The Best and Most 'Stealable' Mechanics from Tabletop RPGs 

Awesome to see my Knave and Maze Rats games on here! Thanks Evan! I've never heard of Willowby Hall referred to as a "Lasagna of Problems" but now I'm going to start calling it that.

Im gonna use this as my notebook: - Flashbacks, using a system of "Stress" to meassure how much they can do it and how it affects them. (Checking Blades in the Dark) - Clocks. - Beliefs and Instincts. Points that the DM can use without the player declaring it. This one sounds cool af. - Vice Stat. An stat that is better and grows the more you use it, but it causes on-rol consecuences. Cool af too. - Nature. Bonuses by the nature of the character, and it must be balance betweeen the esscence of the character. If you act according to nature, you get a bonus, and against it too, but with the possibility of failing the roll and loosing nature. You can tap that number as a raw bonus. - Those game where you use a Jenga. Basically, mechanics that build tension over time until the boot hits the vent. - Games with dice alocation. - One page systems. Great and simple and cool. - OSR, Pick up and play. KISS: Keep It Simple Stupid. - Story Logic as Mechanics. Using dice and a tracker and thats it. Check Out Powered By the Apocalipse. - Mind Map to desing quests? - Learn and Steal from the best. Thank you very much Evan Hill!

I’m sure I missed something or made a mistake, so please correct or add in the comments but hope this helps with searches and purchases as I thought I’d rewatch and come up with a list: TTRPG: Numenera & Cypher System (Monte Cook) Blades in the Dark Darkest Dungeon (board game currently on KS) Burning Wheel & Mouse Guard Dread & Star Crossed One Page RPGs: Honey Heist Sexy Battle Wizards Everyone Is John OSR: Knave 2 Waking of Willowby Hall Maze Rats Into The Odd Electric Bastionland Bonus stuff: Pathologic 2 Gnosia (novel and a video game) Apocalypse World (PbtA): Dungeon World Monsterhearts 2 City of Mist (modified) Disco Elysium (modified) Video Game RPG: Outer Worlds 2 The Last of Us II Torment Tides of Numenera Plane scape Torment Solar Ash Palia Darkest Dungeon Pathologic 2 Fall Out (image) Metal Gear Solid Mass Effect Disco Elysium Roll & Write Genre’s Citizen Sleeper Tharsis Dicey Dungeons Rogue System Shock Hitman

Ugh so cool. GDC is doing so much for independent game creators. (Let’s be honest, only indies are going to implement all the cool ideas on display at GDC… AAA still gonna chase the tail of the biggest games from 10 years ago.)

It's awesome to hear someone else advocate for BitD style flashbacks in Assassin's Creed. Hope someone from Ubisoft is listening. The best part is they can justify it as a new and improved animus feature, which lets the user jump to an earlier "glossed over" memory in the middle of synchronizing a different memory.

A cool game that came to mind when I saw the jenga tower is Icarus. It's a world building game about a city and its inevitable fall. The mechanic that I love is that the dice you roll and that represent decisions, resources, peopple and more, get stacked on top of each other in the middle of the desk. As the consequences of the player's actions pile on the dice tower becomes more and more unstable until at one point it will fall. When it happens nobody knows. But everybody gets more and more tense, more and more careful to not shake the table. And the fall, as is often the case, comes sudden and unexpected. I think that is a great mechanic that adds not only to tension but also to replay value as you're always left wondering "what if I could've stacked one more dice, one more event?" Maybe that's something videogames can implement too?

Citizen Sleeper is an awesome video game that yoinks clocks from Blades in the Dark awesomely

Will there be another talk about stealable mechanics from boardgames? I'd like to see more than just deckbuilding, tile-laying, and casino games(blackjack, poker etc)

It's cool how many diverse RPGs there are. I've played Masks before and it's another powered by the apocalypse game. The hardest thing about ttrpgs is getting people out of the headspace of optimizing character builds and into focus of making a fun and interesting story.

