Chitchat Ask Grey Anything

[Grey]

Hello. I'm Grey. You might remember me from such films as Trying To Recruit Everyone In The Shoutbox and Who Is This Guy, And Why Is His Face A Tag?





I've been here so long, I don't remember exactly when I joined - circa '07, '08, back when this was called Patternspider.


I write fiction, dabble in poetry, and design RPGs. I also appreciate fine whiskies and craft beers, and will spend hours talking about fictional metaphysics or reading too deeply into the subtext of videogames.


Ask me anything.

 

[Ozmic]

To start off, a less than serious question before I inevitably ask something less goofy.


• Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?

 

[Grey]

The Shadow!


Although gut says the Dalai Lama, I think anyway who studied aberrant psychology could make a reasonable guess.


Unless you mean what kind of evil, in which case let me direct you to the entire history of authority figures in Ireland and a sizeable chunk of the US government.

 

[Cirno]

Oh Grey, I beseech thee!


How do you flesh out a game system? Does fluff/flavour direct the mechanics, or are the mechanics a skeleton that are clad in fluff/flavour afters?

 

[Grey]

A little of both. You'll normally come up with the fluff first, so you'll need mechanics to represent that fluff. But then if you logically apply that combination to the rest of your game, you'll think "Hm, well, that implies the following effect in world, so how do I represent that?"


You definitely want the mechanics to represent your fluff, but you might end up with fluff that discusses the effects of certain weird mechanical interactions.


I'm trying to think of a good example of that happening in Crucible, but I'm drawing a blank. Do you see what I mean, anyway?


I'm going to be writing some posts on design in Roleplay Discussion this weekend.

 

[The Dark Wizard]

@Grey,


Do you love me Senpai?

 

[Grey]

You're my favourite Wizard-kun.

 

[The Fuzz]

Where are the bodies, Grey?

 

[The Dark Wizard]

You're my favourite Wizard-kun.

Is that a promise?

 

[Grey]

Would I lie to you? Unless it was really, really funny, I mean.

 

[Wolf Rawrrr]

What, in your opinion, is the purpose of life?

 

[Grey]

[QUOTE="The Fuzz]Where are the bodies, Grey?

[/QUOTE]
Well if you look at a map of-


Oh, oh ho. Nearly got me that time, Fuzz. Good try.

[QUOTE="Wolf Rawrrr]What, in your opinion, is the purpose of life?

[/QUOTE]
A matter of defintion for the individual. Life is, naturally, without explicit or grand purpose. Therefore we must each decide a purpose for our own lives - often with the aid and guidance of friends who recognize our purposes and their own, because we typically do not live in isolation.


In general I'd say the highest good is the good of the collective and even the most selfish purpose should acknowledge that.

 

[Wolf Rawrrr]

Good answer. I partially agree with you *woof*

 

[The Dark Wizard]

@Grey,


Will you take me back into To Reign in Hell ?


I responded to your Azerin question in the chat but you were away.

 

[Grey]

Of course.

 

[The Dark Wizard]

@Grey any wisdom you can pas down to others wanting to make their own system?

 

[Grey]

Research. The first thing you want to do is decide what you want from your system, and that means having concrete ideas about your setting. You need to decide on tone, genre, lethality, the primary form of conflict. Once you've done that, the research I mentioned will take a lot of time. You need to find every other game with a similar setting to yours, and read it.


Someone already did what you had in mind? Take your idea further, build on what their work suggests to you, extract anything that looks useful to you then see how far you can logically extend it.


This is also a good time to learn what not to do. And that means subjecting yourself to a few pages of FATAL, Synnibar, and Wraeththu.

 

[Silvertongued]

What, in your opinion, makes for a fun system?


And while we're at it, the same question, but orientated towards video games.

 

[J0ker]

Do you wanna know how I got these scars?

 

[Grey]

What, in your opinion, makes for a fun system?
And while we're at it, the same question, but orientated towards video games.

Ooooh, tough one, that. Very subjective, afterall.


I like a system with plenty of tools, but a strong core mechanic. There's something very satisfying about identifying how various mechanics and subsystems can be slotted together to get results. Exalted flirts with this a lot but hasn't quite sealed the deal. nWoD, especially Requiem, has great mechanical synergies, but they're really obvious and often narrow in application. This is not a bad thing, mind.


It's why I tend to like more complex systems, personally.


Videogames, well, even moreso. I like when there are plenty of discrete mechanics that can be put together into something seamless and smooth. Bayonetta and DmC felt like that a lot of the time, and mid-late game AssCreeds get there. Mark of the Ninja was a fucking triumph in this regard - clear use cases, functional mechanics, no dead wait, plenty of fun interactions.

[QUOTE="THE J0KER]Do you wanna know how I got these scars?

[/QUOTE]
No.

 

[J0ker]

No.

:'(

 

[Riddle78]

What can change the nature of a man,Grey?