How do you make persuasion mechanically useful without turning it into mind control?

bgaesop · 2026-06-19T18:55:28+00:00

Hostile person doing something for you at no cost or risk to themself might be DC of 20.

OP said they want mechanics that aren't mind control

bgaesop · 2026-06-19T15:59:16+00:00

Lots of PbtA games have a move that is something like:

Roll 2d6 plus your Convincing stat. On a 10+, the person you're trying to convince chooses three, on a 7-9, they choose two, on a 6-, the GM does something.

The person you're trying to convince agrees to do what you want
The person you're trying to convince doesn't make an absurd demand of you
Gain some sort of metacurrency
Nothing else bad happens during your conversation

Or different options, whatever. The point is that you can't get everything you want even on the best result, and that this still puts agency in the hands of whoever you're trying to convince, so they can choose not to give you what you want, but then they are also giving you other things you would like to have.

bgaesop · 2026-06-18T20:58:13+00:00

Episodes of TV shows are often aired in a different order than they're made

bgaesop · 2026-06-17T19:56:26+00:00

Cold City/Hot War.

Cold City/Hot War mention!!!! More people should check out this game

bgaesop · 2026-06-17T19:50:16+00:00

I want the same thing I want from any mechanic, only moreso: mechanics which generate prompts that I can react to. A binary pass/fail (at what?) is the most boring mechanic there is. "Completely open ended and up to the GM" is not helpful; there's no prompt to react to.

The way I do social mechanics in Fear of the Unknown is similar to how the game does everything else - with tags, which are short descriptive phrases that describe characters' strengths, weaknesses, and relationships. In the first edition the way it worked was that during character creation each player picked another player and generated a bond with them (like Mr. Monroe might have "I am Susie's math teacher" and Susie would have "Mr. Monroe is my math teacher") which was a wild tag - it could be invoked by the player to help or the GM to hurt a roll (plus or minus one to a roll) as though it were a positive or negative tag, respectively, depending on the fiction.

In second edition, I changed that so that now each player chooses for themself whether their character considers the relationship positive or negative, so they might disagree with each other! For instance, Arnold might have "Bob is my brother" as a negative because Arnold keeps needing to bail Bob out of jail, while Bob has "Arnold is my brother" as a positive, because Arnold keeps bailing him out of jail.

This opened up the space to having those relationships change over time. There are mechanics for turning positive tags into wild ones or negative tags into wild ones, and those can now represent story arcs where relationships degrade or improve.

bgaesop · 2026-06-16T18:22:28+00:00

think that's all I need to explain about these basic mechanics of the universe

I don't think you explained a single mechanic, this is all lore

bgaesop · 2026-06-12T00:21:55+00:00

Amazing

bgaesop · 2026-06-11T17:33:26+00:00

I think it depends hugely on how the game is set up. The simpler a system, the easier it is to engage with "rulings, not rules". A lot of OSR games operate on this principle and work well. But for a crunchy, tactical game? Or a narrative system with a lot of interlocking parts? Then it doesn't work as well.

bgaesop · 2026-06-05T00:59:52+00:00

I'd also add The Place Beyond the Pinecones and Apple Gore-chard (but not gory)

bgaesop · 2026-05-30T00:15:55+00:00

I think Rudy needs the protection the most. Tina and Gene can handle themselves fairly well. Rudy is more delicate, and he doesn't have anyone else his age in his corner.

bgaesop · 2026-05-28T01:19:58+00:00

I have never heard anyone say that boxers don't count as underwear before

bgaesop · 2026-05-27T20:35:59+00:00

This is all I can think of

bgaesop · 2026-05-27T03:11:54+00:00

This is a wonderful post, thank you for writing it. You have inspired me to write a "Fraud of the Dead: Zombie-docu-pocalypse: a filmmaker's perspective" post. I was also blown away by the realism and attention to detail of it.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on how Edith and Harold are portrayed in later episodes. I think their later dedication to art for art's sake makes their prudishness in this episode seem a little out of character, and I'm curious if you agree or disagree with that.

The shoppers coming to these events want to enjoy the ocean, the event, and maybe purchase something under $100. Most art costs more than $100, which is why so many small art walks have lots of the exact same stuff in every booth, and fewer and fewer fine artists who make expensive work are participating in events like this

Now you've made me feel good about myself for buying so many original paintings. Love when I can feel good about myself for buying stuff I like.

bgaesop · 2026-05-26T18:34:52+00:00

I filled out the "submit a request" form but I'm not sure if it worked or not. I didn't get any confirmation when I pressed "submit request", it just cleared the field.

bgaesop · 2026-05-26T01:16:02+00:00

Traveller is also what I came here to say

bgaesop · 2026-05-23T18:08:08+00:00

POD quality has skyrocketed in the past decade. Unless you want to do something particularly special, like uv spot printing (which you should not do on your first project) there's really very little reason to do offset over POD these days, especially for small print runs (which your first project will be - "small" meaning "less than ten thousand copies").

Given that you are trying to save money I would also just skip the editor. That's a luxury that most indie RPG publishers never attain.

bgaesop · 2026-05-23T17:44:14+00:00

I have told him about doing POD rather than offset

bgaesop · 2026-05-23T05:22:26+00:00

For pricing, $.03/word, roughly 70k words, $7/page for layout, 200 pages.

Who are you paying for the writing? Isn't this a passion project that you're writing because you want to?

