Formulating A starting Point

[DigitalDevilDog]

Hello everybody. Im not saying Im new to the gaming industrie, namely tabletop gaming, but I am how ever still green when it comes to game design, which is why Ive managed to turn up here, in hopes of getting more ideas and feedback to use in order to get my game idea up and going.

I cant say I have a whole lot of things written down for it already but I do have a few ideas Ide like to share of this game. First off the genre of the game is more or less a combination of Cyberpunk/Fantasy, in the sence that in my game there are elements like power armor and mecha and people who are able to use forms of magic, essentially its like the Xenosaga Series. I know for a fact that I'll want the character classes to have their own specific skill sets and the like, but Im condiering having a unilateral skill set with survival skills, entertainment skills, etc. Im also trying to figure out how to best impliment a magic skillset.

Also, I dont have much for the world exactly, but It is taking place on what we call Earth. There still remains some of the countries and continents although some may have been turned into deserts due to war and planet decay. Interplanetary Travel doesnt exist yet but the government and certain contractors have been working on it secretly for years now.

I know its not much to go on but this is all I can come up with on my own right now. Im not even sure what type of system I want to incorporate into it, be it like d20 style or Shadowrunstyle, or even the style used by Paladium games like Rifts or Robotech. Please give me as much advice as you can give, and I apologize ahead of time if I posted this in the wrong area.

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya Devil Dog,

Is there a real name you'd prefer me to call you by?  Anyway, I do a lot of work trying to help people who are new to game design get started.  I have several links I think you ought to check out. 

Socratic Design Anthology #1
Socratic Design Anthology #2
When is a Game Concept Ready to Become a Draft?"

Those are all links to my personal blog.  The first two are collections of older writings.  I encourage you to pay very close attention to the posts about the Big Three and the Power 19.  Those should really get you started.  I also recomend the final link as sort of a basic template for your design.  I'm sure you'll find things that you need to add or take away to suit your own needs, but I think it will be helpful in getting you started.   Once you have a look at that stuff, let me know if you have any questions and I'll be glad to help.

Peace,

-Troy

[Adam Dray]

The Power 19 can be a bit painful if you try to swallow it in one big gulp. Let's try it this way.

You've told us a little about what your game is about. Cyberpunk-Fantasy crossover. What do you want the characters to do in the game? Answers like "anything the players want!" aren't so useful. Let's assume and put aside the idea that players can make the game do lots of different things. What do you, as the designer, think is the coolest thing the characters could do in the game?

Also, can you tell us a little about your publishing goals for this game? Is it something you want to publish at some point? as a PDF? as print-on-demand? Is this a design you don't want to sell but do want to play with your friends?

[DigitalDevilDog]

Hmmm, now when you say 'what do you want the characters to do in game' that kinda means several different things to me. But If I understand the context, you arent referencing the character's skills persay, but you are inquiring to such things like teamwork, or in fact using their skills and given knowledge and the players' own thought patterns in order to accomplish the mission at hand. And the coolest thing that could be done in game, In my opinion is create their own mech (or Gear ala Xenogears/Saga) and have it tie into their character's personal story or the big picture all together. Not to mention being able to create skills/abilities that each player could call their own.

And as for the publishing goals, I originally intended to just create the core rules and test it out with my friends, the ones that game often anyway. And using their input refine it a bit, play with the refinements and when its been deemed decent enough, type it up in a format, probably PDF if not word/Excel documents. And yes I would like to try and sell this design, but if Im not, then it'll be just amoung friends.

[Adam Dray]

Hey, triple D!

I'm definitely not asking about character skills or anything like that. Let's say you and I are hanging out at GenCon next year and you tell me you wrote this awesome new game and need some help playtesting it and invite me to play. I ask you, "Oh? What kind of game is it? What do the characters do?" You shouldn't tell me about game mechanics. You should be pouring on the AWESOME, and say something like: "You play a team of human and cyborg scientists in a strange cyberfantasy world. You work together to understand a mysterious, alien threat and design mechs to help win a war against the outsiders. Then you play characters that are mech pilots and magical warriors and go fight the bastards with the stuff your other characters invented!" I have no idea if that's what your game is like, but that's the kind of thing I want to hear from you. Tell me what excites you about this game and what you want the play experience to be like as a character.

What is the "big picture" that you tie everything into? Is that part of the setting or something the players invent?

Then, once we nail that down, we'll talk about what the game is like as a player.

[DigitalDevilDog]

What the game would be like as a character? Well like I said before it would be kind of like Xenogears in away, the group will be a seemingly random collection of characters, possibly with some sort of conneciton between them. They would know about the alien object everyone is searching for but wouldnt do anything about it until they get caught up in a battle via some stray munitions and possible a crash landing mech or two. This would inevitabley force the characters to help seek out this device and find somewat to end the megacorporate war.

I was also thinking that maybe I should limit the number/type (s) of items able to be bought in shops since in this world, almost everything is sold at an extremely high price, and the only way to get it is to be apart of said warring faction of the Central Global Government, which leaves a majority of the people having to either build things themselves or steal them from the high-class types. Which is why I want to kind of stress the engineering aspect of the game as well as the character class of the same name.

