Weekender XLBS: Rules Or Fluff, What Should Come First In Game Design?
August 21, 2016 by dignity
For some website features, you will need a FREE account and for some others, you will need to join the Cult of Games.
Or if you have already joined the Cult of Games Log in now
What difference will having a FREE account make?
Setting up a Free account with OnTableTop unlocks a load of additional features and content (see below). You can then get involved with our Tabletop Gaming community, we are very helpful and keen to hear what you have to say. So Join Us Now!
Free Account Includes
- Creating your own project blogs.
- Rating and reviewing games using our innovative system.
- Commenting and ability to upvote.
- Posting in the forums.
- Unlocking of Achivments and collectin hobby xp
- Ability to add places like clubs and stores to our gaming database.
- Follow games, recommend games, use wishlist and mark what games you own.
- You will be able to add friends to your account.
What's the Cult of Games?
Once you have made a free account you can support the community by joing the Cult of Games. Joining the Cult allows you to use even more parts of the site and access to extra content. Check out some of the extra features below.
Cult of Games Membership Includes
- Reduced ads, for a better browsing experience (feature can be turned on or off in your profile).
- Access to The Cult of Games XLBS Sunday Show.
- Extra hobby videos about painting, terrain building etc.
- Exclusive interviews with the best game designers etc.
- Behind the scenes studio VLogs.
- Access to our live stream archives.
- Early access to our event tickets.
- Access to the CoG Greenroom.
- Access to the CoG Chamber of Commerce.
- Access the CoG Bazarr Trading Forum.
- Create and Edit Records for Games, Companies and Professionals.
Supported by (Turn Off)
Supported by (Turn Off)
Supported by (Turn Off)
Happy Sunday
genre mixing has been done , if you look at the background for a RPG called TORG..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torg#Setting
One if the greatest RPG’s our group have played in 30 odd years
Lego trains are awesome and really easy to put together plus you can buy extra track, space wise they’re a bit bulky but pulling them apart and putting them back together is simple and something you really can’t do with a regular train set. I say go for it! On a slightly more serious side model building (including Lego) as a way of therapy is a brilliant method. I’m 36yo and had been out of the wargames world for a long time until events led me to develop PTSD. A horrible condition but getting back into painting and gaming has… Read more »
You need to also pick up the 60098 Heavy Haul train set – get another engine and another loop (still no junction) – plus a JCB to help you lay the track 😉
Happy Sunday!
@martincraddy
Man I’m glad you are better and it’s great to hear the hobby has helped 😎
It is indeed a fabulous comfort blanket for me as well in particularly stressful times and the community is certainly an integral part of it.
In other words ALL OF YOU!
Happy Subday to everybody out there 🙂
Thank you.
You know, what seemed like such a straight forward topic this week, ‘game or background’ it completely stumped me lol
There is just no definitive answer to it, it really is @dignity‘s 50 shades of grey 🙂
When the man is right, he’s totally right lol
I honestly believe that the greatest games in one’s life must be both. I discovered a wonderful little game called Bushido on your site a few years back and was sold in seconds. The gameplay looked fun and the miniatures were great. But the reason I even bothered to look at the page at all was the theme. East Asian fantasy. I have been a long time fan of Kung Fu and Samurai movies. Mystical Ninjas and Oni demons. Throw in Big Trouble In Little China as one of my all time favorites and there you go. Because without the… Read more »
I think i have see the rules isn’t it pronounced Kamasutra? @warzan
I think guys that is not 100% one way or the other, for people who have very much been keeping their ears to the ground they know that I am actually doing a campaign setting book, I was considering doing my own system for it, I have one in place… but that is another story. So when I did the background for this I considered something. I considered D&D and the wizards right for your average 3 ed, 3.5 or Pathfinder player the Wizard is closer to something a kin to a god than a normal person. I thought about… Read more »
In the world of computer game design there are basically two schools of thought. One school is story-driven design, which starts with a cool character and a narrative and builds the game around this. All the adventure and RPG games live in this space. In the more open-ended spectrum it leads to Fable and the like. The other school puts game mechanics first, sometimes to the point of avoiding as much story as possible. The prime example of this would be Tetris I think. There are more of these ‘ludologist’ games. They are often abstract and involve a lot of… Read more »
Interesting point, in video game design they generally start with the mechanics and build from there. However, in tabletop gaming, especially RPGs, you’ll sometimes start with a background concept that then informs the mechanics.
I started out in model trains. North American N gauge then 0-16 Welsh narrow gauge. Many of the skills transfer to wargaming and it’s probably why I have a passion for scenery.
Here’s the most honest review you’ll ever see on Legos High Speed Passenger set:
https://youtu.be/ceaa4jhvEcA
@warzan
@johnlyons Great to see you doing more on the weekenders John. Totally miss your painting tutorials, would love to see more of them as they’re what got me into the hobby.
I’m actually working on my first professionally published game at the moment (a lifelong ambition come true!), so needless to say the ‘game or background’ topic was very interesting to me! I agree that there is no definitive answer, but I also think it can depend on the KIND of game you are designing- personally, I love campaign/progression games like Mordheim, Necromunda et al, and for those games I feel that having a strong (though not necessarily in-depth) setting and background is vital for that immersion in the world that lets you invest (sometimes emotionally) in those wee plastic and… Read more »
Thus us the second week in a row and the only times since I have joined that the video isn’t working. The Saturday weekender works fine. Have you changed something?
@warzan yes you can buy extra track, it’s lego and it’s pricey, I had a look at amazon just now and here is the best result
https://www.amazon.co.uk/LEGO-City-7499-Flexible-Tracks/dp/B0042HOU1W/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1471766197&sr=8-1&keywords=lego+track
so you don’t get a lot for your money really.
