For those of You who Write/Design your own Games

[Jack7]

For those of You who Write/Design your own Games (or wish to) - what kind of games do you write, and why?

What kind of game design principles do you use?

What kind of game design theories do you like or use?

What kind of design elements do you like to include in your games?

 

[ender_wiggin]

Do you mean mechanical systems or narrative settings?

 

[Smoss]

- What kind of games do you write, and why?

Mostly fantasy, it is what I like to run. I wanted to evolve past D&D 3E, and made my own system. I wanted a system that captured a certain feel and style of play. I wanted more gim/gritty (But not Warhammer style "grimdark"), a flatter growth (farmer with a pitchfork is always dangerous), and I wanted something MUCH easier to play and GM.

- What kind of game design principles do you use?

Steal good ideas liberally.

But yes, I took some of the ideas I liked from other systems and used that as inspiration for my system. There is a little 3E, a little Star Wars Saga Edition, a little Savage Worlds, a little Conan d20, a little Mutants and Masterminds, and even a touch of 4E (added later) in my system.

- What kind of game design theories do you like or use?

I don't really. My older systems certainly show that. (Ive created quite a few over the years at various times for various reasons) - But currently, experience means design is MUCH easier now. I just "know" mechanics anymore and what effect a change will have. I still playtest to confirm and try to find any odd quirks.

- What kind of design elements do you like to include in your games?

I want something that ties well to the setting and/or feel of the game. AKA a Call of Cthulu system should help you to feel the horror. I want ease of play and GM-ing. I want a rule set the is coherent and runs on the same basic mechanic (No memorizing a bunch of separate sub-systems- everything ties together well).
Smoss

 

[Ycore Rixle]

I write RPGs because I love them. They're my favorite type of art. They spark my imagination and thought, they help me get together with friends, and they make me laugh and have fun.

Some game design principles: 1. The goal is to be fun to play and fun to read. 2. Most players have fun when they make meaningful choices about matters they enjoy. 3. The game must provide feedback to prove to the player that his choices and actions matter. 4. The game should involve as many players as possible as often as possible. 5. The game must be consistent. 6. The game should not be redundant. 7. The game is more than the rules. Trust the players. 8. Players should leave the game with a reason to play again.

Design theories: No unified theory, but various insights from sources as diverse as Sid Meier, Gary Gygax, and John von Neumann.

Design elements: Hm. I like to include elements that have a tangible, physical focus or presence. Dice are fun, minis are fun (though not when they're used poorly, of course). Tangibles help focus attention on the game. I also think good prose and good illustrations are important design elements.

 

[Spinachcat]

what kind of games do you write, and why?

What kinds? I like genre mashups. I enjoy blending fantasy & scifi a great deal and like taking new directions than other settings have.

Why? It must be a form of insanity.

What kind of game design principles do you use?

Make the game offer something new
Give players lots of options, but not too many to confuse them
Make chargen fast and simple
Make life easy for the GM
Make combat exciting and fast

What kind of game design theories do you like or use?

I read lots of game design and game theory and I don't know how much any of it sticks in my head. I am less likely to be influenced by RPG theories than thoughts on video game design which is clearly far more effective at pleasing players. There are also lots of lessons to learn from the boardgame world.

What kind of design elements do you like to include in your games?

"Simplicity with flavor" is extremely important to me.

 

[nedjer]

Adding, or attempting to add something, to what's already around is the first motivation/ consideration. Not in a severe all links, throw the baby out with the bathwater kind of way. But to keep it fresh.

 

[Jack7]

Do you mean mechanical systems or narrative settings?

I don't care. Indulge yourself. Whatever direction you wanna go.

I'm just interested in what people design into their games, what kind of games they design, how they go about designing, all that stuff.

(Though you don't have to limit yourself to just what I mentioned. Many times I think Geeks - and I'm not using that term disparagingly, just descriptively - get so caught up in the minor details of whatever they are attempting and in trying to figure out every last technical aspect of exactly what is meant by anything they work at that they limit themselves severely as to what they could actually accomplish. So as far as I'm concerned, delimit yourself. Approach the questions any way you like. Just say what you do, or what you think works, or what you'd like to work, and so forth.)

 

[Bedrockgames]

For those of You who Write/Design your own Games (or wish to) - what kind of games do you write, and why?

