Malin Freeborn

The Joys of Automation

I don’t think any sane individual could write something like BIND without automation tools. Games with a similar scope require a team.

Random Encounters Disarm Chekov's Gun

Chekov’s gun poses a real threat to some games.

If a group playing Vampire: The Masquerade (‘VtM’) encounter a Ravnos, spinning illusions, and confusing mortals, then the next time they hear about unusual events, they will assume that the Ravnos did this. Clearly - the Ravnos is part of the plot! After all, VtM draws heavily from literature; or rather, it draws a lot from the idea-spaces of people who like to analyse literature while telling you that they analyse literature.

Having a Bash at Travel in BIND

They say you have to playtest, but they forget that I’m a lazy man, so when it came to travel rules, I didn’t feel like simulating a bunch of journeys. So it’s time to get the computer to do the work for me.

Against Collectors

I sometimes feel that collections can imply something shameful, and it’s especially potent in RPGs. It has something to do with wanting to horde, rather than use; to own rather than do. I can’t fully articulate the feeling, but it has something to do with one thing coming from on high as the ‘definitive’ idea, the ‘canonical’ item, idea, or procedure, which then makes everything else wrong in comparison.

Extrapolation & Necessity

When designing Fenestra, I noticed it had no magical universities. I really mean ’noticed’, rather than ‘stipulated’, or ‘invented’.

The Module Decalogue

Ronald Knox wrote ten rules on how to avoid ruining a murder mystery with an unsatisfying solution. They apply very well to writing and running RPG modules, with a little alteration.

Designing around Spike-Traps

When making things, once in a while you spot a pit-trap laden with spikes, and screech to a halt to think about the route ahead carefully. When making chairs, I guess people test by sitting in the chair. Writers and RPG designers can’t get this kind of snappy feedback, so I guess we’re all a bit fumbly when testing solutions. I certainly am.

Open Source RPGs

New RPG creators and tech-startups both enjoy giving themselves the badge of ‘open source’ without having to open up a single source file. In the tech world, they call the company ‘Open AI’, and in the RPG space, they call their licence the ‘open gaming licence’, or simply declare they have an ‘open RPG’, then let people infer their good intentions from the name alone. This simple illusion has bamboozled just as many RPG enthusiasts as tech optimists.

The Cost of Shared Narrative

RPGs with a shared narrative mechanic - where players and the GM both come up with interesting people, results, and situations - come with a cost. They pull focus away from the puzzle elements of the RPG, and that’s my favourite element, so I can’t see myself enjoying shared narration mechanics.

Print it Yourself

I’ve decided against having online printing available for BIND. This may change, but here’s the thinking so far:

Consumers of BIND

I’ve rather gone off the notion of ‘collectibles’. Collectible RPG books are special because they can’t meet the demand. We can’t all have a copy of those original D&D books, or whatever swanky thing White Wolf brought out with the expensive full-page art.

Running an RPG in Real-Time, All the Time

Last year, I got excited about the idea of tracking realworld time over downtime . Shortly after I implemented it in my campaign, and it served the entire table, very well.

One Roll Only

RPGs should avoid asking people to roll dice more than once for any result.

Subraces Should be Cultures

Referring to elves as a ‘race’ makes perfect sense. They’re clearly different from the other humanoids, have their own features, and biological properties and oddities.¹

Parallel Rules and BIND

I want contradictory things for BIND, so I’ve been trying to do both. And I have finally made it work…I think.

Happily Ahistorical

RPG worlds need histories, so I had to write some history for BIND’s world, Fenestra. This was a big mistake.

How I Made BIND's Monsters

BIND began as a D&D-reaction. “Mathematically, these rules stand some serious improvement”. After that, I only wanted some generic fantasy monsters to make an example game.

Why BIND Rules Don't Allow Players to Go for the Eyes

(a story about spreadsheet failure)

I’ve considered changing BIND’s ’to-hit’ system to let players ‘go for the eyes’ (or a headshot, or otherwise decide to attempt a vitals shot), and decided against it. My reasons sit below, but expect lots of boring numbers. You have been warned. (or just skip to the conclusions)

New Handouts

BIND’s maps have their numbers and comments applied by its writing tool, LaTeX. This makes handouts really easy, because the same map can present different layers to different people.

Dungeons Need More Space

The dungeon ecosystem doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but I think Tolkien has a fix.

No Introduction Necessary

It’s been commented that BIND has no introduction, saying ‘what is a roleplaying game?’, and I don’t think it needs one.

Minified vs Minimalist Rules

D&D got a way with a lot of bad habits, because it was the only game in town. People are expected to read the core rules, then the Dungeon Master’s Guide, then an adventure. I’ve copied their style, and only now realized the error of front-loading MAXIMUM RULES.

Spreadsheets are Great

Whenever I’m unsure about a rule, I pull out a basic spreadsheet, and start populating numbers.

Always Say the Target Number

A player rolls the dice, and the table watches the result, like a roulette ball bouncing about. Rothgar has a +4 to make the jump, but the chasm demands a Target Number (TN) of 12.

Real Time Passing Between Games

RPG Vloggers chatting about Gygax note on real-world time-synchronization have got me thinking about really using this rule. In case you haven’t heard the idea - Gygax demanded that every day which passes in the real-world, one day passes in the game. The troupe starts and ends their games somewhere safe, like a tavern in town.

System Realism Matters

A hundred paces down the dark tunnel, you see dozens of goblins dancing round a fire and singing about eating anything that moves.

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I Want Realistic Dragons

Weighing into an ancient (or at least senile) fantasy debate, I’d like to go back a step. The debate usually goes like this:

Fate Points in BIND

Remember that book or film where the protagonist received a nasty wound, then persevered, and won the day? Well that can’t happen in RPGs, and that’s a shame. So my solution is Fate Points (FP).

BIND's Story Point System

The Problem

While I’d hope to rock up at the gaming table and just game with friends, the DM had other ideas. Everyone had to write a character back-story. Having three jobs at the time, I didn’t feel enamoured with my homework, but a while later, I had read enough about the campaign world to begin writing something that could fit into it.

The OGL is not Open

The Open Gaming Licence (OGL) does not in fact produce terribly open games, so I wish people would stop referring to such RPGs as ‘open source’.

The Open Source RPG Dream

The cynics say that we keep reinventing the wheel. They say we have too many RPGs, mostly doing the same thing, and why bother to write yet another RPG about elves and magic swords? And they have one thing right - we should stop re-writing RPGs from scratch. Instead, we should change them.

Weaving Stories

Classic RPG adventures suffer from chronic flaws. When PCs should to go somewhere, they don’t. When they should take interest in an item, they ignore it. Any NPC who will lead them to a secret cave in Chapter IV gets stabbed in Chapter II because the players thought he was up to something. After all the carnage, they decide to flee to some random area they heard of from last session, leaving the DM totally unprepared. No amount of preparation seems to stop the random b-lines the players make.

BIND is a fantasy tabletop RPG designed to solve a number of problems: