Big Eyes, Small Mouth is possibly the best roleplaying system on the market today, and the new Fast Play Rules provide the perfect introduction for you and your players.

Review Originally Published May 21st, 2001

Big Eyes, Small Mouth is possibly the best roleplaying game on the market today. It succeeds at being a clean, simple system which leads to fast-paced, fun gaming sessions without sacrificing the level of detail necessary to accomplish everything you need it to. At the same time, Big Eyes, Small Mouth is the easiest generic game I’ve encountered. By that I mean that the task of adapting it to a new genre or campaign world is a quick and easy process – unlike other generic systems (such as GURPS or FUZION) which need to be thoroughly tweaked and customized to fit each iteration of your gaming needs.

And, on top of that, Guardians of Order has supported BESM with a remarkable line of high quality support products, including a plethora of licensed anime games: Big Robots, Cool Starships; Hot Rods & Gun Bunnies, Sailor Moon, Dominion Tank Police, Demon City Shinjuku, Tenchi Muyo, and many others.

In other words, this is a game you should be playing.

In fact, the only difficulty I’ve had with BESM is – as with many high quality systems – convincing people to give it a try. Guardians of Order is not the first company to attempt to rectify this with some sort of introductory package, but I have to admit that I am particularly impressed with their Fast Play Rules: Between the low price (only $1.95) and the high production values (glossy full-color), it will not only impress my gaming buddies – I can cheaply pick up multiple copies to hand out.

So, what has Guardians of Order crammed into this slim little pamphlet?

First, you have some standard introductory material (“What is a roleplaying game?”, “What is anime?”, “What is Big Eyes, Small Mouth?”, etc.). This, coincidentally, also makes this an attractive package to pick up if you’re looking to “convert” someone to RPGs – cheap, yet highly alluring (particularly to existing anime fans).

Next, an abbreviated version of the BESM rules are provided – including character creation (with the exception of the optional skill rules from second edition), action resolution, and combat.

The package is then rounded out with four brief samples of potential game ideas and themes (Journey to the East, Magical Bug Hunter Keko!, Legend of the Galactic Empire, and Voyagers of the New Dawn).

CONCLUSION

Big Eyes, Small Mouth is an excellent game. The Fast Play Rules are an excellent introduction to an excellent game.

Style: 5
Substance: 5

Authors: Mark C. MacKinnon and David L. Pulver
Company: Guardians of Order
Line: Big Eyes, Small Mouth
Price: $1.95
ISBN: 1-894525-28-0
Production Code: 02-100
Pages: 22

Surprisingly, however, I never wrote a full review of the second edition of Big Eyes, Small Mouth. I actually have a half-finished draft of one which I apparently started in September 2000, but it became one of those reviews that sat for too long after I read the book until it reached a point where, to do a meaningful review, I would have needed to go back and do a fresh cover-to-cover read of the book. And it just never happened.

I had written a review of the 1st Edition of Big Eyes, Small Mouth back in 1999. As I noted back then, it quickly became one of my go-to RPG systems. It’s been a long time since I played it, but I still have fond memories of its 2nd Edition and wouldn’t hesitate to grab it again if the need arose.

I’ve never picked up the 3rd Edition or the 4th Edition of the game. I actually know very little about them, having remained quite content with my copies of 2nd Edition.

For an explanation of where these reviews came from and why you can no longer find them at RPGNet, click here.

Roleplaying games use a lot of different initiative systems: individual, side-based, hot potato, fixed, freeform, and shot clocks, to name just a few. And these initiative systems can, in turn, interact with other combat mechanics in myriad ways — readying, delaying, interrupting, reacting, and such-like mechanics being common examples.

This means your best practices for handling initiative at the table will vary quite a bit depending on what system you’re running, but this particular tip is going to assume that you’re using a system in which a separate initiative check is made for each character and their actions taken in order from best to worst result. This is, of course, a fairly common arrangement, and most or all of the techniques I’ll be sharing here should be useful across common variations (like reverse declaration or rerolling initiative each round).

