Sorry, I was demonstrating application of the Game Design Flow Sheet to Rifts, mostly to illustrate its failure with this particular brush.
That's why I used Rifts in step 6 as a given, which I think Chamomile meant to cite as a complaint rather than step 5.
Game Design Flow Sheet
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NECROMANCY
#1: What was Step 1? Is it me or did we start at Step #2?
In my experience, it's orders of magnitude more entirely possible that you'll have 3 players or less at the table than that you'll have 6 players or more, unless you're at a gaming convention and playing with Rando Calrissians.
Of course, I have always lived in a region/had standards where filling a four person table was hard for me, so in part, that's that experience talking.
Also, all in all, the second and third steps feel a little too handcuffed to the D&D class/level paradigm. What if we're talking about system that doesn't have classes (like D&D) or even pseudo-classes (like Shadowrun?).
#1: What was Step 1? Is it me or did we start at Step #2?
#2: As a whole, I like the this flow sheet a lot, but I STRONGLY disagree with the order of Step 2 and Step 3. I'd put Step 3 before Step 2.Remember that it is entirely possible that you'll have 6 players or more at the table. If there is a structural impediment to the way you've designed the character "classes" such that you can't fit six players into a whole where each contributes, it's not going to work as an RPG.
In my experience, it's orders of magnitude more entirely possible that you'll have 3 players or less at the table than that you'll have 6 players or more, unless you're at a gaming convention and playing with Rando Calrissians.
Of course, I have always lived in a region/had standards where filling a four person table was hard for me, so in part, that's that experience talking.
Also, all in all, the second and third steps feel a little too handcuffed to the D&D class/level paradigm. What if we're talking about system that doesn't have classes (like D&D) or even pseudo-classes (like Shadowrun?).
Last edited by Neurosis on Tue Aug 30, 2016 6:42 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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The reason you start with step 2 is because in step 3 you assemble a party either completely at random (taking every other character concept you wrote up in step two, which were presumably in no particular order) or specifically attempt to build the least well-rounded party of three possible from those six. If you have six character archetypes in your game, it's not enough that they can form two workable parties of three if you all pick exactly the right classes. You have to be able to form a workable party if three people pick whichever class happens to appeal to them the most out of the options presented, which is essentially random.
The archetypal characters you're building don't have to be character classes or psuedoclasses, just character concepts you expect to be playable with the system. In fact, at this step we are explicitly avoiding the question of whether these characters get their powers 100% from a class or if they would have assembled their character from completely a la carte point buy or something in between.
The archetypal characters you're building don't have to be character classes or psuedoclasses, just character concepts you expect to be playable with the system. In fact, at this step we are explicitly avoiding the question of whether these characters get their powers 100% from a class or if they would have assembled their character from completely a la carte point buy or something in between.
Last edited by Chamomile on Tue Aug 30, 2016 7:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Username17
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It is indeed insufficient for there to be a collection of archetypes where the game is playable. Players in the real world make weird character generation choices and sometimes a player doesn't show up at the last moment. If the game becomes unplayable if no one wants to play a Decker, your game is not good. So you have to do Step 3 after you do Step 2. Once you've written in enough "bonus" archetypes that everyone could play something different in a large gaming group, you still have to make sure the game still works if a small group has players that only want to play the bonus archetypes you just wrote.
And yeah, it doesn't actually make any difference whether these character types are being given their ability sets with class packages or point buy systems or something in between. The checklist is results oriented, so the ability assignment system is unimportant.
-Username17
And yeah, it doesn't actually make any difference whether these character types are being given their ability sets with class packages or point buy systems or something in between. The checklist is results oriented, so the ability assignment system is unimportant.
-Username17