This is a great approach to narrative-oriented game design, and while it won't necessarily work within a lot of campaigns due to the increased reliance on player-side information (particularly shorter or less RP-heavy games), I do think that more homebrew makers could benefit from this design process. You also have a great presentation style, which makes it a very entertaining watch without distracting from the information. I might steal some of the mechanics here for a subclass in my 5e conversion of the 4e Psion class.
THANKS! Yeah steal away haha You're right, it isn't for everyone. When I look back on this video I think I mostly am happy with it, but one big change I'd make is to re-frame it so that it's more like, "here is a kind of platonic ideal of game design process" but then break it down into more modular components that people can steal. Because like, this is how I approach design as an actual professional at my actual job where I work for 40 hrs/week (usually more) to build whatever system or feature. It's simply not feasible for your average d&d hobbyist to apply the approach in its entirety. I think it's solid in that it's an accurate look into that process. But I really would like to come up with something more reasonable. Glad you liked it, though! And if you have any suggestions for what would make this kind of thing more usable for you, please let me know!
@@GameDesignAcademia I personally found it very helpful, as I actually use a very narrative/cinematic style to my own games, though as you said, this isn't a particularly introductory-level video. That isn't an issue necessarily, assuming people know what they're getting into, so really the only recommendation would be a something to indicate that in the title. However, that only creates more issues due to the rather small amount of text a title can contain before it gets cut off, so at that point, it really comes down to your preference. Also, I find it very cool that you're responding to comments over a year after the video went up. You definitely deserve a lot more attention, as your presentation style and subject knowledge are easily able to contend with a lot of the "bigger" D&D channels.
A cool ability that you could have very high-level players of your class gain so like maybe above level 15 because this is like something that would be pretty overpowered is Specking into having like two dice or three dice so basically you have less kinds of things you can do but you can select like three main types of casting you want to focus on so I could have Damage like attacks spells on one healing spells on one die and then on the third die, you’d have like summoning spells so when you choose to use one dice or another, you know what kind of spell you’re gonna be Castaic but you don’t know which spell it will be and it like varies in level so you’ll have a level one spell on the one part, and then so on and so forth of course this kind of takes away from the unpredictability so you could have it beat it even higher levels say level 17 because at that point, they really gain control of their powers and learn how to use them.
Meanwhile I just throw all my ideas out on paper... cut, edit, tweak, refine, until it starts representing a class. "Wouldnt it be cool if..." make them do that cool thing, build around it, then optimize or edit other things in the process. But to be fair, I have only ever worked on subclasses not full classes. Great breakdown showing your process though (: My only problem with the example being used is that Mage Armor is a touch spell, but okay let's ignore that and view it as the magic bursting out of you. The spell still targets a WILLING creature(s) because in some cases this would be a godsend in combat if you could cast it on enemies, effectively lowering their AC because they have high ac and low dex to begin with. For example an Ancient White Dragon has 20 AC and +0 Dex. Mage Armor makes your AC 13 + Dex, or 13 + 0, so you just reduced their AC by 7, that is HUGE.
