Expanding On Game Design [Learning From Game Designers]

[Art Waring]

Hi folks, Hope you are having a good day.

Today I would like to talk a bit about game design, but not specifically limited to ttrpg's, as I personally find that studying as many different kinds of games can help to become a better creator of games in general. Understanding game mechanics from a variety of games (IMO) can help to grant you a wider range of problem solving techniques that you can apply to your game design.

For example, the first game I designed was a tiny little zombie card game, complete with extensive rules covering characters, locations, and how monsters behave. While it never did get published, I learned a lot about designing games that incentivize certain types of play-loops.

Anywho, this thread is about other kinds of games (like card games & board games & even video games), and how you can learn from their designs to better understand how to create a game that can focus on achieving what you want.

To start off, I will post a video by a new(ish) youtube channel the "Distraction Makers," a pair of game designers (one is a AAA game dev, the other is an indy designer). I think that they have a lot of good insight into game design, mechanical interactions, and evaluation of game designs. Here is a video discussing their attempts to make a system to evaluate game design. It is just an interesting approach so I thought I would post it here.

+Special shout out to @Scribe, as I know you were once into MTG, I thought you might like to see what designers are talking about these days (about how the game has changed). I don't personally engage with MTG products anymore, but I do still have a few EDH decks, and I still occasionally like to play a game with friends to take a break from ttrpg's.

P.S. Final Thought: As complex as MTG has gotten recently, ttrpg's look much easier to run in regards to having to remember the board state (something which can now become quite difficult with walls-of-text cards becoming the norm).

 

[Scribe]

Not bad. I see their channel has a lot of MTG, and that is a dangerous thing for me. I agree with a lot of what they are saying, and I think they touched on something perhaps inadvertently that Magic was doing great, that they (Wizards) harmed in a very real way.

Later in the video they are discussing how depth can be added iteratively, in MTG via new cards/mechanics, and what the addition of that card does to the game (format/ecosystem).

When Wizards decided to jump the shark, they overpowered things to a degree that actively harmed the depth, it was like invasive species being introduced that destroy an ecosystem.

Is Magic a good game? I still think its one of the best games of all time, and the FIRE approach amounts to essentially cultural vandalism.

 

[Art Waring]

Not bad. I see their channel has a lot of MTG, and that is a dangerous thing for me. I agree with a lot of what they are saying, and I think they touched on something perhaps inadvertently that Magic was doing great, that they (Wizards) harmed in a very real way.

Later in the video they are discussing how depth can be added iteratively, in MTG via new cards/mechanics, and what the addition of that card does to the game (format/ecosystem).

When Wizards decided to jump the shark, they overpowered things to a degree that actively harmed the depth, it was like invasive species being introduced that destroy an ecosystem.

Is Magic a good game? I still think its one of the best games of all time, and the FIRE approach amounts to essentially cultural vandalism.

Thank you for your insight, I agree 100% about FIRE design, and that is part of why I avoid new MTG stuff (just look at that new Nadu card jeez). It is also why the Distraction Makers are often critical of MTG's recent designs, as they realize that it is harming the long term life of the game for short term profit (as you say, cultural vandalism for the sake of profit).

One of the problems Wotc faced with FIRE design was that the most popular format (commander/EDH) is an eternal format where the cards never rotate out. Their attempted solution was to power creep cards to replace older cards (something that I am not fond of). If you look at the current meta, they have essentially forced rotations to formats like EDH. I am not a fan to be sure, as many of my old cards tend to become increasingly obsolete.

Fire design is hurting the game, but I think that there are still a lot of things we can learn from different games and different approaches to game design. MTG in particular is a very complex game (& getting more complex by the day), and I think understanding how it is (or was) designed can help to avoid the same pitfalls.

As for the channel, I enjoy their conversations because they are both being critical of games (that they still enjoy playing), and applying honest evaluations of how games work. For example. a lot of their video's discuss how game systems incentivize certain types of play. This helped me to analyze how my own game I am designing incentivizes certain types of playstyles over others (for example my game incentivizes close combat as part of simplified zones instead of range/ distance).