Nice. I pitched a similar talk but around more obscure and experimental genres like ARGs, living games, unique games, legacy games, hybrid games, mega games, and more. Sadly, they said the talk was too tabletop focused and the tabletop summit said it wasn't focused enough on tabletop. Oh well! Maybe will repitch it with more focus in the future. Still would love to run a roundtable discussion on these topics at GDC since there's a lot of awesome potential there to learn from others.

Fooork me - Just give this brilliant guy 2-3 hours to elaborate ❤️ Such a shame to rush through it 😱

I've just started to play citizen sleeper, and they totally borrow this clock idea for everything !

Great talk! I've been wondering about this exact thing. Some of my favourite games ever have been very directly inspired by tabletop RPGs, or at least the sort of... design sensibilities of TTRPGs (Disco Elysium, Sunless Sea, Citizen Sleeper) and although I haven't had the opportunity to play any with a group, I got like 200 of them in an itch bundle ages ago and have loved reading them, they're very creatively inspiring. I don't think people really get what he means by "stealing." good artists steal all the time. Nothing just... appears fully formed in a vacuum. it's often a good artist's job to figure out how to intelligently combine different ideas from other places together with this... little _spark,_ to create an _alchemy,_ something that has truly never existed in this way before, but is still grounded in like... _something._ Standing on the shoulders of giants, as he said. The way TTRPGs are designed, the way they incorporate tension/drama and storytelling so elegantly into such simple elements makes them perfect for studying when thinking about designing videogames. I mean, as well as actual videogames also. Also board-games!

Not sure why the initial hate for the Cypher system-I’ve recently gotten into cypher and it seems very rules-light and intuitive from what I’m reading.

Amazing!!!!

Great talk. Whether it's ttrpg's or videogames, or even boardgames, I'm always fascinated with game mechanics of all sorts and how they do and can intermingle.

I also find it interesting that these "stolen" ideas can be embedded very deeply into the gameplay and narrative, as core design principles or pacing mechanics or you name it. And they can be implemented on a very much a surface level, as a visible UI and reference to its predecessors, moment to moment resolution mechanics. My friend runs and co-runs LARPs from time to time and every time he asked me for advice I couldn't help myself, but steal from card-based video games. "You need magical abilities, that are invocative of Fae and Pride and Prejudice? Why don't you write some cards and give them to your players?" "Portents and visions? Why not give them the sealed letters with precise time?" "Predestination? Just reward them for being at the right time at the right place and say certain things." Players still largely get freedom, but they would feel larger forces at play and they could be empowered by deciding and where and when the powerful curses can be uttered. So it is very enjoyable to see the video game design do the opposite.

"Pathologic" is not just a tabletop game, there is a video game version as well. It is quiet creepy.

You should look at Pendragon for its passions and traits. While the Powered by the Apocalypses game is good, in some cases, any system that has degrees of success as a mandatory puts a lot of strain on the Game Master. Some can handle it, but many can not. Same thing with player-facing things. While that is great for those who can handle being forced into the driver's seat, my experience is that it is not your average gamer. Most gamers need simple, and in situations where you need degrees for something, having those degrees already available avoids annalizes paralysis.

Another thing to steal from Blades (which some games do), is the mixed success and pushing your luck.

I think the method I like most from tabletops are the ones that are good for people who AREN'T good at improve by providing both the prompts and answers to them - like apples to apples or cards against humanity.

Station Blue...like the podcast? We are intrigued.

I'm in the middle of the video. He's making many points but does he actually come back to them and close these points? The times he mentions "how we gonna implement that" opens so many threads

wish he was able to talk more. this was a cool listen

BTW Alphyna of the Pathologic fame also worked (and led, if I'm not mistaken) on translating Disco Elysium to Russian

Well damn, have been thinking of getting into mousegard for quite some time now that I know it's based around burning wheel I'm definitely going to pick it up

Thank you!

First Fallout was supposed to be based on Gurps system but was denied the licence "because it was too violent" so they made a derivative SPECIAL. First 2 Elder Scrolls games also take some aspects of that point buy system with ability to take advantages and disadvantages at the cost of slower exp gain.