I’d say the best option is to buy the set from the shop (which seemed a decent discount), and buy the track from eBay.
Here are your junctions… https://www.amazon.co.uk/LEGO-City-7895-Train-Tracks/dp/B000EXN8DY
Two things on infinity rules in fantasy:
1) You could put more emphasis on coordinated orders, effectively grouping 4 guys and making them move together. Then, some guys might have “reach” (Warmachine) allowing them to block charge lanes etc. whilst others might have shields etc. to absorb charges etc. That could allow for some interesting mini-formations to do the CC.
2) Longbows or weapons like that would hardly be used in ARO. Yes, small crossbows etc. but not all ranged weapons.
I work in a real medieval dungeon in Nottingham and every saturday night we run terror tours around it in the dark. No mammoths but who can tell in the dark. If you ever visit Notts you need to send Justin round.
Shame about the Mercs rulebook only being hardback. Wonder if that will hurt them in the long run. With so many companies putting out their rule sets for free download to let you get a feel for the game, why would somebody pay $60 dollars for something they could hate. Thought those type of gambling days were gone in modern gaming.
There is talk of them releasing it in PDF form; but at the moment they have this $60 barrier to the game. They do make some strange decisions as a company…
Playing Devil’s Advocate (and I haven’t bought or played MERCS), publishing a big hardback rulebook is a ‘declaration of war’. Or a statement that this is a serious, big league game up there with anything put out by GW, FFG, Privateer press, etc. It can make it less easy to ignore than a free or even cheap PDF. I can’t say which works better in general or which might work better for them. These days I think it is probably more important than it used to be to make games cheaply and easily accessible, even if not with the full… Read more »
hiho,
if you want to see great model trains and want to visit a great dungeon, then you have to come to hamburg/germany there you have both next to each other.
you have the miniature wunderland with awesome h0 szeneries, inklusive an airport and a harbor both full funktional.
http://www.miniatur-wunderland.com/
and
next to it you have the hamburg dungeon
https://www.thedungeons.com/hamburg/en/
this two locations are realy awesome 😀
if you are going to vistit call me i will go with you in it 🙂
Speaking only for myself, I find this one to be a little like being asked to decide whether I prefer sculptors to be left-handed or right-handed. I don’t care as long as the sculpt is good. I’m not bothered whether the setting existed independently of the game or was created for the game. I thoroughly enjoy games derived from both. I don’t think it’s necessarily a problem if market constraints are placed on creativity, they can even help spark creativity. There is a line over which you can go, though, in which a purely market-driven design philosophy can be counter-productive.… Read more »
I guess you’re right @redben aye – as long as the product at the end is enjoyable and it feels ‘good’ to play and explore from the ‘gaming in the gaps’ perspective maybe it doesn’t matter overly heh
Happy Sunday!
I’m really liking the inclusion of the forum posts, I wish I had more time to get involved.
I will start a project log at one point.
With regards to game design I’d say the idea must come first, I mean you must know what genre of game you want to create?
After that first step the fluff and rules would naturally evolve together.
got to be done if a bit cliché , Justin & Dragons going to the wrong type of dungeon ie the S&M type
Oh God yes lol
Or even being able to pronounce ‘dungeon’
I would pay good hard cash to see Justin at TG…..his beard would be the belle of the ball…
I think that with the development of some type of games background and game go hand in hand. Because when they start making a game they probably already have ideas of the world it will play in. Like halo, gears of war for electronic games. I also had that feeling with shattered earth and antares and probably a lot more other games have that to. But I think that that makes the game just that much better because it will feel right. And I think that you can still do things like that with worlds that are already out there.… Read more »
Mercs rulebook is nice, unfortunately it is the only nice thing that came out from the debacle that was their MERCS recon kickstarter, for those interested in the models be advised they are bendy restic with excessive flash at particular models and factions and some suffer from massive loss of detail, sad really. @warzan Straight for the holly cows eh? Heroscape was a massive hit on the boardgame world especially in the US especially because of the mash up theme, were cowboys could fight goblins and mecha could go to punches with dragons, I am not sure how marketing was… Read more »
I would love to see someone turn Ulysses 31 into a game
Happy Sunday!!
I’m not sure one should be developed too far without the other.
Definitely need to begin with a concept of basic setting and core rules. The nature of those core rule elements should drive the fluff details while the setting should drive the rules details. It’s an iterative cycle, with both feeding off each other.
Of course when the fluff already exists (license or historical) you still need to drive a solid concept to build the rules on.
Thanks for another great weekender guys. As always fun to watch and listen to you 🙂 And a lot of interesting discussions. And Justin can chalk this one up as a win for him i guess. A time when he gave Warren headaches and not the other way round ;P Heroscape … man … i was looking at that game when it came out and all the stuff in it got me totally confused. For the fantasy game from Corvus Belli i’m with Warren, at least a bit. It needs to keep some of the western stuff in it with… Read more »
I have to agree @elromanozo started an amazing trend, and your right there are quite a few people picked up the ball, yourself included.
I am really glad to see this quiet pattern continue which reminds us all how we are all connected.
I forgot to add for the app integrations, we disagreed the previous times and time unfortunately placed me to be correct, both in exillis and gholem arcana now FFG creates aps for their games and introduces DLC content with minimal cost for them and bypassing the retail distribution, this is not particularly bad and the market can adapt (funny though asmodei blows the horn of defending the LGS), what is important is that I do not see were the physical models and board is needed, seen a few reviews reviewers were ecstatic, but from a cynical perspective, anything outside the… Read more »
Don’t really get the whole using the so called correct models with a game. I don’t understand how companies can enforce this unless it’s a company organised tournament . I still think most players dont care if there using the models from the company or not
Also there are far more rulesets being produced than there are companies making miniatures
Long live friendly proxying!!