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RPG Design Patterns Revision-G Design Patterns of Successful Role-Playing Games by Whitson John Kirk III Edited by Michael R. Cantrell Foreword by Mike Holmes 9 / 13 / 2009 Copyright © 2006 by Whitson John Kirk III. Some rights reserved. If you make changes, add your name to the Contributor’s section on the cover. Please do not alter the Dedication, Forward, or Acknowledgements sections. Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 You are free: · to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work · to make derivative works Under the following conditions: Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor. Noncommercial. You may not use this work for commercial purposes. Share Alike. If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under a license identical to this one. · For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. · Any of these conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder. Your fair use and other rights are in no way affected by the above. This is a human-readable summary of the Legal Code (the full license). The full text of the license and disclaimer can be found at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/ Table of Contents Table of Contents Table of Contents ............................................................................................................iii Dedication......................................................................................................................... v Foreword.......................................................................................................................... vi Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................ vii Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 1 The First Step in Designing an RPG ............................................................................ 3 Definitions .................................................................................................................... 3 Gauge Diagrams ............................................................................................................... 6 Design Patterns............................................................................................................... 11 RPG Design Pattern Catalog .......................................................................................... 13 Conflict System Patterns ............................................................................................ 13 Contest Tree............................................................................................................ 13 Generalized Contest................................................................................................ 19 Last Man Standing.................................................................................................. 24 Negotiated Contest ................................................................................................. 28 Safety Valve ........................................................................................................... 33 Character Makeup Patterns......................................................................................... 36 Attribute.................................................................................................................. 36 Class ....................................................................................................................... 40 Class Tree ............................................................................................................... 43 Gift.......................................................................................................................... 48 Hit Points................................................................................................................ 51 Level ....................................................................................................................... 56 Point Spend Attributes............................................................................................ 59 Random Attribute ................................................................................................... 63 Skill......................................................................................................................... 66 Skill Tree ................................................................................................................ 68 Template................................................................................................................. 72 Trait ........................................................................................................................ 76 Trauma Gauge ........................................................................................................ 79 Wound Trait............................................................................................................ 83 Fundamental Gauge Patterns...................................................................................... 87 Conflicted Gauge.................................................................................................... 87 Currency ................................................................................................................. 90 Gauge...................................................................................................................... 94 Rank........................................................................................................................ 97 Resource ............................................................................................................... 103 Miscellaneous Patterns ............................................................................................. 107 Alignment ............................................................................................................. 107 Game Master ........................................................................................................ 112 Reward Patterns........................................................................................................ 117 Attendance Reward .............................................................................................. 117 Failure Reward ..................................................................................................... 120 Narrative Reward.................................................................................................. 125 Success Reward.................................................................................................... 130 Role-Playing Patterns ............................................................................................... 133 Faction .................................................................................................................. 133 Idiom..................................................................................................................... 136 Story Patterns............................................................................................................ 141 Endgame............................................................................................................... 141 Structured Story.................................................................................................... 144 Structural Patterns .................................................................................................... 147 Anonymous Rule.................................................................................................. 147 Loose Coupling .................................................................................................... 151 Modularity............................................................................................................ 157 Priority Grid.......................................................................................................... 160 Game Summaries.......................................................................................................... 164 Ars Magica (Fourth Edition) ................................................................................ 164 Call of Cthulhu (Sixth Edition) ............................................................................ 168 Capes .................................................................................................................... 171 Code of Unaris...................................................................................................... 175 Dogs in the Vineyard............................................................................................ 178 Donjon .................................................................................................................. 181 Dungeons & Dragons v.3.5 .................................................................................. 184 Elfs........................................................................................................................ 187 Fudge .................................................................................................................... 189 GURPS (Third Edition, Revised)......................................................................... 194 HARP (High Adventure Role Playing)
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