Tales from the Rocket House

I found a great deal on the revised core rules for Eden's Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG recently – our local salvage store had a mint copy for $3.75. Considering the game's $40 sticker price, this was too good of a deal to pass up.

In the course of reading the game book, I've been very impressed by the overall presentation, especially the way the author (C.J. Carella) gets “into” the feel of the series from page one, and never lets it drop . . . until I got to the mechanics section.

There was likely no question at all as to whether Eden Studios was going to use its Unisystem to “power” the Buffy Game, but I question whether they should have.

The rest of the book looked like it was aimed at Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans who most likely were not experienced roleplayers. Pictures and quotes from the series maintains the tone, while easily-understood advice guides players to recreating the game's feel with their characters.

But the Unisystem just isn't a “newbie-friendly” system. First off, it uses ten sided dice. It would not have taken much work to use d6's, which virtually everybody already has. Those of us who already game have d10's, certainly, but they're not necessarily the easiest thing to find (I don't recall seeing them at the big-box bookstores where one might find the Buffy RPG).

Secondly, it involves 1d10 + Stat + Skill . . . sometimes. Sometimes its 1d10 + Stat x 2. Sometimes it's different for different characters. It's not that bad, actually, for roleplayers, but it's not nearly as newbie-friendly as OWoD's roll and count successes mechanic. There is a required table for levels of success, and while it's on the character sheet, it's one more bit of book keeping that seems unnecessary. Honestly, the combat example felt clunky to me, almost as if the mechanics were amateurish compared to the level of quality of the rest of the book.

Additionally, the several pages of specific combat maneuvers may resonate with long-time gamers, but I'm still not convinced that they're very user-friendly. They also “feel” quite different that the source material, in my opinion.

Honestly, I feel like Buffy the Vampire Slayer is undergoing a civil war of sorts, with the Unisystem fighting against everything else. That's a shame, too, because that kind of licensed property had the potential to bring in a larger audience, had it had a newbie-friendly system that actually felt fast, furious, and funny, like the series.

Though I really didn't care for it as a system of game mechanics, the system White Wolf put together for its original World of Darkness games was perfect for bringing new roleplayers into the game, especially goths, and people who just found the goth thing sort of intriguing.

The Point of All This

Now, the point of this article was not to be a capsule review in disguise, but to address a major point in game design (and also in lesson design, presentation design, software design, teaching, public speaking, and writing): know your audience, and tailor your approach to them.

This is, of course, somewhat easier said than done, especially when your possible audience has different sensory preferences, learning types, tastes, and so on. But it's usually possible to get at least a broad picture of your target audience. Keeping that in mind as you create or adapt the game mechanics, art, prose style, etc. is extremely important.

The Tarafore System, which I detailed in my first five columns, was aimed at experienced gamers, and was in many ways a reaction to the many things I disliked about the (old) World of Darkness game mechanics. I was pretty sure that most of the players would have already played other RPGs, and so I made no effort to embrace new gamers. It uses d10's (in part because I like percentage probabilities, and in part because every gamer I knew at the time had a fist full of them from their White Wolf games).

Other games have had other goals. The stunt-heavy system using the “compressed Tarafore scale” that I briefly outlined in Column Fifteen was meant to be a quick and easy pick-up game that would be friendly to new gamers. To that end, character creation was simple (pick one Trait at 6, two at 5, and three at 4 as a default, though there were more options), resolution required either coins or any type of even-sided dice, and the mechanics were pretty simple. To top it off, it was designed to run quickly, and to encourage stunting without requiring the players to constantly invent new stunts or detailed descriptions (the stunts are basically included in their Traits – they just have to think of a way to use that Trait in the situation at hand).

The GM-less system from Columns Ten and Eleven was designed to be usable in an online environment, where the players didn't necessarily know or like each other, and where a GM's may not be around whenever a PC vs. PC conflict took place. To that end, it was designed to run without needing a GM, even when the players are working against each other.

As far as the overall quality of these systems, I don't want to compare them to others out there (that might be bad for my ego), but I can say this: they are a lot better than they would have been had I not known where I was going.

Know your audience, and let your purpose shape every part of your design. The end.