The first step I want to take in designing this game is to divide this process in to manageable chunks. As I see it, there are two general components to a good FRPG; the mechanics and the story. Each of these two categories branches off into numerous sub-categories, and those in turn into further sub-categories. On the mechanics side of the equation I’ll be dividing this process into the following categories; Core Rules, Races, Classes, and Equipment. I’m sub-dividing the story part of the game into Geography, History, and Race info. Sub-categories will include the political structure of each nation, the economy, culture, etc etc. I’m certain to come up with some other categories that I haven’t thought of later on. There will of course be a lot of cross over between these various categories, and I expect to revisit content in one category after working on another. Because I want the game’s mechanics “make sense” in context of the game’s story, I expect to revisit mechanics content after working on the storyline, and vice versa.
Ok, I’ve decided that it’s finally time to get off of my butt and design my Fantasy Role Playing Game. I’ve been kicking this idea around for a long time now, but I’ve always gotten distracted by one thing or another. Chalk it up to a mini mid life crisis, but I figure that I’m not getting any younger, and if I don’t make myself start now I’ll never get around to it. I started playing RPG’s way back in elementary school. I was usually the Game Master, mostly because I’ve always loved creating and telling stories. I would spend hours and hours designing the world in which my buddies would adventure in. I was never satisfied with “you enter another town to get another quest”. I wanted to know who lived in that town and what they did, and why in God’s name did they not move away even though their town seemed to be surrounded by horrible roving bands of monsters. And then I wanted to know what the other towns were like, what their overall government was like, how their economy functioned, etc etc. I was and am a MEGA nerd about some things 
Every campaign that I ran borrowed something from my previous campaigns. Over time I wound up developing a very fleshed out world with a rich history and plenty of hooks for adventures. The other reason why I wound up being the Game Master more often than not is because I have a nearly photographic memory for most things that I read. This was helpful when we needed to know the rule for such and such. Those that know me know that I’m fairly extremely OCD about game mechanics and game theory. I often found myself making home brew rules for my campaigns. It started out as a tweak here and a tweak there, but over time I found myself wanting to make wholesale changes. It was only a matter of time before I had to take the plunge into designing a game from scratch. So here I am. I figured that I might as well document this process on the off chance that someone else may find this kind of thing as interesting as I do.
I’m beginning this project by making a list of what I want out of this game. This way I’ll have my primary objectives to refer to throughout this process to insure that there’s a consistency in the design. Also, I get sidetracked very easily. Shiny lights are not my friends. This will help me remember what it was that I was working on.
The first thing that I want to address is the “magic problem”. The balance in power between magic users and non magic users has been one of the classic problems plaguing Fantasy RPG’s, especially the earlier FRPG’s. The traditional balance of power was skewed towards melee classes being the name of the game early on, with some parity between melee and caster classes in mid game, and culminating with casters completely dominating the end game content. Some of you “old timers” may have (not so) fond memories of the early levels of your wizard with only a couple of hit points early on, and very little ability to do pretty much anything useful in or out of combat for a LONG time. However, if you were lucky enough to make it to higher levels, that warrior that you hid behind for so long was more or less relegated to holding an umbrella to keep you out of the sun, as well as running commentary on how devastating your last spell was. Game designers tried to address this issue in several ways. In early FRPG’s it was typical to limit the power of spell casters by requiring expensive and exotic spell components to cast spells. I tend to like this approach the least, as it winds up either being ignored altogether (take a look at what it is supposed to cost to cast popular spells like fireball in your old games – did any of you actually do that?), or you wind up having to keep track of a massive catalog of components. In addition to that, it was never very satisfying for the player with the caster. You’ve got this killer spell that you’ve just learned and understandably want to cast, but the game master informs you that you don’t have the components for it, nor will you ever likely get said components because the spell is too good. That doesn’t feel like a fair or fun mechanic, it feels like you’re being penalized for picking a caster class. Even if being denied the ability of casting that spell is needed for maintaining the proper balance of power in that particular campaign, it never really sits that well for the player with the caster. I’ve played other games that have addressed this problem by having EVERY playable class be a magic using class. Some games went to extremes, where the only playable class is a classic robe wearing staff wielding wizard, other games were a bit more subtle (every classic FRPG class happens to use magic too – rogues can summon magic lock picks, fighters can power their attacks with magic energy, etc etc). I don’t really like this approach either because in the former case not everyone may actually want to play a wizard or a vampire or whatnot, and in the latter case it tends to make magic feel less, well, magical. If everyone and their cousin can cast spells, magic becomes kind of boring. The last approach is to have magic users and non magic users do their own thing, but to have parity with the power of the end results. I’ve seen this done really well in non fantasy based RPG’s where the setting is either contemporary (but viewed through a comic book lens) or futuristic. This is because there’s enough technology present that can yield results similar to magic. What’s better, a grenade or a fireball, a far seeing spell or a spy satellite, a shield spell or power armor? You get the idea. However, doing this in a fantasy setting can be tricky, because basically the technology is crap. Some games have dealt with this by having non magic users get completely decked out with magical gear. I don’t like that solution very much because then you wind up with some players playing their class (wizards), and some players playing their gear. Who cares if you’re a fighter or a thief or whatnot, what’s more important is whether or not you have the flaming sword of power and the dragon armor of ultimate truth. Other games have dealt with this by making each class completely generic and interchangeable with any of the other classes. The latest version of Dungeons and Dragons is the worst offender in my opinion. This is much more of a tactical war game than it is a role playing game. Each class is pretty much only a list of their combat capabilities, and each class more or less does the same thing. If you’re a big hulk in plate armor wielding a huge sword, you can use an ability to do X damage to one target, or Y damage to Z number of targets. And if you’re a wizard, you can use an ability to do X damage to one target, or Y damage to Z number of targets. The end result is the same, regardless of what class you’re playing. So what I want to do here is:
1) Make magic and non magic users equally balanced and fun to play in the early, middle, and end levels of the game. And I want this balance to be achieved within the confines of the class, and not with the use of outside bonuses/penalties like magic gear or limited spell components.
