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[Gamesradar Plus] The Discworld RPG gleefully ignores "modifiers to dice, and anything crunchy" in favor of puns

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  [Gamesradar Plus] The Discworld RPG gleefully ignores "modifiers to dice, and anything crunchy" in favor of puns Kyonshi <gmkeros@gmail.com> - 2024-09-16 09:48 +0200
    Re: [Gamesradar Plus] The Discworld RPG gleefully ignores "modifiers to dice, and anything crunchy" in favor of puns Scruffy Beard <ask-me-in-public-if-you-want-my-address@address.invalid> - 2024-10-26 01:33 +0200
      Re: [Gamesradar Plus] The Discworld RPG gleefully ignores "modifiers to dice, and anything crunchy" in favor of puns Kyonshi <gmkeros@gmail.com> - 2024-10-26 12:06 +0200
        Re: [Gamesradar Plus] The Discworld RPG gleefully ignores "modifiers to dice, and anything crunchy" in favor of puns Scruffy Beard <ask-me-in-public-if-you-want-my-address@address.invalid> - 2024-10-31 10:38 +0100
          Re: [Gamesradar Plus] The Discworld RPG gleefully ignores "modifiers to dice, and anything crunchy" in favor of puns Kyonshi <gmkeros@gmail.com> - 2024-11-06 22:33 +0100
            Re: [Gamesradar Plus] The Discworld RPG gleefully ignores "modifiers to dice, and anything crunchy" in favor of puns Scruffy Beard <ask-me-in-public-if-you-want-my-address@address.invalid> - 2024-11-09 18:58 +0100
              Re: [Gamesradar Plus] The Discworld RPG gleefully ignores "modifiers to dice, and anything crunchy" in favor of puns news@zzo38computer.org.invalid - 2024-11-09 13:42 -0800
                Re: [Gamesradar Plus] The Discworld RPG gleefully ignores "modifiers to dice, and anything crunchy" in favor of puns kyonshi <gmkeros@gmail.com> - 2024-11-10 01:13 +0100
              Re: [Gamesradar Plus] The Discworld RPG gleefully ignores "modifiers to dice, and anything crunchy" in favor of puns Steveski <steveski@invalid.com> - 2024-11-10 00:07 +0000
              Re: [Gamesradar Plus] The Discworld RPG gleefully ignores "modifiers to dice, and anything crunchy" in favor of puns kyonshi <gmkeros@gmail.com> - 2024-11-10 01:14 +0100
              Re: [Gamesradar Plus] The Discworld RPG gleefully ignores "modifiers to dice, and anything crunchy" in favor of puns Matthew Hambley <news@aether.me.uk> - 2024-11-10 10:50 +0000

#1434 — [Gamesradar Plus] The Discworld RPG gleefully ignores "modifiers to dice, and anything crunchy" in favor of puns

Source: 
https://www.gamesradar.com/tabletop-gaming/exclusive-the-discworld-rpg-gleefully-ignores-modifiers-to-dice-and-anything-crunchy-in-favor-of-puns/

The Discworld RPG gleefully ignores "modifiers to dice, and anything 
crunchy" in favor of puns

By Benjamin Abbott
published 11 September 2024

Interview | "It’s forced us to create a system that is essentially 
unique, which is almost entirely word-based"
The Discworld RPG takes a good look at tabletop gaming cliches for a 
moment, scratches its chin, and then says "sod it." This pen-and-paper 
adventure does something different – and it feels rather clever about 
that, thank you very much.

Now, I know what you're thinking. Every new kid on the block claims to 
be a unique and special flower – any similarity to the best tabletop 
RPGs, or D&D in particular, is coincidental (on their mother's life). 
Suffice to say, it doesn't usually pan out. Discworld RPG, though? Well, 
that really is doing something different. I can't think of many other 
TTRPGs that revolve around wordplay, for example.

With the game coming to Kickstarter on October 15, I tracked down 
Modiphius Entertainment designer Andy Douthwaite and line editor Bryce 
Johnston to fill me in on the Discworld RPG. Here's what they had to say 
before they had security cart me off for bothering them.
GamesRadar+: At a top level, what's the crucial, must-have 'thing' a 
Discworld RPG needs to make it feel true to the source material?

Modiphius: Punes, or plays on words.*

*[And footnotes]

GR+: How did that inform the architecture of the game, and its mechanics?

M: Massively! The whole game is built in such a way that players are 
encouraged to play with words. Each character has a number of traits, 
and those traits can be used to justify actions in the game. Players are 
encouraged to misappropriate, mangle, or otherwise brutalise the 
meanings of those traits to justify things they have absolutely no 
business justifying.

GR+: What were the challenges or unexpected benefits of that?

M: It’s forced us to create a system that is essentially unique, which 
is almost entirely word-based. The system works in such a way as to put 
language and wordplay first and foremost, while the system fades into 
the background. We didn’t ever want the system to get in the way of the 
story.

The benefits aren’t really unexpected, but oftentimes someone will use a 
trait to justify something in a way that makes you snort quite a lot of 
tea across the room.

GR+: Was there anything commonly seen in tabletop RPGs that you 
deliberately steered clear of?

