game design

A game designed by Tolkien and the Monkey King (and it’s free!)

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Oh, man have I got a great freebie for you today! I’ve been experimenting, pushing AI tools to their limits, these last 2 weeks to see just what’s possible in prototype gaming. I’ll tell you the story behind this, what all I did, then introduce a game which I’ll give you for free.

It has struck me recently that the future of entertainment is quite possibly on-demand, immediate & fully customizable media. I’m talking about having a random idea for a board game for example, and having the ability to describe it simply and have a color printer, 3D printer, music generation service, and AI tools spit out a polished, playable game with all its components ready for the table.

Is that what I did? Kinda sorta. That’s coming, but this was a lot more painful to bring to life than all that. AI tools are like a super creative and talented idiot whose attention wanders off while they generate random things, useless things, ripoff copies, and sometimes…some brilliant times…something magical.

Anyway, it started with me wondering what a naval boardgame would be like if it was designed by Hannibal of Carthage, Admiral Horatio Nelson, J. R. R. Tolkien, and the Monkey King of Chinese folklore.

Welcome back to our ongoing series titled:

Where in the world do you come up with strange ideas like that?

I don’t know. It happens. Then I have to see it. Then I lose two weeks of my free time. Then you guys get free stuff.

So, who were these people and why did you choose them?

Hannibal of Carthage (c. 247–183 BC) was a brilliant Carthaginian military commander, best known for leading his forces — including war elephants — across the Alps during the Second Punic War against Rome.

I wanted the greatest, most innovative military mind in history. Arguable, I know, but I see Alexander the Great as a talented nepo-baby who inherited a lot of his advantages. I get there are others who could contend for that, but Romans used to put their babies to bed telling them to be good or Hannibal would come for them.

Horatio Nelson (1758–1805) was a British admiral and one of history’s most celebrated naval commanders. Famous for his bold tactics and inspirational leadership, he secured a string of decisive victories for Britain during the Napoleonic Wars.

This was going to be a sea warfare game set in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings universe, so I wanted the greatest naval genius of history. His victory at Trafalgar was so resounding it established British naval superiority for a century.

J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973) was an English writer, philologist, and Oxford professor, best known as the author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

This idea of sea battles in Middle Earth came to mind writing this article for Grailrunner speculating on the unfinished sequel to Lord of the Rings. It was the Professor’s setting, and he would bring unique insights to bring it to life.

The Monkey King is a Chinese folk hero from Journey to the West. A mischievous trickster with immense strength, magic, and a shape-shifting staff, he defied heaven before becoming a companion on a sacred pilgrimage — a lasting symbol of rebellion and wit.

I love trickster characters. Always have. This particular one is great for throwing the table over and over-the-top madness. I definitely wanted the rules of this hypothetical game to reflect that somehow.

And these three historical figures and a mythological simian were going to design this game then?

Right. This was the initial prompt. The design session was hilarious, and ChatGPT did an amazing job bringing these folks to life and crafting some basic game mechanics that applied their unique perspectives. Over the next few days in whatever free time I could manage (and during conference calls…sshh), I wound up having to exhaustively point out inconsistencies and vague points, iteratively asking for elaboration in the developing rules. Let’s say it was an ugly baking and the kitchen got messy, but the final ruleset honestly looks great and unique. Lesson here is be patient, don’t trust anything, don’t accept first outputs for anything, be super clear what you want, and give it feedback as you go.

I’m being honest in this experiment, by the way. I intentionally did NOT design or suggest any rules or game mechanics. The point was to explore what I was presented, not design it myself. All I did was ask questions and point out when the designer contradicted itself.

So you wound up with a ruleset. Nice. How about game components?

I was so fabulously surprised by the quality and consistency of the game components. I swear to you, no matter how cool these things look, I did absolutely NONE of the artwork, the graphic design, concept art, or logos. I used Photoshop like crazy, but that was only to clean these things up (like adding a “the” when ChatGPT refused to do or making a grid consistent across similar cards, that sort of thing).

I just scrutinized the rules, asking for elaboration when things didn’t make sense, and when I saw a component like a marker or a tracker of some kind get referenced, I would ask ChatGPT to design them one by one. Lessons learned here: never bother asking for a printable pdf – it’s useless at that, assume there are contradictions and inconsistencies you’ll need to fix, and only ask for designs one at a time. Once it had established a really attractive watercolor art style, I forced it to stay close to the same style for consistency in design. You be the judge on that, but these wound up some very attractive and playable components.

