System before World?

[RockyRaccoon]

Hey folks, I've been lurking for a few days, and finally feel the need to post! My user name is RockyRaccoon, but you can also call me 'Dan' if you don't like the idea of using someones on line alias.

Well. I had a basic idea for a world I'd like to make a tabletop game around. at the moment, it has the working name 'Furtansia'. If you ever played 'Ironclaw' it works on a similar setup... walking, talking animals in a fantasy setting. I suppose the general world I had in mind was 'techno-fantasy' in a sense, with Airships, and crystals that serve as a powersource for various tools, machines and even spellcasting.

HOWEVER, this post is more about how I'm going about this. I originally pondered making a D20 book for this. The system was there! However, I couldn't make heads or tails of the legal mumbo jumbo that is the open gaming licence and other WotC things in there. So, instead of attempting to do a D20 book, and save myself legal headaches... I figured I'd make my own system first, which I gave the working title to 'Frenzy'. Think of it as a 'Codename until I can think of something more suitable. The system is being made generic, with skills and abilities that can be renamed for worlds. such as 'Mounted/Vehicular Comabt' which could mean fighting off a steed, or.. fighting off a motorcycle. In the end, I intend the system to be released as a free document, and the Furtansia setting to be more copyrighted.

Now, is making the system before the world building a good idea? Should I layout the world more before the system? or should i worry about that when I have a working system?

Just looking for other folks experiences with this topic. Sorry if any of this nooooobish sounding! but this is my first fray into RPG Design!

[Callan S.]

Hi Dan,

One really excellent suggestion I've read at the forge is to make up an account of ideal play. Write out what you'd just love if players were to say and do in the game and just how you imagine the GM would react. Don't write down anything specific about dice rolling or whatever, just what people would be saying or doing. Once you've done it, we can then go back and think 'How do we get that to happen with some rules?'

Remember, when writing it, be absolutely selfish - write just the sort of thing you'd love to have happen during play, no compromise!

[eruditus]

That is a really excellent suggestion.

You certainly are in a chicken/egg scenario. 

I tend to like games where the world and the rules are insperable.  The advantages to this are that the mechanics can be developed to feed into the themes and spirit of the world.  In Artesia AKW the Fuzion system is barely recognizable as Mark Smylie altered the system to interact as the characters would interact balancing the various social, spiritual and physical bindings and having access only to skills that reflect their culture and upbringing.  I think you REALLy get into the "head" of a game when it's written like this.

The problem is that it's not easy for someone that doesn't like your system or has a favorite system to just hack it over to another system (thus the challenges I face with my Artesia BW conversion).

I think once you nail down what sorts of stories and interactions you want your mechanics to emulate you will have a better idea of what parts of the world would need to be created first. 

lastly, don't paint yourself into a corner.  Write both.  When the mechanics dicate something should change in the world to work, make that change.  When something in the mechanics should be altered to better deliver that experience, make that change.  Nothing is more frustrating for me, as a player, when I handle a system that does not in any way reflect the realities of the setting.  SO many games say "magic is rare" and there seems to be no limit at all to every players thowing around fireballs.

Hope this helps,
- Don

[Valamir]

I recommend focusing a bit.

Anthropomorphic animals with crystal powered airships...that's cool color...but it ain't a setting, and it certainly isn't a situation.

Designing a game for situation gives a HUGE advantage, it makes the game much easier to prep and run, it allows the game to hold together much better on its own merits, and its comes with all kinds of built in conflict.  In order to design a game for situation, however, you have to step away from the "you can do anything be anything" standard that most traditional games take. 

My advice is to spend alot of time thinking about what makes your world cool.  I specifically do not mean the color (one can take for granted that for just about any described bit of color there are folks who will really groove on it).  I mean what makes YOU really jazzed.  The example of what play looks like is a great tool for this.  If you were to play this game...what would you want to be.  Do you think a campaign involving airship pirates would be the bomb?  If so, imagine what kind of conflicts would drive such a campaign and then make the game ABOUT the airship pirates.  Do you think a campaign involving a war between Cat people and Dog people, with foxes and mustalids on the fringes viewed as traitors by both sides would be cool...then make THAT the situation of your game...etc. etc. etc.  Essentially whatever element of your setting would make for the most kick ass movie trilogy imaginable...make that the focus of your game and don't worry about the rest.

Once you've done that...the mechanics will largely start to write themselves.  The skills and attributes and dice system that would best portray a game about anthropomorphic airship pirates will be much different from the skills and attributes and dice system that would best portray a game about an feuding anthropomorphic species. 

This will give you a game that's much more compelling, easier to hook, and IMO more likely to be actually played than trying to use generic mechanics that could do either equally well (read: equally poorly).

So for my money.  World first, always...drilled down and focused like a laser on the absolute coolest situation that exists in that world...and then mechanics designed specifically and exclusively to portray that situation; is the approach most likely to produce a game worth playing.

[Call Me Curly]

Dan,

The replies you've received thus-far are from people who know what they're talking about.  It's good advice.

But I want to make a fine distinction.

IF you follow the basic design tip they gave you: write-up a description of an ideal example of play...

AND THEN examine what part of the write-up really rocks your world...
(or even-better; what would rock the players' world)

THEN you'll know what to design first. 

If the most innovative/clever/hilarious part of your write-up is that players play in pitch dark,
or that players' actual housepets' behavior is used as a randomizer... well those are both System ideas
and you should tackle those first , so as to keep the best part central to the game.

It's hard to even know when you're off-course from the center, if you don't know what the
center even is, yet.

