drayle88
Apprentice Douchebag
Posts: 57
Preferred Game Systems: AlcheMonster D20
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Post by drayle88 on Jun 25, 2012 16:28:34 GMT -8
When developing a TTRPG, what is the draw off point? Is it bad to have SET values, classes, skills, and still want a certain degree of creativity?
Is there to MUCH content you can give, what are the basics, what's needed, what's not?
and if you're putting the book together, how important is art?
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HyveMynd
Supporter
Dirty hippie, PbtA, Fate, & Cortex Prime <3er
Posts: 2,273
Preferred Game Systems: PbtA, Cortex Plus, Fate, Ubiquity
Currently Playing: Monsterhearts 2
Currently Running: The Sprawl
Favorite Species of Monkey: None
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Post by HyveMynd on Jun 25, 2012 19:37:00 GMT -8
I'm not sure how much this will help you, but I think you need to first decide what kind of game it is. What I mean is, are you designing a rules-heavy game that will appeal to crunch-lovers, or a more narrative game that will appeal to story-lovers? Those things don't have to be mutually exclusive, but generally I find that RPG systems lean towards one of those two options. Figuring that out will help you decide how much stuff should be in the book.
As far as art goes, I think Tappy said this somewhere towards the end of Season 7. Basically art (and layout) should be used to break up the text on a page to make it more readable. I get a lot of free review copies from DriveThruRPG, and seeing a single column brick of text on a page is a sure way to make me toss that PDF. Use the two column layout and put lots of space between the different sections. I'd much rather see no art than "bad" art; meaning art that seems to be shoved onto the page for no reason.
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Post by jazzisblues on Jun 26, 2012 6:36:05 GMT -8
It's a good idea to provide a framework with which to build characters. Classes provide one such framework though arguably it's a more constrained one than a framework where you build what you want with skills and such. The offset of that being that classes make it easy to describe a character in simple terms. The downside being that it makes more complex combinations (say for example a character that can both fight with a sword and cast spells) more difficult to express.
Personally I tend to favor games where you purchase the skills and abilities you want (Savage Worlds, Hero, GURPS, etc.) over class based systems but that's a personal thing, and I do still play Pathfinder every month and have a wonderful time with it.
If you break most class based systems down to their raw math, at some point it becomes clear that the designers have a natural bias towards certain combinations of things. Designers try to avoid them but they're almost always there. Point buy systems tend to not have that quite so much.
If you are looking to publish (even self publish) then the prettier you make the product (with art and layout) the better off you will be. It pays at this point to pay money (if necessary) for two things, a good editor, and a good layout artist. Those two people are worth their weight in gold when it comes to producing a polished product. Even if one is an able editor in their own right, it's never a good idea to edit your own work. Another set of eyes on it is amazingly effective.
Just my 2 krupplenicks on the subject, your mileage may of course vary.
JiB
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