Yesterday, I had the chance to host a free RPG workshop in collaboration with the Fanzinoteca, a one-of-a-kind fanzine library created and maintained by Valeria Foschetti, and the Caivalrate public library in Milan, where the zine archive is located.

A dozen and a half participants of all ages and backgrounds attended, from an early teenager and RPG wizard to an grey haired cartoonist and artist with a punk haircut.

During set up I dropped about forty zines on the table, quite in a messy way, and that was a pretty good idea. Participants rushed to the table even before the beginning of the session to explore this sample of the indie RPG production. I could feel the curiosity, awe, and excitement. Good.

The first part of the workshop was dedicated to intro the indie RPG scene. We covered some basics like what are RPGs, how did I stumble across the indie scene, why I find it so amazing, my faves.

You’d notice that I spoke from a very personal point of view, classic me. In my opinion that’s the only proper way to share knowledge. Especially considering there isn’t really such a thing as an indie scene. If one could define the scene entirely, it wouldn’t be indie, probably. Rather, I see it as an ever-changing collection of archipelagos; some of them remain isolated, others share islands or are super interconnected.

I also gave space to the folks attending every time they asked questions or made a comment, inviting them to share and explain more, and that way ensured the workshop was a collective experience. (Note for later: do even more of that.)

It was great, except some of the folks had really no clue what RPGs were and started to feel a bit lost. So instead of moving on to the game design intro part, we played.

A few days ago, Wren the Forrester, game designer and one of the pillars of The Lost Bay community, released Elysian Apartments. This twelve-page setting creation module will get you through rolling the shape, quirks, and occupants of a weird apartment complex. A simple dice drop procedure maps each floor (or as many floors as you like). Various tables populate and spice up the rooms. There’s no indication on which tables should be rolled, leaving the players free to interpret the module.

It’s a beauty, and it pushed the workshop to a whole new level of fun.

As soon as I dropped the module on the table, folks started rolling dice, creating floors, talking, making rulings on how the module should be interpreted. Two separate groups spontaneously merged their respective apartment complex / dungeons. I remained there, one step back, to provide support whenever needed, without taking part into the creative jam per se. We all had so much fun.

Aside from the incredible human experience, watching others play made me understand so much about game design. I’m not sure I can formalize everything I’ve learned yet, but it could be summarized like this:

• Short booting time: the first page of the module offers intriguing and flavorful random tables. It puts you in the context immediately.
• Structural autonomy: Elysian Apartments is made for The Lost Bay RPG, but you don’t need to read TLB to use it. In fact, it could be used with almost any system.
• Open to interpretation: although the module provides some useful guidelines, many details are left open for the players to make rulings on the fly.
• Where, What, Who validation. We had a lot of fun outlining the space, but dropping characters in it was the real kick.

Maybe this is usual indie RPG thinking. But here’s the additional part I never really thought about:

Self-contained design: although it’s built as a setting, running it is fun and meaningful enough that the workshop participants called it the game.

This is what I’ll remember: even if modules are designed as companions to a pre-existing game, they should work as standalone games. Why? Because that probably makes them better.

Of course, there is no golden rule to design; and I know there have been various attempts to codify design approaches that might seem similar, for example MOSAIC Strict (I’m not sharing a link because I’m not even sure how it started).

The approach Wren took to designing E.A. struck me as a very friendly, open, inclusive one. In a way, here the focus is not so much on how the module would interact with other modules, but how it interacts with the audience.

Emergent design

Putting inclusivity of (non necessarily RPG-savvy) users at the core, and building scalable designs seems quite similar to resilient web design, or layered web design. Autonomous or semi-autonomous systems, components, modules, that collaborate with each other to build a form of emergent design.

The lesson extends to publishing as well. In a fragmented, but moreover saturated world, each published module should offer value on its own, and not be a mere hook, sequel, or extension of a lead product.

There’s much more to explore, and one of the goals of this blog is to find possible connections between game design and web design, to understand how they can inform each other.

Right now, I know one thing for sure: I can’t wait to host another workshop.

And the next time I’ll design a module, I’ll certainly wonder: what if I played the module as a standalone game, would that be a fun or meaningful experience, and if not, what could I add/change to make it so?

You’ve probably guessed I’m a total fan of Elysian Apartments. I strongly recommend you check it out as a module for your modern/sci-fi/contemporary games or a mini RPG. It’s only three bucks, and free community copies are available.