Rule Britannia Epic
Eunice Beady
Games in ProcessPublished GamesBritannia Games for Sale
Freq. Asked QuestionsArticles about GamesTeaching About GamesDesign PhilosophySweep Games Magazine Conventions Free Games Lew's Autobiography
more wargamelike rules for Sea Kings DragonRage Boardgame Design Blog Archive Advice for would-be designers Links to many video game articles I value @lewpuls on twitter
to PulsipherGames.com/Pulsipher.net, a web site for supplementary material and playtesting of games designed by Lewis Pulsipher (Britannia, Dragon Rage, Valley of the Four Winds, Diplomacy variants, Sea Kings, Doomstar, Jastings 1066, Stalingrad Besieged, Dual Britannia, RPG material, etc.), and for teaching about games. I issue a video-screencast (usually about game design) weekly (Tuesdays and Thursdays at 11 AM) on my YouTube "Game Design" channel.
The PSC (UK) version of Britannia is long out of print. I have not heard anything about its status from the publisher since May of 2021, nor have I been paid any royalties. (I am still owed five figures of money, after my advance, for the Kickstarter itself, plus subsequent sales.)
I use a Patreon page to support my YouTube channel and blogging. For those who don't know, Patreon is much like Kickstarter insofar as it enables individuals to support worthwhile projects. But unlike Kickstarter, this is continuing, monthly, support (at a level as low as $1 a month, every little bit helps). Producing a video a week interfered with my other activities (including text blogs), and may be one reason why it's taking me so long to get Britannia's new edition together. If I can get sufficient support via Patreon I can continue to justify the time I'm spending to produce free material. So far it's more or less working.
The Great Races: Automobiles, a family game more or less. I've talked about this with many people, and most unusually, wrote a more or less full set of rules while away at WBC and visiting relatives. So now I need to playtest it.
Doomstar is vaguely Stratego-like, but immensely more fluid and quick to play, and much less hierarchical. A key is that two fighters can move together over great distances, and combine attacks together.
The game is vaguely reminiscent of L'Attaque/Stratego, but immensely more fluid and less hierarchical, quite a different (and I think, better and much shorter) experience.
If you want to sign up for the Doomstar PC beta, go to www.doomstargame.com/beta
My book publisher pointed me to a (favorable) review of my book in Game Nite, a free tabletop game magazine. 8 issues available. Looks good and the price can't be beat, each issue about 80MB. The review is in #8.
Nuts & Bolts: The Co-op "Fail Mechanic"
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I explain why I call co-ops with one winner a "fail-mechanic." With some players it just won't work.
Strategies to Respond to the "Eight Awful Truths" of game marketing
Original Awful Truths are at
13 "Laws" of Game Design
Like many "laws", these are more strong probabilities than absolutes.
Play to win? Nope.
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Pundits have sometimes been slow on the uptake, but it will come as no surprise to game players that playing to win is not the objective of many players. Keep that in mind when you design your games.
Departing from the standard (card game) sequence of play
6/8/2017
The standard sequence of play makes a specialty card game easier to learn. But don't "settle" for it, your game may be better with something else.
Nuts & Bolts: How to get an improvisers's game from a planner's game
6/1/2017
I describe how I changed Britannia, an historical Planner's game par excellence, into an Improviser's space wargame, with just a few changes. Very different experience, essentially same underlying mechanics.
Ranking Sources of Information About Game Design Two parts
4/20/2017
The best way to learn is to make games. The second best way is to talk with (and listen to) other game designers, whether informally or in a class. After that there are many sources of learning, and I've ranked those in a two-part screencast.
Eight awful truths about game marketing
I ran across "10 Awful Truths about Book Marketing" online, and seeing the parallels with games, I'm discussing those Truths (including the two that don't apply). Another time I'll discuss some strategies you can follow to do your best in this environment.
There's no "Secret Knowledge" or "secret Sauce" (nor conspiracies) in Game Design
What do I wish I'd been told when I started designing games?
Aspiring designers sometimes believe that there's a secret formula to game design, and all they have to do is follow it. Nothing could be further from the truth. The delusion seems to be common in society these days, that there's a secret knowledge to any discipline. It's the kind of thing that helps fuel conspiracy theories.