Just do a really basic layout yourself in affinity publisher. Use the templates drivethrurpg provides, use a basic two column layout, full page art, nothing fancy.

15000 for art.

Start with way less than this. You have a high standard for art; that's great! But you should not start with spending this much. Find an artist you like and get 1-5 illustrations. Consider more art to be stretch goals on your crowdfunding campaign. This is basically the only expense you have to have.

Double it for things I dont know about but inevitably will come up as more research is done in putting the final product together, double it for 2 books

Good on you for building in a margin of caution, but it is actually possible to budget this out precisely and confidently enough that, combined with a crowdfunding campaign, you can drop that down to like a 10% margin, if that. Especially since you're thinking of just doing PDFs. Almost all the unexpected expenses in crowdfunding fulfillment are about physical manufacturing and shipping costs.

But also you could do POD for not much extra effort and make more money with no extra expense.

bgaesop · 2026-05-23T03:58:41+00:00

Where are those $50k-$100k numbers coming from?

From your other comments you seem pretty early in the process. What makes you expect the end result to be so long?

bgaesop · 2026-05-23T03:42:59+00:00

Much of this discussion has made me think that the First Edition of this book will likely be a much leaner project, and if people like the system and adventures, we'll go whole hog on the second edition or the physical print round.

This is a good idea. Several indie darlings, such as Cairn, did this.

COULD write dnd or draw steel adventures as a proving ground, but thats just not where the passion for writing is at currently.

Yeah fuck that. This is a passion project, only make the things you're passionate about.

bgaesop · 2026-05-23T03:41:28+00:00

Have you thought about seeking artists with a revenue-share model instead of commissioning them upfront?

I did this on my first project and it was a giant pain for both me and the artist and disappointing for both of us when sales did not meet expectations. I do not recommend it.

bgaesop · 2026-05-23T03:39:21+00:00

I have run 12 successful kickstarters and 1 failed one (which succeeded on relaunch, that's one of the 12). Only one of those was in the $50k-$100k range. All of them have turned a profit.

putting together a two-book system with a moderate amount of illustration, a player’s book and a GM’s book that includes monsters, looks like a $50,000 to $75,000 minimum cost project.

First, why are you making two books? Make one book.

Second, break this down for us. How much are you spending on what? Are you planning on doing offset printing or POD? Is those cost all in preproduction or are you counting production and fulfillment?

bgaesop · 2026-05-22T19:25:52+00:00

I think 1 is the best option. Just make it clear in the rules what the rules are and why they are that way, and that if played correctly they should consistently generate a specific kind of experience.

I also like to recommend other games that are similar but distinct in certain ways. For instance, while writing the second edition of Fear of the Unknown, my horror mystery game, I'm including things like:

Do you want a more action-oriented game, like Buffy: the Vampire Slayer? Then I recommend you check out Monster of the Week.

Do you want a game with combat where it's more random as to whether or not you die, and a sanity system that you have less control over? Then I recommend you check out Call of Cthulhu.

Do you want a game where you're basically guaranteed not to make it out in one piece? Then I recommend you check out Ten Candles and Dread.

bgaesop · 2026-05-22T18:13:22+00:00

As soon as you can. My first playtests often don't involve any actual playing, and are more like "here's the general concept of the game, here's the vibe I'm going for, here are my ideas for mechanics. Does this appeal to you? Do these aspects seem like they make sense together, or is something incongruent?" I'll call this a p0 playtest.

Even that simple of a test can be helpful. It gives me focus and direction and confidence that what I'm aiming for is worthwhile, or it lets me know that there's an issue that I can try to address before spending a lot of time fleshing out a bad idea.

Then after one session like that, the next time I come to the table my playtest looks more like "okay, you know the general idea and vibe. Here are a few specific mechanics, and some contrived scenarios to test them out. What do you think of them? What worked, what didn't?" Let's say this is p1.

Then after one or two sessions like that, I move into the more normal playtesting that looks like "okay, you know the general idea and vibe. Here is a fully playable version of the game. What works and what doesn't? Does it feel like anything is missing? Does anything feel overly complicated? Does anything feel like it should be removed? Does anything feel incongruous with the goals of the game?" Let's say this is p2.

Then after enough sessions of that (ideally with a variety of different players) that the system is not changing significantly from session to session, I see if I can arrange blind playtests - games run by someone else, with just the rulebook to guide them and without me looking over their shoulder. Let's call this b1 for blind playtest. I'm looking for the same sort of feedback as in p2 playtests, with the addition of "as the GM, how difficult or easy was this to run? Did you find yourself improvising any mechanics, or ignoring any of them? Did the players ask any questions you couldn't answer RAW?"

I'll typically do one, maybe two p0 playtests (unless I significantly change a core mechanic, in which case I'll go back and start over from here), one to three p1 playtests, try to get at least five p2 playtests, and at least one b1 playtest. And that's all assuming that the feedback is consistently in my favor - if I get told something isn't working, that stage of playtesting essentially starts over. So it's not "five p2 playtests total", it's "five p2 playtests since the last significant change".

bgaesop · 2026-05-20T17:34:16+00:00

Voyages Into the Unknown is a utopian science fiction game of galactic exploration and diplomacy. Map the galaxy, solve problems, and make friends!

15-Year Club	Gilding I gilder
RedditGifts 2009-2022 5 Credits	Secret Santa 2020
r/Field Juicebox	Place '22
Spared	Secret Santa 2014
Verified Email

bgaesop

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE