Design Update #4 - The right direction?
How do we know our game is heading in the right direction? Today, I'm taking a closer look my spooky game project handles character creation
Welcome back to another design update!
Today we’re continuing the discussion I had with Jay Dragon in last week’s episode of Wait, Roll That Again! We talked about options for player characters, and I want to expand on some ideas about the player character systems.
Last time, we decided on a dice system to use. We’ll be using a 2d6 system, and now it’s time to create the classes that’ll use it!
The Character Creation Process
I’m of two minds when it comes to character creation - my experience in D&D and other tabletop games at the moment draws me towards a class-based system—akin to playbooks in Powered By The Apocalypse games, giving players specific moves unique to that playbook.
It’s an easy way to create distinct classes with different playstyles, giving players an immediate sense of “Wow, that’s such a cool concept” just by reading a few details from the page.
The other option I’m interested in is a skill-based ‘tree’ system. Imagine building up a costume for Halloween, scrapping together whatever materials and clothing you can get your hands on to come up with something completely new. I’m wondering if using a wide range of available options to pick from a better way to capture that feeling, rather than selecting from set classes.
Back to research?
My design experience is absolutely shaped by the games I’m playing at the moment. Right now, my group is playing the Avatar Legends TTRPG, a Powered by the Apocalypse game. The game makes use of specific targeted questions, a concept Jay explained in last week’s episode, to create unique flavours in each of the classes.
During the game, each player feels like they can really lean into that archetype and craft a character wholly different to the others at the table. That’s supported by a number of unique playbook moves, and in this game, a balance system that explicitly lays out what two principles are held in tension by your character. Force or Care? Friendship or Confidence? That instantly creates a pretty interesting character.
Is that system too restrictive for a game about making your own costume? If I divide up the types of costumes, does that stop someone from truly creating their own?
Perhaps you, as a game designer (or hopefully someone excited to design games!), can relate to this. During this design process a new idea will capture my mind, but send all the rest of my work into question.
Building Your Hero
I think character creation could be a fun mini-game. I don’t want it to take too long, but I like the idea of smashing together a bunch of elements to create a character you’ve been wanting to play.
Maybe then a skill-tree system makes sense. You spend points (candy?) to purchase new skills, and can combine them to create the costume you want to play exactly how you’d like to play it.
I looked back at the first TTRPG game I ever played, the Fantasy Flight Games Star Wars RPG, which uses a class and subclass system, here called the Career and Specialisation. For example, if you want to play a Rebel Pilot, you’d take the “Ace” career and pick a specialisation, choosing from Driver, Pilot, or Gunner.
Each of these specialisations has a skill tree, where you can spend points to gain new talents from your class.
So maybe, a combination of both class based systems could work. Selecting from a range of costume types, but still able to select talents from across the board as advancements.
Conclusion
I wonder if I’m being too ambitious. I have a tendency to get caught up in hypotheticals, without making any actual progress. This is the first game I’ve ever designed, so maybe I need to take a step back and just focus on getting something done!
The value of my indecision is that I’m able to take you on this journey. Thinking about these things is all part of the game design process!
Incase you missed last week’s episode, here’s the episode:
We’ll see you next week for the second part of the character design journey! If all goes to plan, we’ll be creating our first character!