seen and was used to tie in mechwarrior
4: mercenaries to the newer miniatures game,
Mechwarrior: dark age.\par
There's plot twists all over the place, the
overarching concept is eloquent in its simplicity
on a broad scale and its nuanced complexities
on a smaller scale. It flows beautifully from
one situation to the next, each one making
logical sense but also tying the story together.\par
If this question is meant more as a "overarcing
plot", I think the same book's concept still
applies though - a disaster of some sort messes
with communication lines and we get to see
how awful people can be when there's no one
watching over their shoulder any longer. When
the government disappears and the police vanish,
when the zombies roam the streets or the plague
wipes out 9/10ths of the world's population,
humans are both horrible to each other, and
can rise to the most noble of deeds. Seeing
an exploration of what people do when they
no longer are truly enforced by society's
standards any longer is probably my favourite
plot of all, regardless of the details, because
it shows humanity, and really lets you get
into the character's heads, and how even good
people can excuse some horrible actions when
they think it's necessary for survival.\par
\par
Anyway, that's it from silencecoder, so thanks
for those questions!\par
\par
\par
\par
The next question is from... oh, hey, my boyfriend.
How'd that get in there? >.>; I think we know.
That's okay, it's a good question.\par
Question #13. Lucky thirteen, whee! what has
been the most rewarding about interacting
with people while developing your game.\par
\par
We-ell... honestly, the excitement some of
them have shown. As with any project, there's
going to be some people who display apathy,
and some who feel like they just want to ruin
everything - and not in a constructive way,
either.\par
\par
\par
\par
\b BEGIN HERE #3\b0\par
\par
\par
On the other hand, there have been some people
who have been like THAT IS SO FREAKING COOL!
I WANT TO TRY THAT! and you can just feel
that rush of excitement from them, that even
just mentioning what you've been working on
is enough to make them happy, to make their
day a little bit better than it would've been
otherwise. It's a great feeling to know that
something you designed elicits the reaction
you were looking for, but I think it's really
just knowing that, well... I set out to make
this less for fame and fortune, and more for
creating something that would get people interested
in a hobby I personally enjoy. Some of the
most vocal supporters of my game, who have
been the most excited when I show them stuff
I've been working on, have been people who
had never even touched a tabletop role playing
game before I started working on Saorsa, and
now several of them have picked up various
games in the meantime. Even if I somehow fail
miserably, and no one wants to play my game,
I've still accomplished something in that
there are now more people role playing in
the world than there were when I started,
and it's as a direct cause of what I've done.
I've introduced them to a new way to have
fun, and to see them light up when they hear
about what I'm doing to push the industry
forward from my small little end of it, well...
it helps to keep me going in those moments
of despair and doubt.\par
\par
\par
\par
Lucca has question #14! What are some of the
difficulties and roadblocks you've come across
while developing Saorsa? Can you name some
of them and how you've overcome them? I personally
admire how you're taking all of this pretty
much on your own, so I wanted to know\par
\par
Ooh, lots of them. Mechanics-wise, trying
to come up with a magic system that was both
versatile and functional, being quick and
easy to use was a real challenge. I think
I went through five major overhauls of the
system or something like that? I practically
rebuilt the entire mana system nearly from
scratch three times before I was happy with
it at all. In the end though, simplifying
the mana to use AP like everything else rather
than a separate resource that converted back
and forth streamlined a ton, and introducing
elements like spell complexity and spell potency
allowed for a lot more control, both for players
in how their spells work, and for my side
of things with keeping spells balanced and
fair to use.\par
Another rough one I've been tackling is an
issue with how defensive actions will work.
I keep rebuilding it, but it never quite comes
out right. The tricky bit is, it needs to
cost AP to be used so that there's a choice
to be made between pure offense and defense,
or striking a balance in between. The most
obvious solutions all backfire by turning
the game into a turtling game without much
reason to attack, so it's been kind of nasty
getting around it. When I actually have the
answer, I'll let you know how I overcame it,
because I'm still toying with a variety of
potential fixes at the moment. I'd like for
there to be a single, elegant solution, but
it may end up having to be piecemealed together
from several smaller concepts. Or a total
rework of the whole thing from scratch. Again.\par
For a non-mechanics issue, artwork has been
plaguing me for like a bloody year now. The
cash kept disappearing for stuff I absolutely
needed and I couldn't scrounge together enough.
That got fixed with a... well, a will from
my grandmother's death, so I have the first
major bit of artwork paid off, but then there
was the election thing and that put the artist
into a panic after buying into the if-trump-wins
doomsday fearmongering and put it on hold
for a bit. I'd like to say that I did something
to solve this... but really, my patrons from
patreon and my grandmother were the ones to
fix this for me. I simply don't have the time
to divide on making money somewhere else and
building the game as well, and if I stopped
now, I'd probably never finish, so... yeah.
Still, it's dealt with now, and "soon" there'll
be some really awesome art from an amazing
fantasy artist! Soon being... unknown. I'm
hoping within the next month or three for
things to calm down, and once that's out of
the way, I'll have a baseline of reference
for the character sheets and can start hiring
out other artwork. Or to put it in another
way, once I get that first round done, I can
get lots more waaaaaaay easier. Fortunately
it's paid for already, so it's all good! Just
annoying delays is all, but it'll be worth
it. =3\par
For a personal issue, well... I've had to
struggle with depression on and off for awhile,
and it can take a frustrating chunk of time
wasted dealing with that crap which I'd much
rather spend on work. The last month or so
I've developed a ridiculous inferiority complex
of the most frustrating kind - it doesn't
have any clear evidence for such, but ugh
I feel useless and incapable of doing absolutely
anything right at all several times a day
lately. It's dumb, because mentally I'm aware
there's no basis in fact for the feelings
of absolute inadequacy, but stupid emotions
don't care and instead I blow through 3-4
hours crying in bed instead of being productive.
