Bomb Shelter Game Design
Introduction
Imagine you and your friends are locked in a bomb shelter for the next 5-10 years. There's nothing to do to pass the time but play TTRPGs. Truly, the ideal scenario. But what's this? An awkwardly worded rule? An apparent paradox or contradiction?! No need to fear, just hop over to Reddit and... oh, right, Reddit got nuked. Okay, well there's the official Discord and... oh, right, everyone's dead.
Nuclear winter and a rules debate? I was wrong. This is the worst-case scenario. :(
In a Nut Bombshell
Simply put, Bomb Shelter Game Design means doing as much as possible so players won't have to rely on outside sources like Discord and forums to answer questions about how to play the game.
I stand before the court and submit that a TTRPG could have "10/10" game mechanics, but if said mechanics are written in a confusing manner that all but requires GMs to seek external sources for rules clarifications, then that game has, in some way, failed its players.
Obviously, no designer sets out to make a confusing game. But there are things we can do to make our games as clear as possible, especially for GMs who (worst case scenario) must run the game without first experiencing it as a player (my deepest condolences).
True, in our present pre-nuclear apocalypse there are forums and Discord channels and YouTube Actual Plays to answer all your questions. But in 50 years, after all that stuff is gone, only our hardcover books will remain, uncovered by Reavers and Mad Max types, the soil brushed from the cover by fingers caked with red dust and dried blood. Surely, these survivors will want to play your game. But what if they can't figure out how leveling up works? Do players add the CON bonus every time, or just during character creation? Too bad your wording was ambiguous. Now the survivors are dying of dehydration and arguing over the rules.
To prevent further bloodshed, here are three things game designers can do:
1. Frequently Asked Questions
One of the few things Wizards of the Coast does right is they actively (maybe not anymore) maintain a D&D 5E FAQ. I think probably that's their MTG Judge side of things, but whatever the reason, I think it's great, and am mystified why so few publishers do this anymore.
For the younger readers who stand to inherit the desolate wastelands, FAQs used to be an internet standard. The same question would get posted again and again on online forums, and eventually someone would compile a list of frequently... asked questions. There's not much to this story.
Point is, instead of having to search the forums for answers or make redundant posts, new users could make a beeline to the FAQ document, quickly get their answer, and save everyone a lot of trouble.
Yet, for some reason, we stopped doing this.
I've idled in official channels where virtually every new user joins to ask the same few questions, over and over. The creator will dutifully and tirelessly answer the exact same questions, and then... not realize there's probably a more effective way to handle things.
What makes a good FAQ? This sounds obvious, but when playtesting, jot down questions. "Do I add my bonus to the attack roll, or also damage?" "Can I intimidate with my raw physical strength?" "What's this pizza topping? I told you I was allergic --" That sort of thing. Write them all down. The more groups you run for, the better idea you'll have of which questions need to be answered. And don't just run games for people, watch them run games themselves, so you'll get the New GM point of view. (Optionally, continue adding post-release questions to a separate FAQ document. While this is technically an external resource, you can one day fold them into a second edition!)
2. Quickstarts & Rules Summaries
Games tend to allow players a lot of leeway. You have your core activities, but sooner or later people ask if there's a rule for this, or that, and it makes sense to add it, even if it's probably never going to come up. Eventually the streamlined 30 pages of rules bloats to 120, but gosh darn it, if anyone needs a good solid rule for falling into lava or surviving in the cold reaches of space, they got one.
The problem is, all that stuff can choke the life out of the rules covering the game's main activity, its central actions. Your fantasy courtroom drama RPG's rules for handling fantasy courtroom dramas are lost in a sea of rules covering edge cases -- afterwork parties, vacations, and an entire new subsystem allowing players to play legal interns.
There's a reason why every major TTRPG has had some form of starter set, quickstart guide, etc. Those things work! Whether it's Traveller or Call of Cthulhu, D&D or Shadowdark, being able to hand new GMs a simple 32-64 page booklet containing everything they need to play a session or three is invaluable. Big 300 page hardcover books are overwhelming. You can tell people, "Oh everything you need is in the first two chapters," but that only helps so much. (Pathfinder 1E had a great box set, designed to help folks run fantasy games. It went so far as to include pictures of various types of dungeon terrain, so when new DMs described, "Rough-hewn walls," they had a clear mental image.)
If you aren't going to have a proper standalone quickstart guide or starter set (which admittedly isn't always necessary, especially with rules lite games), you can help people by providing a 2-4 page rules summary. FIST: Ultra Edition is a rules lite game, meaning most of its pages consist of character traits, scenarios, enemies, and oodles of random tables. Nevertheless, the designer decided to include a rules summary in the back, and let me tell you, it's fantastic. You can run FIST just using these couple of pages. (You'll need the core rulebook for the Traits, but not if you hand out pre-gens.)
What makes a good Rules Summary? As a game designer, pay attention to the types of activities that actually come up during play, especially in the early game. Then take all the rules for that stuff -- combat, stealth, persuasion, the things players regularly announce they would like to do, and either make a separate Quickstart containing just that stuff, or at the very least a 2-4 page rules summary. If you're going the starter set route, I can't encourage pre-written adventures and pre-generated characters enough. If it has pre- in the title, it's good for you!
3. Examples of Play
One of the first things I wrote for R'lyehwatch was an example of play. It's one of the longest sections of the book, taking up a whopping 3 out of 40 odd pages. I did that because, back when I was learning Tricube Tales (the system R'lyehwatch is based on), I struggled with some new (to me) concepts. I was fortunate enough to have access to the brilliant mind of Richard Woolcock, Tricube Tales' designer. He kindly offered guidance. And of course, I will be happy to do the same with R'lyehwatch, that is, until I am atomized in the initial blast. After that, I'm sorry, there's only so much I can do. Luckily, I included an example of play!
Examples of play are an invaluable resource for people who can't find Actual Plays online. And this might be a bit controversial, but I'd argue that as a learning tool (as opposed to entertainment) written examples of play are better. For one, it's hard to find Actual Plays for a lot of indie games. And even even if you do, APs aren't necessarily the best way to learn. They're a great as an example of what a game looks like, they aren't usually designed to teach you how to play.
Examples of Play might read like the transcript of an Actual Play, when in reality they're an artificial construct, an insidious lie designed to trick and teach you game rules.
What makes a good Example of Play? Think of them as teaching tools rather than dry court transcripts. The idea is to cover as many common situations as possible, likely covering far more than a few minutes of genuine gameplay. If you have to, make like Chris McDowall's Mythic Bastionland and break the examples of play into sections: Combat, Resting, Hiding from Enemies, Convincing the Judge to Go Easy on My Client, etc. Refer back to your collected Frequently Asked Questions and Rules Summary. Include anything essential or a little confusing for new players. If people tend to be a little foggy on how to handle a hostile manticore eyewitness, show what that process would look like at the table.
Final Thoughts
- Pay attention to frequently asked questions, then answer them in a clearly labeled FAQ section (optionally, a separate FAQ document).
- If your game is longer than a rules lite Zine (i.e. a standard hardcover), some form of quickstart guide or starter set will be invaluable for beginning players who are overwhelmed by 300 page books containing high-level play and edge case rules.
- Examples of play are a great resource for people who can't find solid Actual Plays or have trouble envisioning how all the rules systems fit together to create an average experience at the table.
By embracing Bomb Shelter Game Design, you can make a TTRPG that's easy for people to pick up and teach their friends without having to go online to double check the rules.
Because there is no online, not anymore.
But there are nuclear plague zombies.
Not to mention cannibal raiders.
And aliens.
Have fun!