M: Modifiers to dice, and anything crunchy. There are no specific combat 
rules in the game either, all tests and actions are handled the same 
way. You and the GM work to define what the consequences of a failed 
action could be, in combat the consequence will relate directly to who 
or what you’re trying to fight—rolling badly against a troll could see 
you suffer the ‘swallowing your own teeth’ consequence, while the same 
roll against the Luggage could see you suffer a Near Death Experience. 
Those would be narrated, rather than see you losing hit points (which 
also don’t exist).

GR+: What makes this game stand out from its peers, mechanically speaking?

M: We should have read this before answering the previous questions.

The game is fundamentally about language, wordplay, and narrative. It’s 
a narrative driven RPG rather than a mechanics driven RPG. Dice 
certainly exist, but only to create moments which help drive (or 
undermine) the narrative you’re going for. Just to reiterate, it’s a 
game about awful puns and silly stories. Right up until the point when 
it isn’t. No Discworld novel would be complete without a moral or 
philosophical point that makes you stop reading and go ‘huh’ and then 
think about it for five to ten business years and we’ve tried to capture 
that in the adventures we’re writing.

GR+: Can you give us an example of certain characters or iconic 
Discworld elements we might encounter over the course of the game?

M: You’ll be able to interact with basically any Discworld character you 
can think of, and probably quite a lot you can’t. The game is built in 
such a way as to allow you to incorporate famous Discworld characters 
like Vimes or Death into a story, without them overwhelming the narrative.

GR+: Was there anything you personally were keen to incorporate or 
revisit in the game, like the City Watch as an example?

M: Everything, to be quite honest. This is a dream job for us. We wanted 
to explore the whole of Ankh-Morpork with our grubby little paws and dig 
into every scrap of detail we could find. In the course of the 
development of this game, Andy read every Discworld book all over again. 
On company time, no less. Let us tell you, sitting down at your desk at 
9am on a Monday and going “Oh what does my day look like?” And it turns 
out to be “reading Discworld”? Incredible.

I cannot stress enough that we got paid to read the Discworld series for 
the umpteenth time, and the surge of jealousy you’re experiencing at the 
moment is entirely justified, and probably not quite powerful enough.

GR+: Are you able to tell me what the rough product lineup will be for 
the game? Are we talking a core book, a starter set, etc?

M: At its core there’s a rulebook. A core rulebook, if you will. Then 
there are a bunch of accessories you’d expect, like a screen for the 
gamemaster, a set of dice… and some other stuff. We can’t just spill all 
the beans here, we’ve only got like three beans to spill, gotta keep 
something back for the Kickstarter or no one will show up and buy our 
beans.

Everything in the Kickstarter will be exclusive, so you won’t see these 
books or accessories in local friendly game stores. We do have plans to 
release a smaller box set of the game in retail somewhere down the line, 
but if you want the complete Adventures in Ankh-Morpork experience, come 
to 
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/modiphius/terry-pratchetts-discworld-rpg 
and give us your beans.*

*[Or buy our beans? The beans have sort of gotten away from us at this 
point, if we’re honest.]**

**[For complete clarity, the Kickstarter will not offer beans, accept 
beans, or trade beans. This will be a beanless Kickstarter. A bean free 
experience. Unless it goes really astonishingly well and we have to 
start opening some spare tins to find some extra stretch goals, at least.]

GR+: What was something you've learned from the experience so far, and 
is there anything you're particularly proud of?

M: No matter how many times you’ve read Pratchett, there’s always 
something new in there, you’ll catch something new on the fifteenth read 
through and it will be bright and shiny and for a moment you’ll remember 
that incomparable joy of reading the books for the first time all over 
again.

In terms of things we’re proud of, did we mention we got paid to read 
all the Discworld novels again?

(We’re actually very proud of the game, but as British people, 
acknowledging that would be a grave social faux pas, so we have to make 
self-effacing jokes and say ‘well you know, we think we did okay’ and 
things of that nature. It is good though, promise.)

GR+: A last bonus question that we like to ask developers and designers: 
what's your advice on finding the right tabletop RPG for you?

M: It’s vibes all the way down. Except in this game, where it’s Vimes.

Seriously, and this isn’t super helpful, but play (or watch, or read) a 
bunch of games. It’s the easiest way to figure out what you like and 
what you don’t. Eventually you’ll find something that makes your 
serotonin receptors light up and go ‘ping’ and then you spend all your 
money on dice or books or whatever. But the process of looking at lots 
of different games has value in itself, because even once you find your 
favourite, you might not want it every single time. And now you know a 
bunch of other options to dive into, if you’re craving something crunchy 
or silly or emotional, you now know where those are as well. If you want 
to play it, there’s an RPG out there that does it. And you’ll never know 
if you don’t look.

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#1438

On 2024-09-16 at 09:48 +0200, Kyonshi wrote:

> The Discworld RPG gleefully ignores "modifiers to dice, and anything
> crunchy" in favor of puns

This is a very nice idea.