Yay stupid brain! Someone order me a new one,
this one's defective. Anyway, it's a dumb
situation and one I'd be glad to just be rid
of but eh. It's definitely been a difficulty
while developing Saorsa for awhile now. Fortunately
it can't halt production entirely and I'm
able to work long enough hours to mostly make
up for it, but it has slowed things down a
bit compared to the rate I'd like to be going
at. Then again, the rate I'd like to be going
at is 24/7 without sleep or food, entertainment
or anything else, so yeaaaah that may be a
slightly unrealistic desire, so dropping down
to only something like 30-40 hours a week
still isn't really that bad. I mean, it's
a lot less than the 60-70 I normally can maintain,
but it's still not horrible.\par
\par
\par
\par
For question #15, tunapunapress asks: Why
do you think the development of your TTRPG
has taken so long?\par
Short answer? Because I don't tend to take
on realistic scaled projects. I tend to bite
off waaaaaaay more than any one person should
have to chew. I succeed, eventually, but it
takes awhile. Like for a project of this scale,
I should have a team of about 12-20 people
or so. I have 1. Soooo yeah, it's going slower
than I had hoped.\par
I also severely underestimated the speed at
which certain tasks could be accomplished
due to previous experience in video game design.
Some things that used to take a day or two
sometimes takes weeks here. Building new mechanics
from scratch that replace broken concepts
that have been around for 40+ years is not
remotely as quick as I had expected. Normally
with game design I can just pump out solutions
pretty easily, but this time around I've run
into some really big ones that have been showing
me full well why the industry hasn't solved
some of these problems adequately despite
having decades to do so. I mean, yeah, I could
just grab some previous fixes that were sort
of halfway there, but I'm not happy with "sorta
good enough" - I'm a bit too much of a perfectionist
and I'm not going to be happy until some of
these things are dealt with properly.\par
The whole ensuring different weapon types
behave differently took ages to get done right
without bogging down the game with clunky
combat mechanics for instance, same with a
versatile spell system. What I've got now
is bloody beautiful, it's elegant, it's effective,
and, well... I dunno, I'm hoping it marks
a new standard for decades to come. Actually
I'm hoping it kicks things forwards and someone
else takes my ideas and makes them even better
within a few months. If someone could make
everything I did better than me in a year,
I'd be ecstatic. Maybe less so for my paycheque,
but to see the entire industry leap forwards
like that would be amaaaaazing.\par
Anyway, basically I took on way too large
of a project as usual, it's chronically underfunded
and understaffed, and the complexity of the
problems I've had to solve are orders of magnitude
more difficult than they first appeared. Soooo
it's slower than I'd hoped. But all things
considered, it's actually clipping along surprisingly
quickly at this rate.\par
\par
\par
tunapunapress also has #16! Are there habits
you developed as a video game designer or
ghost writer that are also applicable to TTRPG
design?\par
Oh yeah, definitely! Some of them are workflow
related, like learning when to let a problem
lie while I work on something else and come
back to it later on after I've had some time
to settle on it and look at it from a new
perspective. Other habits are simply things
just like time management - I learned awhile
ago that I'm at my best for problem solving
and creative design when I'm half asleep =P
Soooo I wake up a few times a night, scribble
down notes, wake up in the morning and try
to make sense of the incoherent rambling.
I can make sense while awake, but the capacity
to leap between solutions in rapid fire order
is something I do vastly better when tired
and my brain's not restricted by language
and the order of patterned thinking any longer,
sooo I make use of that dichotomy as much
as I can.\par
Back when I was doing my early world design
stuff, I picked up the habit of starting everything
from core, fundamental bedrock levels. Start
with the foundation and the next layer tends
to build itself from your previous work. From
ghostwriting, I've found many, many drafts
are great because you can keep building upon
ideas you came up with on the previous pass
and integrate new ideas into the next one.\par
A mechanics issue with video game design I
picked up on when I was only just starting
to learn about it was the half-or-double rule
of doubling or halving everything numeric
if it's too big or too small - it saves a
tooooon of time in the long run. You'd be
surprised how often you think doubling something
is going to be way too much, and it turns
out you need to make it like 8x bigger instead
because 2x wasn't enough. Doubling it at a
time, or halving, cuts the total work time
spent on balancing the numbers by a ton.\par
From just working in various areas, I've learned
how to manage that stupid depression stuff
mentioned earlier so that it sucks up way
less time than it used to as well. It's still
not great, and I'd just as soon be rid of
it entirely, but since that's probably not
going to happen until well after the game's
released, mitigating the damage substantially
works well enough for the most part.\par
\par
\par
\par
Whew! Marathon over! 16 questions, rawr, more
than I thought there'd be. But hey, it's done!
Hope you found the information useful and
have a Merry Felicitous Season of Unvarnished
Greed and Avarice! Or a merry christmas. Whichever!\par
\par
And with that, I'm out. I'll see you next
time!\par
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