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TTRPG Tuesday: Layout Constraints and Worldbuilding Specificity

Welcome back to another TTRPG Tuesday! Although I’m still chugging along in MtG and therefore have all sorts of Out of Mana-ish neurons firing, I’m in an RPG state of mind in terms of what I want to noodle out, so that’s what we’re doing.  Still disorganized though, so have some more stream of consciousness bullets:

  • For The Envy of Ajax, my analysis of the pamphlet situation yields these data points: 3 columns each for the GM and the Players, and the columns can each fit:
    • 1 dense table
    • 2 manageable tables
    • 3 small tables
    • 5 paragraphs totaling >1000 characters.
  • Mixing and matching those fundamentals will get me where I need to go, and maybe I start with layout to determine my actual design constraints, particularly since I tend to go raw unbroken up text before sorting, which might hurt me in this case.
  • I’ve never played a DM/GM-less RPG myself.  I’ve read some, sure, but to be honest that constraint is the most challenging part of the Button Shy challenge.  For that reason I think it might be easier for me to approach this from the mechanic / more boardgame side of it, rather than the storytelling aspect? I dunno, I also (personally) don’t much care for “storytelling”/”pitch”/”writing prompt” style board or card games, which often fall under the party or prove-your-clever-social-skills genres.  So I guess it’s good knowing that that’s something I want to avoid.
  • So what’s the experience that I want to create with, say The Riders? (I should be working on my Kamen Rider play instead of this right now, so if I’m going to do games writing I’m going to channel that side of things.)  Here are some beats I want to hit:
    • This isn’t Sentai: Riders may work together toward specific goals or against common enemies, and over time they may develop deeper bonds, but they are not inherently a team, and although a Rider may organically emerge as a leader, there’s no Red Rider designation going on, and I want that to come out when the non-active players are bringing conflict to life for the active player.
    • Theme: Car Cops.  Photography Dimension Travelers.  Martian Engineers.  Private Detectives with Split Personalities.  Corporate Menagerie.  Anti-Fascist Mutant Grasshoppers fffs.  Kamen Rider has so many wild themes, and I want that part to be collectively built by the players as part of setup, which will then naturally feed into their Ridersonas and how those fit the theme (including any later evolutions / suit upgrades).
    • Speaking of, man there’s nothing better than a new costume.  I think recent series have gone… a little overboard with them lately.  If I can reduce them to a very few instances, and tie them to major milestones baked into the rhythm of the game, I think the expanded feeling of power and agency is a great thing to grant in bursts.  I also think that there can be benefits to not taking the upgrades, to staying true to your origins, or placing your ideals above your quest for power.
    • So what’s on the cards? Well… hm.  If I want them to be applicable to any kind of Rider theme, should I keep them theme-general but make them Kamen-trope-specific? Or am I on the wrong track here? After all, it’s not like most toku enemies have a goddamn thing to do with the theme of the Riders.  Maybe instead I pay homage to the fact that minions, enemies, and bosses are often just a bizarre, incongruous collection of whatever concepts or costumes were available.  Yeah.  Let’s do that, to start anyway.

That’s enough for the time being.  I’ve got to figure out if I’m playing games or watching a movie tonight, and I’ve got to hop on my family’s Zoom call at 10 either way.  Stay righteous, kick fascists.

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