Quick Quest

A personal project I started with a team of friends, Quick Quest is a tabletop micro-RPG designed for first-timers and casual play. For this project, I'm serving as team lead, mechanics designer, graphics designer, and playtest moderator. The following sections show an example layout for a player, detailing the mechanical design of the game in the process.

Character Building Process

It isn't unusual for tabletop RPG's to have an extensive character creation process that can take 2 hours to parse through for first-time players. Our streamlined system, shown in the adjacent "Character Building" card took a playtest group of 6 people approximately 20 minutes total (including distractions).

Species & Class

Species cards feature high-quality art to help players visualize the basic form of their character. Each species also offers a basic perks, such as the Human's Versatile Growth perks.

Upon selecting a Class Card, players are committed to only using abilities of that class. Each Class has a single Class feature that works as an additional ability key to the playstyle of that class.

Note: The image for the Human species card was created using an AI art generator via fotor.com

Stats & Icons

To appeal to new and casual players, our system utilizes a minimal amount of stats for players to keep track of. Moreover, we want as many rules as possible to fit cleanly on our cards, so we've been iterating on iconography to reduce word count and improve quick-brain readability.

There are 3 primary stats at the core of each character: Physical, Social, and Mental. When attempting any action that requires some level of skill or risk, player's pick the most fitting stat to the situation and add its value to a d20 roll. Thus, the icon is in the silhouette of a d20.

When another unit makes an action against a player, the player doesn't roll. Instead, they just add 10 to the defending stat.

All cards use these icons to succinctly detail which stat is used, and whether it's for a roll or a defense.

For easy identification, all cards have an icon in the top right corner. Above are the icons for Species cards and the Warrior class. Each of these icons are also connected to a specific color scheme and/or texture.

Abilities & Mechanics

Class abilities are the main way of customizing one's own playstyle. Each Class has a list of 10 abilities. Players start choose three at the start and gain a new one on each level up. The three abilities cards below were selected to highlight different features of the game mechanics.

Attacking an enemy unit requires making a single d20 roll against one of the target's defenses. If an attack roll hit or exceeds the target's defense score, the attack succeeds.

To speed up the pace of combat, there are no rolls for calculating damage. Unless a card (like this one) says otherwise, attacks always deal 1 damage.

Combat maps are reduced from the standard grids or 2-D layouts into a 1-D grid. Each section in this grid is referred to as a zone. A zone can hold multiple combatants. Units within the same zone are can make melee attacks on each other. Attacking from a different zone requires ranged attacks. This abstraction reduces the need for complex maps or recording each units' exact distance from each other.

In standard tabletop RPG's, players are often forced to choose between abilities that focus on combat and abilities meant for roleplaying and creativity.

Here, players never have to worry about making that distinction. All non-combat-centric abilities are paired with a combat-focused ability.

Items & Equipment

Items and Equipment are another approach to customization. As players go adventuring, they may find opportunities to collect powerful gear. At the beginning however, they must select up to 3 pieces of starter gear, signified by the icon.

Again, iconography is used to quickly give details about the card.

Also of note is how each major card type has different dimensions, optimizing table space and further distinguishing cards from each other.

Conclusion

With the above graphic design and mechanics design, we are creating a tabletop RPG that offers a substantial amount of customization and potential for player creativity while minimizing complexity and reducing the need for pen, paper, and rules referencing.

I played a leading role in the development of all these design decisions, and the team is still at work completing the last aspects of the game.