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Ideas for game designs spring from unlikely places. In the case of Raptor Ruckus, the new role playing game crowdfunding in August, it came from a designer being told what not to do. We spoke with Zac Goins of Snapback Studios about what he hopes to build with his dino-centric RPG.
“Oddly enough,” said Goins, “it was from one of my best buds telling me that Jurassic Park wouldn’t work well as an RPG. That kind of stuck in my craw for a year or two, kind of like a puzzle that I couldn’t put down. Last year, it finally clicked on how it could work, and from there, I brought together a handful of folks that I knew were dino-freaks like me. That really got the momentum going.”
Raptor Ruckus takes design cues from the MORK BORG family of games. There are a few distinctions, such as changing out the bold color of the original for the sunset pastels of the 90s when the first Jurassic Park movie was released. It also leans into survival horror vibes much like Dino Crisis video games that came out soon after.
“Honestly, I was initially averse to using Borg,” said Goins, “but its attitude and vibes were too good a fit. Raptor definitely isn’t a combat game, though, or a crawler; it’s survival horror. It’s chase scenes, and hiding, and just trying to escape the island, and every once in a while you’re pulling a trigger. We ended up honing in on the Morale-system of Borg and redefining it as “Tenacity”. That area of the game has been expanded out and gives your PCs a lot of options for navigating an encounter other than just knives and ammunition. Other than that, I think our Chaos Charts, multiple Broken Tables, and Vehicle Rules (which we cribbed partially from Wasteland Degenerates) are pretty funky. We’ve taken to calling Raptor an “Advanced Borg” in the spirit of AD&D vs. B/X. It’s slightly more complex than you’re accustomed to, without going too far in that direction.”
Borg family games have often struggled to maintain long term play. Characters are fragile and usually running through settings that are five minutes from apocalypse. Goins looks to change with a storyline about escaping their dinosaur island.
“Traditionally,” said Goins, “Borgs have the problem of not appearing campaign-friendly. Even outside Raptor, it’s my goal to show how it can be done. We’re actually working on a Pirate Borg campaign book right now as well. The big challenge is helping the GM tell a compelling narrative while still maintaining the flexibility and discovery the community has come to expect.
Our campaign book, Fragmentation, is about 8 set-piece-style adventures that can help you tell the story of trying to escape Site A island. It’s not really a sandbox—though that would have also worked well—but it’s also not quite a linear path. There are branching options and not a lot within each adventure itself that you’re required to present. The biggest win of it is that there’s a lot of flexibility for you to fill in the space between these set pieces with designs of your own. As it is, Fragmentation should take a group about 10-12 sessions to work through, which I think is a nice length for a clean campaign.”
As the Jurassic Park franchise rolls on, it dips further and further into science fiction. Famously, there was a potential sequel featuring human dino hybrids that didn’t get made. The current campaign looks to keep things simple but Goins didn’t rule out wilder ideas further down the line.
“We’ve scoped out and outlined a few follow-up books including two more campaigns,” said Goins. “As long as this project does well, I can promise you a lot more Ruckus in the future. This first set of books sticks pretty tightly to traditional [Jurassic Park] vibes. We don’t go too far down the road of mutations, military gear, or mega fauna, for example. The follow-up books would explore those areas.”
