Warren Spector on the rules of Role Playing

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Warren Spector on the rules of Role Playing, Spector of Deus Ex fame

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Wounded Ronin

Mar 1 2007, 02:06 AM

Post #1

Great Dragon

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Warren Spector was one of the really important people involved in the best game ever, Deus Ex. I was just looking on the web and found some rules of role playing that he wrote. Since we're all into RPGs here I thought I'd post them with a link for your interest.

http://nuwen.net/dx.html

QUOTE

Always show the goal. Players should see their next goal (or encounter an intriguing mystery) before they can achieve (or explain) it.

Problems not puzzles. It's an obstacle course, not a jigsaw puzzle. Game situations should make logical sense and solutions should never depend on reading the designer's mind. And there should always be more than one way to get past a game obstacle. Always.

No forced failure. Failure isn't fun. Getting knocked unconscious and waking up in a strange place or finding yourself standing over dead bodies while holding a smoking gun can be cool story elements, but situations the player has no chance to react to are bad. Used sparingly, to drive a story forward, O.K. Don't overuse!

[editor's note: I can say with pride that I've killed everyone but Gunther in that no win situation Deus Ex puts you in towards the beginning. You can tell that they never planned for you to do that since the civilian NPCs are all saying disjointed things unrelated to the situation.]

It's the people, stupid. Role-playing is about interacting with other people in a variety of ways (not just combat... not just conversation...).

Players do; NPCs watch. It's no fun to watch an NPC do something cool. If it's a cool thing, let the player do it. If it's a boring or mundane thing, don't even let the player think about it - let an NPC do it.

Have you patted your player on the back today? Constant rewards will drive players onward. Make sure you reward players regularly. And make sure the rewards get more impressive as the game goes on.

Players get smarter so games get harder. Make sure game difficulty escalates as players become more accustomed to your interface and more familiar with your world. Make sure you reward the player by making him or her more powerful as the game goes on.

Think 3D. A 3D map cannot be laid out on graph paper. It has to take into account things over the player's head and under the player's feet. If there's no need to look up and down - constantly - make a 2D game!

Are You Connected? Maps in a 3D game world must feature massive interconnectivity. Tunnels that go direct from Point A to Point B are bad; loops (horizontal and vertical) and areas with multiple entrance and exit points are good.

HullBreach

Mar 1 2007, 01:36 PM

Post #2

Moving Target

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QUOTE (Wounded Ronin @ Feb 28 2007, 09:06 PM)

Think 3D. A 3D map cannot be laid out on graph paper. It has to take into account things over the player's head and under the player's feet. If there's no need to look up and down - constantly - make a 2D game!

This one is a pain in the butt for us GM's. Ive been trying to come up with a good solution to this for 10+ years and have tried many, many things in vain.

One of the best I found involved a large kit of childrens wooden blocks and 2 colors of little plastic army men. It wasn't the most portable rig in the world, but it worked pretty well, and we could improvise other props and things on the fly without much effort.

nezumi View Member Profile	Mar 1 2007, 02:09 PM Post #3
Incertum est quo loco te mors expectet; Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 6,548 Joined: 24-October 03 From: DeeCee, U.S. Member No.: 5,760	One thing I've been learning, having the NPCs save the day isn't always a bad thing. My wife is playing a single player game I'm running, and last night her character was traveling with two other major NPCs, both of whom are supposed to be much more powerful than her and are related to her by marriage, when they were caught up in a huge battle. She said that some of the coolest scenes were where she was busy with some other challenge, and the two NPCs did something awesome, or another NPC swept in suddenly and unexpectedly to change the course of the battle, etc. All of the NPCs had bigger roles than she did (although she still had plenty of challenges on her own). On the other hand, when trouble comes up and the NPCs 'watch' (or are caught up with their own issues), she gets frustrated. So that rule can certainly be taken too far. The rule is know your players, know your game. In a deadly game especially, PCs may want the NPCs to carry more of a burden.

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