Grand Designs: The Core Promises of the Tabletop Roleplaying Genre
and why they are important to the future of the genre
Thank you to my proof reader Teleros for his unending support on tidying up my garbage!
Introduction
There is a concept in game design called the core promise.1
A core promise is the critical element that a player expects from a game. Core promises are put in place by genre, marketing or even the name of the company developing the game.2 Some promises are implicit, some are explicitly written out.
They are one of the principle ways of engaging players and communicating the fun of the game in question.
Core promises are also used by development studios to understand what makes a genre function. They allow developers to define exactly what makes a genre tick and how it can be improved upon without obscuring the genre.
If a game breaks these promises in its design, then players tend to feel a lacklustre response even if it would be a good game otherwise. It is not clear whether this is down to disappointment or differences in genre preference, but that really does not matter.3
Video game design and market research can hone in on these core promises, improving gameplay, avoiding fruitless design time and making players happier overall.
There has not been anything similar for the tabletop roleplaying genre.
And that is a shame, because they often fail at satisfying the implicit genre promises that players expect.
Why Identify Promises?
Tabletop games are unique and important. There is nothing that can come close to the brilliance of a well run tabletop campaign.
Identifying what causes that brilliance is crucial.
Depending on the person, they will claim it is from the social aspect, the stories told, or even the gameplay. However, all of these things can be experienced in different mediums, often to greater degrees.
Why play this over a classic roleplaying game? Why play it over a wargame? Why have this hobby instead of doing sports? Why not join a creative writing group as a hobby?4
There is something unique in tabletop roleplaying, and discovering that is crucial.
The Problem of Language
An issue with defining the core promises of tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPG from now on) lies within the name of the genre itself. The term is laden with two of the words being indefinable. There is a reason that there are entire fields of study trying to pin down what “roleplaying” and “game” mean.5
Therefore, taking any component of the name and trying to use the name to define the genre does not actually work. It is better considered as the acronym TTRPG with no other attached meanings.
In addition, TTRPGs, much like video games, have both content and systems. The content of a game is the things that can be added or removed without affecting the whole, such as adding or removing a specific weapon.
The system is the underlying mechanical framework which content is built into. It is the procedures and methods for resolution, and the complexity which allows content to be actually interesting.
GURPS (Generic Universal RolePlaying System) is a perfect example of this split where the core book principally contains rules and a small amount of content and the supplement books are used to layer on the content.
This is an important thing to note as it does influence the idea of these core promises. Some promises are linked to content, some to system and some to both. The introduction of flying mounts in an MMORPG is a system, but the introduction of any particular mount is a piece of content.
The Core Promises of TTRPGs
After researching players, gamemasters and those who do not play, the three things that set TTRPGs apart from every other form of media is the customisation, the potential scale of the adventure, and the ability of the world to react.
From this, it is possible to derive a default set of four core promises:
Character Creation: A player’s character has the mechanical capability to be different from other players’ characters.
Character Change: A player’s character can grow in a meaningful way through the campaign.
World Creation: The system is capable of supporting a world with engaging and varied gameplay for the players’ characters.
World Change: The system allows the game world to be affected by the players in a way that is based off of their character’s mechanical differences.
Associating a system with the specific phrase “tabletop roleplaying” associates it with these promises.6 These are the ideas that players and gamemasters expect to see established in the system. If the core concepts of the system differ from these, then they need to be clearly signposted.
Examining them, there is already a clear split between a player focus in #1 and #2 and gamemaster focus in #3 and #4.78 Players are expecting to be supported in having a living character and gamemasters expect to be supported in a living world.
#1 and #3 are static or starting promises where they represent the start of the game state before in-play changes can happen, whereas #2 and #4 are moving or evolutionary ones and represent the game state once play has started.
All of these promises lead to engaging gameplay for both moment-to-moment and long-term choices. They are the framework for the gameplay loop of TTRPGs, and including them makes building the rest of it much easier
The easiest way to understand this is to view them as real promises.
And see what happens when you break them.
Why Keep Promises?
