Episode 2: Initiative
How do you figure out who’s on first? And how do you balance the excitement of surprise against the satisfaction of a perfectly executed plan?
Violet advocates for inaction. Freya trusts in the heart of the cards. Violet reaches into her bag of tricks. Freya turns into a lighthouse.
Games discussed in this episode:
D&DTunnels & TrollsTravelerPhoenix: Dawn Command* Deadlands / Savage WorldsTroikaEdge of the Empire / GenesysVaesen / Mutant Year ZeroDaggerheart**Cosmere RPGMothership13th Age (briefly)Monsters & Other Childish Things / Reign / One Role SystemArkham HorrorBlood BowlBattletechFallingSpace AlertQuacks of QuedlinburgCobalt CoreTactical Breach WizardsNotes:
* I don’t know why this is the only game where I also named the author. No disrespect intended towards other designers! - F
** Speaking of which, and to answer a Q from the discussion: the lead designer is Spenser Starke; Mr Mercer is credited as creative advisor.
A disclaimer:
Freya is a volunteer playtester for both the Cosmere RPG and Daggerheart. She is not being paid in any way, and draws examples from their open beta material when relevant because they’re fresh in her mind!
Additional credits:
Our intro music is
"Magic Escape Room" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Editing, musical stings, and other sound effects by Violet Henderson
System Shop
Welcome to System Shop, the podcast where we deep dive into RPG design, one subsystem at a time.
Join us as we explore the origins, empirical trends, and future design space of all aspects of tabletop game design. What’s the point of mechanising carrying capacity or NPC attitudes? Why distinguish between armour and evasion, or attributes and skills? Many stories may begin with “because D&D did it”, but that’s far from the end…
We dig deeper by asking: how do differences in design decisions make players act and feel, and is this wholly intended? What is gained or lost by being able to sum up a monster with a challenge rating? How can initiative checks be used to make combat feel chaotic, tactical, or somewhere in between?
Finally, we suggest our own ideas for future innovations. Can we introduce new technologies and props? Can we shed assumptions of the past? Or should we bring them to the fore and embrace them to the extreme? Restrictions breed creativity, and our best ideas are often our most ridiculous.
System Shop is independent and ad-free. New episodes release whenever we have the time and energy to research and record a new topic.
Violet (She/her) is a recovering academic and alleged game designer, with a particular interest in system design and ludology.
Freya (She/her) is a demographer turned data engineer by day. She moonlights as collaborator, sounding board, and bad idea generator to her beloved and prolific game designer fiancée.
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Cover design by Fallible Things (fallible.net).
Font on-cover is Lineal by Frank Adebiaye, with the contribution of Anton Moglia, Ariel Martín Pérez. Distributed by velvetyne.fr.
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