I mention these trends not to mock them; they are often viable and worthwhile ideas or a phase we all go through in learning. But if these seem familiar you may want to take a step back and have another think.
Fantasy Heartbreaker
This is often a starting point for any nascent designer, but it’s also called a heartbreaker for a reason. Such game ideas are usually an attempt to ‘fix’ a favourite game, often D&D. The designer hasn’t experienced enough other games and so fails to see that what they consider a new game is really just a few rules amendments.While it’s a common stage of game design it’s not a bad one. But that’s as long as the designer learns the lessons it teaches. Firstly that what you might consider a fix, others might see as breaking it. Secondly that a new game needs to be new, an insight gained by reading and playing as many games as possible which every designer should always do.
I should note though, that a fantasy heartbreaker need not be fantasy, or about the rules. We have seen several games trying to ape the style of World of Darkness games. Just because you are not a D&D player it doesn’t mean you can’t fall into the same trap.
The Greg Stafford Rule
This rule, coined by John Wick, is usually the second thing a nascent game designer comes across. It states that “Whenever you think you have created a clever new rule, Greg Stafford probably thought of it first”. It’s easy to do when you’ve read a lot of games as you forget where you read everything. Rules sink into your brain and so you think you might have had a moment of inspiration instead of just remembering something you read ages ago.But don’t sweat this; it’s actually a good thing. Sure, it sucks to find out you haven’t been the first to think of something but it does mean you are figuring out problems in your game the same way some of the best professional designers have done. In some cases you might not entirely be stealing an idea as having found the best solution. Consider convergent evolution: when different species independently develop similar characteristics to an environmental challenge, ending up with similar (but unrelated) solutions to the same problem. Sometimes this is the same for game design.
Forgetting Not Everyone is a Designer
On a related point, when you get enthusiastic about a system, especially if it is a narrative one, it is easy to get too excited about its possibilities. You might have a system where you can use any word to get a bonus or roll an amount of dice equal to how well someone describes the environment. There is nothing wrong with this; in fact I’d love to play that sort of game. But while this might make a very simple system you can write on two pages, you have a lot more work to do. The more vague and narrative the system (or complex and subtle the game mechanics) the more examples you need to add. Not everyone will understand the system from just the description; they need to see it in action. If you have a system using words, you need to offer a long list of several words you might use and how they can apply. With rules, write an example showing how one of the clever subtleties can be used. As a side note, if while thinking about an example you realise there is a situation where the game doesn’t work, don’t brush it under the carpet, figure out how to fix it!Despite role playing being among the most imaginative and creative people, not everyone is able to just jump into a game or pull narrative out of a hat at a moment’s notice. When we made the Doctor Who game I remember talking to people at conventions who would ask “So what characters can you play?” to which my answer would be “Anything you like across all of time and space!” For me that’s a selling point, you can play literally anything or base a character on anyone in the series across 60 years. But for many people that was just a scary option with no direction to help them out. The same applies to rules and system. So whatever your game is like, write examples, for everything, a lot.
Your Turn: What early phases of game design have you stumbled across that didn't work out?