Settings: Usually settings and genres I am interested in and have a good working knowledge of. Nothing harder than having to learn about a genre in order to write about it. I also try to do subjects where I can exploit my research and reporting skills. So far we've done Counter-Terrorism, Mafia, Horror, Rome and we have a Fantasy game in the works. Our cutting roo floor is filled with westerns, sci-fi and time travel as well.

Rules: Right now we have one system we use for all our stuff. This was designed as a skill-based, rules light system because that is the kind of game we like to play most of the time. However we have toyed with all kinds of other systems for future projects.

What kind of game design principles do you use?

We have three basic design principles: the game needs to be playable (we want rules that don't fall apart or produce wierd results), we want the rules to produce plausible results for the genre (so if we are making superhero, we avoid mecahnics where the heroes die from a punch, if we are making horror, we want there to be rules for a more lethal game). Finally we like our products to stand out from one another, to have personality.

Beyond that there are a few other principles we keep in mind, but these do vary depending on the design goals of the game. For example in our current system we tried to create something that had some basic core concepts you applied to all aspects of the game. We wanted it to stay light so people could focus on the characters and the RP, without getting lost in the mechanics (this is probably due to my favorite adventure style being investigations and intrigue). What we try to do is make a system that fades into the background so you can have fun.

Also: playtest, playtest, and more playtest. Also like using readers and advisers (for technical details).

Also, Also: Scalability. I like including different settings for lethality and various mechanics in the game (most of our games come with three different character sheets to reflect this (each one with different levels of wound points). We also like to include plenty of optional rules.

What kind of game design theories do you like or use?

I used to look into some of the design theories out there, but I never really fell in love with any of them. These are basically just models for understanding game design. But that is all they are: models. I realized rather than worry about understanding someone else's model (which could be flawed or simply not a good fit for our style) we developed out own concepts based on what we were doing and trying to achieve. Some people have found things like GNS or Game Theory useful. I think that is great for them, but these things just never worked well for me.

What kind of design elements do you like to include in your games?

I am not 100% sure how you are distinguishing this from design principles. can you elaborate a bit on this one (since I may already have answered it in the design principles section).

 

[Cor Azer]

Although I've tried my hand at a few RPG systems, most of the time I prefer designing board and card games.

My most overriding principle is breadth of options rather than depth of options - many simple things are easier to learn than few complicated things, particularly if those simple things are mechanically similar. It's also pragmatic - if the game is only going to play for 1-2 hours, what's the point of designing complicated stuff that only gets seen in the last 5-10 minutes?

As for genre, I'm all over the place, historical to modern to future, fantasy to sci-fi, competitive to cooperative.

 

[nedjer]

I don't care. Indulge yourself. Whatever direction you wanna go.

I'm just interested in what people design into their games, what kind of games they design, how they go about designing, all that stuff.

(Though you don't have to limit yourself to just what I mentioned. Many times I think Geeks - and I'm not using that term disparagingly, just descriptively - get so caught up in the minor details of whatever they are attempting and in trying to figure out every last technical aspect of exactly what is meant by anything they work at that they limit themselves severely as to what they could actually accomplish. So as far as I'm concerned, delimit yourself. Approach the questions any way you like. Just say what you do, or what you think works, or what you'd like to work, and so forth.)

Indulge yourself OK

Some years ago I was doing a lot of work on cognitive psychology, holographic memory and learning systems. It was apparent how long it would take to make progress with what I had in mind using technology, so I turned to the inexpensive, versatile medium of RPGs. The resulting RPG is an adaptive cognitive model that uses:

modular design
parallel processing
synaptic junctions
attenuation of synaptic links
visual and semantic language systems, (i.e. grammar and syntax)
generates emergent properties

This may seem crackerjack mad, but it's how you're going to be playing your computer games and doing all your computing relatively shortly: HERE.

I happen to have access which makes it pretty sure that the chip development and games are currently unrelated. However, when these chips take over games will be programmed to integrate and cohere, with cognitive gaming becoming the norm.

One of the emergent properties of the model is that it generates new games/ forms of gameplay, e.g. our collaborative production ARG Renegade is a re-mapping of cognitive gaming from the imaginative gameplay world of RPGs into the real world, which (as soon as the site stablises and we can post more) is generating Renegade Legends - taking the gameplay across to the desktop.

If all that hasn't sent you into a coma the games are at Thistle Games. No costs and nothing complicated involved