Ski Jump Design

Continuing from last week’s thoughts. 

In a recent conversation we had, Ed Jollyboat used the analogy of an airport runway as a linear introductory section to a game, which opens up into blue sky freedom. I want to run with that, but I’m moving over to a ski jump analogy instead.

In short:

Climb: Make it easy to get the book to the table and have other players want to play.
Descent: Begin with limitations and linearity to give the game momentum. 
Launch: Now get the players making big choices. 
Flight: Support the play that comes from player freedom. 
Landing: Have a finishing point in mind, even if you don’t stick to it. 

Now the longer version. 

The Climb

Sure, there are no-prep games, but really I think any activity that involves simultaneously getting a bunch of friends around the same table requires at least a form of prep. Forget drawing maps and practising NPC voices, the real climb is done in the real world.

I’ve heard much anger at the idea of putting marketing copy inside your gamebook but... hear me out... in some groups... the GM does need to market the game to players in order to get that game to the table. 

Worse still, as a GM with a bunch of books on my shelf, those books aren’t done marketing themselves to me yet. They need to sell their dream to me even as I hold them in my hands. Not vying for my attention, but working to convince me that I can and will run this game, leaving me passionate enough to draw a group of players in and make the dream a reality. 

The Descent

That’s the hard part out of the way. It’s all downhill from here. Of course, you can’t change direction, but it’s just for a little while. This is the part where you set the players quickly off in a certain direction and stack up the momentum. Traveller’s lifepath and ship mortgage are classic examples. Electric Bastionland’s Debt and Mythic Bastionland’s Oath are my attempts at this. 

The Launch

The point of transition between that linear descent and the open skies of flight. At its most basic level I plan my RPG sessions to have an important decision thrown at the players almost immediately. A dungeon with a front door and a sneaky tunnel round back. A hex map with a starting point and vague directions to your first hook. The splash of cold water that wakes up the decision-making brain. 

The Flight

This is the “hey this game runs itself” dream. With the players fully engaged, invested, directing the play, all you’ve got to do is enjoy the view and watch out for geese. The important thing here is that the players enjoy this freedom that we’ve been building up to, without feeling overwhelmed as they might be if we just shot them out of a cannon without warning. The GM also needs support, typically from library content in the book, or tools to help with improvisation. 

The Landing

I imagine Ski Jumping 101 has a pretty early class on “how to land”, but for a long time I didn’t really think about how my sessions or campaigns might finish. I’m especially interested in the latter, now, as you’ll see in the City Quest of Mythic Bastionland, or the equally appealing “you might die of old age”. Even if you never get there, I’ve started noticing that players appreciate at least a suggestion of how the game might reach a conclusion.

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