Constructing Death: A Series on Design Philosophies in KD:M Custom Expansions (Patreon)

Kingdom Death is a game that by design is hugely "moddable", you choose what campaign you are going to play, you choose the monsters that will be present in that setting and you even tailor it further when playing by choosing what you are going to hunt and craft. It's a sandbox experience to a reasonably high degree, and this freedom the game offers is one of the draws that the game has. You have a space where you can experiment with the game's elements and combine them together to make new things - "What happens if I jam Sunstalker Gear with Dragon King Gear." for example.

This is one of the reasons why KD:M draws such a large amount of custom gear, because the game rewards creativity when you are playing, it also encourages it in other areas. The other reason is that KD:M is a very, personal creation for Adam - it is filled with elements that he loves and his taste is very unique. The game is a literal love letter to Warhammer Quest and Monster Hunter, which is why it has a lot of the design mechanics that it does.

1. Know the History

Which brings us to the first point I have; play Warhammer Quest (1995) and Monster Hunter and analyse their strengths and flaws, and then consider the way that they have influenced KD:M before you start working on custom expansions.

For example:

1. The Hunt Phase in KD:M is a lifting and re-transcribing of the Journey Phase in Warhammer Quest. In WHQ after a dungeon was complete you would pick one of 3 types of settlement to travel to (Village, Town & City), then you would roll on a journey table a number of times, this table was filled with events that were sometimes helpful, often harmful, and could end up with you being at a settlement smaller than intended or even having to go straight into the next dungeon. Adam took that design, and placed it before the 'dungeon' instead of after and gave us monster levels instead of settlement sizes. He also added in monster specific events - and that is literally the entire scope of the Hunt Phase. It is an antiquated design that was meant to be used after a group of heroes had completed their task, not before - and that's why the Hunt Phase is so often highlighted as a problem in the game. It's because it's lifted from WHQ, retooled with warts and all and it stands as an example of why you should think about the 'what' of a design before you import it into your custom expansion. 

The Journey Table works well in WHQ because it takes place after the action, the Hunt Phase does not because it's placed before it.

2. Most RPGs (Action or otherwise) use Legs and Feet as the two lower body locations for armor and damage hits, however Monster Hunter uses Legs and Waist. Which is why in KD:M We have those two locations instead of the more common version we're used to. It's also why sometimes you look at a pair of obviously Leg armor pants and wonder why they are on the 'waist' while the legs are protected by a short pair of boots.

Every game iterates on previous games and it is rare that we see something which is wholly unique. KD:M is one of the biggest innovations in recent board gaming history, and it's still something that takes a lot of its design inspiration from other games (WHQ, Dominion, Monster Hunter, Euro Worker Placements and so on). That's absolutely OK! 

However, KD:M isn't just descended from board games. A huge part of the influence of the game comes from Adam's love of Japanese anime/manga. Now I can't claim to know most of the sources he has taken flavor from in this arena, I am not really that engaged with Japanese culture. However, I did trudge my way through the Berserk manga because that one is very clear influence on the style of the game. I do not want to get into this topic much (and I will delete comments on it) but I must say that I appreciate how much more progressive KD:M is over Berserk. KD:M has a clear imprint of a lead female designer on it, and when you look into the history of the game (mostly by reading between the lines in what Adam has said/written) you will see Anna Poots has had a huge influence on the game's mechanics. I'm not sure what game we would have had without her, but I suspect there would have been a lot more of Berserk in it (which would have been to the detriment of the game).

2. Do Your Time

This one I cannot stress enough, however much time you have in this game, unless the number of hours hit four digits, it's probably not enough to be jumping onto making custom content. There are a whole host of unwritten rules that sit within KD:Ms design framework, for example there is an entire lore and mechanical system around the keywords that are printed on gear items. They're not just slapped on there, each particular keyword has a lore reason and a mechanical reason for its existence. 

In a similar fashion, when you are creating monsters, unless you really understand how the AI works, you'll mess up the programming of the monsters and create something that feels bad to play against. A good example of this from the main game is the White Lion vs. the Screaming Antelope. People often mention finding the antelope harder to deal with than the lion because they don't understand it's behavior.  The White Lion is AI programmed to act like a vision based predator, it concentrates mostly on what it can see in front of it, pouncing on it like a house cat with a ball of yarn and dragging its prey off in an attempt to isolate it. It is a very simplified 'big cat' in the way it acts, but it's also your 'training wheels monster' in that it has a predictable attack target. 

In contrast the Screaming Antelope expresses 'prey' behavior rather than predatory, which means that it's skittish and herbivorous. However, because this is the world of Kingdom Death - where even the plants can eat you - the Antelope also expresses predatory behavior, but in a more opportunistic manner. This mishmash of behaviors makes the Antelope feel less predictable. However, when you drill into the AI and the HL of the Antelope, you can actually see patterns in its targeting and personality.

3. Iterate, don't Innovate. 

Early on you should not be looking to build some retooling of the hunt phase or replacement monster. Instead you should be thinking smaller, iterating on things that already exist. This is because it is a lot easier to understand the impact

My very first expansion was a location that allowed for multi-expansion monster crafting. It would use resources from several different monsters, blending the themes of those monsters together in order to create new gear. In essence all I was doing was creating 12 pieces of gear and a location. That was a lot easier to balance than building an entire monster.

So for your first project, consider something like one of the following:

• A new crafting location to replace one of the existing core ones
• A new AI or HL deck for an existing monster to change its behavior
• A new basic hunt event card (like Fade/Stumpy) with associated gear

Things like this, while less exciting than a new monster or campaign, is a smaller space to work with and it means that you'll

4. Murder your Creations

The first three or four custom creations you make for KD:M should never be released. That may sound bonkers, but your early creations will be very rough and unpolished. A lot of the stuff I have seen from other creators looks like their first creation pushed out. I'm not just talking about the component design of their stuff (which sometimes is very good), but the mechanics and design overall. 

