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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Corone" data-source="post: 9527853" data-attributes="member: 6806393">There is no single way to design a game. The wonderful thing about this industry is that it is full of people trying out new ideas. But that lack of borders and a distinct path can be daunting. So here are a few of the ways I approach game design, but not in terms of numbers and system so much as deciding what your game actually is. One of the best ways to do this is ask yourself a few questions about what you really want the game to be.[ATTACH=full]388445[/ATTACH] <a href="https://pixabay.com/photos/book-game-of-thrones-imagination-5174879/" target="_blank">Picture courtesy of Pixabay.</a><h3>What genre are you working with?</h3>It will initially help to pigeonhole your game into a genre of some form. This is not to limit it but to cut down the noise of all the other games you probably have in your head. Marking it as a fantasy, sci-fi or swashbuckling game etc. will help you focus. Ideally, mix two together. Horror and Sci-fi gives you Alien, Westerns and Sci-Fi give you Firefly, mix pretty much everything together and you get Star Wars. Every genre has accepted styles and tropes, and while you shouldn’t let that limit you they provide you with a solid foundation to change and adjust, which is often easier than a blank page.<h3>Who are the characters?</h3>The player characters are going to be the driving force in your games, so who and what they are is a big part of the setting. Are they going to be highly experienced heroes (Leverage), rogues outside the system (Shadowrun) defenders of the established order (Legend of the Five Rings) explorers of the unknown (Star Trek) etc.? What drives the characters will drive the adventures. So you need to know what their goals and ambitions will be before you can create adventures.<h3>Crunch and Fluff</h3>Every good game needs a good balance of both of these things. A good system without a good setting won’t engage the players. A good setting without a good system will fall apart when the rules won’t let the player characters act as they want to. This is the main reason I utterly despise the terms crunch and fluff. It implies a complex and involved rules system is something you can get your teeth into and setting is just some extra cream on the top of your game rather than vital and foundationally important. If you have a good rules set and no setting, or a great world and no system, you do not have a game. If you are good at one and not the other, find a partner with the reverse problem. Very few people are good at both. Either way, put equal time and effort into both.<h3>Fit the rules to the style of play</h3>No matter how good the rules system you have in mind is, it needs to fit the game you are running. A game where you are all warriors and involves a lot of combat probably needs a more simulationist system. That way, different characters can use different tactics. But at the same time a combat focused game needs to be fast and easily resolved to keep the action going. We come back here to ‘what is your game about?’ What are the characters going to be doing? Whatever it is, they need a system that lets them do it in a way that helps immerse them in the game. If everyone is a scientist, you need a system that allows experimentation and layered tests so the players can feel they really are working a problem in a laboratory. Just making them make a single science test to create the vaccine will seem anticlimactic. Fast moving games generally need simpler rules, but planned action and detailed focus usually require more complex systems. There is no one system that fits everything, even though there are plenty that will function with most settings. This tailoring of system to setting is what makes the difference between a good game and a great one.I'll have four more tips in the next column.Your Turn: What else should you consider when creating a game of your own?</blockquote>

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