What is gameplay like?

Funny, actually. I had Admiral Nimitz and Admiral Yamamoto, two more innovative geniuses of sea warfare, playtest in a simulation of the rules (just another simulation in ChatGPT, asking it to act as these two historical figures and play a game of the rules it had designed). Yamamoto chose the Elven fleet and built his game around precision strikes & ambushes. Nimitz chose Orcs and favored layered defense and overwhelming counter-punches.

Oh yeah? Who won?

Nimitz was pressing Yamamoto hard, but a Leviathan broke up his fleet and put him at a disadvantage. In the end, Yamamoto won by being more adaptable to the ever-changing conditions of the battlefield.

So how exactly are the personalities of these 4 designers reflected in the rules?

  1. Admiral Horatio Nelson

Nelson’s mechanic is command by negation, which requires the player to choose a personality profile for each ship captain and issue broad commands for each ship at the beginning of each turn. During each ship’s activation, that captain may or may not carry out the order as desired, and that is determined based on consulting a table. It flavors the strategy of the player, making you think about personality compositions of the fleet and what you’re likely to encounter. You have only so many “Negate” and “Emergency Negate” plays you can make before you have to surrender to the fog of war and trust your captains.

2. General Hannibal of Carthage

Before battle, players draw secret asset cards to recruit legendary sea-beasts, conduct some genius battle maneuver, or craft devastating magical artifacts. These assets are hidden until revealed at critical moments, enabling double-bluffs.

3. Professor J. R. R. Tolkien

Each ship’s captain not only has the personality profile, but also dual Morale and Loyalty tracks, which are recorded on Living Loyalty cards. Orcs are motivated by plunder, personal grudges, and displays of brutality. Elves, by beauty, prophecy, and preservation. Men, by gold, honor, and survival. Disregarding a faction’s ethic by orders in battle or allowing the morale to suffer from specific battle conditions can result in mutiny or refusal to act.

4. The Monkey King

A “Celestial Event Deck” is drawn each round, representing maddeningly unpredictable supernatural occurrences that shift the seas and circumstances. It’s chaos every round, and it can turn the tide in your favor if you’re quick thinking and flexible, or it can crash your dreams into burning wrecks.

It sounds really fun. Have you played?

Some solo playtesting, yeah. It’s not perfect, and there are times you have to wing it and just go with whatever makes sense. Yet it hangs together surprisingly well. I’m not taking this any further, and we’re definitely not developing this for sale, but was super fun and satisfying.

What about the vision of immediate, on-demand game prototypes? Possible?

Oh yeah, just not now without a lot of manual work. I tried Meshy to generate some actual miniatures I could 3D print, and got something. I could tell at a glance they were going to need a bunch of cleanup in Blender before I tried printing them, and I was honestly exhausted with this process by that point. So nope, I went with printout standees for which you’d need the plastic stands. I stole some of those from a Gloomhaven box I had sitting around.

Still, if you’re asking me whether this on-demand, completely customizable future is possible based on this experiment, I’d say absolutely we’re headed into that world. I see a place for ChatGPT connected to a color printer with card stock, a 3D printer, and maybe a Silhouette Cameo or something like that for perforation (to avoid all that annoying scissor cutting), and you could really have something once the large language models mature a bit more.

Anything else to say before the download button?

Well of course! There’s a theme song for the game. You really need to hear this. Remember, I didn’t design anything, including the logo at the top of this article. Neither did I write the lyrics or the melody. I just gave ChatGPT some direction on what sort of lyrics I was looking for with some example songs and the mood, iterating a few times for the right verses and choruses, then fed that into the Suno music generator with some more direction on Celtic, ethereal folk music and whatnot. Then I listened to a few and picked the best.

And honestly, I love it! It’s called No Oath Can Hide. Smash the button below to listen. Here are the lyrics.

Alright, then. Show me a download button!

Sounds good. I hope you like it, or at least that can use some of these accessory goodies in whatever homebrewed games you’re dreaming up. The DOWNLOAD button links to a zip file containing everything you need to play apart from dice and some plastic stands for the ships, which means the stuff illustrated and listed below.

I hope you love it. What an amazing experience, and I’m looking forward to hearing what you think of all this. Don’t try to sell this anywhere though – it’s basically a glorified fan fiction that should be available for free.

Till next time,

Let’s Talk To Daniel Sell: Creator Of Troika!

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If you’ve never heard of the Troika! roleplaying game, I have a real Scooby snack for you today! As part of our Inspirational Creator Series of interviews, we’ve met with artists, writers, and game designers who break exciting new ground in innovation and imagination.