BATCHING INITIATIVE

Having individual initiative checks that set a specific turn sequence has a lot of advantages:

• Separate turns for each character create clarity in resolution and declaration.
• It removes the analysis paralysis of players trying to figure out who should go next.
• It allows the GM to use advanced techniques like on-decking players to speed up play.

On the GM’s side of the screen, however, it can begin creating big headaches as the number of NPCs in a fight grows. If twenty goblins led by an ogre and accompanied by a couple of earth elementals show up, for example, the GM not only needs to roll twenty-three initiative checks, they also have to keep track of them.

The solution is to batch initiative: Instead of rolling a separate initiative for every cyber-ninja in the fight, for example, you can instead roll a single initiative check for all of the cyber-ninjas and have them all take action at the same time.

Not only is this easier when it comes to rolling the initiative check, it also tends to speed up resolution. First, it lets you consult the cyber-ninja stat block once per round instead of needing to flip back to it multiple times per round. Second, it makes it a lot easier to use techniques like rolling fistfuls of dice that also speed up combat.

This technique is so useful, in fact, that it’s not unusual for RPG rulebooks featuring individual initiative checks to nevertheless recommend that the GM batch NPC initiatives. What’s oddly less common, however, is explaining exactly how you should batch the checks, particularly as enemy groups become larger and more diverse.

Here’s how I’ve learned to break it down:

First, start with the bosses/leaders. If a group has a leader, the leader gets a unique initiative, even if they’re using the same stat block as their minions. (This might also be a narrative lead rather than a diegetic one.)

Second, take all the enemies with the same stat block and group them together. This gives you the simple efficiency of the cyber-ninja.

Third, split large groups into smaller groups. This is really where the art comes into it. What constitutes a group that’s “too large” depends on you, the system you’re running, and the specific circumstances of the encounter. Generally speaking, if a group has more than five to eight NPCs in it, I’ll probably start thinking about splitting it up. I’ll sometimes make exceptions for large groups of mooks, but there are a few factors to consider:

• Action economy. From a balance standpoint, you don’t want too many bad guys ganging up on a single PC and beating them half to death before they have a chance to do anything about it. Sometimes that will happen naturally because the PCs rolled poorly on their initiative checks, but the risk increases substantially if you batch a dozen bad guys together. So split them up.
• Tactical interest. Flipping that around, fights also tend to be more interesting when your bad guys can respond to what the PCs are doing. If all the bad guys are clumped up, then you can also run into a situation where all the PCs are taking their actions without interruption. Since everyone at the table (including you!) is a fan of the PCs, this is generally less of problem. But breaking things up a bit can also make for a more interesting encounter.
• Complexity. Batching bad guys together will generally make you more efficient in running them, but — depending on the system you’re running and your comfort level with it — there will be a point where trying to deal with a large number of bad guys all at the same time becomes a liability. Pay attention to your experience here and learn where, in the current system, you need to break them up.
• Pacing. Along similar lines, no matter how quickly you’re resolving things, if you can feel your players checking out in the middle of resolving your thirteenth goblin attack, that’s a sign that you should be using smaller batches in future encounters.

VARIANT: SQUAD LEADERS

As a variant to this approach, instead of batching NPCs by stat block, there are times when it makes more sense to batch them according to tactical groups. (For example, you might have a mixed group of goblins and hobgoblins on one side of the PCs and a different mixed group on the other side.) You might also find this approach useful if you’re using adversary rosters and multiple action groups converge into a single encounter: There was a reason you grouped those baddies together into an action group in the first place, and that reason can often persist into combat. (Particularly if you have a group joining the fight after combat has begun.)

But if a mixed group has different initiative modifiers, how can you roll a collective initiative for them?

If you think of the mixed group as a squad, who’s the leader of that squad? This might be a formal or informal designation, but in either case you can simply roll initiative for the squad leader(s) and have their squad(s) take action with them.

TRACKING SPLIT BATCHES

If you have identical creatures in multiple batches, how can you keep track of which batch each creature belongs to? You don’t want Goblin A taking action as part of Batch 1 on initiative count 15 and then accidentally taking another full turn as part of Batch 2 on initiative count 8!

The first thing is to keep the batches clearly delineated in your notes. Don’t, for example, mix all the goblin hit point totals together into one big group. Keep the hit point totals for Batch 1 separate from the hit point totals for Batch 2.

