Monday, September 30, 2019

The Three Design Goals of Elthos RPG

I started working on Elthos in 1978.  I did a light skim of Men & Magic, and took it from there.  Here were my three primary design goals.

1) What rules system will make my life as GM simple and easy?

... my thinking being, if my life as GM is easier rather than harder then everyone will enjoy the game more, including me.

2) How do I create a system that is flexible enough to handle ANYTHING my stupid brain wants to throw at it?

Those two goals were at the core of my design philosophy in 1978. Everything else can be thought of as a means to those two ends.

Maybe, if I want to stretch it, a 3rd goal was

3) How do I make these rules "make sense" to me as a kind of simulation of what I think is going on in the world around me?

... in that sense I think my game rules are a philosophic statement about my view of physics (combat tactics, etc) and metaphysics (the Universe, etc).

Well, that's enough for one game, isn't it?  So there you have it.  Now I will go back to tinkering on Mythos Machine.

1 comment:

David Gonzales said...

Very informative! Thanks for sharing!