System Design: Where Stuff Goes

In my last post, I shared my house rules for two-weapon fighting in 5e. I mentioned that I preferred that for the rules for dual wielding to appear in the core rules, rather than under the description of a weapon trait. Swiss Calavera asked in the comments about that. Why not put the rules under the weapons that use them?

It's a great question and prompted me to put some thought into TTRPG system design.

The Language of TTRPGs

A TTRPG system is, at its core, the language used by a group to explore a shared, imaginary world. Despite using miniatures and terrain (and Gygax knows I have tons of both...), the action in a TTRPG occurs in our imaginations. We don't use a keyboard and mouse, a control pad, or physical markers to track all of the action. Instead, we use language.

That language model underscores how I think about TTRPG system design. The system must support the language used at the table in two directions.

Communication is a Two-Way Street

It must first enable easy communication between the players and the DM. When a player says they want to cast a spell, or make an Arcana check, everyone needs to understand what they want to do. Otherwise, the group has to dig into the rulebook or waste a lot of time explaining what's going on. While every game has a learning curve, a simpler, intuitive set of terms allows the group to absorb the game's term and incorporate it into their natural language.

Every game that relies on players talking to each other has this issue. In Magic, I need to know what you mean when you say "My 2/2 flier is attacking." That prompts me to start figuring out my blocks, if any.

TTRPGs diverge from other games in that the system also needs to communicate with its users. Every other game constrains your options in play. In Magic, I can play cards from my hand, activate abilities on my cards in play, attack, block, and so on.

What I can't do is say, "To block your 2/2 flier, my Hill Giant hoists the Goblin Brawler on his shoulder while standing on my Command Tower." OK, I can say that, and folks might chuckle, but then we get back to playing.

In a TTRPG, I can do that. The DM needs to figure out how my giant/goblin pyramid on top of a tower can do.

And in that case, the DM needs to talk to the rules set.

Finding Your Way

When you look up rules in a non-TTRPG, the game's structure typically guides you on where to look. In Magic, if I have a question about blocking I can open the comprehensive rules, search for blocking or jump down to the section on combat, and find what I am looking for.

How do I do that in a TTRPG? Where are the rules for figuring out what happens when creatures try to form a humanoid pyramid?

Very likely, those rules don't exist. So, where do we go for any guidance?

And that question leads to how I think TTRPG rules should be organized. The rules should be organized like a language, with a focus on nouns and verbs.

Nouns and Verbs

Nouns are objects in the game, like a weapon, a spell, or a creature. Nouns should be organized with similar nouns. In design, they should be complete objects. They offer all the information needed to use them, and point to any relevant rules that are important to them, usually with keywords or tags.

Verbs are actions you take in the game. In a game like D&D, verbs are things like attack, cast a spell, move, and so on. Nouns use verbs or are the objects of verbs.

That organization not only shows us where to place things within our system, but it also serves as an organizational piece for players and DMs.

To get back to our two-weapon fighting example. If a player has a question about how to attack, they naturally go to the combat section of the rules. That section is filled with verbs. Attack with two weapons is clearly a verb, as the "attack" piece there is doing our heavy lifting.

Those rules might reference weapons, the nouns that are involved in the attack, which might provide added information such as modifiers to the attack, damage, and so on.

This scheme, if executed well, makes it much easier to reference the rules. Players have an intuitive sense of where to look up questions. When they inevitably hit a question that the rules can't directly answer, they at least are in a related section of the rules that can provide some guidance.

So that is why I think the rules for two weapon fighting should be handled in the combat section rather than under an item description. Aspects of a weapon's description - the light tag and so on - can of course modify the two-weapon fighting rules. But the rules themselves, in my opinion, should be in the combat chapter under the rules for attacking.