Here, go see who all we’ve talked to.

Today, we’re thrilled to bring you some insights and musings from Daniel Sell, who is not only Director of the Melsonian Arts Council game publishing company, but is also one of its most talented and mind-expanding creators! Just to whet your appetite a bit on that, let’s quote their mission statement:

The Melsonian Arts Council exists to publish table top adventure and role-playing game books unlike anything the medium has on offer.  To that end we help artists and writers on the bloodied edge of their craft produce beautiful books while helping readers discover this wide, bright world of independent games they never thought possible.

Come on! That’s awesome, right?! Anyway, welcome back to Grailrunner’s Inspirational Creator Series!

Daniel, you’ve said that you run the Melsonian Arts Council as a way to write games without having anyone tell you what to do while you do it. That’s quotable, just so you know, and maybe tells us a bit about your personality. The fresh and innovative approach you and your team are taking with works like Acid Death Fantasy, The Big Squirm, and Troika! are an inspiring breath of clean air in an industry that gets a little hung up on armored dwarves, dragons, and license restrictions.

Thanks for making time for us!

I’m always happy to talk about myself.

Q. Beyond the obvious fact that you have to make games people will buy, what sorts of projects inspire you the most? Is it the game mechanics, the subject matter, the twist on expectations…what makes you smile when you think about spending that kind of effort and time on making a new game?

The thing that sets me on fire is a project that is relentlessly sincere. A major problem with roleplaying game books is that they’re almost always products before they’re anything else, which sends sincerity right out the window. I want books to rip off the mask of best practices and boring choices and let us see what you really wanted to make.

Q. You’ve talked before about things like D&D’s Planescape boxed set as an inspiration for you, imagining a multiverse that maybe lost some of its magic when you were older. Tell us about what sorts of games, books, or films made that magic for you back in the day and what they did right.  

0e and 1e D&D were pretty solidly magic, 2e had a spark of it. Really, lots of games from the 80s and early 90s had a lot of magic to them. They were wild, silly, huge, beautiful and diverse, there were multiple large companies with money making bold choices and beautiful books. Palladium are still at it, and I have an unironic admiration for Uncle Kev and his Glitter Boys et al. (Meet them here) As for books and films, I don’t have much nostalgia for what I consumed back then, it was too hard to find good things before the internet. I still have and love my collection of Fighting Fantasy books, which are almost all immensely bold and idiosyncratic adventures that I love immensely. Something about dungeon merchants and weird things waiting for you to find them just gets me going.

Q. It’s one thing to have cool ideas about games, but quite another to design and publish Ennie award winning works for yourself at your own publishing house. How’d that happen?  

I’m not sure. I started publishing when I saw a guide on a blog explaining the method by which one could assemble a zine at home by hand and I thought that looked fun. All I needed was a zine, so I wrote one. I took an adventure I had run in my home game, tidied it up, and published it as The Undercroft #1. Then I had to do a second one. A big part of the joy of RPG writing is the necessary collaboration that is involved, so I started asking around and working with people I knew and respected in the scene. Over the ten issue run I oversaw I met people who had ideas too big to go in a zine so I decided to make a book instead. Like with every other step, I asked around, talked to people doing the thing I wanted to do, and then did that. From there the world opens up a lot, with crowdfunding and trade publishers and shipping and so on. It continues to open up.

Q. In ‘Letters Of JRR Tolkien’, the professor is quoted as saying:

“Part of the attraction of Lord Of The Rings is, I think, due to the glimpses of a large history in the background: an attraction like that of viewing far off an unvisited island, or seeing the towers of a distant city gleaming in a sunlit mist. To go there is to destroy the magic, unless new unattainable vistas are again revealed.”

French poet, Stéphane Mallarmé said, “To define is to kill. To suggest is to create.”

You said in Troika! “Players travel by eldritch portal and non-Euclidean labyrinth and golden-sailed barge between the uncountable crystal spheres strung delicately across the hump-backed sky.”

What’s that all about?

This is true. Part of the impetus to writing Troika! was a disappointment with Planescape. Growing up I had an incomplete smattering of the core books, leaving massive holes in the thing. They suggested infinite worlds of exciting and absurd wonder in little paragraphs here and there between DiTerlizzi artworks. As an adult I bought more books and it turned out that Tolkien was right, the distant towers were made of cardboard. So I now only fill in the bits I want to fill in, and feel I can fill in while maintaining the tension of a world greater than we can take in with one sweep of the head. I never want to lose that sense of discovery again.

