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Thanks for the tips Belchion - I completely agree that it's a good idea to research your monsters. Using them exactly as described in the monster manual will lead to them being nothing more than a series of numbers for your players to role dice against. Thinking about how the monsters behave and how they are unique leads to much more interesting encounters. I once adapted a monster to make it invincible unless it was pushed into a nearby river - the player's got a lot more satisfaction out of realising that and succeeding in the mission than if they had just kept rolling damage on it.

I find it interesting how "good vs. evil" has always been such a key part of storytelling. To stick with your Star Wars example, it's hard to imagine a more "evil" character than Darth Vadar, at least as he's portrayed in episode 4. With the new episodes (4 and 8) it seemed the writers wanted to take it in a more ambiguous direction with the focus on the conflicted Kylo Ren. I was disappointed with episode 8 though, as it was still "the good little guy standing up to the big bad guy". Wouldn't it have been more interesting if the film followed Kylo Ren and a small band of First Order die-hards resisting the overwhelming might of Leia's new Republic? Perhaps there's something that appeals to audiences about the "good little guy". They're rarely on top.

https://masterofolympus.wordpress.com/2017/12/21/diary-14-iceberg/

Clockwork – those are two really interesting suggestions, thanks. Certainly 8 sided dice are attractive thematically. I want the game to involve a lot of discussion but I'm keen to have a process of levelling up, so a lot of it will need to be quantified. Also I'll have to think about how much of the pressure is on the GM. I think working with GMs is an underrated part of game design. I've not heard of Lionheart but I'll look into it – "wielder" just came form how I pictured wizards actually utilising the glyphs by crafting them in the air. Cheers for the link to Matt Colville.

Jubal – I'm not yet sure if the concentric rings thing should be physical or metaphorical. By that I mean a map of one ring would have "exits" to its outer neighbour in its wilder areas, and to its inner in its more civilised. The maps of each "ring" would not need to correspond to each other, or account for each others existence, more like a set of parallel universes than a Discworld of rings.

[Epi]

A Roleplaying Experiment
By rbuxton

I have always been frustrated by traditional portrayals of magic. Why, exactly, should waving a stick and shouting a few words in Latin produce a defined, predictable effect? If there's some power flowing through the world, and I'm able to use it, why can't I produce any effect I like? This seemed like a good basis for my first roleplaying game.

The design brief was simple: a game in which players were limited, not by the rules, but by their own imaginations. A player might, logically, attempt to play like this:

"I see the game. I call down a storm of fire to kill all the baddies. I win the game."

This, clearly, was going to be a problem. But how could I prevent it and preserve the player's creativity?

Adinkra symbols representing objects & concepts; real world "glyphs"?

Fast forward several months to me sitting on a bus in a town called Puerto Octay. "Puerto Octay": I liked the sound of that. To me it seemed like the phrase "The Power of Eight" in some archaic language. Eight whats? How about eight magical Glyphs, which are combined by wizards to produce spells. I had found the missing ingredient for my game.

Each glyph would represent a Law of Physics, based on those of our own universe (I talk more about my love of rules here), and by breaking those Laws, spells could be cast. The eighth glyph was easily identified: the existence of glyphs and spells is a Law in itself. For the other seven glyphs, I would need to boil down the Laws of our own universe into seven principles, and give each a name. Here's what I came up with:

Epi – Heat (also cold, energy...)

Konot – Light (also darkness, transparency...)

Mazarule – Solidity (also vapour, mass...)

Listay – Attraction (also repulsion, vibration...)

Akri – Motion (also stillness, time...)

Salifray – Growth (also decay, life...)

Kos – Dominance (also subservience, hierarchy...)

Enta – The Master Glyph. This governs the formation of spells and is the only glyph not based on the Laws of our universe.

Using the right combination of glyphs, it should be possible for a player to cast any spell they can think of. Creating a zombie, for example, would require a combination of Salifray (growth) and Kos (dominance). Gameplay would be puzzle-based: as well as coming up with creative solutions to problems, players would have to identify and thwart spells used against them.