If you’re running combat in the theatre of the mind, check out Random GM Tips: Visualizing Combat.

If you’re using a battlemap, there are several ways to can keep things straight in the chaos of the battlefield:

Different miniatures. Just because they’re all goblins doesn’t mean you couldn’t have one type of goblin miniature for the goblins in Batch 1 and a different goblin miniature for the goblins in Batch 2. This also works with other tokens, of course. For example, I’m a fan of using glass beads, of which I have several different colors. Each color can be used to indicate a separate batch.

If you’re painting your miniatures, it can be useful to keep this utility in mind. If you’re painting a dozen goblin miniatures, for example, you might make sure that six of them have red shirts and six of them have blue ones.

Tag tokens. If you only have one type of goblin miniature, you can still distinguish them by adding an additional tag. For example, I can also use my glass beads for this purpose, although it has the disadvantage of needing to move both miniature and bead at the same time.

You can also make discs of colored paper and attach them to the miniature’s base using blu-tack. Colored Post-It flags can also be effective.

Geographic separation. If you can keep the batches physically separate from each other (e.g., Batch 1 goblins are attacking the paladin; Batch 2 goblins are attacking the barbarian), then you may not need any additional indicator to keep them straight in your mind.

POST-INITIATIVE BATCHING

Whether you’re batching initiative checks or not, what you’ll discover is that initiative orders will often create de facto batches. For example, here’s the rolled initiative roster from one of my recent games, with PC names in italics:

18 Spider-Eaters
17 Chieftain
16 Tee
15 Harpoon Spider
14 Spider Goblins
14 Agnarr
12 Elestra
12 Nasira
8 Ranthir
6 Giant Spiders

In this case I’ve pre-batched the Spider-Eaters, Spider Goblins, and Giant Spiders by their stat blocks, rolling a single initiative for each group in addition to the initiative rolls for the Chieftain and single Harpoon Spider.

Now that I’ve rolled initiative, however, other batches naturally appear: The Spider-Eaters and Chieftain will both be taking action together before the PCs, and the Harpoon Spider and Spider Goblins will, similarly, be taking their actions together between PC turns. Notice, too, that the end of the round is also connected to the beginning of the round: At the end of the first round, the Giant Spiders, Spider-Eaters, and Chieftain will all become batched together after Ranthir takes his turn and before Tee takes her turn.

In some cases, for the sake of simplicity, you’ll still be better off ignoring this post-initiative batching and just resolving each group one at a time. But there are often times when I find that recognizing and using these de facto groups. For example, if I’m looking ahead while Tee is making her attack rolls, it would make sense to not only grab two red d20’s for the harpoon spiders, but also five blue d20’s for the spider-goblins. (Then I can roll all seven dice at the same time.) This can also open up more interesting tactical options, such as having the harpoon spiders and spider-goblins working together.

Flipping things around a bit, this post-initiative batching also applies to the PCs! For example, here’s another initiative roster from the same adventure:

19 Elestra
18 Harpoon Spiders
15 Spider Goblins
12 Ranthir
8 Nasira
6 Tee
5 Agnarr

Here you can see that Elestra will go first, but after the harpoon spiders and spider goblins have taken their turns, the PCs will effectively all be batched together. (Remember that Elestra will get grouped in as the round loops.) What this means, in practice, is that the PCs are now free to take their actions in any order. (And the same thing is true for your NPCs.) This fight is now effectively using side-based initiative, and if you – and your players – recognize this, then you can take advantage of that to gain all the benefits of side-based initiative (e.g., making it easier for PCs to coordinate their actions on the battlefield).

There are a couple caveats with this, though. First, some systems – including, notably, D&D 5^th Edition – will resist this batching by locking down the initiative order. Most RPGs, however, will include some method for characters to change their position in the initiative order (e.g., the Delay action in D&D 3^rd Edition), which will allow this batching to just naturally flow from the mechanics.

Even if your RPG locks down the initiative order, though, I encourage you to embrace this post-initiative batching: It unlocks creative collaboration and enables multitasking that can greatly enhance your combats.

Your players, of course, may not recognize this opportunity. You can help them learn this technique, and also help prompt them by saying things like:

GM: Okay, as Tee ducks under the last of the swooping griffons, Agnarr, Ranthir, and Elestra are the next group. What are y’all doing?

GM: Agnarr’s up next, with Ranthir and Elestra on deck. Who wants to go first?

Usually, once they get the feel for this, the players will start naturally taking advantage of the batching. You won’t need to prompt them as much, particularly if the initiative order is visible to the whole group.

The other nice thing is that, while this post-initiative batching lets you gain many of the benefits of side-based initiative, it can also avoid some of the disadvantages because there’s still a default order you and the players can fall back on to keep things moving. It can often be the best of both worlds!

Sometimes, though, this won’t work out. Whether your system locks down the initiative order or not, you’ll find that some players adapt poorly to this. They’ll either resist embracing the freedom of the batch initiative, or they may even push back and say things like, “But Teresa has to go first!” There can be a lot of different reasons for this, but it’s okay. If you’ve got a group that’s more disrupted than helped by batching initiative, then this is also a situation where you can just fall back on the default order.

PATTERNS OF ACTION

The last thing to point out is that you can use post-initiative batching for the PCs even if they aren’t all bunched together. Looking at the first initiative roster above, for example, we can see the PC vs. NPC groupings:

• NPC: Giant Spiders / Spider-Eaters / Chieftain
• PC: Tee
• NPC Harpoon Spider / Spider-Goblins
• PC: Agnarr/ Elestra / Nasira / Ranthir

Looking at your initiative rosters through this lens of batching will make clear the pattern of action, and you’ll quickly learn that different fights will naturally have different patterns, creating different pacing. Side-based initiative has one feel to it. Staccato back-and-forths have another. One-half of the PCs being separated from the other by a single creature will feel differently from when there’s a large group or multiple groups separating them.

And if your RPG allows for initiative orders to shift, then these patterns of action can, of course, also change over the course of a fight. Even barring that, as various groups are eliminated or added to the fight the pattern will change.

Here we begin to delve pretty deep into the true art of running a roleplaying game: As you get a feel for these patterns of action and the pacing that naturally flows from them, you’ll also learn how to take advantage of them, leveraging them and enhancing them and building on them.

The batching of dice rolls we discussed earlier is a simple example of this, but another advanced technique is to wait until you’ve mechanically resolved multiple actions and then batch them into a single description. Instead of resolving the Andorian’s attack roll, describing how it misses Kirk, and then resolving Kirk’s phaser fire and describing how it hits, you can instead resolve both attacks mechanically and then:

GM: The Andorian makes a break for the door, whipping out his pistol and firing wildly in your direction. Ducking under the glittering beam, you return fire, striking him in the back. He collapses in a heap, the automatic doors hissing open to let him fall into the doorway.

This technique lets you weave the action together and opens up new descriptive palettes to keep your fights fresh and interesting.

Batched initiative also creates natural groupings for this batched description – e.g., Boromir being struck by a flurry of orcish arrows; a barbarian holding a door against the battery of a dozen spider goblins; a tactical team sweeping a room. (This is particularly true if you’re rolling all those arrow attacks and door-smashing checks at the same time in one big fistful of dice.)

Recognizing the mechanical beats of the fight can help you form and pace these batched action descriptions ­– either by taking advantage of them or playing against them. They’re a key that will let you begin exploring the art of running combat at a deeper level, beginning a whole new journey for you as a game master.

Strange mysteries abound… for the poor DM who needs to decipher Kurishan’s Garden and render it into a playable adventure.

Review Originally Appeared May 21st, 2001

Warning: This review will contain spoilers for Kurishan’s Garden. Players who may find themselves playing in this adventure should not read beyond this point.

WHAT I LIKE

I like the adventure hook: The PCs arrive in a town which is having problems. But the threat isn’t directly to them: They’re not getting food shipments from a different town which has inexplicably ceased communication. Carpenter adds a nice layer to a standard feature of fantasy adventures, and emphasizes the importance of the PCs’ actions by showing the widespread impact of the problem.