Q. What’s a hump-backed sky though?

The humpbacked sky is an English translation of a French translation of a Greek translation of the term that usually gets translated as “vault of the heavens”.  I prefer humpbacked sky because it is more literal and also less easily skipped over, forcing you to think about it rather than going “yea yea vault of the whatever”. So it is the undulating heavens between the spheres.

Q. Troika! offers a marvelous parade of character types players can become or encounter. But we need to talk about the rhinoman. Tell me about the rhinoman.

I can’t take credit for the rhinoman. I took it from a picture in The Citadel of Chaos by Steve Jackson, a Fighting Fantasy book I read a lot as a child. The image is so bluntly weird and has haunted me ever since. So I thought everyone else should experience it as I did.

Q. I need to geek out a second. You’ve mentioned M. John Harrison’s Viriconium series as one of your inspirations. I sometimes think I’m close to getting him to agreeing to an interview because those stories have been lifechanging for me personally. What’s your take on that collection?

I love them. I came to them late, after Troika was already written, but they solidified an idea I was unable to grab. The Viriconium stories create their own canon, in a way. The first book is quite a normal fantasy adventure, then it just gets weirder and weirder. The future books use the original books words to summon up complex allusions that only make sense in the context of a Viriconium book. Intensely self referential, like a Gene Wolfe novel but spread over a shorter distance. It’s how I approach the weird of the world now, in layers that people can uncover. Impenetrable non sequiturs is easy, and boring. I want to know that there is a trail back to meaning somewhere, even if it’s hard to find. Just knowing is enough.

Q. Can you describe your process for creating – whether the writing or the game mechanics?  

It depends if I’m laying down new work or working on a draft. If it’s new then I wake up and sit in front of a notebook for 4 hours and see what comes out. If it’s a draft I do it in front of a markup word processor because I can’t be trusted with distractions. When writing I limit my reference books since they can become distracting in their own right. I have a book of the names of Catholic saints, a few different books about interesting words, and one or two books of poetry, scripture or product images. The large books are used like divination, when I’m stuck I’ll pick one up and open it at random to see what comes out and use that. The fun part is making that oracle weave in to what you’re doing neatly. I find that process creates a kind of verisimilitude that can’t come from sitting down and making stuff up out of thin air. Going back to Planescape, one of my issues with it is the apparent ease with which they can describe an infinite realm with infinite variety. With this cut-up method we get a taste of real culture, that fractal variance of real life. It’s impossible to make from just one head.

Q. You’ve launched the hardboiled RPG adventure, The Big Squirm quite recently. Anything new you’re working on now is super-secret, but what CAN you tell us about any projects coming out soon?

We’re very busy. I have a few books of my own coming soon; Slate & Chalcedony is a deceptively normal adventure to beat up a wizard in a wizard tower which goes back to my horror roots; Get It At Sutler’s is a (huge) tool for letting your players work a job at a fish market where they can meet people and experience the city of Troika like a native; and I’ll probably have a layer of a Troikan mega dungeon out before that. Otherwise we have another Troika adventure by Andrew Walter, a D&D campaign boxset sequel to Crypts of Indormancy, 2nd editions of Fever Swamp and Fungi of the Far Realms, a Troika based superhero RPG by Christian Kessler, a Dickension burglar RPG by Luke Gearing, and some others I’m probably forgetting. Busy year.

Q. What kind of pitches are you looking for from aspiring writers, artists, or designers right now?

We’re looking for books now. We have a project which we hope to get people involved in creating short adventures set in the city of Troika. Link here for the full brief.

Q. Where can we find more about what you and the Melsonian Arts Council are up to?

www.melsonia.com is the best place to find new things, but we also maintain a stubborn presence on social media for anyone who likes that sort of thing.

On Facebook or on Instagram

Q. Anything else you’d like to let us know?

Times are tough and getting tougher for everyone, the RPG industry feels overwhelmingly tight and the only people who survive are the rich and the stubborn. Be stubborn and make games, please.

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Daniel, I can’t stress enough how much your approach and your philosophy towards inspiration and the creative process send us over the moon! Thanks so much for the breakthrough work you and your team are doing at Melsonian Arts Council, and especially for the long nights and brain-wracking I’m sure it took to deliver something as mind-bending as Troika! You’re bringing new and good things into the world – we need many more people like you!

Thanks again for making time for us. Best of luck with the blizzard of new products coming. Have a great year!

And till next time,