The Literary TTRPG

Tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) are an transitional medium. They stand between a large number of other media, which they borrow from and interact with in varying ways depending on the specific medium in question. Above all else though, even when they don’t involve tabletops or role-playing, TTRPGs are games.

As games, the media that TTRPGs most easily and readily and greedily borrow from are other games. TTRPGs are significantly smaller as an industry than card game or board games or (especially) video games, and so it’s often from those kinds of games that TTRPGs borrow most heavily. Obviously, there’s also interactions in the other direction. The entire dungeon crawler genre of video games owes its origins to Dungeon and Dragons, for instance. There’s also a large degree of communication between TTRPGs and larps, with a lot of formal similarities between the two media.

The Challenge and Necessity of Creation

This is going to be a different sort of post from me. I’ll try to get back into more formally analytical writing when I find the strength and energy to do so. For now, this is going to be something more confessional, perhaps even an effort at self-affirmation. I don’t know where I’m going with this, so we’ll be getting there together over the course of this post.

The Spielegeist

There is a ghost haunting the table, a ghost called the Spielegeist.

The term “zeitgeist” refers to a metaphorical “spirit of the time,” referring to the overall cultural impression of a given period of time. One can think of the zeitgeist of the 1960s or the 1980s, and come to mind with a pastiche of the clothing, music, and overall political sentiment of the time, at least within a given geographical context. Obviously, the 80s were very different in sub-Saharan Africa as compared to western Europe. Nevertheless, the idea of a zeitgeist lingers as a way of thinking about how the combined cultural output of a given time and place creates this overall impression.

The Spielegeist, meanwhile, is the spirit of the game. By this, I mean the overall impact of a game’s text and mechanics upon the playing of the game. It is an abstraction, metaphorical in nature, but there is some value in conceptualizing the Spielegeist as a solid thing, a fellow participant in the act of play, invoked by the magical space of the table.

Beginner’s Guide to Mechanical Literacy: Clocks

Clocks are a relatively new piece of design technology. Unlike earlier entries in this series, Clocks are not especially widespread, nor are they considered fundamental to the act of playing TTRPGs, like Roles. Instead, they represent a relatively novel way to handle a common problem in TTRPGs: tracking progress.

Beginner’s Guide to Mechanical Literacy: Roles

Perhaps the core element structuring The Conversation are the Roles that participants take on. While the roles of GM and Player are reasonably well known, they are only the very basics of Roles available. What is more, the responsibilities and permissions of each role can vary greatly from baseline expectations. Let us explore more together in this week’s Beginner’s Guide to Mechanical Literacy.

Beginner’s Guide to Mechanical Literacy: The Conversation

While last week covered the Dice Pool, finishing the series’ introduction to resolution mechanics, this week will cover The Conversation, which is the glue that connects other mechanics together. In short, it is the simple back and forth between participants of a game. At length, well, read on.

Beginner’s Guide to Mechanical Literacy: Dice Pools

If the Roll-Over is the first and foremost resolution mechanic in the TTRPG world, then the Dice Pool is a close second. Popularized by White Wolf’s games, the mechanic likely had its origin in tabletop wargaming. In this article, we’ll delve into the Dice Pool and see how exactly it works.

Beginner’s Guide to Mechanical Literacy: The Roll-Over

Welcome to the Beginner’s Guide to Mechanical Literacy! Today we’re going to be covering one of the most fundamental kinds of rolls in TTRPGs, the Roll-Over. It’s such a fundamental concept that I have no idea where it came from, but it’s the primary form of roll in Dungeon and Dragons and thus other games like it. Join me as I explore the mechanic in more detail below.

The Familiarity Ratio

The Familiarity Ratio is a concept that you may already be familiar with. I first learned about it from Brandon Sanderson on his podcast Writing Excuses. Since then, I have considered the ways that it can apply to different media, and especially its importance for TTRPGs. In this article, I will discuss what the Familiarity Ratio actually is, before talking about its specific importance for TTRPGs.

Designing for Game Feel: Aesthetic Distance

Aesthetic distance is perhaps the fundamental aspect of game feel. It hasn’t previously come up in this series because it is so foundational to my understanding of the subject that I did not think to spend time elaborating on it. Looking back on the series, I see now that this has been in error, and I will endeavor to explore the topic in sufficient detail. Aesthetic distance is a very broad subject that is applicable to all media. This article will focus specifically on analog games, to hopefully reduce its scope.