For myself, the Black Lion (which I still want to go back and re-polish when I've finished my first custom cycle) was almost never released because it was the third custom monster I created. It was made as a practice at creating an entire expansion and it was seriously considered for execution. However I decided to release it and it seems to have done okay with people even though I personally dislike a lot of it (I love its gear though!).  In contrast the Spurkulese is my 7th full monster and it is a lot more polished, but it might need a toughness tweak at level 1 - that's why it's in patreon-beta instead of general release.

Now, what about monsters 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6? When will you see them? Well I can say with confidence that monsters 1, 2 and 4 will never see the light of day, because I have murdered them completely and rendered them down to parts. Some of their design has been re-polished and appears in the Meugeceros (#6)/Spidicules Intergration Package and some of it is kept in the vault for reference. (Monster 5 is the Mumbling Goat and I've iced it until I have more experience under my belt because it's complex and introduces new mechanics).

I've used those 5 monsters as part of the practice and then I've iced them completely with no intent of releasing them as a whole. Instead I am using the best parts of them in the future and leaving the worst parts on the cutting room floor. They're not wasted though, even if I never use all of the mechanics I designed I learnt what works and what doesn't.

So, don't be in a hurry to push something out, you should ice your first few creations with no intention of ever releasing them because you're just practicing at this stage. You wouldn't run out and put the first wooden pot you ever carved on a lathe in a gallery, likewise your first few creations should be kept private, for future recycling.

5. Put it on Ice

Once you have completed your custom project - DO NOT RELEASE IT. 

I can't stress this one enough, when you are creating something, you are too close to it to be able to be objective about the thing. You can't proof read it, you can't analyse it, you cannot do anything productive towards the refinement of your creation because it is still too much a part of you.

So you need to do what Stephen King does, you need to take that baby of yours and stick it "in a drawer" for a month. This is enough time to turn your project into something created by a stranger, you can then take a good long look at it. You'll then manage to spot errors and even perhaps realise that the entire thing you are working on is a bust and that it's just usable for its parts.

Trust me, you can see the difference between something that's been put on ice by a creator before going to the public over something that's been dumped out after it's been finished and only proof read a couple of times. It's obvious.

6. Read Mark Rosewater

Seriously, he's one of the best designers of all time - for example. here's an important point from an article written by Mark Rosewater (and you could do a lot worse than reading his stuff to understand a lot of things about game design). For example.

Lesson #19: Your audience is good at recognizing problems and bad at solving them 

My metaphor for this lesson is a doctor's appointment. What does a doctor always do first? They ask you how you're feeling. Why? Because you're the expert on you. No one else better understands how you feel. However, the doctor doesn't often ask you how to solve any problems that you might have because they're better equipped than you to do that. The same is true in game design.

Your players have a better understanding of how they feel about your game than you do. They can tell easier when something is wrong and they're excellent at identifying problems, but they're not as equipped to solve the problems. They don't know the restrictions you're under or what needs you have to fulfill. They see the game from their perspective, but your job is to understand the perspective of all the players. So use your audience as a resource to help figure out what is wrong with your game, but take it with a grain of salt when they offer you solutions.

This has two important applications, firstly when you are making your own things and having feedback from people it is best to ask for 'input based on experience, rather than on first impressions/reading.' Secondly, we have the more important thing; when you are designing your own stuff you should understand that YOU are good at recognizing what's wrong in the game, but bad at coming up with good solutions. 

So slow down, take your time and be fiercely critical of your own creations, they will be all the better for it. 

7. Match the Official Style

My final point for this primer is a big one. You are not making your own board game, you are adding onto Adam's vision. So you should be matching his style; that means using the same fonts, same mechanics and so on. There should be punishing hunt cards, it's okay to have tables that are 'roll a 1 and you die' (though hopefully they're optional tables, not ones you're forced to roll on) and so on. You should use Adam's wording for mechanics, you should follow Adam's layouts and you should try to make your creations fit within Adam's world in some manner. 

I have every intention of putting all my custom content into its own 'alternative reality' version of Adam's world, they're all designed with that in mind. But because I spent such a long time making sure that the Black Lion fitted in with Adam's existing stuff, people still keep trying to integrate it more with the White Lion (despite it existing in an entirely different eco-sphere and having no contact with the white ones at all - heck it would eat them if it saw them). This is frustrating, but it's also a sign that I managed to do something right. 

KD:M's world has consistency to it, likewise KD:M's mechanics have a whole bunch of rules around them, and I'm going to peel back all the layers and show you how things fit together as we move ahead. So you can have all the opportunities you need to be able to create the best version of your own vision.

Because the future of KD:M lands very much on the shoulders of the community as well as the official creators. Custom content is going to drive the lifespan of KD:M for years after the final official expansion is released, yours can be a part of that.

What's Coming for this Series?

What we have here are just some broad strokes as a primer, giving you a taste of what's coming without getting into the specifics of how to go about building an expansion for this game. In the future I will look at my approach to this, which may be different to the design team's approach, but it does result in a similar looking product at the end.

So moving ahead, we're going to look at the process of designing custom content, specifically a monster expansion, providing opportunities for broad strokes input from those of you who decide to subscribe to this program. My aim is to give you all the tools you need to dissect KD:M in a critical fashion, render it down to its basic parts, and then allow you to build things that feel like a living part of the world as it stands.

Additionally, the more support I get at this tier, the more polished I can make my custom content. Eventually accumulating in the super secret goal, which is something I hope will interest you all!