Uploaded January 2019 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
Second Channel: youtube.com/channel/UCnimzLxanXiccLQNF-c5t5g
Music: incompetech.com/music/royalty-free
Patreon patreon.com/stratedgy
Twitter twitter.com/pfassett
Discord discord.gg/ts7JWHa Strat-edgy Designs | Episode 001: Minimalist Design
Patreon patreon.com/stratedgy
Twitter twitter.com/pfassett
Discord discord.gg/ts7JWHa
GAMES USED IN FOOTAGE:
Neverwinter Nights - Enhanced edition
Pathfinder: Kingmaker
Shadowrun Returns
Divinity Original Sin 2
Let's design a game. An RPG that focuses on fun instead of scripted events. Can you imagine that? A game that makes the act of deciding to act into something you can call fun with a straight face? That is the game I am describing here.
In the first part of this RPG series, I will be describing a system of design I like to call minimalism (even though there's nothing all that minimal about the work that goes into it.) Minimalist design focuses less on scale and scope and hones in more on the systems that drive the game to work. So instead of relying on quest givers, quest markers, and scripted events that need triggering, all of which create a lot of work for designers, this work is offloaded to the engineers who are responsible for things like NPC AI.
The gameplay in this sort of design is like Newton's Third law. Every action is met with a reaction. So in the case of our player, whenever they act, the AI reacts. The fun comes from making the AI do things you want them to do, or accidentally making them do something you don't. It is because of this that the fun in any given area of the game exists because the level designers designed the area to have those emergent gameplay moments arise.
Second Channel: youtube.com/channel/UCnimzLxanXiccLQNF-c5t5g
Music: incompetech.com/music/royalty-free
Patreon patreon.com/stratedgy
Twitter twitter.com/pfassett
Discord discord.gg/ts7JWHa Strat-edgy Designs | Episode 001: Minimalist Design
Patreon patreon.com/stratedgy
Twitter twitter.com/pfassett
Discord discord.gg/ts7JWHa
GAMES USED IN FOOTAGE:
Neverwinter Nights - Enhanced edition
Pathfinder: Kingmaker
Shadowrun Returns
Divinity Original Sin 2
Let's design a game. An RPG that focuses on fun instead of scripted events. Can you imagine that? A game that makes the act of deciding to act into something you can call fun with a straight face? That is the game I am describing here.
In the first part of this RPG series, I will be describing a system of design I like to call minimalism (even though there's nothing all that minimal about the work that goes into it.) Minimalist design focuses less on scale and scope and hones in more on the systems that drive the game to work. So instead of relying on quest givers, quest markers, and scripted events that need triggering, all of which create a lot of work for designers, this work is offloaded to the engineers who are responsible for things like NPC AI.
The gameplay in this sort of design is like Newton's Third law. Every action is met with a reaction. So in the case of our player, whenever they act, the AI reacts. The fun comes from making the AI do things you want them to do, or accidentally making them do something you don't. It is because of this that the fun in any given area of the game exists because the level designers designed the area to have those emergent gameplay moments arise.
