PREQUEL: Design Diary 04

This is the 4th entry in my design diary for the design of PREQUEL, a one-shot tactical tabletop roleplaying game of heroic sacrifices. You can find the first entry here.

In an effort to drum up interest in PREQUEL, a game James Quigley and I are developing, we’ve decided to put out monthly developer diaries/logs that document some of our design thoughts and goals. You can find James’ devlogs on his blog, the Lab. 

If you’re interested in getting notified when the game goes live for crowdfunding, you can sign up here: https://bit.ly/prequel-rpg

Leaving Legacies

One of the main reasons I was driven to develop PREQUEL was the concept of leaving legacies, particularly legacies sparked by this concept of “heroic sacrifice.” There are many ways players of TTRPGs can have fun (Skeleton Code Machine has a good post on “What kind of run are you having?”), and I gravitate towards collaborative development of compelling narratives. I’m not a very competitive person, so I don’t derive much pleasure from winning a game. I do, however, derive a lot of pleasure to playing a character that contributes in some meaningful way to the story that we’re playing as a group. If I’m playing some kind of “bodyguard” archetype, you best believe I’m on the lookout for the best way to spectacular sacrifice myself for the good of my group. 

In PREQUEL, I wanted players to be incentivized to be on the lookout for similar opportunities, and to use those opportunities as fuel for worldbuilding and any future games that take place in the same setting. (PREQUEL is a oneshot game, but the second objective of the game is to allow players to tell a…prequel, such that there’s plenty of game seeds for a larger campaign to develop). I want the Noble to be imbue their spirit into their sword to create that legendary weapon passed down from heir to heir, whispering the key to defeating the Evil. I want the Devout to be able to create that Chosen One prophecy to encode a weakness. I want the Crooked to create a magical item with secrets vital to future victory. In PREQUEL, players can do all of this with their Legacy Powers at the cost of losing their characters in a spectacular fashion. You know that ghost that you see during your quest that knows everything about the Evil? You can play as the ghost while they are alive by being The Vengeful. The legacies they leave behind become adventure hooks on their own. 

The Crooked

Mythical Treasure [L]. Cost: 5 Guile. Range: 1-3 Effect: Deal [Guile] Harm. You may have been wrong in acquiring it but you can at least create a better future for someone else. Preserve one Weakness. You hide the weakness within your treasure and reveal its existence for others to find. What clue or puzzle do you leave behind for future generations to find your treasure?

Building on Burdens

One of the joys of collaboration is building on each other’s ideas. James added an extra layer to the Legacy Moves by introducing this concept of Hero Burdens. One of the early pitfalls we identified during playtesting is that responding to prompt can take a good portion of playtime, especially if the players have answered the prompt before and need to come up with something new. Another common critique of Microscope-like games is that the creation of events often result in a collection of seemingly unrelated events. As such, many of our choices were motivated by giving players many story seeds to spark prompts. When creating a Hero, a player selects an Origin and Calling. The Origin includes a Burden, which is what motivates your character to rise to the doomed challenge of facing the Evil. These Burdens give an additional basis for responding to prompts while also providing a framework to connect all of one Hero’s prompts. If prompts are used to inspire creating specific events in the Quest, Hero Burdens are used to inspire overall character arcs of Heroes throughout the Quest. 

The Crooked

Burden: Past Crimes. Whether you had or wanted to, you amassed fortune at the expense of the innocent. You would have been caught and sentenced if the Evil didn’t appear. If you fail, you will have to answer for your crimes. If you succeed, your heroism may be enough to absolve you.

Legacies for Who?

During the Final Fight, players can then Confront Your Burden, which is when they want to use a Legacy Power. James’ suggested that instead of just one Legacy Power, each Origin has two Legacy Powers that reflect the resolution of the Hero’s Burden. One Legacy Power is related to accepting the weight of the Hero’s Burden, and one Legacy Power is related to overcoming the Burden, and moving past it. The first Legacy Power gives the Hero and/or their allies a momentary boost in the fight before the Hero dies, and the second Legacy Power gives the Hero the ability to preserve a weakness. This gives Players a choice as to how they want their Hero to go out – delay the inevitable for the hope of revealing another weakness, or preserve one of the weaknesses you’ve found. Both are packed with narrative potential. 

The Crooked

Burden: Past Crimes. Whether you had or wanted to, you amassed fortune at the expense of the innocent. You would have been caught and sentenced if the Evil didn’t appear. If you fail, you will have to answer for your crimes. If you succeed, your heroism may be enough to absolve you.

CONFRONT YOUR BURDEN: Recall the crime where you made your fortune. What innocent person or group did you exploit?

• Red Right Hand [L]. Range 1. Who are you to seek redemption? You’ve ruined this life for both yourself and others, the least you can do is ruin the life of someone who deserves it. You mark the Evil with your final attack, exposing its blindspots or hindering it for the duration of the Final Fight. Every time a Hero deals Harm to the Evil, they deal an additional 1 Harm. What form does this mark take?
• Mythical Treasure [L]. Cost: 5 Guile. Range: 1-3 Effect: Deal [Guile] Harm. You may have been wrong in acquiring it but you can at least create a better future for someone else. Preserve one Weakness. You hide the weakness within your treasure and reveal its existence for others to find. What clue or puzzle do you leave behind for future generations to find your treasure? 

I really appreciate Hero Burdens because they add an extra dimension to the Heroes by commenting on the legacies we leave behind. One Legacy Power leaves a much more short-lived legacy in helping your allies survive just a bit longer, and one Legacy Power leaves a very long-term legacy that future generations will benefit from, though your allies now will not. To frame it another way, the short-lived legacy is a legacy of personal connection based on this quest you’ve spent the entire game creating, and a long-lived legacy is one of social responsibility for a future game you may never play. The game doesn’t say that one is better than the other, the game asks the Player to decide which is worth doing in that moment. But generations later, those alive will only see the impact of those long-term legacies, and the intricacies of the Heroes and their lives become flattened into archetypal larger-than-life mythological figures. 

Saying More than Expected

One of the things I enjoy about indie game design is that it becomes easier to see games as art, rather than just as a money-making product. As designers, we can make those seemingly out-of-the-box decisions to encourage certain kinds of play. But also, like a literary analysis, playing games results in each player having their own unique experience and therefore, their own interpretation of what the game is saying about a certain subject matter – intended or otherwise. 

It’s part of the reason I have a mixed opinion of design diaries. On one hand, I love getting a glimpse into a designer’s thought process. On the other hand, I actively don’t want to know what the “rules as intended” are, because what really matters is the “rules as interpreted.” But I think if I see “rules as intended” as just one way “rules are interpreted,” I can learn a lot more.

Sometimes, as you play a game, you may find connections that no one else at the table sees, and those connections are all the more precious because they resulted in a mix of your personal experience informing the play of a game someone else designed.