P.S. Here is another channel I follow, the Architect of Games. I tend to study various types of game design (& just general game design theory) to get little bits of wisdom as I find them, as the ttrpg world of youtube is often times just not helpful (as they are typically focused on particular things like "5e only" optimized class builds or "top ten lists" or other things that have little relevance to the nitty gritty bits of game design).

Furthermore while I am very familiar with the dnd system (and have been discussing things like linear fighters and quadratic wizards for decades), I am now finding that other types of game design can expand upon what I have learned (often in ways that I didn't expect). For example, countless threads have been made here & elsewhere discussing the difference between fighters & wizards, but I have never seen a discussion on how the system itself incentivizes this, and its effect on player behavior.

Hope you have a good day.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Great post, @Art Waring

I think that there is a lot to be learned from how other games are designed. Maybe not always things that are strictly applicable to TTRPGs, but broad principles.

The only thing I would add is that the best teacher is experience. I learned a lot about game design when I started designing my own (very light!) games. It's easy to talk about game design, but it reminds me of the old quote-

Critics are men who watch a battle from a high place then come down and shoot the survivors.

Trying to put the principles into action really helps you understand the tradeoffs involved- even when you're designing for a group that you know. It's that much harder when you're releasing it out to the world.

 

[Scribe]

One of the problems Wotc faced with FIRE design was that the most popular format (commander/EDH) is an eternal format where the cards never rotate out. Their attempted solution was to power creep cards to replace older cards (something that I am not fond of). If you look at the current meta, they have essentially forced rotations to formats like EDH. I am not a fan to be sure, as many of my old cards tend to become increasingly obsolete.

The problems with FIRE are many. I have bleated about this before and could go into it in depth but even I find myself annoying on this subject because I have a visceral reaction to Magic, always have since I was a kid.

I still believe that the game itself, the core gameplay loops, the variance (I could rant about that as well) the collectability, the art, the whole package, quite literally everything about it, is near best in class. It is physically painful to me what they have done to the game.

 

[Art Waring]

Great post, @Art Waring

I think that there is a lot to be learned from how other games are designed. Maybe not always things that are strictly applicable to TTRPGs, but broad principles.

The only thing I would add is that the best teacher is experience. I learned a lot about game design when I started designing my own (very light!) games. It's easy to talk about game design, but it reminds me of the old quote-

Critics are men who watch a battle from a high place then come down and shoot the survivors.

Trying to put the principles into action really helps you understand the tradeoffs involved- even when you're designing for a group that you know. It's that much harder when you're releasing it out to the world.

Thank you for contributing Snarf! I agree that experience is the best teacher, and that's why I started this thread, to try and help game designers broaden their horizons, not just beyond 5e or ttrpg's, and hopefully exposing folks to the greater world of game design.

It's that much harder when you're releasing it out to the world.

This video below makes a good point about the difference between digital and physical games. That physical games like ttrpg's & card games require that the game is thoroughly tested, edited, and 100% ready to play out of the box, because once that game is sent off to printers it is too late to make changes (& nobody likes having to erratta their work at a later time).

Contrast that with digital games & video games, which are sometimes released as beta's, full of bugs, rushed to production, and often lacking polish (which they may provide with later updates). Physical games require a heck of a lot of work to realize as a finished product. Digital games do as well, but physical games require a completely different mindset (in regards to production).

Hope you have a good day.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

This video below makes a good point about the difference between digital and physical games. That physical games like ttrpg's & card games require that the game is thoroughly tested, edited, and 100% ready to play out of the box, because once that game is sent off to printers it is too late to make changes (& nobody likes having to erratta their work at a later time).

Contrast that with digital games & video games, which are sometimes released as beta's, full of bugs, rushed to production, and often lacking polish (which they may provide with later updates). Physical games require a heck of a lot of work to realize as a finished product. Digital games do as well, but physical games require a completely different mindset (in regards to production).

I can't even imagine a software developer (with that process) trying to release a physical product. Different mindsets.

I don't have a lot to contribute (I am notably deficient on M:TG conversations) but I did start a series that I never finished talking about some of the physical aspects of TTRPGs.

