#I gotta play all the lifepaths at this point like

[mt07131]

❗️ ONE ❗️MORE❗️TIME❗️

[ostrichmonkey-games]

OC Incubators: TTRPG Design for Making Cool Little Guys

I've been thinking a lot about why some people like to play Certain Games and how that intersects with action figure style play and the desire to make your own little blorbos.

What is it about Certain Games (which will not be named so I don't go down a rabbit-hole of breaking apart that game's design lmao) that really gets people's sitting down and just making a whole bunch of cool OCs? You know, your zany wizards, sexy demony bards, and all of that.

So, I've talked a lot about this with some people (shoutout to @temporalhiccup), and I'm not the only person to be thinking on similar wavelengths (check out this fun read by @sprintingowl), and in those discussions and in that reading, I've put together a few what I think are Key Ingredients for making ttrpg that is also an OC incubator. At least, in the sense of how I would want to do it.

So first, what is an OC Incubator? My definition is basically any sort of semi-sandbox/open ended game where you make your own cool character and then go do cool things. Along the way of doing those cool things, you come up with cool stories and have your OC evolve in even more cool ways. Cool, yeah?

Here are the key ingredients I've identified for the incubator stew (store bought is fine);

Character Options

Character Potential

An Inviting Sandbox

So let's break these down a bit more below;

Character Options

Character options is the most straightforward of the points. You need interesting and fun options - building blocks - for the players to craft their little guys from. Options that are exciting and easily communicate their core identity quickly.

A lot of this is walking a fine balance of providing enough options that making a choice is exciting, but not too many so as to be overwhelming.

But ultimately, these options are there to hit the dollmaker, picrew, character customization screen, itch. It should be fun to make all those decisions.

Aside: I gotta do more stuff with lifepath systems.

Of all the main ingredients to our incubator, character options are probably the easiest to come up.

Character Potential

This is where things start to get a little more complicated. Potential is all about aspiration. It's less about being able to get to that point, but more about "oh wow, look at all these extra things my cool OC could do".

These options are something to look forward to, something to think about. Neat cool extra doodads for making your cool little oc even cooler and expand on your cool little oc's story like milestones and growth.

In a lot of ways, these sorts of options are just an iteration of the initial character options you use when making your character. These are probably going to expand on core elements of the character options (class or playbook abilities, etc).

Again, the key point is potential and aspiration. To make you think about the future of the character.

I think, ideally, a game is intrinsically rewarding to play. You play it because its fun, not to get some sort of external reward. Play to play. But it also can be fun to put some carrots on the stick.\

As a treat.

Inviting Sandbox

The setting and premise of the game needs to invite players in. It's the big fancy dollhouse for all your cool toys. There needs to be space to play in it, but also there needs to be something to still play in! Some games are operating at an advantage: with well established settings that have been around for years and/or using a setting that utilizes tropes and ideas that also have been established for years. You know. Elves and stuff.

But! You absolutely do not need a well established setting or play with well established tropes to make an inviting sandbox! The main criteria is that it is inviting. Whatever that means to you, go for it. For me, an inviting setting, one that would make me want to play around in, needs;

Enough foundation to guide the play. What are the major players and assumptions of the settings? Give me the overview and broad strokes first!

Enough space for the table to add to while they play in. If every thing is set in stone, then what are we playing in this sandbox for? You need some sand to sculpt! Put some sand in your sandbox!

I could spend a lot more time talking about settings, sandboxes, and how it all circles back to anti-canon, but that's a story for another post.

Mixing It All Together

So, with those ingredients identified, how do you go about layering them all together? How should they interact with each other? And the easy answer is "I don't know, figure it out."

But also, I don't entirely know. You gotta figure that out for yourself. That's part of the design process. I don't think there's one singular way to "design" around getting people to have fun whipping together some cool OCs and then playing around with them together. In many senses, you can do that in practically any game. But for some of my current projects, I want to try keeping the three ingredients in mind as I write the games (particularly Furry Crime Game), and see what happens. Maybe it'll end up hitting the notes I want it to - crafting a game that makes the players constantly rotate their cool little guys in their mind - maybe it'll end up being something else. I dunno, real Ms. Frizzle hours: Get messy, make mistakes.

Also, as I'm writing this out now, I think a potential fourth ingredient to try mixing into the stew is Player Investment. Time, creativity, emotional. It all feeds into the character and different games expect different levels of investment. Something to probably keep in mind while you hone your game.