I mean nothing you've pointed out is wrong. I think, looking back at some of the older videos (and honestly some of the more recent ones too), I can really see myself trying to find my feet when it comes to RUclips. What I did here was lay out a more professional process; I'm a professional designer myself, and I thought that the way design is done at the highest level would be a helpful process. I think what you've described is probably how MOST people go about doing their designs for D&D, and that process probably makes more sense from a standpoint of trying to do things in a way that you actually enjoy doing. I think that kind of looser process _does_ create weaker designs in the end, but I also think that the way I was trying to do D&D videos then was probably a bit too much, "this is how to make the best content possible," and not enough, "here's some practical advice for the average person just looking to enjoy their hobby." So for example, all the things that you've pointed out about the potential issues with the class mechanics were problems I was very much not blind to, and did end up having to address. The point (maybe not very well clarified in the video) was that those are all little detail bits that we would address _later_, after the core experience is on track. So you've found absolutely valid issues with the example I gave; the response that I would have at that early stage of design would be to simply select a different example. I'll stress that I absolutely do NOT mean that those points are invalid; they absolutely are. It's just that, in a more rigid professional process, there's a time and place to address them, and the early stages of design are more about laying in the broad-strokes groundwork. I hope that clears up anything that there might have been to clear up, and I think you very much touched on exactly the issue I've been having in terms of moving forward in terms of channel content. This kind of rigid process simply isn't _practical_ for most people spending a few hours per week on their D&D game. I mean, just now I was talking about a "time and a place" for various design considerations, but that means that your design is being iterated on over dozens of hours of work (if not more). Is that how to make the best possible design? Well yes, of course! But who would _do_ that just to make a D&D subclass or something? Sorry for the wall of text, lol... It's just that I feel like what you're exactly the kind of person I hope my content will reach and be useful for (and interesting to), and the (maybe excessive) focus on a process that produces the best possible end product to the detriment of everything else is probably _not_ the right approach. What sorts of issues do you run into when designing? Is there something you would like to see more of? Is the professional stuff something you're interested in in any capacity? If so, which parts of it?
@@GameDesignAcademia well, I think the first thing to note is that it was just the SINGULAIR example that just didn't seem to be a great example. I understand you were trying to make a point of accidentally getting the outcome you didn't want, it's just the buffing spells require a willing creature which means they "can't" be used. That being said, you could absolutely make them usable in the way you were talking about. Just add a spell save to them and on a succesful save you apply the buff as needed. For example a successful save could prevent mage armor but accept haste. Something like that, its not perfect, but like you said, just a first itteration of the top of my head of how it could be viable. As for the writing process using the methods you talked about compared to kind of just winging it and the refining as you go along, which arguably isn't THAT different the former has more of a road map, but both just end up being play testing and trial and error until you get things to sync up. But, I think it is important to address that you were creating a Class not a Subclass, this alone is a far more complex thing to tackle. Creating a subclass already gives you all of the framework for what you need to build off of, a subclass adds features and enhances ones already available to the existing class. I think the writing process for the 2 would be quite a bit different. A subclass makes the "wing it" method a lot more viable because your core mechanics are already tried and true. Overall i think the information you presented was helpful for the topic it was meant to be helpful for, which is Class creation. Maybe I'm wrong and you do approach subclasses in a very similar way, but they feel much different in my eyes. That being said I don't have all that much experience lol. To answer your question though, with the limited experience I have and what I think could be hard for a lot of average or casual players, is not being able to "play test." We could spend dozens of hours writing out these features and tweaking them on paper but even something that looks perfectly tuned on paper could not work functionally in a real game. I'm not sure how to tackle this issue but maybe you have some things that could help people test their work. I feel like a lot of people make homebrew items or classes or similar things and if they end up a bit overpowered they're like "its fine, I feel like a badass" or the dm can just adjust combat or adjust the homebrew on the fly. But, personally, I would like to do my best to create things that are well balanced and viable playing options. I just dont know how to test that when I dont have easy access of a group of people to be like "hey guys let's all spend hours play testing" lol. Thank you for taking your time to respond though, wish you all the best.
@@GameDesignAcademia So, without meaning to throw your channel off its course in becoming more widely accessible, I greatly enjoyed the video exactly *because* it was more about advanced design. Thank you for this video, even if you feel that it excluded a more average audience. I am specifically interested in creating the best possible design.
Man i wanna make a class i think mine sounds fire in concept its an astral necromancer you draw on life/death from the living relm and can call apon the entities from the astral relm sorry im trippn on shrooms rite now and all this was done on talk to text but it was just an idea i had
No, then the class would be created to reflect that. The class would give you abilities allowing you to learn how to do things that aren’t fighting. You basically described the opposit of the tension in the fighter. It’s more like: “fight I wanna fight good if only I could fight good”
I want to like what you're doing, but how you present your videos always start with fear mongering and/or denying things. You told me "THOU SHALL NOT CREATE CLASS FROM A THEME" and I was deeply disappointed because that's exactly what I wanted to do.
