Thread by @Epidiah

Way back in April of last year, I did a big thread of the tools I use to make RPGs as part of the #AprilTTRPGMaker hashtag. The 1st & most useful part of that thread is about conceptual tools--ideas that helped me create, refine & hone my designs.

https://twitter.com/Epidiah/status/987309320382578689

The 2nd, far less useful, part was about the hardware & software I play around with while designing.

As I say in the thread, I have emotions about all that. I love a gadget. They're fun to play with and fun to play is one of my favorite design goals...

...but I remember being an aspiring writer in the 80s & 90s, when so many folks wanted to sell your own dreams back to you in the form of just the right tool.

It makes one suspicious of "the right tool."

I'm bringing all this up by way of a disclaimer. Because there's this new thing I've been playing with, & I want to talk about it, about why I find it intriguing & how I think it can be fruitful, but I want to start by saying your most useful tools are in your conceptual toolbox.

With that out of the way, here's my new toy: wavemaker.cards

A suite of writing tools ostensibly for novelists, but quite possibly applicable to the fine art of tabletop roleplaying game design.

It's got a simple text editor, and I love a simple text editor. But I've got plenty of those.

It lets you divide your text up into manageable chunks & move them about in a family tree. And again, that exists elsewhere.

It's got several (3 to 5 based on how you want to define it) different ways to keep and organize notes for your project. The quantity here is not important.

There some big, nebulous ways I'm excited about the way this works, but big and nebulous suck for communication. So...

...I'm going to focus on a single tool and work through an example to show you a little bit of what intrigues me here.

Let's play with the Snowflake tool. ❄️

A lot of software for writers offer ways for you to organize your thoughts. And they can be appealing, because you'd like to believe your thoughts are organizable.

But most of these have complex interactive bits that rely on your thoughts being organized in the first place.

It took me a long time to come to terms with the fact that my brain just prefers not to work that way.

This is why the snowflake tool appeals to me. Let's look at how it works while I try to use it to design a game, shall we?

We start with an unassuming card. There's a spot for a title and a section issuing the command "Write Here."

There are also two icons: a trash can in the lower left and a snowflake in the upper right. I'm fairly confident I know what clicking on the trash can will do.

Here we go: the Gamefield Public Library Curious Research Society!

This is a game that's been on my backburner for a bit now. A game about amatuer folklorists who meet at their local public library to investigate the paranormal hiding in the shadows of their little town.

"A game about the old folks who meet at the local library to investigate the...strange goings-on in their town. Uses something like tone dice, with one representing the peril involved in the investigation and the other representing just how accurate their current hypothesis is."

Now we click on the snowflake icon.

👉❄️

Like when you first learn about making outlines for papers way back in grade school, every good topic gets three sub-topics!

The idea is to take your original idea and expand upon it in three different ways. I'm going to take a moment to fill these in.

Here's how I'm choosing to divide this up:
❄️ The Town of Gamefield, because I'll need to talk about the setting.
❄️ The Initial Mechanical Idea, because that's all I got at the moment.
❄️ The Folks You Play, because you need to play folks. Old folks. No youngs!

The Town of Gamefield

"An old New England town, nestled in what used to be a prehistoric lake bed, the county seat and commercial center for the sparsely populated surrounding hill towns. ...

"... Fraught with haunted bridges, centuries old unsolved crimes, cryptids, and other creatures of obscure and highly localized folklore."

I'm delightfully free from having to go into any deeper detail at the moment, because I have an inkling of how the snowflake tool works.

Some day soon, I'll have a snowflake icon on this card that I can click on and then I'll have to expand upon the Town of Gamefield in three different ways.

But not right now.

The Initial Mechanical Idea

"Two dice:

"🎲 One, the Peril Die, is always a d6.
"🎲 The other, the Hypothesis Die, starts as a d4 and moves up, gaining two sides at a time as you get closer to uncovering the truth, until it's a d12.

"Roll the both...

"...if the Peril Die is higher, you're in trouble. If the Hypothesis Die is higher, then your narration must match the current hypothesis for what's going on. Ties mean you're both in trouble and on the right track. ...

"... Low Hypothesis Die means narrations must contradict the current hypothesis."

Since MonkeyDome, I've wanted to examine tone dice where one or more of the dice rolled changes sizes, weighing the tones.

Technically, these aren't tones, but it's in the same conceptual zone.

Again, this idea is all I need because I know I'm going to eventually need to expand upon it.

What works for me here is that I just poop the idea out of my brain, through my fingers & keyboard, unto the virtual card. No need to tag or categorize it. It's just what comes next.

The Folks You Play

"Oldens! Enough of these games about young, vital folk. I want old people. Folk who have history with the town, who are familiar with what used to be in that storefront 4 cafes & 2 bars ago. Or at least, middle aged folks.

"Curious & vibrant library patrons."

Supernatural stories that are sexy like skin tags!

Here's the scary part folks. We're about to click on that button at the bottom and obliterate the original card, but as they say, "To create, you must destroy. Smash a glass and cry, Too Much Joy!" Replace the Original card" circled in red." src="/images/1px.png" data-src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dzx6eTlX0AE0Tbr.png">

It is done!

Fuck, it feels good to annihilate a draft.

Okay, so that can be scary. What if you accidentally wrote something brilliant in that previous card? What if you couldn't remember it? Do they have to be destroyed?

Way up on the right there's an icon that, when you hover over it, says "Send to Writer."

This takes all your current cards in the Snowflake tool and drops them in the Writer tool, which is the simple text editor with a little organizational family tree thing going on.

I did this before & after hitting that replace button, to see if it would replace the Snowflake cards in the Writer, or create a new instance.

It looks like you create a new one. So, if you're careful about saving this way, you can preserve all previous versions.