LOVE ✊🏿

SHOUTS TO THE MIND MAP FROM PATHOLOGIC 2, ALL MY HOMIES LOVE THE MIND MAP FROM PATHOLOGIC 2

I'm glad this video exists, but I think the presenter needed to sloooooow down and give more depth to each example, or, present far fewer examples. Inget the impression they do not have a great sense of what they know thay what others do not. Also the loud key clicks are distracting.

Nice

22:10 love the OSR

I loved this talk last year!!

well shit. I developed a stress mechanic for my game based on Darkest Dungeon, but made key changes.....that ended up looking a hell of a lot like Blades in the dark. I never had never even heard of Blades in the dark! Jeeez

22:33 Oh god that’s prick lmao. Damn Zee Bashew is awesome

PATHOLOGIC 2 MENTIONED OMMGG

Advanced Crimson Dragon Slayer + *CHA'ALT*

Having designed and helped to design some game mechanics mostly for live action rpgs/events I will say there really is no such thing as "theft" in game design. Game design is about ease of use and adaptability. You can have the coolest ideas and rules for your game, but if they dont move smoothly and feel natural its never a good game. Creative writing a good combination of hooks, callbacks and customization and good editing is what makes most games great.

This Burning Wheel stuff seems a little bit off. *Bloody Versus*; Greed, Grief, *Hatred*.

I want to hear from him more!

Having not played the games, I am surprised that a mechanic that reinforces its use is a good thing. That seems like it would take away options and be less interesting? How does it get around that?

im so confused why would obsidian make a second outer worlds though???

2:19 - did I hear it right? "More Gygaxian days of tabletop RPGs"?

IMO one of the best things to steal is tic-tac-toe. Assign story points to each space, & make the acquisition of a space contested. Perhaps allow a space to be overturned under certain conditions or just once each or once per game.

Check out Oblivion Oddities Project Studios game. They are literally implementing all of these Ideas into one game called Oblivion Oddities & plan on making it a template standard for video games to use.

Though some of the games he worked on are stinkers, his familiarity and love for tabletops is obvious.

maybe i'm misunderstanding but the speaker seems to forget Majora's Mask

Two engine

This is a fine and good whirlwind tour of TTRPGs... but this is not really a summary of great mechanics to take from TTRPGs. For example, "one-page RPGs" isn't a mechanic. You can't really just take that idea, as-is, and put that into a video-game. Alternatively, that has already been trivially done in game-jams where there are really short games. While the summary is neat and does hit on genuinely useful-to-hear-about games like BitD and Burning Wheel, I would have liked to see more ideas and examples of how to use the mechanic. For example, BitD's "Clocks" are a mechanic for counting, which is great, but counting has existed since before TTRPGs and video-games already use "Clocks" in the sense that progress is counted. Burning Wheel's "Nature" is neat... but what application do you think could be translated to a video-game? Again, great tour of TTRPGs for those that don't know about these games, but not really what the title suggests.

I see a lot of tabletop games taking from vidya, but i don't see it the other way around as much.

The fact that mafia-likes are being called amongus-likes bugs me

I'm definitely not okay with trivializing trauma by making it a choice.

Most of these "mechanics" are just the GM making up stuff on the fly.

"Gygacian Times"

12:48 - "Greif"... Someone didn't proofread their slides.

Everything. Read FL-108 by Congress, nothing is copyright under federal law. Thank me later. Cheers!

My main problem with this talk is that it's quite regressive but pretends to be progressive. Tabletop games are designed that way because of limitation, not creativity. We're talking about pieces of cardboard and plastic here, not some high tech machine capable of more calculations in a second than a billion humans can do in an minute. The fact videogames even use stats or dice rolls or anything which comes from a physical game is a huge crutch which needs to end. Using a number to communicate a stat like intelligence makes sense when all you have are scraps of cardboard and dice. Videogames on the other hand are made with one of the most advanced types of technology humanity has ever created. They can do better and should do better since they have so much more to work with.

theft!