[Adam Dray]

Okay, cool. Now what do the players do? What kind of decisions do they need to make? What knowledge might the players have that the (fictional) characters don't? Now you're really starting to design the game.

[DigitalDevilDog]

As in most games ive played, the players will have to cooperate with one another, for a majority of the game, and learn to accept other player's input on situations, otherwise things may turn sour later on in the game. And as for the player information that the characters dont have, Im not sure what to include in that section.

[Adam Dray]

Okay. I'm not entirely sure how to help at this point. I don't want to write your game design for you. Why don't you tell me a little bit about the design ideas you have.

What kinds of things do you think you need a game system to help with?

[DigitalDevilDog]

Not sure if I mentioned it before, but I have a point based character generation system to begin with, and Im in the process of including edges/flaws like in Shadowrun which also costs point. The edges/flaws are of course, totally optional but it would make the characters much more interesting to play. I also plan on using apoint based system for the mechs the character's own, so even if its just a starting mech, there can be some degree of customization involved in it.

Skill handling will be resolved like they are in Rifts, etc. A player rolls percentile dice and if he/she rolls over the percentage for the particular skill in question he fails but has an oppertunity in most cases to reroll but at a negative penalty. Combat is somewhat similar, and intitiation will be determined by several character stats plus the aid of a D6 or something similar.

Magic in the game will simply handle like normal mundane skills. I have yet to impliment a sort of damage system, as ive only been accustomed to two, the Stun/physical damage system found in shadowrun and the SDC/MDC system found in Paladium games.

[Adam Dray]

The challenge I see is making sure every player has the same play opportunities. If you have a mish-mash of character types -- some mech pilots, some scientists inventing mechs, some average joes getting swept up into artifact searches, and so on -- how do you make sure that every player has the same ability to contribute to the story?

Do you already have some of this game written? Can you post it here if it's short or elsewhere and link to it if it's long?

As for your damage system, how important is combat to the game? If only a small number of characters are regularly in combat situations, do you really need a detailed system to handle it? You could create a more generic system to handle conflicts of all types and give combatty-types some things to use to win those and give sciency-types some different things to win those.

[DigitalDevilDog]

Im still trying to figure out how the different characters can contribute to the storyline without making it one sided. Unless I have it as you sort of inadvertently hinted, everybody does their thing and gets experience for what they do, mech pilots for combat, the scientists/engineers for making and upkeeping the mechs the mech pilots use, and perhaps the so called average joes finding the materials the scientists need for the mech pilots machinery. Something like that.

And I dont have anything written down aside from character generation rules, which im still trying to iron out. And as for the damage system, combat is somewhat the focal element of the game. I mean you cant get anywhere in the story without fighting your way through the 'red tape'. Now it doesnt mean ithas to be mech on mech combat, it could be political combat, something to do with the government types, or it could be some mental conflict a character has such as trying to ignore a past that keeps creeping up on him/her and causing trouble.

Ide like to have a generic battle system, as I may have said before, so that I could further illustrate the importance of an individual's skills, be they scientific or combat oriented (magic goes both ways though.)

[Adam Dray]

Cool. Now you need to go write a game. If you have specific questions, people here (like me) can try to answer them but if I go further down the path I've started, I'll be writing your game for you and neither of us wants that.

Here's a suggestion: Turn this into a 24-Hour RPG project. I'm not saying you're going to finish your game in 24 hours. I'm saying that you should try to finish the bare bones of your entire game in 24 hours. It's a nice, long weekend for a lot of folks here in the U.S.  If you can put aside, say, 10-12 hours today and a few hours in the morning tomorrow, you can get 12-15 solid hours of writing down. Sleep like a normal person. Eat like a normal person. Do family things like a normal person. But see if you can't get a dozen hours of writing down.

With just 12 hours, it isn't going to be completely finished. It isn't going to be perfect. It isn't going to be pretty. Don't worry about the little details. Definitely don't worry about art and layout and all that crap. Go open Word or Wordpad or Notepad or whatever you have and just WRITE. Flesh out the big ideas for the entire game and fill in the squirrelly places with place-holders (like, "<< equipment chart here >>" or "<< need a way to give scientists appropriate skills during physical combat >>").

At the end of the day, share what you have. With any luck, it'll be 10-20 pages. That's enough to start talking about your game. Then we'll tear the shit out of it in the most loving manner and help you make it Awesome. I say "tear the shit out of it" because I'm going to ask you to justify every decision you made. =) Hey, you wrote the thing in less than a day, right? I don't expect it to be fantastic. I say "in the most loving manner" because I totally understand what it's like to write something and put it in front of people. On one hand, you want help and criticism and you want to make it Awesome. On the other hand, it's your baby. I'll be as nice as I can. Okay?

Even if you don't have time or willpower to do a 24-hour game, go write. There's a game that is like this terrible itch in your sock and it'll drive you crazy until you scratch it.