Why My Role-Playing Game Loves Kids and Having a Job
If D&D is 90% adventure and 10% other activities, then Super Maps & Legends is a 50/50 split. The game treats the mundane aspects of life in a fantasy world as equally important as adventuring: raising kids, earning a living, building a home, and keeping it all safe and secure. Home life is not only an adventure, it’s the adventure that makes all the others more meaningful! If you ever play D&D into high levels, some of the richest parts of that play are the families and friendships your characters have developed along the way. Super Maps & Legends brings that richness to your game table from the very first moment!
How This Manifests in Game Design
With the greater emphasis on non-adventuring activities, I wanted a way to visually show the distinction of “Home Mode” vs “Adventure Mode”. With one look you know if someone is ready for battle, or some other activity. This manifests as two sides of the same card. Every character you meet in the game world has both an adventure class and a civilian class, and a different gear set and skills tailored to that class.
It’s a New Mechanic But Has a Lot of Potential
Currently, the artwork is the same on both sides of the card, but that’s because I only had the idea for this a couple weeks ago. Eventually, I want to have two pieces of artwork for each character, one for each “mode”. It’s expensive but I think it would provide a stellar game mechanic and a game experience that can’t be achieved by 3D minis or VTT tokens. It would be unique to SuperMNL.
Class refinement
With the two character modes decided, it was time to revisit classes and professions. I consolidated down to as few classes as possible, getting rid of some old terms I was hanging on to from my first “role-centric” system where I had eight adventure themes that doubled as work types. The classes now are divided into Adventure and Civilian categories and you can only be assigned that class on the appropriate side of your card.
Adventure Classes
- Fighter: Protect Yourself & Others
- Mage: Access Powerful Magics
- Outlaw: Rewrite Justice Your Way
- Ranger: Call Wild Places Home
- Thief: Fool Others Undetected
Civilian Classes
- Caretaker: Serve & Rehabilitate Others
- Crafter: Create Goods in a Workshop
- Laborer: Work & Harvest for the Benefit of All
- Drifter: Excel at Everything; Master Nothing
- Strategist: Discover Answers & Make Epic Plans
- Trader: Barter and sell goods
- Dependent: Bring joy to those who help you
Detailing out The Card Design
Below is the latest card design that not only integrates the above changes, but also emphasize other interesting story points. For example, you can instantly know where someone is from just based on their card background, or their hometown or class based on some banners. I’m still ironing out the details on this, but the possibilities for new ways to play RPGs are definitely shining through here!
Sorry that the art is super messy! It’s a cobblestone/wood background with some green banners hanging off of it.