2) However, I want magic to still feel “magical”, and I want to differentiate the results and play styles of magic and non magic using classes.
Along these lines, I also want to address is the “Warrior problem”. By and large, when a player chooses to make a warrior character, they have a general vision of what it is that a warrior ought to be able to do. The first is charging into a mob of enemies and beating the hell out of them. The second is protecting their allies from being attacked. Pretty basic stuff here. However, very few FRPG’s actually have warrior classes that shine in these areas. The first vision of a warrior, a melee combat bad ass, is something that I think a lot of people would argue is upheld by most FRPG’s. I disagree. If you look at many FRPG’s with a warrior (or fighter, soldier, whatever) class, it isn’t these classes that crank out the most damage in melee combat – it’s the lightly armored guy with two tiny daggers that is the dominant damage dealer in melee combat. The argument for warrior viability is then shifted to how good it is to have a tank class to soak up damage for the party and protect everyone else. However, if you look at most FRPG warrior classes, you’ll actually find very little in the way of abilities that allow the warrior to protect other players. Sure the warrior can wear heavy armor, but that doesn’t do the party a lot of good if the warrior is not the one getting hit. Many times the game master will just have monsters attack the warrior instead of the delicate players “because”, and not due to any actual ability of the warrior class. The best way to measure the actual usefulness of a warrior is to see what the player party does when they attack a group consisting of a few warriors, a healer, a rogue, and a wizard. If the party can and does regularly bypass the warrior/s in favor of killing the other opponents, you’ll see in short order how effective and useful the warrior actually is in that game. In most of the FRPG’s that I’ve played, the players choosing warrior type classes were regularly outdone in pretty much every regard by the other classes. I’d like to avoid that in my game.
Another thing I want my system to address is player choice within the confines of their class. Everyone likes to have choices available, and yet many FRPG classes are very niche in their scope of abilities. This winds up railroading both the players and the Game Master. Good examples would be Cavalry or Archer classes. I admit that it’s very fun indeed to roll a huge bucket of dice for damage when I charge into someone while mounted on my trusty steed, but a mounted combat class is not much fun to play when the Game Master wants to have the party encounter thugs in the bustling back alley markets of a large city. What winds up happening with these kinds of classes is either players feel useless in situations where they can’t make use of their one trick pony, or the GM is forced to come up with one encounter after another that somehow caters to his/her player’s limited options. It can get pretty old pretty quickly.
Another example of the deceptive appearance of choice within a class are games where classes have numerous “paths” or “tracks” that are mutually exclusive. For example, a ranger class that can EITHER be a great archer OR a duel wielding specialist. Or a warrior that can EITHER be a wrecking ball in combat OR a very defensive tank. These kinds of systems tend to result in class bloat, where there are dozens of classes to choose from, each one with only a slightly different set of abilities from the next class. When looked at as a whole, this gives the appearance of choice, but when looked at from the perspective of a player actually leveling up in their niche class, the lack of options can be very frustrating. In many cases I think that this model is primarily driven by the desire to publish more and more splat books to rake in more money. I’ve looked at zero class systems where there’s just a list of skills, attributes, gear, etc. I think that this kind of system works well in a contemporary or futuristic game where the gear that you have absolutely defines your character. In a game that is not so absolutely gear driven, FRPG’s in particular, classes are helpful for defining your character. What I would like to do is to have a fairly short list of classes that cover the general FRPG archetypes (warrior, rogue, wizard, priest) to avoid class bloat. However, within the confines of each class I would like a large amount of customization possible. Furthermore, I want to allow players to be able to either specialize in a particular aspect of their class or to be more of a generalist, with a balanced cost and benefit for either decision.
The final, and for me most important, thing that I want out of this game is to have the game’s mechanics be internally consistent with the world/story that I’m creating. From the story perspective, what would the world look like where magic was a reality? What groups would hold political power, and how does everyone else feel about that? And from a mechanics perspective, if I’m balancing the capabilities of magic and non magic users, how is that explained by the story?
As I write up my set of storyline and rules, I will post everything here on this site. I intend on posting my game content on this site in it’s entirety for general use by players. Feedback is certainly welcome.
Cheers!