The Discworld RPG takes a good look at tabletop gaming cliches for a moment, scratches its chin, and then says "sod it." This pen-and-paper adventure does something different – and it feels rather clever about that, thank you very much.
Now, I know what you're thinking. Every new kid on the block claims to be a unique and special flower – any similarity to the best tabletop RPGs, or D&D in particular, is coincidental (on their mother's life). Suffice to say, it doesn't usually pan out. Discworld RPG, though? Well, that really is doing something different. I can't think of many other TTRPGs that revolve around wordplay, for example.
With the game coming to Kickstarter on October 15, I tracked down Modiphius Entertainment designer Andy Douthwaite and line editor Bryce Johnston to fill me in on the Discworld RPG. Here's what they had to say before they had security cart me off for bothering them.
GamesRadar+: At a top level, what's the crucial, must-have 'thing' a Discworld RPG needs to make it feel true to the source material?
Modiphius: Punes, or plays on words.*
*[And footnotes]
GR+: How did that inform the architecture of the game, and its mechanics?
M: Massively! The whole game is built in such a way that players are encouraged to play with words. Each character has a number of traits, and those traits can be used to justify actions in the game. Players are encouraged to misappropriate, mangle, or otherwise brutalise the meanings of those traits to justify things they have absolutely no business justifying.
GR+: What were the challenges or unexpected benefits of that?
M: It’s forced us to create a system that is essentially unique, which is almost entirely word-based. The system works in such a way as to put language and wordplay first and foremost, while the system fades into the background. We didn’t ever want the system to get in the way of the story.
The benefits aren’t really unexpected, but oftentimes someone will use a trait to justify something in a way that makes you snort quite a lot of tea across the room.
GR+: Was there anything commonly seen in tabletop RPGs that you deliberately steered clear of?
M: Modifiers to dice, and anything crunchy. There are no specific combat rules in the game either, all tests and actions are handled the same way. You and the GM work to define what the consequences of a failed action could be, in combat the consequence will relate directly to who or what you’re trying to fight—rolling badly against a troll could see you suffer the ‘swallowing your own teeth’ consequence, while the same roll against the Luggage could see you suffer a Near Death Experience. Those would be narrated, rather than see you losing hit points (which also don’t exist).
Does Modiphius sound familiar? It should - this is the developer behind the Star Trek tabletop RPG, The Elder Scrolls: Call to Arms, various Cthulhu games, and the recent Fallout Factions skirmish game.
GR+: What makes this game stand out from its peers, mechanically speaking?
M: We should have read this before answering the previous questions.
The game is fundamentally about language, wordplay, and narrative. It’s a narrative driven RPG rather than a mechanics driven RPG. Dice certainly exist, but only to create moments which help drive (or undermine) the narrative you’re going for. Just to reiterate, it’s a game about awful puns and silly stories. Right up until the point when it isn’t. No Discworld novel would be complete without a moral or philosophical point that makes you stop reading and go ‘huh’ and then think about it for five to ten business years and we’ve tried to capture that in the adventures we’re writing.
GR+: Can you give us an example of certain characters or iconic Discworld elements we might encounter over the course of the game?
M: You’ll be able to interact with basically any Discworld character you can think of, and probably quite a lot you can’t. The game is built in such a way as to allow you to incorporate famous Discworld characters like Vimes or Death into a story, without them overwhelming the narrative.
GR+: Was there anything you personally were keen to incorporate or revisit in the game, like the City Watch as an example?
M: Everything, to be quite honest. This is a dream job for us. We wanted to explore the whole of Ankh-Morpork with our grubby little paws and dig into every scrap of detail we could find. In the course of the development of this game, Andy read every Discworld book all over again. On company time, no less. Let us tell you, sitting down at your desk at 9am on a Monday and going “Oh what does my day look like?” And it turns out to be “reading Discworld”? Incredible.
I cannot stress enough that we got paid to read the Discworld series for the umpteenth time, and the surge of jealousy you’re experiencing at the moment is entirely justified, and probably not quite powerful enough.
GR+: Are you able to tell me what the rough product lineup will be for the game? Are we talking a core book, a starter set, etc?
M: At its core there’s a rulebook. A core rulebook, if you will. Then there are a bunch of accessories you’d expect, like a screen for the gamemaster, a set of dice… and some other stuff. We can’t just spill all the beans here, we’ve only got like three beans to spill, gotta keep something back for the Kickstarter or no one will show up and buy our beans.
Everything in the Kickstarter will be exclusive, so you won’t see these books or accessories in local friendly game stores. We do have plans to release a smaller box set of the game in retail somewhere down the line, but if you want the complete Adventures in Ankh-Morpork experience, come to https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/modiphius/terry-pratchetts-discworld-rpg and give us your beans.*
*[Or buy our beans? The beans have sort of gotten away from us at this point, if we’re honest.]**
**[For complete clarity, the Kickstarter will not offer beans, accept beans, or trade beans. This will be a beanless Kickstarter. A bean free experience. Unless it goes really astonishingly well and we have to start opening some spare tins to find some extra stretch goals, at least.]
The Discworld RPG Kickstarter campaign is set to last for a few weeks - it starts on October 15 and will roll to a stop this November 7.
GR+: What was something you've learned from the experience so far, and is there anything you're particularly proud of?
M: No matter how many times you’ve read Pratchett, there’s always something new in there, you’ll catch something new on the fifteenth read through and it will be bright and shiny and for a moment you’ll remember that incomparable joy of reading the books for the first time all over again.
In terms of things we’re proud of, did we mention we got paid to read all the Discworld novels again?
(We’re actually very proud of the game, but as British people, acknowledging that would be a grave social faux pas, so we have to make self-effacing jokes and say ‘well you know, we think we did okay’ and things of that nature. It is good though, promise.)
GR+: A last bonus question that we like to ask developers and designers: what's your advice on finding the right tabletop RPG for you?
M: It’s vibes all the way down. Except in this game, where it’s Vimes.
Seriously, and this isn’t super helpful, but play (or watch, or read) a bunch of games. It’s the easiest way to figure out what you like and what you don’t. Eventually you’ll find something that makes your serotonin receptors light up and go ‘ping’ and then you spend all your money on dice or books or whatever. But the process of looking at lots of different games has value in itself, because even once you find your favourite, you might not want it every single time. And now you know a bunch of other options to dive into, if you’re craving something crunchy or silly or emotional, you now know where those are as well. If you want to play it, there’s an RPG out there that does it. And you’ll never know if you don’t look.
You can sign up to be notified when the Discworld RPG Kickstarter goes live here. Want something to keep you busy until it turns up? You can try the best board games via our guide, or take a look at the best D&D books.