I like the premise: Kurishan, a reclusive mage who lived in the village of Darbin, has recently died. Upon his death a number of contingency spells were triggered, designed to transfer his consciousness to a beautiful eternal lily in his spacious gardens. Unfortunately, things didn’t go quite right, and Kurishan found himself instead trapped within a mass of mold, decomposing vegetation, and other debris. Driven a little insane by this turn of events, Kurishan – no longer able to cast spells, but imbued with an ability to control and manipulate plant life – created a strange race of “brainvine”. The villagers, who had yet to realize that Kurishan had even died, were suddenly beset by these vines: Control of their bodies were taken away from them, but they remain awake and aware of what is happening to them (creating a spooky situation in which the PCs can be attacked by people who are begging them to save them).

WHAT I DIDN’T

I dislike the boxed text: It is lackadaisical and subpar. (We actually have small, 10-foot by 10-foot rooms, folks!) While I don’t consider boxed text to be an essential component of a good adventure (take Penumbra’s excellent Three Days to Kill for example), if it is present I expect it to be of high enough quality so that I can actually read it to my players without feeling embarrassed. Poor boxed text which has been made integral to the adventure’s presentation can also hurt the quality of the underlying structure – which is the case here.

I dislike the fact that the adventure fails to capitalize upon its premise: The horror elements are only loosely played with. The situation in the village is entirely static – despite the fact that the PCs are supposedly facing an opponent who is in control of the entire village (and should, therefore, be capable of presenting a dynamic opposition). The PCs are never really given a chance to figure out what’s going on – but are, instead, forced to simply keep reacting until something clicks and the problem goes away (this is a pet peeve of mine – great concepts which only the DM gets to enjoy).

CONCLUSION

Kurishan’s Garden has a good concept and set-up, but then falls down on the actual execution of its ideas. As an Adventure Booster, the low price of $2.49 means that – despite its flaws — Kurishan’s Garden is probably still a good buy as an idea mine if nothing else.

Style: 3
Substance: 3

Author: Ken Carpenter
Publisher: Alderac Entertainment Group
Line: Adventure Boosters
Price: $2.49
Product Code: 8308
Pages: 16

The brainvines are a really cool concept. I should take this as a prompt to finally use them after all these years.

For an explanation of where these reviews came from and why you can no longer find them at RPGNet, click here.

From page one, Jerimond’s Orb has problems.

Review Originally Appeared May 21st, 2001

Warning: This review will contain spoilers for Jerimond’s Orb. Players who may find themselves playing in this adventure should not read beyond this point.

I knew I was going to have problems with Jerimond’s Orb right from page one, when I read the following boxed text, which is specifically meant to be read aloud to the players (excerpted):

“My name is Arawn. I remember traveling home to Treefall, to my father’s inn, and then… darkness. […] Please, let me go home to my village. My mother and sister must worry for me. Arawn has no recollection of the encounter with the PCs, the beast he became, or anything that occurred after sunset the evening before.”

Dropping spoilers into the boxed text due to a layout error is a small thing, but it denotes a lack of attention to detail. This opening section of the adventure also betrays another pervasive problem: The assumption that the PCs will do completely illogical things to further the plot. This is one of the worst things a module writer can do, because it practically guarantees that the PCs will take actions which will either derail the adventure (thus rendering the module worthless to the DM) or force the DM to railroad the characters into the proper course of action (thus rendering the module worthless to the players). Specifically, Arawn shows up in the form of a terrible monster – which attempts to attack and kill the PCs. The adventure specifically assumes that the PCs will leave this monster alone and – at the same time – keep him around until morning (when he changes back to his human form).

You know, I’ve played RPGs for more than a decade – and I have never had the PCs in my games leave a homicidal monster alive. (Particularly in D&D, where you really have to go out of your way to capture an opponent alive.)

PLOT

Fifty years ago a wizard named Jerimond left a magical orb to protect his hometown of Treefall. The orb was designed to enhance the natural luck of any creature or area. If the orb is stolen, however, those who it once benefited will fall under a terrible curse: Condemned to turn into beasts (known as mathorn) when the sun sets and remain that way until dawn.