I'm not so careful with this sort of stuff, so I'm just going to presume I'll forget at some vital point and replace with abandon.

Now, which of these cards is next on the chopping block?

All right, back at it for a little bit. I'm going to tackle those very vague rules.

👉❄️

This is where I think, conceptually, the snowflake tool might be a bit more linear than what game design needs, but I'm going with it.

I want to talk about each die type, Peril and Hypothesis, but there's other rules I need to address and I can't just add a card out of the blue.

Each new card is, ostensibly, a part of a trio of cards belonging to a previous card. So the spirit of the exercise draws me towards talking about the two dice and one more thing mentioned on the previous card...

...but since the original card is going to evaporate, I'm going to fudge it a bit.

I'll make a card for the Peril Die, the Hypothesis Die, and for Phases, which I'm thinking of borrowing from Swords Without Master.

The Hypothesis

"Once the Gamefield Public Library Curious Research Society meets to discuss a topic of investigation, you must all agree upon a working hypothesis. 'Hey, the apples keep disappearing from Margaret's tree. I think it might be the neighborhood kids stealing them.'

"This gives you a d4 Hypothesis Die to roll.

"Whenever you lose the Hypothesis Die, you must agree upon a new Hypothesis to adopt going forward. This gives you the next higher die. d4 -> d6 -> d8 -> d10 -> d12

"Start with something mundane and natural so it can build to supernatural."

Side note: Scooby-Doo version starts with the most supernatural explanation and builds towards some mundane real estate scam.

The Peril

"The Peril Die is always a d6. The actual Peril depends on what Phase we're in. If you're in the stacks, digging through tomes and town records, the Peril is more personal. If you're doing fieldwork, the Peril can be a real, physical threat. ...

"... No death, though. Spooky stories, not survival horror.

If the Peril die wins, you must stack it atop of previous Peril Dice. If you cause that stack to fall, the Peril will befall your character. Ha, hidden Dread! You one note motherfucker."

Tried to shoehorn this in:

Rolling

"I need to figure out when to roll. Here I'm thinking about something akin to the Rogues' Phase in Swords, but it might not be.

"You know, maybe the dice aren't compared to each other. Maybe they're compared to a target number. ...

"... Like 4 or higher, and that die goes into effect. This number can change based on the type of Phase? I can encourage Fieldwork that way."

Replace! Replace! Replace!

The list of base cards is growing!

I don't like the rolling card, so I'm going to snowflake that one next.

I should have just gone straight for the Phases, but I got them in now. Still not there with the specifics of rolling and I'm starting to repeat myself for the sake of getting 3 good cards in. So, instead, I'm going to see if I can get by with 1 good and 1 iffy card.

Phases

"I'll need to make some Phases up. Fieldwork is a good one, for when you're out in the world, digging into what's going on.

I'll need one for when you're digging through the library's stacks or the archives at the Gamefield Historical Society. ...

"... I don't want to call that one Research, because it's also in the tile, but for now, it is.

"And then one for when you're at home, dealing with everyday life. Maybe it should always involve a meal."

Possible Rolling Results

"The Hypothesis Die can tell you whether you're going to narrate in accordance with the current hypothesis or if you must contradict it. So it should always be rolled before narrating.

"The Peril Die can tell you if more danger is afoot.

"I'm getting an idea here where you roll both at the top of a phase, and then reroll the lower when something changes."

Oof, this is weak.

Let's clean this up. It turns out that I can replace the base card with all 3 sub-cards, even if 1 (or more) of them is not filled out. And once they're base cards, I can just send them to the trash.

It's a workaround to get in new ideas that aren't based on previous cards.

Next up, let's bury that Rolling card under a pile of better ideas.

So...

Those better ideas should show up soon, right?

Right?

I think I might have a problem with the Peril die. I'm not sure if it should be Peril or something else. Like Spooky or maybe just Trouble.

Happily, I can edit cards that have already been made.

But now I've got to ponder before moving forward.

The question is, have I painted myself into a corner already with this snowflake tool.

We'll see.

Another day, more thread!

I have some idea where this game is going now and I'm not sure if this is the tool to take it all the way. I have an urge to start consolidated and cleaning things up. I'm going to try to stick with it as long as possible.

Top of the Phase

"The dice have to be rolled at the top of the phase to set the tone. We need to know if folks are in peril and if we should be narrating within the hypothesis or contradicting it.

"After the dice are rolled and you've narrated accordingly, pick the dice up and hand them to someone else making an inquiry."

I'm drifting away from Swords a bit, and that's good, but right now I'm still clinging to the Phase structure in that game, because it really works.

Inquiries

"In each Phase, after you have narrated, you may hand the dice to someone else, you make an inquiry about their character. 'Will you go into the attic to investigate the lights?' 'Will you pull me out of the river in time for us to flee?'

"'Will you bring your butterscotch scones to the next meeting?'

"They must answer yes or no before rolling, then narrate what happens, taking into account your answer and the result of the dice. If you said no, you are not put in danger by the Peril die if it is highest."

State of Confusion

"If the Hypothesis die is lower than the Peril die, you're in trouble and the whole investigation is in Confusion. You need a quorum! The members of the GPLCRS must meet up and agree on a new hypothesis to pursue before you can roll that Hypothesis die again.

"During this state of Confusion, roll only the Peril die: any result of 3 or more will put you in danger."

I'm smashing the Rogues' Phase demands from Swords Without Master together with Dread's right of refusal here. I think this'll make a good pairing. Instead of demanding "Show us how uncover the source of the sounds in the cellar!" like you might in Swords...

...it's more of a question. "Will you investigate the sounds coming from the cellar?" Giving folks a chance to back away.

I should, however, give them something to back away from.

Hmm....