When creating a character (or "Wielder"), players would have a basic understanding of two glyphs of their choice. Further proficiency in those glyphs could be gained through study and adventure. Later on, players could diversify or specialise in just one glyph, and both options would need to be viable. Proficiency in Enta (the Master Glyph) would improve as the player's skill increased, and so act as a "levelling" system. This, combined with the game's rules and the game master's judgment, would determine the size and complexity of spells which could be attempted. Clearly this needed to be quantified, but I was too terrified to make the attempt.

I turned, instead, to the setting for my world. It would need to be simple, and leave lots of room for game masters to add their own content. I settled on a world of concentric circles, with a Metropolis in the middle and ever more mysterious lands and oceans surrounding it. Fantastical creatures could be accommodated if desired: they'd simply have some connection to one of the glyphs.

Could hackers wield power in our own world?

My world's history was more problematic. I was tempted to give each glyph a long, detailed history but, again, I felt simplicity was key. I decided that glyph magic would be a recent discovery, causing a revolution in my world comparable to that of the internet in ours. I used this analogy to create a society in which the old establishment is threatened by cells of self-taught, criminal upstarts, and this in turn gave rise to the three backgrounds players could choose for their wielder:

> Academic – holding formal training in glyph magic (in our world, those with IT qualifications).

> Freelancer – self-taught, seeking new knowledge wherever they can find it (hackers).

> Smith/tradesman – uses the new magic to enhance their business (IT department in an existing industry).

And so to the moment of truth: the first playtest! Armed with a handful of shaky rules I took my willing victim, John, on a money-making adventure in the Metropolis. He cast a spell on a street juggler's baton, causing it to fall, and, in the confusion, stole a hat full of coins. He then managed to frame another man (whom he subdued by sticking his boots to the floor) for the crime, and convinced the Kos (dominance) wielding police officers that he was licensed to Wield.

We both enjoyed the adventure and John identified where the game needed to improve. The big problem is a lack of a resolution mechanism: at present when a spell is cast, I, as the game master, simply decide the outcome. This needs to change, but the only system I'm familiar with is the one used in Dungeons and Dragons: a die is rolled and has to exceed a certain value for the spell to succeed. Perhaps the quantity and size (number of faces) of the dice could vary depending on the number of glyphs the spell contains?

To close, let's look again at my player who wanted to win the game with a storm of fire. They are clearly not playing in the "spirit" of the game, and will not enjoy themselves. A spirit is not an easy thing to define, but if players are on board with it they are less likely to try to break the game. Perhaps my rules don't have to be perfect after all.

Thank you for reading about my young project. Can you think of any resolution mechanisms in existing roleplaying games, including your own, which might be applicable? I need ideas to help me out here. On the other hand, if you've seen something in this article you would like to use in your own project or roleplaying game, please do so. This is all highly experimental, and the results may be quite interesting. [/size]

Nice article clockwork, it's got me thinking about how I approach board game design. In the past I've described games which are mostly "mechanically difficult" as "complex in principle but simple in practice" and those that are "strategically difficult" as "simple in principle but complex in practice". I've always disliked the former: to me it seems that having many complex routes to the same thing is just annoying. I've always tried to reduce the rules in my games to give them as few features as possible but maintain strategic depth. But perhaps my dislike is unfounded? Maybe it's time I designed a game which focuses on mechanical difficulty to find out.

Nice article Jubal. I too am interested in the AI side of things, and there are two points which I'd like to add:

1. You mention how AI's can be used to completely defeat humans by computing the best possible outcome at each point. My experiences have sometimes been different. When I play a Total War game, after a few campaigns I find that I've stopped thinking strategically: the repetitive nature of the AI's thinking means that I can predict exactly what it will do in any given battle, and outmaneuver it accordingly. This gives me the illusion that I'm good at strategy, when in fact a complete newbie would probably beat me as I wouldn't be able to predict their actions. This could be simply a badly designed AI, but creative and unpredictable thinking are not things computers as a whole are known for.