Now, given what you've told us so-far; I think the world -is- the part that you dig most.
Nothing wrong with that at all.  So yeah, start with the world.

But maybe my little admontion is for the very smart people who gave you that advice:
Don't jump the gun and presume the world or the situation or anything-else will be the most
crucial part of someone's best-tabletop-transcript-I-can-imagine transcript.
Let the process reveal the answer.

[billvolk]

I'm in a similar boat, having made a setting for an existing system that I'm now slowly making a new system for. I've never designed a system with no setting in mind, so I can't speak from a well-informed perspective, but I think that the content (including the setting or implied setting) is what usually makes an RPG fun and distinctive, not the system. Most players don't look forward to following the rules of a roleplaying system; they look forward to pretending to be someone else, go somewhere else, and do something they can't or shouldn't do IRL. You can compare this to other kinds of games, such as card games and board games, where it's usually the system that takes center stage as a means to fun.

I'm not saying that you must do what's usually done. I guess I'm just noting that your question outlines the odd relationship between roleplaying and games.

[RockyRaccoon]

I recommend focusing a bit.

Anthropomorphic animals with crystal powered airships...that's cool color...but it ain't a setting, and it certainly isn't a situation.

I have more than this down, just trying to basiically, describe the world in one sentence. I have a name for the world.. countries, and different types of cultures, I just did'nt feel it was all that pertient to the general question i was asking!

As with this stated, thanks for the input, guys! This helps me a lot! I'm going to try to imagine how a game might go, what might happen... and write down these ideas as I go, and work them into both, rather than trying to make a 'General, generic System'.

truthfully, never really thought of that plan before!

[Valamir]

Sorry, I wasn't clear.  I'm sure you have scads more than that one sentence.  You could have 56 different countries, a dozen religions, maps based on plate tectonics etc etc....and I'd say the same thing...its all just color (potentially very cool color that I'd really enjoy) but its not a situation.

In other words "here's a world I invented, go adventure in it" is a very common trap to fall into (we all have at one time or another), so my post was really a warning against falling into it.

[RockyRaccoon]

Sorry, I wasn't clear.  I'm sure you have scads more than that one sentence.  You could have 56 different countries, a dozen religions, maps based on plate tectonics etc etc....and I'd say the same thing...its all just color (potentially very cool color that I'd really enjoy) but its not a situation.

In other words "here's a world I invented, go adventure in it" is a very common trap to fall into (we all have at one time or another), so my post was really a warning against falling into it.

alright, I know what you mean! Yes, there is a situation, or general thing plaguing the world that tends to the be focus of this world!

In this specific case, While using these 'Sacred Crystals' is general a good thing, it's also depelting the world, Evil Empires want control of them, Good Factions want to liberate them.... and perhaps, the greatest evil of all is just using them all as puppets?

This IS what you kinda mean, right?

[Valamir]

Sort of...you've created a source of conflict, but that's still in macro "civilization level" terms...i.e. still at the setting level.  To turn that into a situation you need to bring it down to the characters.

Ok, so you have these sacred crystals...which may be sentient (I gather from your puppet comment) and this may be and is seen by some as abusive.  How can you bring that down to the level of your characters?

Maybe the characters are members of a secret society that have discovered that using the sacred crystals is destroying the world...maybe they open portals to other dimensions and increasingly dangerous monsters are breaking through.  So this society is about performing missions to recover the crystals from those who are using them.  Of course, only the rich and powerful have access to the crystals, and they intend to keep them...so this society is pitted against the world's most wealthy and most powerful people.  And of course they have to deal with the monsters that slip through.  Also of course, the crystals are a source of power, and the society has accumulated alot of them over the years...so theres always the temptation (and kewl factor) of using them themselves.  And of course always the possibility that the society itself is just a front for a faction that wants the crystals to take over the world (which is what the enemies of the society accuse them of).

So your game then become about these characters and the missions they go on.  So you'll need rules to define the missions, track the character's "outlaw" status and the various powerful people who are hunting them...maybe generating the monsters etc.  But everything else you don't worry about.  Play is focused on this specific situation.

That's just one example, of course, it may not be at all similar to what you have in mind and there are likely way cooler possibilities buried in the material you have, but I wanted to illustrate one way of taking civilization level issues down to the character level.  This is why I suggest thinking of the movie you'd like to see made.  If Hollywood came knocking and wanted to license your setting if you could get them a screen play by next week...what would you write?   The kind of thing that the characters in that movie are doing in the movie, are the kind of things the characters in game should be doing.  By definition that would be your favorite part of your setting...so my suggestion is focus on making your game just about your favorite part.

[slade the sniper]

Wow, this thread is filled with a lot of very useful and well presented information.

If Hollywood came knocking and wanted to license your setting if you could get them a screen play by next week...what would you write?   The kind of thing that the characters in that movie are doing in the movie, are the kind of things the characters in game should be doing.  By definition that would be your favorite part of your setting...so my suggestion is focus on making your game just about your favorite part.

I have never heard this before, and it is simple, eloquent and true.  Thanks

As far as system before world goes, I have found that there are very few systems that are not able to bent, beaten or modified to fit a given setting.  Granted some are more complex fixes/modifications and some are simple and almost transparent.  Therefore it would seem that the system's primary purpose is to make the setting flow smoothly from description to action.

While the intuitive answer is world before system, if you could create the system in conjunction with the world, that would be the most advantageous course of action.  Of course all I have done is parrot other, far more experienced, game designers.

-STS