I was asked this question in an interview. It doesn't much apply to me, I started more than 50 years ago, but I describe the advice I'd give people starting out today.
Nuts & Bolts: The Drafting Mechanic
Drafting (almost always, card drafting) is a common technique in games involving more than one side. The mechanic gives players a greater feeling of control, but takes time.
Foolish saying: "You get what you pay for"
"Conventional wisdom" sometimes isn't at all wise. Especially in games, but really in all facets of life, the saying "you get what you pay for" is foolish.
Elementary Statistics (Averages!) in Game Design
Game designers (tabletop or video) should understand elementary math, statistics, probability. So many people don't understand that "average" can have different meanings, that I've described the differences here.
Is game design about software? Heck no!
Many schools, colleges, universities, whether deliberately or accidentally, equate game design with game development. The first is about how the game is supposed to work; the second is about creating game software. Why deliberately confuse the two?
Nuts & Bolts: How a game can derive from a bit of another?
It's not unusual for a game to use a system that's been successful in another game. But sometimes one game grows out of a small bit of another.
Constraints in games from a player viewpoint (two parts) _zEo1Dt0JQ
Though contemporary gamers (especially video gamers) tend to dislike constraints, practically speaking games ARE merely sets of constraints. Properly specified constraints can make the game especially interesting. for the player(s).
Digital Game Pricing (2 parts) _67zmDtWQ
Some people suppose that there's a "solution" to (over)saturation of the downloadable game market. There are lots of schemes, but I don't see any solutions in this detailed examination.
RPGs: Stifling Creativity?
It seems too many DMs are guilty of letting players push them around, resulting in a waste of time while a player tries to convince the MD that such-and-such wildly unlikely occurrence should be assigned a decent chance of happening. When you enforce the game rules (and physics) you simply the game and keep it moving along, you aren't stifling creativity.
Yes, the dead-kobold wielder actually said "You're stifling my creativity." Poppycock!
Practical vs Reality
Game design is a series of compromises, and major compromises can occur when reality and what's practical in a game clash. Some "practical decisions" result in behavior that has next to nothing to do with reality.
Special Powers Card Games (SPCG)
Special Powers Card Games (Magic:the Gathering, Munchkin, many others) is a category that attracts many aspiring designers. But designers should avoid CCGs, and look at other kinds of SPCG.
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Charlemagne and "Yomi"
This is about two different and conrasting game playing styles. I use Charlemagne to represent "minimax" and "yomi" is a Japanese word adopted by David Sirlin to represent those who try to read the intentions and anticipate their opponents.
The Demise of "Favorite" Games
When I taught video game design classes I asked students about their favorite games. Turned out, many of them had no favorites, or could only pick the game they were currently playing. How different from many years ago. Here's why, which has a lot to do with changes in the nature of games and how people play them.
Why is it so hard to persuade people to playtest prototypes?
I've just added this video to my online course "Playtesting: the Heart of Game Design" (about 6.5 hours). Discount URL: -playtesting/?couponCode=PT25
This is by far the most comprehensive discussion of game playtesting in the world, to my knowledge. Converted to words, it's the size of a small novel, in 64 parts, including examples of playtesting notes I've taken over the years.
Flexibility in Games
A seldom-discussed aspect of games - especially tabletop games - is their flexibility. Can the game be played to varying lengths, by varying numbers of players? Can players join in after the game has begun?
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Most of my blog posts these days point to screencasts I've released on my YouTube Game Design channel. But a recent one is 3,500 words about game players and preferences, and types of games. "Ruminations on Types of Games and Game Players, Arising from a Sojourn".
I'm adding about 20 short classes (20 minutes to an hour) to Skillshare.com in the coming months. Skillshare is a subscription-based service, you pay the monthly fee (which they hide - I can't find it, it's either $10 or $20 a month, though I've seen 99 cents for first three months) and you can participate in any of their nearly 3,000 classes. Their approach is much more self-improvement and arts than the tawdry "get rich quick - nothing's as important as money" malaise that characterizes Udemy.
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