Index
General
Balance
Food
Economy
Weapons
Writing
PvP
Magic
Comments

Mu's Unbelievably Long
and Disjointed Ramblings
About RPG Design

ENTIRE document in printer-friendly format


General Topics Holistic Game Design; The Grandfather Clause of Stupidity; Paths Unlimited; Design from Tech or Tech from Design; Roleplaying = Fighting; Limiting Player Power; Segregating Player Power; The No Numbers Concept; Death Systems for Persistent Worlds; Marking Time; Sample Offline Activity System; Twitch Factor; Beware the RP Police
Balance Zero Sum Rule (Shadwolf); Too Little is Better than Too Much; Why Nerfing is Good
Food Basis Everything Starts with Grain; Kingdom Size and Armies; Geriatrics, Sexual Roles and Agriculture; Matriarchal Societies:  Women's Rights Footnote; Monsters and Food; Sample Society Based on Food
Economy Reasonable Cash Economy; Taxes; Player to Player Economy/Vendors; Keeping Magic Items Uncommon; Item Decay
Weapons Diversity of Arms and Armor; Ceremonial Weapons (Shadwolf); Balancing Existing Weapon and Armor Types; Battlefield vs. Personal Combat Weapons (Shadwolf); Full Plate Acrobats; Controlling the Availability of Arms and Armor; Spears Rule; Maces are Not Slow; The "Adventuring Archer" Myth; About Archery (Shadwolf); Big Weapons are Not Swung; Realism in Combat (Shadwolf)
Writing The Importance of Absurd Detail; Secret and Public Lore; Beyond Good and Evil and Stuff; Open Ended Storylines and Player Subplots; Content Beyond Powerlevelling (Shadwolf); The Merits of Mindless Slaughter; Repeating Quests; Multiple World Plot Development and Contingencies; Dungeon Design
PvP PK or NPK; Advantages and Drawbacks of a Fully PvP+ System; The Hard Life of the Outlaw; Thieves That Work; Justice Systems for Persistent Worlds; Justice System Problems with the Computer Referee; Justice System Example; Getting Around the "Good Mule" Syndrome
Magic Why Magic Destroys Perfectly Good Games; Keeping Magic Magical; Getting Beyond Spellcasting; Magic and Warfare (Shadwolf); The RPG Mage vs. the Literary Mage
Comments Manifesto Feedback

IMPORTANT NOTE TO THE SEMI-LITERATE:  Please note the word "Design" above.

These pages contain a whole bunch of stuff about my personal philosophies on game design, and the state of game design.  It leans heavily towards making a fantasy pre-industrial age MMORPG that is realistic, believable, balanced, and immersive.  Some of these ideas and suggestions are applicable to all types of game design in any genre, from pen and paper to the MMORPG model.  Some of them are specifically geared for computer-based systems.  Some of them require server and wide area networking technology that is about 3 generations away.  That's okay though, it just means this document may still be valid by that time, if the computer game industry hasn't been sucked into a quagmire of bureaucratic crap and cheap sequel stamping by then.  Oops, too late.

These pieces are not presented perfectly, and many times the topical relationship between an article and the page it appears on is marginal.  Some pieces look like they belong on two or more pages, so I just left them in the most appropriate section.  These articles will be continually updated as I feel like it.  The staggering volume of text and constant updating is very convenient for me, as whenever someone challenges a theory or factoid presented here, I can easily say, "Oh, that's taken care of in some other section," then hastily write a piece that explains the discrepancy and update before the critic can navigate his way through the mass of material.

Some of these pieces were written by Randall G. Sherman (Shadwolf).  Important editorial contributions and suggestions were made by lots and lots of people, including (but not exclusively) Randall Sherman, Tony Faber, Derek Collazzo, George Harvey, Jesse Kurlancheek, Penelope Baker, Wendy Montgomery, Kristin Bates, Stephen Bulla, Jeff Sandler, J., Allerion, Wi, Iron Monkey, Mourne, Airety, and the power proofreading team of Tasha, Lucy, Abby and Taco-Girl.

There are a number of other excellent pieces about roleplaying game/world design and implementation available on the web.  I don't like all of them, but they're always interesting.  Here are a few:

Raph Koster's Online World Design Laws
Cities, Population, Subsistance and Land Area
Creating a Viable Virtual Ecosystem
The Division of Territory in Society
Uncle Figgy's Guides
The In-Game Economics of Ultima Online
Ragnar's Home Page
Amit's Game Programming Information
Behavioral Game Design (Gamasutra)

At the time of initial publication, this entire guide totaled over 340k in text alone.  Feel my pain.

Copyright 2001-Now by Howard Collins.


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