Of course you can do that, but in general, you probably shouldn't. Classes are options for how a player wants to play the game and what they want their role to be. Usually, subclasses are a subset of this which includes a specific theme. If you don't want to add a brand new option for how to play the game, and you do want to add a new theme, just make a subclass.
It was never about "thou shalt" or "thou shalt not." You can certainly start with theme -- it's just that if you do, it's important to remember that theme is the inspiration, not the foundation. The difference is that inspiration is about what makes you wanna make the thing in the first place, but the foundation is about the actual process and method that you'll use to lay out how the class actually functions. Definitely the more important core of the idea behind making better classes and subclasses is about gameplay decisions, which do create a strong foundation. But what those decisions are can be derived from a theme. If you want to create a witch-doctor class for example, you could ask, "what does a witch doctor do?" And then you could generate some simple mechanics (maybe it has an anti-magic ability, or a simple heal), and you'd be doing okay. But to create something with far deeper design principles, you would instead want to ask the question, "what decisions does a witch doctor make?" along with, "what tensions does a witch doctor experience?" You could consider this designing from theme, but just in terms of semantics, I generally don't. Mainly that's because once you've started to design for tensions and decisions, your foundation is laid and you're purely in the design problem solving stage. Theme can still be your starting point. It's just important to understand that the theme itself isn't relevant to whether you're building strong, principled designs. Hopefully that clarifies things a little!
5:26 rip people watching in the dark
This is a great approach to narrative-oriented game design, and while it won't necessarily work within a lot of campaigns due to the increased reliance on player-side information (particularly shorter or less RP-heavy games), I do think that more homebrew makers could benefit from this design process. You also have a great presentation style, which makes it a very entertaining watch without distracting from the information.
I might steal some of the mechanics here for a subclass in my 5e conversion of the 4e Psion class.
THANKS! Yeah steal away haha
You're right, it isn't for everyone. When I look back on this video I think I mostly am happy with it, but one big change I'd make is to re-frame it so that it's more like, "here is a kind of platonic ideal of game design process" but then break it down into more modular components that people can steal. Because like, this is how I approach design as an actual professional at my actual job where I work for 40 hrs/week (usually more) to build whatever system or feature. It's simply not feasible for your average d&d hobbyist to apply the approach in its entirety. I think it's solid in that it's an accurate look into that process. But I really would like to come up with something more reasonable.
Glad you liked it, though! And if you have any suggestions for what would make this kind of thing more usable for you, please let me know!
@@GameDesignAcademia I personally found it very helpful, as I actually use a very narrative/cinematic style to my own games, though as you said, this isn't a particularly introductory-level video. That isn't an issue necessarily, assuming people know what they're getting into, so really the only recommendation would be a something to indicate that in the title. However, that only creates more issues due to the rather small amount of text a title can contain before it gets cut off, so at that point, it really comes down to your preference.
Also, I find it very cool that you're responding to comments over a year after the video went up. You definitely deserve a lot more attention, as your presentation style and subject knowledge are easily able to contend with a lot of the "bigger" D&D channels.
You make excellent videos. You need more subs, dude.
Thanks! I'm really glad you like them :)
Believe me, I'm working on the subs haha
@@GameDesignAcademia The DnD subreddits like DnDBehindTheScreen could be a good place to advertise.
A cool ability that you could have very high-level players of your class gain so like maybe above level 15 because this is like something that would be pretty overpowered is Specking into having like two dice or three dice so basically you have less kinds of things you can do but you can select like three main types of casting you want to focus on so I could have Damage like attacks spells on one healing spells on one die and then on the third die, you’d have like summoning spells so when you choose to use one dice or another, you know what kind of spell you’re gonna be Castaic but you don’t know which spell it will be and it like varies in level so you’ll have a level one spell on the one part, and then so on and so forth of course this kind of takes away from the unpredictability so you could have it beat it even higher levels say level 17 because at that point, they really gain control of their powers and learn how to use them.