I don't know how else to end this, except to say that I'm excited to experiment in this space. Maybe you are too?

[prokopetz]

My significant other has an issue with TTRPGs. They often get all the way through character creation and backstory setup just to get bored and not want to play the actual game. I understand where their limit for attention span is and that it just happens to be roughly normal set up time. Is there a ttrpg that might initially overcome this issue such that I might be able to invite them into the wonders of the genre? Honestly I don't think the trimmings will matter just the TTRGP element.

That’s a tough one to answer for two reasons:

1. I could list any number of games with light or no character creation phases, but you haven’t mentioned what sorts of games you’ve already tried, so I don’t know what our starting point is. If your baseline is, say, Pathfinder, “tabletop RPGs with lighter character creation than Pathfinder” is practically all of them!

2. The bigger issue, however, is that you’ve gotta consider that it may not be an attention span issue. Most tabletop RPGs consist of collections of discrete minigames, of which character creation is frequently one of the most well-developed; it’s my experience that when people are keen on creating characters, only to “get bored” just as the time comes to actually play those characters, it’s often less that their attention span is coincidentally exactly as long as character creation takes in your game of choice, and more that the character creation minigame is the only part that interests them.

I’ll defer to your judgment on point #2, but it’s something that’s worth opening lines of communication on, because if it is the case that your SO is only into the character creation minigame, games with no character creation phase are the exact opposite of what’s going to interest them; you may be better served to look into games that dial the gamification of character creation all the way up, like Ars Magica or Traveller. Games of this sort employ narrative “lifepaths” whereby the process of character creation produces a character’s full life history, and often feature random and rules-mediated elements that call for collaboration between the player and the GM, making it a sort of one-on-one storytelling exercise. Indeed, in Traveller it’s even possible to die during character creation if you flub a few rolls badly enough!

All that said – and again, bearing in mind that I have no idea what sorts of games you’ve already tried, so some of these may not be any lighter on the character creation end than your current options – here are a few personal favourites that feature light or no character creation phases.

Dungeon World - If tactical fantasy dungeon crawls are your thing, Dungeon World is on the lighter end in terms of character creation; it uses a streamlined playbook-based approach where you basically just pick a class, tick off a couple of boxes, and you’re ready to go. It’s one of those new-school games where dice rolls are more about narrative agency than deciding whether you succeed at stuff, though; if you’d prefer a more traditional roll-the-dice-to-do-the-thing experience, Beyond the Wall and Other Adventures pairs a similar playbook-based approach with a simple lifepath system – though party creation is specifically a group activity in this one, so it’s not suitable for players who prefer to come up with characters on their own.

Fate Accelerated Edition - Fate is a funny little system in terms of character creation. The lighter variants can be very light indeed, while the heavier variants have some of the most baroque chargen options I’ve ever seen. (Hey, Mindjammer!) In spite of the name, Fate Accelerated Edition isn’t the absolute lightest iteration of the system I’ve encountered, but it’s pretty close, and includes the option to defer certain portions of character creation and retroactively fill them in during play. Note that the core book doesn’t include any baked-in setting, so if you need one for character inspiration you’ll also need to grab a setting book or three – just make sure to check the fine print and confirm that it supports FAE specifically. Personally, I really enjoy Eagle Eyes.

Risus - One of the earliest really successful games that can reasonably be described as rules-light, Risus breaks characters down to their bare essentials. Each character consists of 3--5 numerically ranked traits called “clichés”, each of which boils a whole facet of your character down to a single pithy phrase -- for example, “Kleptomaniac Dwarven Battle-Poet“ or “Romance-Obsessed Minotaur Accountant“. As you’ve no doubt gathered from those examples, it’s positioned as a comedy game, though I’ve occasionally seen it used for more serious games, to admittedly mixed success. If all that sounds a little too light, the Risus Companion offers some slightly (but only slightly) more complex chargen options.

I’m trying to keep things as broadly flexible as possible here, since I don’t have any guidance on what sort of content you’re looking for. Most games with very light character creation also tend to have extremely specific premises!

(Obligatory cost breakdown: of the linked games, Fate Accelerated Edition is pay-what-you-want, as are most of its supplements, and Risus is free, though the Risus Companion is not.)