-- 
Scruffy Beard

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#1439

On 10/26/2024 1:33 AM, Scruffy Beard wrote:
> On 2024-09-16 at 09:48 +0200, Kyonshi wrote:
> 
>> The Discworld RPG gleefully ignores "modifiers to dice, and anything
>> crunchy" in favor of puns
> 
> This is a very nice idea.
> 

Well, kind of in the spirit of Pterry, isn't it?

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#1441

On 2024-10-26 at 12:06 +0200, Kyonshi wrote:

> Well, kind of in the spirit of Pterry, isn't it?

Indeed.

-- 
Scruffy Beard

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#1442

On 10/31/2024 10:38 AM, Scruffy Beard wrote:
> On 2024-10-26 at 12:06 +0200, Kyonshi wrote:
> 
>> Well, kind of in the spirit of Pterry, isn't it?
> 
> Indeed.
> 

which reminds me that Pterry once described in an interview how he 
taught middle-aged office ladies to play DnD and they proceeded to 
torture their way through the dungeon

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#1443

On 2024-11-06 at 22:33 +0100, Kyonshi wrote:

> which reminds me that Pterry once described in an interview how he
> taught middle-aged office ladies to play DnD and they proceeded to
> torture their way through the dungeon

Then they actually did role-play.  In my old D&D group decades we
enjoyed the game, but I think we never even attempted to suspend
incredulity or play the part: it was just silly fun with friends.  For
the office ladies it actually worked.  Who knows if this style of rules
with no “crunch” is the right thing to make role immersion easier.

-- 
Scruffy Beard

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#1444

Scruffy Beard <ask-me-in-public-if-you-want-my-address@address.invalid> wrote:
> Who knows if this style of rules with no “crunch” is the
> right thing to make role immersion easier.

Maybe to some people, it will be. To me, the RPG should be many things
together, including crunch, role immersion, combat, tactics, story,
random chance, etc.

-- 
Don't laugh at the moon when it is day time in France.

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#1446

On 11/9/24 22:42, news@zzo38computer.org.invalid wrote:
> Scruffy Beard <ask-me-in-public-if-you-want-my-address@address.invalid> wrote:
>> Who knows if this style of rules with no “crunch” is the
>> right thing to make role immersion easier.
> 
> Maybe to some people, it will be. To me, the RPG should be many things
> together, including crunch, role immersion, combat, tactics, story,
> random chance, etc.
> 

It's all a matter of taste really.

Although in a lot of cases people don't know what they actually like 
because they only ever tried the current edition of Vanilla and they 
don't even know there are other ice cream flavors out there.

I think that metaphor got away from me a bit.

Anyway, in a lot of cases I would argue that different games just offer 
the experience of different games. When I play DnD (old school) I want 
something different from the game than when I play Traveller or Shadowrun.

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#1445

On 09/11/2024 17:58, Scruffy Beard wrote:
> On 2024-11-06 at 22:33 +0100, Kyonshi wrote:
> 
>> which reminds me that Pterry once described in an interview how he
>> taught middle-aged office ladies to play DnD and they proceeded to
>> torture their way through the dungeon
> 
> Then they actually did role-play.  In my old D&D group decades we
> enjoyed the game, but I think we never even attempted to suspend
> incredulity or play the part: it was just silly fun with friends.  For
> the office ladies it actually worked.  Who knows if this style of rules
> with no “crunch” is the right thing to make role immersion easier.

Being neutral/chaotic was always you friend :-)

-- 
Steveski

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#1447

On 11/9/24 18:58, Scruffy Beard wrote:
> On 2024-11-06 at 22:33 +0100, Kyonshi wrote:
> 
>> which reminds me that Pterry once described in an interview how he
>> taught middle-aged office ladies to play DnD and they proceeded to
>> torture their way through the dungeon
> 
> Then they actually did role-play.  In my old D&D group decades we
> enjoyed the game, but I think we never even attempted to suspend
> incredulity or play the part: it was just silly fun with friends.  For
> the office ladies it actually worked.  Who knows if this style of rules
> with no “crunch” is the right thing to make role immersion easier.
> 

Well, I think Pterry played the most basic of DnD with them, that must 
have been around 1980 or even before.

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#1448

On 09/11/2024 17:58, Scruffy Beard wrote:
> On 2024-11-06 at 22:33 +0100, Kyonshi wrote:
> 
>> which reminds me that Pterry once described in an interview how he
>> taught middle-aged office ladies to play DnD and they proceeded to
>> torture their way through the dungeon
> 
> Then they actually did role-play.  In my old D&D group decades we
> enjoyed the game, but I think we never even attempted to suspend
> incredulity or play the part: it was just silly fun with friends.

If everyone at the table is having fun then you're playing it right. I 
hate the gatekeeping attitude that if you're not acting, improving, 
making tactical decisions, min/maxing or whatever, then you're not doing 
it right.

The challenge comes when there are a variety of styles at the table. 
Then it becomes important to make sure there's a bit of something for 
everything. A puzzle for the puzzlers, tactics for the tacticians, and 
acting for the actors. If they can't all be accommodated then that's no 
ones fault, it just means the group doesn't work and needs to split up.

-- 
Matthew Hambley

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