Awsome video.
Meanwhile I just throw all my ideas out on paper... cut, edit, tweak, refine, until it starts representing a class. "Wouldnt it be cool if..." make them do that cool thing, build around it, then optimize or edit other things in the process. But to be fair, I have only ever worked on subclasses not full classes. Great breakdown showing your process though (:
My only problem with the example being used is that Mage Armor is a touch spell, but okay let's ignore that and view it as the magic bursting out of you. The spell still targets a WILLING creature(s) because in some cases this would be a godsend in combat if you could cast it on enemies, effectively lowering their AC because they have high ac and low dex to begin with. For example an Ancient White Dragon has 20 AC and +0 Dex. Mage Armor makes your AC 13 + Dex, or 13 + 0, so you just reduced their AC by 7, that is HUGE.
I mean nothing you've pointed out is wrong.
I think, looking back at some of the older videos (and honestly some of the more recent ones too), I can really see myself trying to find my feet when it comes to RUclips. What I did here was lay out a more professional process; I'm a professional designer myself, and I thought that the way design is done at the highest level would be a helpful process. I think what you've described is probably how MOST people go about doing their designs for D&D, and that process probably makes more sense from a standpoint of trying to do things in a way that you actually enjoy doing. I think that kind of looser process _does_ create weaker designs in the end, but I also think that the way I was trying to do D&D videos then was probably a bit too much, "this is how to make the best content possible," and not enough, "here's some practical advice for the average person just looking to enjoy their hobby."
So for example, all the things that you've pointed out about the potential issues with the class mechanics were problems I was very much not blind to, and did end up having to address. The point (maybe not very well clarified in the video) was that those are all little detail bits that we would address _later_, after the core experience is on track. So you've found absolutely valid issues with the example I gave; the response that I would have at that early stage of design would be to simply select a different example. I'll stress that I absolutely do NOT mean that those points are invalid; they absolutely are. It's just that, in a more rigid professional process, there's a time and place to address them, and the early stages of design are more about laying in the broad-strokes groundwork.
I hope that clears up anything that there might have been to clear up, and I think you very much touched on exactly the issue I've been having in terms of moving forward in terms of channel content. This kind of rigid process simply isn't _practical_ for most people spending a few hours per week on their D&D game. I mean, just now I was talking about a "time and a place" for various design considerations, but that means that your design is being iterated on over dozens of hours of work (if not more). Is that how to make the best possible design? Well yes, of course! But who would _do_ that just to make a D&D subclass or something?
Sorry for the wall of text, lol... It's just that I feel like what you're exactly the kind of person I hope my content will reach and be useful for (and interesting to), and the (maybe excessive) focus on a process that produces the best possible end product to the detriment of everything else is probably _not_ the right approach.
What sorts of issues do you run into when designing? Is there something you would like to see more of? Is the professional stuff something you're interested in in any capacity? If so, which parts of it?
@@GameDesignAcademia well, I think the first thing to note is that it was just the SINGULAIR example that just didn't seem to be a great example. I understand you were trying to make a point of accidentally getting the outcome you didn't want, it's just the buffing spells require a willing creature which means they "can't" be used. That being said, you could absolutely make them usable in the way you were talking about. Just add a spell save to them and on a succesful save you apply the buff as needed. For example a successful save could prevent mage armor but accept haste. Something like that, its not perfect, but like you said, just a first itteration of the top of my head of how it could be viable.