2. For me the key thing that board games have over video games is the fact that interacting with a screen is significantly less interesting than interacting with a human. The social aspect of board gaming is vastly superior to video gaming, and the game becomes a part of your interaction with your friends, not a diversion from it. One of my favourite games is Connect 4, not least because when I look through the holes in the game I see my opponent's face frowning back at me. As the tension in the game increases, so my view of my opponent is reduced to fragments.

The two central mechanics:

1. Players take three actions in a turn, and the "value" of those actions deteriorates as the turn progresses. For each action, players choose either Build, Move or "something fancy". Build and Move work in the same way each time; the "something fancy" is different in each action and represents the manifestation of divine powers. The three available actions in action 1 are as follows: "Build up to 3 troops and/or ships", "Move a stack by up to 3 tiles" and "Create a hero". Each of these actions has a value of 3, and the following turns have values of 2 and 1, respectively. Action 1 is chosen and executed by all players at the same time, and likewise for actions 2 and 3. In addition, each player's God Card gives them unique a bonus of value 1, which will trigger if they create a hero or summon a creature during the turn. A turn, in other words, has a maximum "value" of 7, and trying to optimise a turn (or, prehaps more accurately, knowing when it is prudent to be sub-optimal) is a core of the strategy.

2. Players can only maintain control of a certain quantity of tiles (hexes), and this quantity increases as the game progresses. This is represented by the number of stacks a player can support. The more cities, heroes and played Knowledge cards a player has, the higher their support. At the end of each turn, a "disband phase" occurs, in which players who have exceeded their support limit must remove stacks from the board until they are back within their limit. All stacks have a maximum height of 4. The game, therefore, punishes players for spreading out thinly (one stack of four is preferable to four stacks of one, for example). To score victory points, however, players will need to spread out and control the right combination of tiles.

Hi Jubal, sorry it's taken me a while to get round to replying as well! I agree that it's possible to restrict with arbitrary rules – I guess some sort of vetting process is required to identify the rigid and the arbitrary rules.

A school with strict rules does not have to be "regimented", good discipline doesn't need to involved everyone toeing a very rigid line. In an ideal world the rules wouldn't need enforcing at all, because the children would be sufficiently invested in them, and benefiting from them, that it wouldn't occur to them to "break" them. Problem is, children discover where the boundaries lie by pushing against them and seeing what the consequences are. A good behaviour policy isn't, therefore, enough: the pastoral staff, the catering for special educational needs and the teacher's own efforts to engage the students are all required to encourage children to invest in a system they view as right for them.

I like your Tammin stories example, and I envy you for them. Several times I have wanted to create a story or character where an unclassified power is involved but not central to the way the character behaves, or the themes of the stories. My problem is that, shortly after creating my powerful character, I can't resist defining where that power comes from. The story soon morphs into an adventure in which I explore the extremes of the rules governing that power, perhaps losing the original intention of what I wanted the character to do.

It's not something I've tried, but I could playtest it. My concern would be gamers of a mathematical persuasion who would question the logic of not choosing the lowest common denominator in the scoring system.

[When I was young]

The Power of Rules
By Richard Buxton (rbuxton)

Should dragons obey the rules? Art from DeviantArt member Soulsplosion.

When I was young I met a girl who, like me, enjoyed writing fantasy stories. "Fantasy is very exciting," she declared, "You can put a dragon over here, a wizard in his tower over there. Anything can happen." I, in my cynical, childish way, disagreed. What was so creative, I wondered, about mashing up a load of fantasy clichés and seeing what came out? To me, the really exciting fantasy worlds were those where only certain things could happen. Where the laws of nature, though different to those of our own world, could be used to create all sorts of interesting characters and storylines. Even at that age I saw an irony here: was it possible that true creativity required rigid rules?

