RPG Heartbreaker Quest

[MJ12 Commando]

[X] You will spend months and months carefully crafting thousands of pages of setting fluff and defining everything in careful detail and creating a tight and detailed metaplot.

[X] You will spend months and months carefully crafting thousands of pages of setting fluff and defining everything in a few nations or a single region in exhaustive detail, while spending five or six pages loosely giving ideas for what the rest of the world is like.​

Your setting needs to be the best one you can make, with all the knowledge you've learned since you first tried this. You write endless reams of fluff about this sci-fantasy dungeonpunk cyberopera, of the ringworld Xvorzieat that your main game will take place in and all the other places in the universe that are far less important, because who would want to play anywhere but Xvorzieat?

You also create a metaplot about how the universe is doomed unless chosen heroes can step up to save it. Of course, these chosen heroes can't be the player characters-that would give them far too much influence in the plot. You make up new and interesting characters for them to interact with and help on the quest to save the universe.

You're almost done with the book now! You just need to figure out how to deal with balance issues.

[ ] I don't believe in game balance.
[ ] There is no problem with one guy being a street-level thief and the other guy having an atomic death robot, they can still have fun.
[ ] We'll make random ways to take away player character agency and suggest using that as balance for more powerful stats.
[ ] The powerful stuff is harder to get unless you get lucky at chargen, to balance out how it's more powerful.
[ ] We'll make all player characters start off equally uncool.
[ ] I'll say that the game is deliberately imbalanced for thematic reasons.

 

[MJ12 Commando]

[X] We'll make all player characters start off equally uncool, and all antagonists and chosen heroes will be stat-ted to be beyond the ability of the players to beat in a fair (or unfair) fight, thus encouraging them to use their brain and try to think of ways other than combat to solve their problems.

You know what's cool? Rags to riches stories. You love the underdog beating the big guys, and thus you want to make that the default gaming experience. So you make the enemies tougher than the typical PCs, so they have to think on their feet to beat them. You make sure the list of equipment is long and detailed, and most of it is out of the reach of starting PCs, so they have something to look forward to.

You've made all the major decisions and it's time to publish. You need to think about a way to sell this game. You need... a title and a selling point.

[ ] Write-in. Describe this abomination and give it a title!

 

[MJ12 Commando]

[X] Xvör'zieatia Saga
[x] Imagine a game where your imagination is the only limit on your character. This is the game of ultimate choice, where your character's choices matter.

You think that an exotic, alien-sounding name is the best way to make your game stand out. You put the rules up, create a PDF, start selling it, and wait with anticipation as the reviews come in.

Unfortunately, the reviews are often negative. People talk about the confusing resolution system, the balance failures because of the exception-based design, the unclear way subsystems of the game interact with each other, and the power levels being not even close to what they were sold.

What do you do?

[ ] Insinuate that the reviewers don't know what they're talking about.
[ ] Retreat to an internet hugbox.
[ ] Make a youtube video drunkenly berating them.
[ ] Slink away from game designing.

 

[MJ12 Commando]

[X] Insinuate that the reviewers don't know what they're talking about.
-[X] Through a drunken Youtube rant.
[x] Retreat to an internet hugbox.

How dare they disparage your brilliance! Didn't you give them exactly what they asked for? You post a scathing rebuttal to the reviews on their websites and youtube. It gets rather embarrassing and turns out to be a bad PR move, but by the time you realize it, it's far too late and you retreat to the handful of people who somehow like your game, no matter its poor design decisions or badly thought out setting fluff.

Your game is forgotten a few years later except as an obscure in-joke. You eventually stop making games and find a different career. Unlike Raven c.s. McCracken, it probably doesn't involve pornography. It turns out this might be for the best, because you're making more money than a RPG designer does.

THANK YOU FOR PLAYING