I really feel like they should leave out the "who am I" parts of these talks. I don't think anyone really cares who you are, they only care if your ideas are good or not.

Well that was a waste of time. I didn't need to spend 30 minutes listening to someone gush about minimalism like its the same thing as good design.

THEFT

A lot of good stuff in this video, but I have noticed something: powered by the apocalypse is beloved by people who make videos and indie games, and hated by every gamer I know in real life. Sorry for the following rant: I think a lot of creative people bought into pbta, hence all the buzz, but that most everyday gamers find it boring and unsatisfying; rules-lite has a good meaning to you guys, but we HATE it! Give me rules; what else are we buying your game for? We make up our own stories, and we just need a system of math to describe the world; if you don't give us that, and just tell us to handle scenes with a single roll, then why would we ever need you, or want to play that stupidly terrible way? Give us crunch! Give us granular rules, and we will decide to ignore them or tweak them if we don't like them, but don't think you can give us some vague general nonsense, call it "story-driven" and pretend that is enough, or that it's an actual product. I seriously cannot wait for the death of this stupid trend, and the return of rules-heavy, combat-focus games over ones with stupid NPC dialogue scenes that annoy, bore, and waste time. If you are being Britta, and worrying about the social issues of an rpg world, you are doing it wrong, and please stop speaking as if you are the community, because you are more like a cancer on the community. Please return to the proper focus of this gaming style, which is non-social encounters, like combat, traps, puzzles, mazes, etc. I don't care about your social justice diatribe pretending to be an interactive play; I want to problem solve and use limited resources to overcome obstacles. You know, the base of the game, and what is it REALLY all about; not what these noobs think is the focus, which again is talking about the feelings of their imaginary friends, lol. But like I said, I think this little social media inspired bubble will soon pop, when the money is clearly in games with actual rules, and therefore value, not just some pretty art and talk about vibes and vague made-up skills. It's basically the substitute teacher putting on Braveheart and saying they are teaching history; don't be lazy, actually bother to create some rules for your rule system, instead of trying to phone it in and pretend that you actually did something worthwhile. Again, I get why creators like it, because they see it as freedom, and probably like coming up with all that stuff, and prefer more social games; people that I actually game with though, who buy the books and accessories, have tried this trend and HATED it! Felt like a rip-off, or at best like we bought a book of some cool artwork, but the system was useless and ambiguous at best. We wanted to pick up a system that works, and get to playing, not have to figure out how to fill in all the numerous blanks in your unfinished system before we could even play, or having disagreements because nothing is clear or spelled out. F*CK rules-lite, and this "let's talk about feelings and social injustice in a fantasy setting" horsecrap. I will never buy anything else "Pbta" and that mark now just tells me that I should stay away from that game, because it is automatically a steaming pile of manure. I look forward to games closer to BESM, GURPS, etc coming out soon, when people finally try this current garbage and are over it, wanting to move on to the next thing. Okay, sorry, I needed to get that off my chest, as I am tired of all the videos praising mediocrity, but I also get that others are different, and I can only speak to those in my community who have shared their opinions on this trend, but obviously there are other sections of the community, and they deserve to have their games and have fun how they want. I just don't like this new apparent trend, and I also question whether it is real, since again, this seems to be one of those things that is popular on the internet, but no one I know in real life likes it or cares. Maybe a bunch of friends trying to help their friend's system by plugging it? Maybe paid to plug it? I don't know, there could be many reasons why a bad product suddenly seems popular on the internet. But the answer to WotC sh*tting the bed isn't to get rid of rules altogether, and have unstructured make-believe about feelings and without combat, the answer is instead to find games that are just as good (if not better) at using math and rules to describe a world. P.S. The only good thing to come out of this trend is a more rogue-like feel that ttrpgs had decades ago, where the expectation wasn't that your character would live, it was that they would DIE! Those that make it are rare and special. That is the only thing in this trend that I see as worth salvaging. Let's take off the training wheels that many expect after modern D&D.

I hate talk about theft to make it okay. It’s not okay.