The orb was placed on a statue in the center of town, and has long gifted Treefall with good luck and plentiful harvests. A few days ago, local bandits stole the orb (which Jerimond used as part of a key-and-lock system to secure the treasure stashed at his old house). Now the crops are turning bad and random villagers are turning into vicious monsters.

When the PCs arrive in town, they will quickly have four mysteries to sort out: The missing orb, a dead girl, the plague of monsters, and the local bandits. All four, of course, have their red herrings and true clues – and all four, of course, turn out to be connected to one another.

CONCLUSION

Although Jerimond’s Orb is not without its strengths – most notably the interesting cast of characters that Ree Soesbee introduces – it’s dominated by its weaknesses. Its largest flaw, unfortunately, is the general lack of forethought and planning which Soesbee shows in constructing adventure. Time and again the PCs are asked to do irrational things, make illogical leaps of reasoning, and stumble upon the “correct” course of action.

All the building blocks of a good, solid adventure are here, but they are sadly disarranged and out of sorts. To render Jerimond’s Orb worth playing is an effort which its underlying quality most likely does not justify. There are better things to spend your money on.

Style: 3
Substance: 3

Author: Ree Soesbee
Publisher: Alderac Entertainment Group
Line: Adventure Boosters
Price: $2.49
Product Code: 8305
Pages: 16

Reading this review 20+ years after writing it, I’m left a little confused by ranking of Substance 3. But since I also haven’t revisited this adventure in just as many years, I guess I’ll trust past-Justin’s assessment.

The reprint of this adventure in the Adventure I collection notably corrects the boxed text errors mentioned in this review.

Next AEG Booster Review: Kurishan’s Garden

For an explanation of where these reviews came from and why you can no longer find them at RPGNet, click here.

“If you were teaching a intro-level college class on roleplaying game design, what would be the reading list?”

Interesting question.

I’m going to design this as a survey/history course. And you’ll need to snag copies of these at the campus bookstore:

1974 D&D
Traveller
GURPS or Champions
Paranoia (1^st Edition)
Vampire the Masquerade
Amber Diceless Roleplay
Burning Wheel
Apocalypse World

And we’ll wrap the course up by comparing D&D 3E, 4E, and 5E, with a particular focus on how they responded to design trends.

D&D 1974

This is the beginning. The baseline for everything that follows and a frame for discussing the proto-history and origin of RPGs from Kriegsspiels to David Wesley to Dave Arneson.

TRAVELLER (1977)

Traveller does triple duty for me.

• It gives insight into the first generation of RPGs that were responding to D&D.
• One of the first science fiction RPGs, after Starfaring and Metamorphosis Alpha.
• Includes a Lifepath system, giving us a first step in looking at different approaches to character creation.

GURPS / CHAMPIONS
(’80s Editions)

The birthplace of the generic/universal RPG system.

A central thesis of this class will be that RPGs pretty universally pushed for “accurate simulation” as a primary design goal through the late ‘70s and ‘80s. Whichever one of these games we choose to look at it will serve as a great exemplar of that trend.

It will also give us point-buy character creation in its fullest flower, allowing us to clearly show the difference between character generation in 1974 D&D and the character crafting which would come to largely dominate the hobby.

PARANOIA
(1st Edition)

This is kind of an oddball choice. Every intro class has one of these on the reading list, right?

But it’s here for a reason.

On the one hand, Paranoia is a comedy game, which gives us a nice, sharp look at the emerging diversification of creative agendas in the ‘80s.

On the other hand, it also examines the unexamined “simulation = good” trend in the ‘80s. Paranoia is a lighthearted comedy game, but its first edition features, among other things, a Byzantine three-tier skill specialization system, because “simulation = good” even if it made no sense for what the game was actually trying to achieve.

(I will give extra credit to any student arguing that the incredible minutia of the system was actually part of the satire of a Kafkaesque government bureaucracy. They’re wrong, but it shows they’re thinking critically about this.)

WHITHER THE UNIVERSAL SYSTEM?

Universal RPGs were VERY popular in the ‘80s and ‘90s, and then they weren’t. There are still some around today, of course, but the only truly popular ones are 20+ years old.

