RPG Design Resources

[caraig]

Are there any good resources out there for the design of
role-playing games? Mostly I'm looking for mechanics stuff like designing conflict resolution systems and such. This is for pen-and-paper RPGs. Thanks in advance!

Comments

[waya.livejournal.com]

I don't know about books or web pages or such, but, uhm, two of my exes are RPG writers. One from the old days of White Wolf.

[slipdragon.livejournal.com]

Not really. One of the largest problems in the P&P genre is a bastion of "THIS IS MY SYSTEM AND IT IS THE BEST" writers. Instead of an open and sharing environment, you have everyone squabbling over a (Shrinking) resource base.

One of the reasons D20 was so successful was that it was, oddly, 'open source', and everyone could use the system, if they credited WCotP.

There's a wiki article on RPG Game Theory at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role-playing_game_theory, which covers a lot of the basic concepts that were thrown around on the newsgroups and such during the Gold and Silver years of pen and paper RPG's.

Note: What works for Computer RPG (CRPG) does not, necessarily, work with Pen and Paper, due to the GM handling all interaction, instead of software.

If I can answer any questions, feel free to send them my way. (briancj at gmail dot com)

--Brian

[points.livejournal.com]

You can also try chatting with Rafferty, though YMMV.