Some years later, I started work on my Demons saga, a trilogy of fantasy video games. The project never made to the screen, but it nevertheless kept my brain occupied on long car journeys. At the start of the story the hero, Dannial, has his soul forcibly removed. This comes to the attention of three warring demonic races, who all vie to fill Dannial with their own essence, thus turning him into one of their own.

Why am I using this half-baked project as an example? After sketching the plots of the first two instalments of the trilogy, I decided to think in more depth about the laws of nature of the universe I was creating. Why could some beings use magic, and others not? Why was each demon homeworld distinct? What was so important about a human's soul anyway? When I had made these decisions, an interesting thing happened: the third instalment wrote itself. The characters, their limitations and their access to sources of magic were so clear in my mind that I could weave them together with ease. I was very pleased with this but, when I looked back at the first two parts of the trilogy, I found that their plotlines no longer made scientific sense. If only I had created my rules at the start of the process!

An island on Ravnica. Fan art from DeviantArt member fooyee.

Let's look at another example: Ravnica, my favourite world from the card game Magic the Gathering. Ravnica consists of one giant city (think Coruscant, only fantastical) and is governed by ten independent guilds.  Like any of the Magic the Gathering worlds, all things in Ravnica can be defined by their relationship to the five "colours" of Mana, loosely comparable to the four elements of Earth, Air, Fire and Water. Each guild draws its power from precisely two colours of Mana, and its role in the governance of the city is defined by those colours.

The Izzet Guild, for example, is responsible for infrastructure and machinery, especially anything powered by steam. Its chosen colours, therefore, are Fire and Water. The guild's members are maverick scientists and mages known for their dangerous experiments. The guild's leader, meanwhile, is a knowledge-obsessed genius (a Water trait in the game) who also happens to be a dragon (Fire, duh). As you can see, the simple act of combining Fire and Water enabled the designers of Magic the Gathering to create a fascinating cast of characters and a whole aspect of Ravnica's society, both of which could function within the confines of the game.

When playing a game, the audience explicitly interacts with the laws of nature through the game's mechanics. The principle of following strict rules in fantasy, however, is equally applicable to other media. In books, for example, the laws are just as important, but, in general, only their noticeable effects end up in the narrative.

I believe that the empowering effect of rules is not limited to the creation of worlds. Picture two art lessons in a school (I work in education so apologies if this feels like a tangent). In one lesson, the teacher is strict and rigorously enforces the school rules; in the other, the children are ill-disciplined and their behaviour is poor. In which lesson are the children able to be more creative? Children, no matter what they tell you, crave (and flourish in) a stable environment. So my paradox appears once again: in order for children to be truly creative, they must be provided with rigid rules.

Hopefully I've convinced you that rules liberate, rather than restrict, a storyteller. Many storytellers would, of course, choose a different method of creating their world and, if this applies to you, I'd be interested to hear from you in the comments below. I am often accused (and justly so) of over-prescribing my rules, especially in my current "big" project: a board game in which players use the rules of the Greek myths to prove themselves the best god on Mount Olympus (you can read more about it here).

Thank you for reading, and please feel free to share any thoughts you have on this article!
[/size]

A guide would be very useful, thanks Jubal

At present the quests are simply a reward for achieving a certain milestone. The Song of Orpheus, for example, rewards a player who has a certain quantity of hero pieces on the board (5 in a two player game, fewer for multiplayer games). The nature of the game means they couldn't really be location-specific. I'm not happy with the current system though. They basically reward a player for doing things they otherwise have no intention of doing, so players aren't bothering. I'm working on a new version though.

Changing the quantity of victory points is a common piece of feedback. "Perhaps each player has one specific artefact on the board worth, for them, not one but two victory points". It's an option, and could possibly be implemented in the quests. The challenge there is that the boards are currently balanced based on available VP's, so they may need re-jigging.

Thanks for the tip Jubal - yes the page is a bit sparse at the moment but I'm gradually adding things when I get the time. I think the game needs a proper "overview" document.

Red and Yellow vie for control of Crete.