One theory is that the niche was definitively filled by GURPS, and no other universal RPG could ever compete with GURPS’ library of support material.

The other is that universal RPGs were at their strongest because of the “simulation = good” paradigm. Once you move past the idea, as demonstrated in Paranoia, that “good system” is a Platonic ideal divorced from a game’s creative agenda, the appeal of a “universal system” is not eliminated, but significantly diminished.

VAMPIRE: THE MASQUERADE

This brings us to Vampire: The Masquerade, a hugely important game that grappled mightily with the idea of pushing a creative agenda other than simulation.

The Storyteller system is interesting to analyze because (a) it ultimately fails to achieve its storytelling goal (and analyzing failure is a great way to learn) and (b) it’s virtually impossible to understand GNS theory without the context of Storyteller.

AMBER

Before we get to GNS, though, Amber Diceless Role-Playing will be our exemplar of the snap-back against detailed simulation.

Emphasized by its diceless engine, Amber was one of many early ‘90s games that were fed up with complexity and bounced to the opposite extreme. It’s an elegant tour de force for designing mechanics customized to the creative agenda and setting of the game.

Plus, Amber features alternative structures for organizing campaigns and extending player beyond the session. So we’re getting a lot of mileage from this one title.

BURNING WHEEL

There are a lot of Forge-era indie games we could choose to spotlight GNS theory. One could argue that we should go with a game by Ron Edwards or D. Vincent Baker. (We’ll cover the latter with Apocalypse World.)

Burning Wheel is, ultimately, just a better game and synthesizes a wider range of innovations. So that’s what I’m tapping.

APOCALYPSE WORLD

Which brings us to Apocalypse World.

Powered by the Apocalypse is the single biggest non-D&D influence on RPG design in the last fifteen years, so it’s basically essential. And, as I just mentioned, D. Vincent Baker is a seminal figure and his design philosophy should be highlighted. So this is another game that’s doing double duty.

WotC-ERA D&D

The big wrap-up for our course is a comparison of D&D 3E, 4E, and 5E.

D&D is, of course, the 10,000 lbs. gorilla in the RPG design room. If we’re teaching an intro course, we absolutely need to cover its evolution.

Post-1974, however, D&D has been extremely reactive in its design. It largely does not innovate, but its massive gravity means anything it refines is reflected back into the industry in a massively disproportionate way. (Take, for example, the concept of advantage/disadvantage as modeled by rolling twice and taking the better/worse result. This was an exceptionally obscure mechanic pre-2014, but after D&D 5E used it, you can find it everywhere.)

Having broadly covered the history of RPG design, therefore, looking at how D&D reacted to (or didn’t react to) those design trends is a great way to review and critically analyze everything we’ve learned in the course.

The final list also gives us (coincidentally, I didn’t actually plan this) wo games from each decade (‘70s through ‘10s) with an extra dollop of D&D. That’s a good gut-check to make sure I wasn’t getting too biased in my selections.

NOTABLE ABSENCES

There are a few notable things missing from this reading list.

FATE, which had a massive influence in the decade before Powered by the Apocalypse, serving as the system for any number of games.

Storytelling Games. Only peripherally looking at how STGs have influenced RPG design is iffy. You can easily make a case for throwing in Once Upon a Time or Microscope or Ten Candles.

RPGs in a Box. These are games like Arkham Horror, Gloomhaven, and Descent. They aren’t actually RPGs, but they’re in the same design space.

Starter Sets. There are unique design considerations in making an effective starter set, but we didn’t cover them at all.

Organization-based Play. This would be a game like Ars Magica, Blades in the Dark, or Pendragon. This has been a persistent design goal for RPGs since Day 1. I can touch on it a bit with Traveller, but it’s really exploded in the past decade and not having a more recent example is a limitation.

Call of Cthulhu. Just because it’s Call of Cthulhu. But my goal wasn’t Most Important RPGs (Call of Cthulhu is easily Top 5), it was Introduction to RPG Game Design. There’s stuff that I could use Call of Cthulhu to teach, but not enough hooks to knock others off this list.

After all, there are only so many hours in a semester.

FURTHER READING
It’s Time for a New RPG
A History of Stat Blocks