I’ve been thinking about Eidolon for awhile now. I haven’t been happy with what I’ve written so far but I think some of the core concepts are solid. This morning an idea hit me and I think I finally know how to make this game. What I am going to do is outline a few bits of game design theory that I’m a big fan of. For some of it I have very specific ideas of how it applies to Eidolon and I’ll outline those as well. If you’re curious with the direction I want to take Eidolon from a game standpoint read on. My plan is to do a second article for Setting Design Principles to go over the key features I want to see in Eidolon’s fiction. I also might expand this later as I start digging more into my mechanics.

1: Character Sheet Driven

This is really important to me. Too many games have terrible character sheet design and I think its a real failing in the design of the game. You can come up with an interesting and dynamic system for managing land but if you don’t include a solid character sheet for tracking it, or if your concepts are difficult to track in the first place, you’re game design has failed in some way. This isn’t to say that the mechanics or concepts are bad or wrong, but part of every game is being able to quickly and easily manage your various mechanical statistics. If I have to create a spreadsheet, on my own, just to keep things in order then you’re game failed to provide me with something.

With that said, I’ve seen some fantastic uses of character sheets. The first that comes to mind is Mouse Guard and it’s gear section. You have a small box on your sheet and you can carry as much as you can write in there. I really like this concept. Luke Crane created a mechanic around the physical space on the character sheet. The Warhammer RPGs print your main stat line on both sides of the character sheet. Dogs in the Vineyard provides a quick reference to the basic mechanics on the bottom of the sheet. All of these are, in my opinion, good things. They make playing the game easier. Mouse Guard clears up all the traditional game bullshit of counting weights. Warhammer stops me from flipping back and forth to see my main stats. Dogs always has a helpful reminder in case I forget.

With all that, I’ve decided to make Eidolon driven by its character sheet. The front of the sheet is going to be you’re Ghost and the back is going to be your Haunt. The front page will be divided into eleven shades (0-10) and each shade will divided into columns for powers, memories senses, and notes. The back page will be a rough outline for a house, lining out the four main parts of every Haunt (Foundation, Walls, Door, and Roof) with one large open area in the middle for the player to build the various rooms with. This is also going to help inform the mechanics. For example, if you’re character is a Shade 4 they will have access to the Shade 3, Shade 4, and Shade 5 powers, memories, and senses. You’ll be able to tell, at a glance, what you can do. Yes, this means characters at Shade 1 and 9 have access to less then other characters. It is, in fact, better to be Shade 2 or 8. This is intentional. Shade 0 and Shade 10 are the Transcendent Shades, so they are technically playable.

2: No Penalties

Damn do I hate when shit is taken away from my character. Houses of the Blooded did something I loved without even realizing I wanted it. You never get any penalties to your rolls or pools. Instead, you give your enemies bonuses on things. If you have a Rank 4 Injury, you still roll the same amount of dice… but anyone can Tag your Injury to use it against you. I love that idea. Going forward, I’m going to do everything I can to ensure you’ll never see penalties applied to your character. There are a ton of ways I can achieve this and it will force me to think more creatively about challenges instead of just relying on a -5 Penalty.

3: Quick, Simple, Dirty Conflicts

Anyone who’s heard me talk about gaming for more then five minutes knows how much I hate combat in games. This loathing has recently been extended from just physical fights to social conflicts now. I’m talking about you, Burning Wheel, and you’re over complicated social combat system. Fuck that noise. I want any conflict between two or more characters to be resolved in under five minutes. I want conflict to be poignant, brutal, deadly but I want it resolved quickly. I believe that it isn’t the conflict itself that provides an interesting narrative but the escalation to and cleaning up the mess after. For me, having someone beat the living hell out of  you isn’t the fun part, its what you do after. I wrote a conflict system previously for Eidolon that I think accomplishes this. I’ll be revisiting it, tweaking it, but sticking to the core idea.