Games in Games

Without going "all inception" about it, I've always actually really appreciated games that include other games inside of them. And they're everywhere: RPGs that include a collectible card game, the Mario Party series, and games like Sly Cooper. It doesn't matter how "meta" it is, if there is a good reason to include a mini-game in your game, do it!

As it applies to my project, and world-building as a whole, I've taken a good look at the different regions and cultures that I'm trying to make in the Land of Oriya. And, because my thoughts tend to always drift towards games, I thought about what kind of games the general population there would like to play. The end result was a couple of mini-games that I can splash into my book that help bring those cultures to life.

There's been a lot of research into how games and cultures relate; I'm certainly not discovering anything new here. However I found it very helpful to both create the games in accordance to their culture, and to fill in some of the details about the culture, much like designing games around a theme and vice versa.

Of course when doing this, there's a fine balance between corny and obvious and actually unique and interesting. I don't want to just throw drinking games at dwarves and gambling games at pirates. To help me do that, I also constrained myself to designing with only those materials you'd commonly find at an RPG gaming table: dice, pencils, paper, and potentially some playing cards (although Hostargo has no other use for playing cards). Okay - this is where it gets a little meta. But, I have to have a real purpose if I'm going to include the rules for these games in my actual book, rather than just mentioning them in a description.

I want to tie it all together - to include games that both enhance the setting of Hostargo, but are also actually playable at the RPG table. The book, after all, is about playing the game of Hostargo. So when would you play other games? When someone is missing from the party that day, when the pizza arrives, or when the GM uses the restroom. There's plenty of opportunity to engage in short or even longer terms games while already around the table. I want to capitalize on that.