D&D General - What Does the Choice of Dice Mean for the RPG? (+)

This is a first post in what I hope to be a continuing series looking at some of the basic ideas behind TTRPGs (hereafter "RPGs"), design, and theory. Note that this is a "+" thread. For purposes of this thread, please do not discuss anything related to the Forge, Ron Edwards, or Forge...

www.enworld.org

The reason I mention this is that it has a link to a syllabus by a professor who was teaching a class on the history of, and making, physical games. I think you might like that!

 

[Art Waring]

The problems with FIRE are many. I have bleated about this before and could go into it in depth but even I find myself annoying on this subject because I have a visceral reaction to Magic, always have since I was a kid.

I still believe that the game itself, the core gameplay loops, the variance (I could rant about that as well) the collectability, the art, the whole package, quite literally everything about it, is near best in class. It is physically painful to me what they have done to the game.

I agree 100%, however, I personally find that I can still enjoy the game by playing alternative formats. Cube is for me the best way to play mtg because you get to curate what cards are used. You can go full on A/B/U & Power 9, or pauper with block restrictions, you decide what is not allowed (so you can cut off any cards made after 2010's for a cube better suited to your preferences). There are still plenty of ways to enjoy the game without suffering from the current situation.

I also hope that I am not getting you annoyed (as I know your outlook on the situation), personally I think that card games, particularly ones originally designed so well, will endure over time. I don't know if you are familiar with star trek ccg (originally made by Decipher), but despite them going out of business years ago, their star trek card game is still alive and well thanks to the star trek continuing committee, a website that has an archive of the entire library of cards made by decipher, and also a massive growing library of player-made custom sets of cards that go through the committee to rule on balance and such. Despite the fact that the company is long gone, the game still endures and is still played among friends. I hope that some day the same will happen with MTG, where the community designs cards for the health of the game, not for profit.

Hope you have a good day Scribe.

 

[Art Waring]

I can't even imagine a software developer (with that process) trying to release a physical product. Different mindsets.

I don't have a lot to contribute (I am notably deficient on M:TG conversations) but I did start a series that I never finished talking about some of the physical aspects of TTRPGs.

D&D General - What Does the Choice of Dice Mean for the RPG? (+)

This is a first post in what I hope to be a continuing series looking at some of the basic ideas behind TTRPGs (hereafter "RPGs"), design, and theory. Note that this is a "+" thread. For purposes of this thread, please do not discuss anything related to the Forge, Ron Edwards, or Forge...

www.enworld.org

The reason I mention this is that it has a link to a syllabus by a professor who was teaching a class on the history of, and making, physical games. I think you might like that!

Thank you for the link I will check it out!

 

[Scribe]

I agree 100%, however, I personally find that I can still enjoy the game by playing alternative formats. Cube is for me the best way to play mtg because you get to curate what cards are used. You can go full on A/B/U & Power 9, or pauper with block restrictions, you decide what is not allowed (so you can cut off any cards made after 2010's for a cube better suited to your preferences). There are still plenty of ways to enjoy the game without suffering from the current situation.

I also hope that I am not getting you annoyed (as I know your outlook on the situation), personally I think that card games, particularly ones originally designed so well, will endure over time. I don't know if you are familiar with star trek ccg (originally made by Decipher), but despite them going out of business years ago, their star trek card game is still alive and well thanks to the star trek continuing committee, a website that has an archive of the entire library of cards made by decipher, and also a massive growing library of player-made custom sets of cards that go through the committee to rule on balance and such. Despite the fact that the company is long gone, the game still endures and is still played among friends. I hope that some day the same will happen with MTG, where the community designs cards for the health of the game, not for profit.

Hope you have a good day Scribe.

No I dont get annoyed by folks talking about it, I'm annoyed it happened but I still really love, perhaps the IDEA of Magic, or what it potentially could still be. Other formats, cube, EDH, all that stuff is still great.

MTG could absolutely be saved by the community if there was a will to do so. The game itself is still great, Wizards in their greed just damaged the historical fabric of the game.

The part that I cannot get over, is that they knew what they were doing. I know in the deepest, darkest corner of my soul, that Maro and Forsythe knew exactly what FIRE was going to do to the game, and they did it anyway to hit a bottom line that Cocks set for them and its embarrassingly upsetting to me still to this day, and I've been out of the community/game for 5 years or something.