Call for InsightRPG beta playtesters!

Aug 03, 2024 9:04 am

Be a Playtester!

InsightRPG

A game system for roleplay tabletop exercises that is DnD 5e compatible.

What is InsightRPG?

InsightRPG is the working name of our game system that has been in development for 18 months, now opening up to public playtesting. This will be followed by editing, a facelift and then very likely launch as a kickstarter product.

It is a set of rules that will allow people to run roleplay tabletop exercises, improving the culture and practice of how we (humans) think and work together.

InsightRPG draws inspiration from the principles of traditional tabletop roleplaying games, merging them with the rigors of business strategy to create a dynamic, engaging, and effective tool for exercising strategy and risk.

For those not familiar with game systems…..A game system is a set of rules that can support any scenario, rather than a specific exercise or incident to respond to. Think of InsightRPG as the hardware (game system) on which you can run different types of software (any scenario or exercise). It is the structure and physics to support the narrative, plot, characters and the outcomes of their choices.

Our core design principles were to make this system:

Simple

To be understood in 10 minutes and not bog players down in complexity.

Familiar

To provide Game Master familiarity and confidence with game mechanics by not reinventing wheels. If you have played DnD, you can play this.

Modular

To scale in complexity to fit different situations and contexts.

Pragmatic

To be workable in many contexts.

Insightful

To be impactful and improve decision making.

This system aims to foster creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration in a team setting. It combines the dynamics and agency of gameplay with the practicality of real-world business situations, creating an immersive, practical experience that enriches your strategic thinking and decision-making.

InsightRPG encourages you to take on various roles, adopt diverse strategies, and collaborate to navigate complex scenarios. This dynamic approach provides a unique platform to unearth fresh perspectives, encourage insightful discussions, and stimulate innovative problem-solving.

The core guidebook will provide an understanding of the system's fundamentals, mechanics, and applications. It is a guide to help you simulate outcomes through discussion and probabilistic thinking over crunchy mechanics for various situations.

The game system is user-friendly and versatile, catering to beginners just starting with the system and experienced facilitators looking for a deep dive into advanced play with modular add-on rules.

Why make InsightRPG

First and foremost, We want to improve the practice and culture of tabletop exercising. Hobby gamers have skills that are strategic assets that are under-appreciated and under-utelised.

InsightRPG is a way for the millions of DnD players to bridge their skills and knowledge into the world of tabletop exercising, red teaming, roleplay, wargaming etc.

By using DnD like game mechanics as an on-ramp, we can introduce millions of people into the world of strategic tabletop exercising with transferable skills.

Creating a bridging rule system is one part of our efforts to unlock these skills and assets. Formalizing a ruleset creates a guide for the curious and a permission to bring this ‘side’ of ourselves to a serious environment.

The current culture of tabletop exercising has a vibe of being exclusive (only for seasoned elites or experts), expensive (must be big and flashy) and exhaustive (be such an effort they are only worth doing once or not worth budgeting for). (the three Es of the apocalypse). We want to change this to: Permissionless (anyone can run one), pragmatic (cheap and cost effective) and practiced (done regularly and part of the norm).

Secondly, we need to improve how humans improve the skills of decision making and strategy. These are skills that can be practiced, but rarely are in many fields. It is wild that we don’t practice decisions and scenarios more and attempt to learn insights from safe-to-fail and safe-to-try environments. We are quickly moving into a world where leaders and decision makers are outsourcing their thinking and we need to preserve this art. Outsourcing decisions to juniors, consultants and algorithms should make sense sometimes, but not always.

Thirdly, we need a place to start. Wargaming and tabletop exercising have long been strategic assets but have lost ground to digitalisation and complexity over time. We need to hit restart and go back to basics. Good, solid, simple simulation with pen, paper, dice and discussion. Strip everything away back to bare essentials to focus on the core aim: IMPROVE strategy and decision making.

How to get InsightRPG

As mentioned, this is where we currently are in the pipeline:

Past

Inception

Core design principle drafting

Game design and draft

Alpha testing

Beta testing

Present < YOU ARE HERE! >

Open to play testing

Feedback collection

Future

Feedback Reflection

Editing

Polishing and graphic design

Crowdfunding

Evergreening

And now we need YOU to help us see the forest from the trees. No matter how many times you reread and re-edit something, you have blind spots and lack an oblique and perpendicular perspective.

Please help us by applying here and we will send you the playtest docs.

We will aim to collect feedback separately but have a forum for playtesters to collaborate and compare notes and a direct line to us.

We are really excited about this and hope it is the start of something.

Best,

Dr Dan