There are a number of reasons to identify these promises, as mentioned earlier. Breaking the promises is a breach of expectations, a negative in itself, but these promises are core to the concept because of the results when they are not met.
#1: Character Creation
“A player’s character has the mechanical capability to be different from other player’s characters.”
TTRPGs are a social experience.9 The vast majority of the time this social experience includes a gamemaster and three to six players. Each of those players creates a character that is, ideally, different from the others. This is important as it creates an interdependent dynamic and still allows players to feel useful in their niche.
If a TTRPG does not include the mechanical capability for characters to differ, what quickly happens is that a few of the players completely monopolise game time. Since there are no meaningful differences between characters, it becomes hard for less socially forward players to make themselves known.
Even if there is limited capability for characters to differ then players often have a high chance of picking two similar character concepts and inhibit each other from displaying full potential.10
It is a known facet of psychology that people like to be viewed as uniquely skilled. A group of people will naturally seek to specialise themselves in skills as that benefits the group overall and fulfils the individual’s sense of social altruism.
The result of conflicting characters is that one of the players11 will instead choose to pick an undesirable yet useful class, usually in the form of a support character.12 This leads to something of a social death spiral where the marginalised player is pushed off to the side and their opinions are given less time.
Including mechanical differences in character creation therefore reduces the effect and chance of these negative social interactions and allows for a more enjoyable experience.
#2: Character Change
“A player’s character can grow in a meaningful way through the campaign.”
A lot of players are expecting a long-term experience out of TTRPGs. The simplest reason for this is that most TTRPGs are emblematic of long-form fantasy fiction. The growth and change of the characters over time is a foundational aspect of this form of fiction.
Reducing the ability for characters to change is also a negative from a game design point of view. A player with a static character is going to feel it becomes boring over time.
The gradual improvement over time is an important factor for touching on the mathematical portion of the lizard brain. A person who sees clear and visual change is going to stay engaged.
#3: World Creation
“The system is capable of supporting a world with engaging and varied gameplay for the player’s characters.”
This promise is designed to support a long-term campaign, by populating a world with the tools needed to support that campaign.
TTRPGs are reliant on system variety in a way that a lot of other games are not. A video game that involves fighting dozens of goblins through caves can still be engaging, whereas a TTRPG that does the same is both going to be dull and take much longer.13 The tactile enjoyment of the flow of the game is very different in TTRPGs, and therefore there is a periodic need for variation.
In a lot of TTRPGs, this variety is solely down to various classes of monsters and, if players are lucky, tactics used by monsters. It does not need to be limited to this. Traps, locales, and environmental effects all add variety on the micro level. Layering systems to have domain rulership and the like also adds to the TTRPG.
If this variety does not exist to be explored, then players quickly get bored of the campaign. If this variety does not exist mechanically, then the gamemaster quickly finds themselves unable to support player interest.
#4: World Change
“The system allows the game world to be affected by the players in a way that is based off of their character’s mechanical differences.”
The world must be evolutionary14 and reactionary15 for a TTRPG campaign to be enjoyable to players. This is a foundational principle of tabletop16 since the rise of video game CRPGs allows for a non-reactionary world.17
If the world is non-evolutionary, then players will wonder why they are even bothering to play. If their actions make no changes then there is no reason for those players to be playing the game. Players feel like they have no input to the game.
If the world is non-reactionary1819, then players will wonder whether they are needed or if any player could be involved in the game. If their actions make no changes then there is no reason for those players to be playing the game.20 Players feel interchangeable and their characters even more so.
There are two phrases in the above quotation that will likely be controversial:
system
mechanical differences
The system is crucial for players and gamemasters. Players should be able to understand how their actions are going to affect the world.21 Gamemasters need the support from the system to deliver understandable and worthwhile world game, otherwise it is overly burdensome.
The mechanical differences are key for the same reasons as in the #1 promise. It allows players to feel like their choices early on have affected the game itself, and also allows them to feel unique and special within the group.22
Why Does This Matter?
These promises are at the core of why people want to get involved in the TTRPG hobby, and what people find lacking from the vast majority of systems:
The chance to feel unique and useful in a group setting.
