Practice First: An Approach to Campaign and RPG Design

As I wrap up Into the Majestic Fantasy Realms, the Northern Marches, I am thinking ahead to my next major project, the full version of the Majestic Fantasy RPG.

While I still need to write the final manuscript, the rules themselves are written and have been playtested extensively. I started out with Swords & Wizardry by Matt Finch back in 2008 and adapted it to my Majestic Wilderlands setting. This involved adding a light skill system so players could have their characters be better at things other than combat and spellcasting, adding viz and other tweaks to the magic system to reflect how magic worked in my setting, tweaking the cleric class to reflect the diversity of religions, and so on.

The design process I used was iteration. Starting with Swords & Wizardry, informed by ongoing research into the origins of D&D, I added, tweaked, and modified the system until it took its current form. The final proof was always how it played at the table, measured against how I described the Majestic Wilderlands and what people actually did as their characters in past campaigns using other systems like GURPS or AD&D 1e.

However, the point of the campaign was never just to play these rules. How I used these rules mattered. I have discussed sandbox campaigns many times, along with my own specific variant, which I call a Living World Sandbox. My living world sandbox approach started out as me finding it fun to let my players trash my setting back in the late 70s and early 80s. Over time, it developed as I tried to make trashing the setting both fun and an interesting challenge.

In time, I realized that what I was doing to make this happen was bringing the setting to life in a way that left the players feeling as if they had opened a door, stepped into my world, and pursued some interesting adventures of their choice. The setting endured, reacted, and changed as a result of what they did.

Again, my design process here involved iterating across many different groups and using many different systems. I also applied my Living World Sandbox techniques to other settings in other genres, including Middle-earth, the Third Imperium, the four-color world of superheroes, and so on. In each case, I weighed what happened at the table against whether it left the players feeling as if they were in the campaign's setting and had the freedom to pursue the adventures that interested them.

While doing this, I experienced other RPGs like Fate and Blades in the Dark that played very differently from my own campaigns and those of my friends. As I learned more about RPG history and encountered various ideas and theories about RPG design, I noticed that all RPGs shared certain practices, regardless of how they were implemented or the rules they used.

• At some point, the campaign's circumstances were described, including the characters involved.
• The characters' actions were described.
• Those actions were adjudicated.
• The outcomes of those actions were determined, and the campaign's setting was altered as a result.
• The session and the campaign involved repeating the above over and over again, in various orders and at various levels of detail.

What makes individual RPGs distinct from one another is how these shared practices are implemented, including the order in which they occur, not just what the rules say. The rules are only part of the equation. To understand how a campaign or system actually operates, you have to look at how the rules are used, how they are practiced, and what the group does at the table. This includes the order in which situations are described, actions are declared, and outcomes are resolved, as well as how adjudication is handled and who is responsible for making those decisions.

As I discuss RPGs, campaigns, and design going forward. I will start with practice and work outward from there.

Wrapping up this post, I want to give a shout-out to my friend Greg, known as the Chubby Funster, who also made a good video on this topic. In the video, he tackles the same issue from the angle of individual referees' "spheres of practice".