As for the writing process using the methods you talked about compared to kind of just winging it and the refining as you go along, which arguably isn't THAT different the former has more of a road map, but both just end up being play testing and trial and error until you get things to sync up. But, I think it is important to address that you were creating a Class not a Subclass, this alone is a far more complex thing to tackle. Creating a subclass already gives you all of the framework for what you need to build off of, a subclass adds features and enhances ones already available to the existing class. I think the writing process for the 2 would be quite a bit different. A subclass makes the "wing it" method a lot more viable because your core mechanics are already tried and true. Overall i think the information you presented was helpful for the topic it was meant to be helpful for, which is Class creation. Maybe I'm wrong and you do approach subclasses in a very similar way, but they feel much different in my eyes. That being said I don't have all that much experience lol.
To answer your question though, with the limited experience I have and what I think could be hard for a lot of average or casual players, is not being able to "play test." We could spend dozens of hours writing out these features and tweaking them on paper but even something that looks perfectly tuned on paper could not work functionally in a real game. I'm not sure how to tackle this issue but maybe you have some things that could help people test their work.
I feel like a lot of people make homebrew items or classes or similar things and if they end up a bit overpowered they're like "its fine, I feel like a badass" or the dm can just adjust combat or adjust the homebrew on the fly. But, personally, I would like to do my best to create things that are well balanced and viable playing options. I just dont know how to test that when I dont have easy access of a group of people to be like "hey guys let's all spend hours play testing" lol.
Thank you for taking your time to respond though, wish you all the best.
@@GameDesignAcademia So, without meaning to throw your channel off its course in becoming more widely accessible, I greatly enjoyed the video exactly *because* it was more about advanced design. Thank you for this video, even if you feel that it excluded a more average audience. I am specifically interested in creating the best possible design.
Damn feels like u made this vid for me cause I do want to homebrew wild magic but in a different direction
you are a god, period...
Man i wanna make a class i think mine sounds fire in concept its an astral necromancer you draw on life/death from the living relm and can call apon the entities from the astral relm sorry im trippn on shrooms rite now and all this was done on talk to text but it was just an idea i had
Hmm.. what is the tension in the Fighter class? Their inability to do anything but fight?
No, then the class would be created to reflect that. The class would give you abilities allowing you to learn how to do things that aren’t fighting. You basically described the opposit of the tension in the fighter. It’s more like: “fight I wanna fight good if only I could fight good”
Am I your first subscriber?
I'm a frayed knot.
I want to like what you're doing, but how you present your videos always start with fear mongering and/or denying things.
You told me "THOU SHALL NOT CREATE CLASS FROM A THEME" and I was deeply disappointed because that's exactly what I wanted to do.
Of course you can do that, but in general, you probably shouldn't. Classes are options for how a player wants to play the game and what they want their role to be. Usually, subclasses are a subset of this which includes a specific theme. If you don't want to add a brand new option for how to play the game, and you do want to add a new theme, just make a subclass.
It was never about "thou shalt" or "thou shalt not." You can certainly start with theme -- it's just that if you do, it's important to remember that theme is the inspiration, not the foundation. The difference is that inspiration is about what makes you wanna make the thing in the first place, but the foundation is about the actual process and method that you'll use to lay out how the class actually functions. Definitely the more important core of the idea behind making better classes and subclasses is about gameplay decisions, which do create a strong foundation. But what those decisions are can be derived from a theme. If you want to create a witch-doctor class for example, you could ask, "what does a witch doctor do?" And then you could generate some simple mechanics (maybe it has an anti-magic ability, or a simple heal), and you'd be doing okay. But to create something with far deeper design principles, you would instead want to ask the question, "what decisions does a witch doctor make?" along with, "what tensions does a witch doctor experience?" You could consider this designing from theme, but just in terms of semantics, I generally don't. Mainly that's because once you've started to design for tensions and decisions, your foundation is laid and you're purely in the design problem solving stage.
Theme can still be your starting point. It's just important to understand that the theme itself isn't relevant to whether you're building strong, principled designs.
Hopefully that clarifies things a little!