The ability to see a character grow and change in a way that is understandable.
The ability for these characters to engage in a “second world”, mediated by a gamemaster.
The gamemaster being able to provide an engaging, and believable, experience of this world.
It is possible to ignore these and still make a fun game, but these are the concepts only available from TTRPGs.23 A TTRPG that sticks to and delivers these promises is delivering on the unique potential of this beautiful hobby.
And that is important.
Objection!
This section covers off potential arguments against these being the core promises of TTRPG systems.
Not All Tabletop is D&D!
An argument that can be used against these promises being inherently important to TTRPGs will be that the player’s expectation in them is arbitrary and based on their outdated and outmoded adherence to the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) model.
The crux of this argument is that these are just identifying a subgenre of TTRPG, a derivative from the combined lineages of D&D, RuneQuest, RoleMaster, and Traveller.24
However, these games and their children identify the vast majority of played campaigns in the past and present. For many people, D&D alone is the hobby of tabletop roleplaying.
In addition, modern D&D25 does not even attempt the 3rd and 4th core promises, as the system does not support a reactive world. The system expects the DM to make fiat solutions to any player inputs beyond the bounds of combat. The absolute linear “adventures” published by Wizards of the Coast are also an indicator that they do not care about these promises.
Where’s The Plot?
A concept quite clearly absent from these core promises is plot. Narrative is only touched upon as foundational fiction for system expectations, not as a core promise of TTRPGs.
There are two reasons for this:
Plot is content for TTRPGs, rather than being a piece of system design. Any plot or plot element can be inserted or removed at will, and this is therefore outside the bounds of core promises.
Story should be an outcome of playing TTRPGs, rather than being a goal. TTRPG design driven by a plot leads to railroading and worse, whereas a story driven by TTRPG design affords players the freedom to embrace the world appropriately.
Essentially, the story is the result of the players using their characters in the world that was established. The changes of the characters upon the world and the world upon the characters are the story.
A Matter of Scale
At least one of the counter arguments against this is the existence of microgames, where rules and scenario are conjoined and there is an expectation of completing the game in a satisfactory way within a single session.
However, as with video game design, scale and length also matter.26
Grand strategy games27 have inherent promises of being large scale and long experiences. A game that bills itself as a grand strategy game and then turns into a thirty minute traditional real time strategy game28 is breaching those inherent promises.
The concept of scale also applies to stories. A novel is different from a novella which is different from a piece of nanofiction. The length and scale of the story is promised in how the story is described, and they are clearly indicated to allow people to appropriately choose.
A TTRPG has the promise of providing a long-term and evolving experience. Therefore, a microgame that states it is a TTRPG almost certainly does not have enough space to fulfil any of the default design promises. That does not mean it will be an bad experience but it does mean players will be disappointed if they try to play it as a TTRPG.
Final Word
This was a bit of a roundabout way of discovering what a TTRPG actually is, by looking at expectations and deriving those to give the core ideas that any system will be expected to fulfil.
Personally, I do not think all of these promises need to be met in order to be considered a TTRPG,29 but I do think they are core to the experience that TTRPG players are looking for.
Failing to deliver on these promises results in a disappointing experience for most people interested in approaching TTRPGs, and pushes people away from delving into the hobby further.
This post is also something of a response to the “What Isn’t A Roleplaying Game?” over at the Zornhau Studios Substack. His argument is principally that there are a wide variety of roleplaying games and that there are different categories under which they can fall.
I think he is right that there are a lot of games that claim to be roleplaying games and that they can fall under the most expansive definition. The problem is that much of the gameplay style and behaviours of such games are closer to the attraction of board games or creative writing circles than traditional roleplaying games.
You can find his post here:
In other news, I have been running an OSR Discord for over a month now. There are a lot of very interesting conversations about game design, adventure design and general campaign chat. You can join it here:
Player promises are covered in “Welcome to the Yard Sale: A Practical Framework for Holistic Design Iteration” by Zak McClendon and “Cursed Problems in Game Design” by Alex Jaffe. Core promises are the explicit base concepts at the core of the game.
Amongst a myriad of other things, but these are the main three.
