Pete Florian

Just a game designer preaching game theory while playing games.

Check out some of my content:

[Pete Florian @PeteFlorian]

Do you want people to actually play your game or just read it for fun? If the complaint is, “your rulebook reads like a book full of rules,” then I feel like it’s doing its job.

But there might be something else that is detracting from the text or calling too much attention to it. If rules get bogged down with too much lingo/keywords the readers eyes can glaze over, and ultimately lose comprehension. Maybe it’s not concise enough. Truly efficient communication rarely calls attention to itself.

Feedback tends to be great it locating problems, not necessarily diagnosing them.

[Pete Florian @PeteFlorian]

It was some time in the mid 90s when my eldest brother began running his AD&D sessions at home that I was decidedly NOT invited to. I was deemed too young, probably accurately so.

Instead, me and another brother began our own sessions. We cobbled together an original TTRPG from D&D conversations overheard through vents, mixed with rules we knew from games like Hero Quest. It wouldn’t be until years later that I actually got my hands on a D&D book. By then my love of game design had already been sparked.

[Pete Florian @PeteFlorian]

Against many enemies my absurdly high AC character could only be hit by a 20. It’d be weird if that character only received critical hits (or misses). That is the problem of the number disparity that confirming crits acted as a bandaid on. It’d probably be wise to point out that players shouldn’t achieve 34 AC against enemies that only have +12 to hit, but that’s the sort of nonsense that 3e created.

[Pete Florian @PeteFlorian]

@SpareTank Grab a free starter copy of Spell Scorched TTRPG and get 220 pages of massive customziation and original setting.

https://t.co/q82S8Z8wdR

[Pete Florian @PeteFlorian]

@BugbearBrothers Nice! I loved this book as a kid. It was the only one I had of the series. I always wished I had more, loving that choose your own adventure stuff. Oh so many ways to die.

[Pete Florian @PeteFlorian]

@EveraeGames Looks great, especially for not even using InDesign. Well done. I may even forgive your monarchy spelling.

[GaryD20 Games @GaryD20Games]

Milestone, baby! 🎲📚😎

[Pete Florian @PeteFlorian]

@EveraeGames I call em Hellfire and Brimstone but the spawn gave em boring names, Louie and Lucky.

[Pete Florian @PeteFlorian]

@AoARPG I always prefer in-person play but virtual tabletops have enabled me to personally run for hundreds of playtesters.

[Pete Florian @PeteFlorian]

@EveraeGames @GaryD20Games Add me, please.

https://t.co/bKIcDrzmvT

[Pete Florian @PeteFlorian]

I call these sorts of spells DM limiters. They either prevent a DM from using a certain type of encounter (such as nighttime ambush), or do nothing because the DM “arms races” them away. (“What counters it? Disintegrate? Uh, they have a beholder.”)

It’s not that spells shouldn’t help players. It’s the all or nothing that makes them lame. You might get some small satisfaction out of foiling the DM but the rest of the party might just miss out on a cool fun encounter. Like that guy in your party whose class is named fighter. Guess what he wants to do.

If you’re running a campaign where combats are better avoided then sure go for em, but in most games players wanna fight shit.

[Pete Florian @PeteFlorian]

@Gingerblast It’s actually really useful at first feedback on ideas if you tell it to be brutally honest. It can tell you were ideas lack are unoriginal.

[Pete Florian @PeteFlorian]

@DaddyRolleda1 @wizard_scholar I guess power creep isn’t all bad.

[Pete Florian @PeteFlorian]

Sometimes adding additional clarifying text to a rule can make it less clear as you run into players’ innate “Resist 3 against walls of text.”

[Pete Florian @PeteFlorian]

I’m curious where you or the courts draw the line on what a human creator is?
Is it human creation to use AI built in photoshop to generate a portion of an image? What if it’s then painted over? What if you use AI to generate the background?

There are so many ways to incorporate these tools that are more involved than “enter prompt, get final piece.” What percentage of human effort needs to be involved before it is not considered AI art?

[Pete Florian @PeteFlorian]

@Gingerblast Oh, the gaming glee of revealing to your friends that they absolutely cannot tell when you’re lying. They may never trust you again, but damn is it fun. 😈

[Pete Florian @PeteFlorian]

@ericweinstein How many items like Milk are included in the CPI? It’s subsidized effectively protecting it from natural market inflation.

Using price fixed items to measure inflation is Soviet levels of laughable propaganda.

[Pete Florian @PeteFlorian]

@Gingerblast For sure! I’d say variability is itself a balancing mechanism for what would otherwise be imbalanced. An overpowered combo that is hard to pull off isn’t really overpowered.