Seriously,
one of the best ways to get me to do something is to tell me I either
can’t do it or that said thing is impossible. Then I get it into my
head to prove them wrong and shove their noses in it like a misbehaving
puppy while I’m at it. Sometimes, it occurs to me that I am not exactly
a nice person.
Remember that last bit, it’s going to be important later.
Back in 2010, a friend and I had been talking. Both of us were very big fans of the show Avatar: the Last Airbender,
as well as being tabletop junkies. One of us bemoaned fact that there
wasn’t an official sourcebook, because an A:tLA campaign would be, in a
word, awesome. And so the seed was planted in the back of my head. I
wrote down some vague ideas and some sketches, and then pretty much
shoved it out of the way because I had a thesis to write and a job to
get.
Fastforward
to PAX East 2013. There was a panel, in the Tabletop Theater, on the
Future of RPGs. The panelists warned for “at least 90% wrongness”. So I
went anyway. And, oh, man, I spent an hour biting my tongue and trying
not to beat my head against a table. Because the panelists, 3 very
well-respected authors in the indie tabletop world, well, let’s just say
that it was above 90% wrong for me. The straw that broke the camel’s
back, however, was the response to the innocent question on what’s a
good tool for designing a game collaboratively. Ignoring the fact that
the three panelists had no idea (Google Docs, a wiki, and a version
control system are the three that pop into my head after about .5
seconds), the infuriating part was the stubborn conviction that you
couldn’t write a good game collaborating with other people.
Seeing as how I’d just come off a 3 month project writing a Persona tabletop
system with two friends and have spent the last 8 years writing LARPs
on GM teams, it was a little beyond insulting. And so, telling me that I
can’t do something? That something is impossible?
Enter spite.
So
here we are. The old A:tLA idea has evolved into its own independent
setting and set of world rules. And although I’m going to start this
out by being the main one typing things, I know I’m not going to do it
alone. The idea has morphed into a world I’m calling Salt, Silk, and Steel
(or 3S). It’s an elemental wuxia system and setting, set in an expy of
Tang Era China and the surrounding countries. Probably with some
dashes of steampunk-esque.
And
I’m not doing it alone, because I have friends who a) have been dying
for a decent Eastern-based tabletop system that isn’t horrible, and b)
know where I sleep and will stab me
if I do insulting cultural appropriation shennanigans. I also have
friends who have spent as long as I have writing games or thinking about
game mechanics, who will also happily tell me when I am being Wrong.
So
on one hand, I’m doing this because 3 authors told me I couldn’t. On
the other hand, I’m also doing it because I really want to and I want to
try to write a system independent of an already-existing property.
I’ve been wanting to write this for a very long time, and I think I
finally have the skills to make it happen.
So
here we are. I’ll be taking you guys through as I write this,
explaining some design notes and where I had trouble making mechanics
fit, be they because of theme or numerical constraints or something else
entirely. You’ll probably also see when I inevitably have to scrap a
thing because it doesn’t work. Game design is a process. It’s long and
you can’t be afraid to cut something because it isn’t working. You
also can’t give into the temptation to just give up when things are hard
or overwhelming.
It’s
not exactly something that’s easy to explain, so writing this all out
is helpful for me, as a designer, to lay out my thought process. It’s
also helpful to you, the audience, I think, to see what a designer might
be thinking when designing a mechanic, why choose this mechanic or value over that one.
If
you, as a reader, ever have any questions or comments, feel free to say
so in the comment section. I’ll do my best to answer and explain.
At the very least, I hope all this will be entertaining.
And okay, the smugness when I pull it all off will also be hugely gratifying. I told you spite was important.