In the video game design space, this is a reason to give clear marketing instead of trying to trick the player. Unfortunately, profits on trickery are very high.
All questions I have asked myself after spending far too much time preparing a game.
Nevermind the madness of the “tabletop” prefix when 25% of games are online.
Some people will undoubtedly argue that this is wrong. Regardless of that, these are inherited from the lineage of old school games and that is what is spread throughout the tabletop consciousness in general.
#3 and #4 are also something of a promise to players, but they are filtered through the gamemaster.
#3 and #4 will be controversial to some, but it is important that the system is mechanically capable of supporting interesting gameplay. It should not be the sole burden of a gamemaster, otherwise they have no reason to buy your system.
If you enjoy playing solo, good for you!
This is likely one of the reasons that old-school D&D used rolling stats. It would generate natural differences that made characters feel different.
Usually the shyer or less socially dominant one.
When I play, I often do the same simply because I know I will shine regardless.
Imagine a video game that has three hours of fighting goblins versus a novel where you read for three hours about fighting goblins.
Changing over time.
Changing according to player input.
One that I may expand on in the future.
And remember that this is partially about defining what makes TTRPGs uniquely attractive.
Meaning the world does not respond to the player input.
This includes predefined plots where characters can be slotted in and out without truly changing the overall structure.
Note the italics.
Not all the time, but the majority.
This will undoubtedly result in arguments about player versus character skill.
Until we get virtual worlds controlled by an AI and end up in some Snow Crash horrorscape.
It is an argument that I would be happy to accept that if a suitably interesting acronym appears!
3rd edition and after.
Insert penis joke here.
Along the lines of Europa Universalis or Crusader Kings.
Along the lines of StarCraft.
Traveller does not really match #2, as one example.
A good read and I thank you for the shout-out. To put a finer point on it, my argument is two-fold:
1. The term “tabletop role-playing game” is a very broad canopy under which a wide variety of games have evolved over the course of the last fifty years or so, each of which caters to different tastes that have developed and different desires to be met.
2. Trying to redefine the term role-playing game to exclude some evolutionary branch of that particular tree is kinda pointless.
The TL;DR of the latter being that even if you could come up with a really good definition that promoted one’s own preferences while excluding the Other, you aren’t actually accomplishing anything useful. The Other will continue calling their preferred games Role-Playing Games and they aren’t liable to stop on the basis that someone revised a definition they won’t agree with. If anything, the most likely response is a counter-revision in order to promote their preferences in exclusion of your own. Case in point, that’s basically how we got here in the first place.
There is no version of this conversation in which someone finds a precise combination of terminology to present and the folks playing (Apocalypse World, or Fate, or Blades in the Dark, or whatever the argued Not Real Role-Playing Game of the week is) go ‘Oh. You’re right. I now see the error of my ways.” The people who are into those games will continue to be into those games and the attempts to redefine their preferred games out of being role-playing games is ultimately just going to be perceived as trying to gatekeep those people from discussions on the hobby.
This is why the OSR conversations are so much more productive, by comparison. The OSR created a new positive definition and identity for itself that did not require anyone else to change their own identities by comparison. No one had to change their minds about their own preferred games for OSR to exist as its own independent entity in the way that trying to change the definition of “role-playing game” does. The most useful thing for discourse in the hobby is for more play styles to be positively defined so people can pursue the things they want, rather than arguing about the things they don’t.
That said, I also didn’t disagree with anything you posted in your article. The four proposed promises seem fair, in my estimation and I don’t see them as a contradiction to anything I’ve written so far, at least not in the spirit I intended it.
The point I would be interested in is the very last bit you mention:
“The problem is that much of the gameplay style and behaviours of such games are closer to the attraction of board games or creative writing circles than traditional roleplaying games.”
I hear people say these sorts of things, but I’m never actually sure what they are referring to. Perhaps that’s a discussion for another day?
Regards,
Brooks
PS: I admire your footnote strategy and will absolutely be stealing it for future writings. Lord knows I need all the help I can get, putting my thoughts in order.
Next up, part II, where we discuss how ACKs already does all that :)