Don’t reinvent the wheel, being well versed in different RPGs

[Umbran]

Yes, very good point.

However if I had a choice between "play in convention one-shots knowing that experience is warped by being a one shot and won't show me what an ongoing campaign of this game looks like" vs. "don't play the game, just read it", I would choose the first option every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

Sure. My noting what an experience will lack should not be taken as a statement that you should not engage in that experience.

 

[Committed Hero]

Gurps

Hero system

These are the most comprehensive build-a-character-with-points games for sure. Someone who wants a holistic look at game design should check one of them out.

 

[Gorgon Zee]

If you want to design your own game, a "fantasy heartbreaker" or other type of game . . .

Sure, it would be helpful to be familiar with as many other existing games as possible, but . . . hardly necessary.

If you end up reinventing the wheel, and creating rules that are very similar to existing rules . . . who cares?

If your game design is tight and your game fun, it's well produced and finds an audience . . . good work!

If you replicate an existing system, but not as well, or you produce a game that no-one wants ... it's not going to find an audience. If your goal is a vanity project, sure, go for it. But if you want to find an audience, you need to work.

If I decide I want to write novels . . . should I spend time tracking down and reading all of the "classics" and "must-reads" that have come before? Or just start writing?

That's easy. Yes, you must read a lot. If you don't understand and appreciate good writing, your writing will be bad.

 

[rhythmsoundmotion]

I don’t think it’s been raised as a point in this discussion yet.
When you adopt or even copy a rule or subsystem of rules from somewhere it’s been play-tested (usually, I know there are crazy exceptions.)
-Than it is not a dead end (great sounding ideas can be terrible in practice.)
-The idea still needs play-testing but the designer has a general idea of how it should work (the idea works a specific way in its original game.)
-A borrowed idea can be tweaked to work correctly (having no idea how something should work can kill productivity.)

 

[Bedrockgames]

There are so many RPGs now that reinventing the wheel is just an inevitability of the numbers. I think it is good to play a variety of games, but I actually think the most important thing at the end of the day is to play your own game and really run it through the ringer as much as you can so you understand how it works at the table

 

[Deset Gled]

You do not need to read AND play several ttrpgs in order to design a good one. You need to study ttrpg design.

Counterpoint (kinda): Do not go to the internet to study game design. The signal-to-noise ratio is bad. You may ultimately end up spending more time unlearning bad lessons than you do getting good experience.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I will note - convention play will only get you experience with the basic rules dynamics. It won't tell you anything about how the game dynamics change with growth over campaign play, which is important for many designs.

This is why convention playtesting is not, IMO, as useful as it could be; it doesn't actually tell you how the game will play when people settle into it. It often doesn't tell you things you need to know about revealed preference during character generation.

 

[pemerton]

Blades in the Dark appears to be an example of:
-A (criminal or rogue) crew going on heists narrative
-Emergent Storytelling, players provide preparation details before heist and with flashback mechanics
-Everything and everyone is grey, morally ambiguous players in a corrupt world

-The dice system gives me a bit of a headache
-Uses clocks to mark progress of eminent events

-The setting city is a mixture of steam punk and fantasy elements
- Nobody passes into the afterlife and ghosts are everywhere
-Rival factions are almost all criminal and the police are corrupt and self serving

Blades in the Dark is a slippery system for me, listening to podcast plays of it and reading reviews leave me with tons of questions. A criminal player character campaign worries me as it seems the territory of self important murder hobo style play (though I assume Blades in the Dark prevents or limits this somehow?)

There are posters on this board who can say a lot about BitD - eg @hawkeyefan, @AbdulAlhazred, maybe @Manbearcat if he's about. I think your characterisation of it is a bit narrow or coming in from an odd direction - it's not just about heists; I don't think flashbacks are as central to the play experience as you suggest; and I don't think it's especially prone to "murder hobo" at all, given the importance of the faction game.

I'm not sure what you mean by "self important" - but BitD is oriented towards player protagonism rather than GM storytelling.

 

[rhythmsoundmotion]

I think your characterisation of it is a bit narrow or coming in from an odd direction - it's not just about heists; I don't think flashbacks are as central to the play experience as you suggest; and I don't think it's especially prone to "murder hobo" at all, given the importance of the faction game.

Probably because I don’t understand Blades in the Dark that well. And the podcasts plays I heard of it used flashbacks a lot.

If heists are not the main thrust of the game then I really would like to know the structure of games it supports (again I don’t know.)

And excuse me if I am wrong but I would believe anyone examining a game with evil or morally grey characters would be concerned about murderous excess at the cost of story cohesion.

 

[Dire Bare]

If you replicate an existing system, but not as well, or you produce a game that no-one wants ... it's not going to find an audience. If your goal is a vanity project, sure, go for it. But if you want to find an audience, you need to work.

That's easy. Yes, you must read a lot. If you don't understand and appreciate good writing, your writing will be bad.

I disagree.

I mean, yes, engaging as a reader can help you become a better writer. I would hazard a guess that very few writers are not also avid readers anyway. But should I track down the "important" or "classic" novels in the genres I want to write in, before I get seriously started on my own writing? It's not a bad choice, but also not a necessary choice. It would be easy to get lost in "preparing" for my craft as a writer and never actually getting started. Once I have started . . . I'm going to continue being a reader, and I probably will look to pick up some "classics" that I haven't already read, or would like to read again.

As a game designer . . . I'm not a fan of the term "vanity project". But it is important to decide what type of game design you are interested in doing. Do I want to create my own game? Do I want to create supplements for existing games? Am I fine creating design for D&D 5E only on the DM's Guild for beer money? Or do I want to make a living at this crazy profession? Those choices will inform how much I might want to study other games.

Like most writers being avid readers, I would assume that most aspiring game designers are avid gamers! Although, just like a reader can get stuck in one "comfortable" genre, a gamer might only play D&D or a small handful of games. Which is okay. If I am obsessed with D&D and really are only interested in creating products compatible with D&D . . . again, it can't hurt to become familiar with other game designs within and without the D&D-sphere, but hardly necessary. If I'm interested in someday creating my own game . . . it would benefit me more to study some of the more well-received games out there. But don't wait until you have studied all of the "important" games in depth . . . get started designing! And study games that interest you along the way, either from a genre or design perspective. Or because you want to play them with your local group!

Producing a poor quality game, or a game that "no one wants" is always a danger, no matter how many other games you've studied. I'm not worried about "replicating an existing system", well or poorly, plenty of games out there have both intentional and unintentional similarities, which is independent of quality.