The Elements of RPG Splat Design

Splats (your clan, tribe, toastmaster society, etc.) are excellent tools to get players involved it the setting. Like them or not, they’ve proven that fact in play. I’ve worked with splats for a long time — they’re kind of my thing, I guess, particularly over both versions of Mage. This time around I’d like to share my ideas about them. These have naturally evolved on my end for a while and don’t necessarily represent what people think over at White Wolf|CCP, but I do think they’re reflected in successful examples.

So here’s what I think makes for good splats:

Good Splats Are Easy to Remember

I think people underestimate this one. I hesitate to say it, but it’s one element where in many cases, the new World of Darkness doesn’t do as good a job as the old. Your splat needs a name that people feel comfortable writing and pronouncing, but that’s not so basic that it’s easy to forget. “Ventrue” is a decent one, but I think “Bone Shadows” is a bit difficult. The image it evokes is abstract but the words are simple — it’s an easy to forget combination. “Shadow Lords” doesn’t make as much sense (werewolves have feudal lords?) but everyone gets an immediate, cheesy fantasy image out of it. You’re Furry Sauron McElric, yo. Sometimes the concept conflicts with accessible naming and you have to make a tough choice. If the concept is engaging enough it can overcome a silly-sounding name (see “Toreador”).

The logo’s a big deal too. Basically, I think you need a symbol somebody can sketch in his high school notebook when nobody’s looking. That promotes fan art, opens the window to future variation (see Vampire: The Masquerade vs. Dark Ages: Vampire) and makes it easy to remember.

Good Splats Have Identifiable Roles — and Ways to Undermine Them

You need one splat that can be the fighter guy, one for the lordly jerk, the mystic and so on, right out of the book. We often talk about character concepts before splat choice in the books, but in my experience the reality is that “Daeva Badass” is a typical starting point. Mage: The Awakening is often criticised for cleaving too closely to the idea of functional roles but when I’ve seen people play the game they tend to get into the thick of things right away. That’s not just because of some mechanical benefit, but the power of feeling that this is your place — that the setting encourages you to be That Guy.

But if the splat is hyperfocused on its pickup role it’ll lack depth. All the fighter guys have their fighter meetings and talk about how great fighting is. A splat needs more to flesh out its internal culture. Mage‘s Adamantine Arrow members talk about all being Spartan Samurai dudes but they have game theorists, merchants and diplomats too (and guys who can’t fight). Some of these variations come from playing with the core idea (what does “Existence is War” mean, anyway?). Others are practical social roles that allow various members of the same splat can find support for their differences.

You have to strike a balance between supporting heterodoxy and avoiding vague, weak roles. If too many players come in with “He’s not your typical Elfpants” that’s a problem, because those same players will discourage strong adoption of the splat’s pickup concept. Mage: The Ascension had some excessive “He’s not your typical . . .” elements in there, and I always worked hard to try to legitimize the stereotypical character enough to keep it in play. There were lost of different Euthanatoi, but not at the expense of the Spooky Tantric Death Ninja.

Good Splats Feature Ideologues and Rebels

One of the flaws in the old World of Darkness books was that you’d be introduced to a splat from a true believer’s perspective. Real social groups have reformists and rebels. This was the very first big idea I had about splats and comes into my work as early as Akashic Brotherhood. You need people in there who believe that their group is full of shit, at least to some extent. “My Elfpants, right or wrong!”

Nevertheless, the splat needs a strong core ideology, if one filled with internal contradictions and plenty of room for interpretation. It’s a prime motivator for players. When you combine the orthodox and heterodox you give players lots of room to create personal perspectives without making the whole thing so vague there’s nothing to commit to.

Good Splats Have Parallel and Non-Parallel Benefits

From a game design perspective, splats hard-code character specialties. One splat gets the stealthy guys and another gets the strong guys. This plugs into easily identifiable roles. Once again, you don’t want this to be so narrow that it feels like a class system (in the stereotypical sense — I’m not going to define “character class” in this article and yes, many implementations are mighty flexible) but you do want to softly protect character niches and provide in-game motives for members of different splats to work together. Sometimes this can hinge on a single key power. I remember that in the old Mind’s Eye Theatre, the Tremere got a lot of mileage out of a ritual that lowered effective generation because they could use it to bring elder Kindred out of torpor.

Still, it feels forced to just split things based on the Fighting power or the Sneaky power. That’s why I think it’s also important to provide another set of benefits that don’t have direct parallels across all similar splats. Vampire: The Requiem does this really well through the Covenant system. Theban Sorcery and Cruac have a similar mechanical feel, but the Invictus don’t have anything like it by default — they’ve got Merit bonuses. The challenge here is to make these benefits feel equally important even when they’re hard to compare. Is your blood magic better than my ability to rezone your haven as a garbage dump? Depends.

Good Splats Are Visually Engaging

You need cool looking guys. I can’t underestimate this. Hell, I’d say that based on visual impressions alone Mage‘s Sons of Ether were a powerful memetic influence on modern Steampunk fashion. Art is important, but I’m talking about vision. How does this guy look in your mind’s eye? Give every splat a sense of fashion. Fashion is so important for real subcultures that you can’t ignore it in functional ones.

Vampire (all versions) has always been great at this thanks to having some terrific artists and graphic design, as well as a decent commitment to signature characters. I can see Solomon Birch in my head without much effort. Werewolf: The Apocalypse (especially in synergy with Rage) also did a fantastic job to help me visualize what the epitome of a splat looked like. Your character might not look like that guy, but it’s a strong jumping of point.

Tags: RPG design