Jessica Hancock

You need to have a basic sense of intuition about probabilities and how something's going to play out just because you've seen it so many times before when playing or designing or just reading games. So, I mean, that helps. RPGs usually aren't quite, I mean, not always, as mechanically complex as, say, board games. I mean, some of them are very mechanically complex.

But, you know, on average, like any individual subsystem of an RPG, like picking a lot, for example, it's not a particularly mechanically complex thing. It's you're rolling in D&D, you're rolling in D20, adding a thing, does it beat 15 or 16 or whatever? Yeah. It's not like a...

But, you know, on average, like any individual subsystem of an RPG, like picking a lot, for example, it's not a particularly mechanically complex thing. It's you're rolling in D&D, you're rolling in D20, adding a thing, does it beat 15 or 16 or whatever? Yeah. It's not like a...

really really complicated thing to get your head around and sort of intuitively sense how that's going to play out and other than that you play test it you lean on stuff that you already know works and reuse ideas and concepts that you know you've done in previous games and they've worked or you've realized you could have done a little better and now in this game you know it's just it's a similar mechanic but it's a iteration on that so i guess in a sense like it is kind of like what mark was saying but just on a much slower scale

really really complicated thing to get your head around and sort of intuitively sense how that's going to play out and other than that you play test it you lean on stuff that you already know works and reuse ideas and concepts that you know you've done in previous games and they've worked or you've realized you could have done a little better and now in this game you know it's just it's a similar mechanic but it's a iteration on that so i guess in a sense like it is kind of like what mark was saying but just on a much slower scale

Yeah.

Yeah.

I would also say sort of in my RPG design, I don't think I've ever written an entirely original rule that requires a massive amount of experimentation to work out how it works. It will always be based on something I've seen or played or written before and has already probably had decades of playtesting just through its existence in the industry. Yeah. I guess.

I would also say sort of in my RPG design, I don't think I've ever written an entirely original rule that requires a massive amount of experimentation to work out how it works. It will always be based on something I've seen or played or written before and has already probably had decades of playtesting just through its existence in the industry. Yeah. I guess.

So if you're writing something based on 5E, 5E is a very well-played game. If you're using that chassis, you already know that 90% of the balancing work is done for you and the mechanical work is done for you because Wizards of the Coast did it and tens and hundreds of thousands of people have played that game ever since. You know the wrinkles. So... Yeah. I think it's easier.

So if you're writing something based on 5E, 5E is a very well-played game. If you're using that chassis, you already know that 90% of the balancing work is done for you and the mechanical work is done for you because Wizards of the Coast did it and tens and hundreds of thousands of people have played that game ever since. You know the wrinkles. So... Yeah. I think it's easier.

I think I would find writing a board game harder than writing an RPG, I think.

I think I would find writing a board game harder than writing an RPG, I think.

I think board games are probably more vulnerable to a broken mechanic as well. So in a board game, if you've got a broken mechanic that can screw up the entire game for everybody, whereas in an RPG, if your lockpicking rule is broken, it doesn't really affect how the fight against the ogre is going to go or how a fireball spell works. You know, all these other things are not...

I think board games are probably more vulnerable to a broken mechanic as well. So in a board game, if you've got a broken mechanic that can screw up the entire game for everybody, whereas in an RPG, if your lockpicking rule is broken, it doesn't really affect how the fight against the ogre is going to go or how a fireball spell works. You know, all these other things are not...

As closely entwined as they are in a board game, I think.

As closely entwined as they are in a board game, I think.

And they all have to feed together.

And they all have to feed together.

People are much more willing to fudge with RPG rules and board game rules, aren't they?