Step One

[burner2501]

After listening to many podcasts and hearing about all these wonderful indie RPGs I checked a few of them out at Origins this year and took Burning Wheel (with Jihad due to Fred Hicks' description of it) and Don't Rest Your Head (because I love that Dark City/Neil Gaiman feel in a game) home with me. They are amazing! I love the uniqueness of the concepts that make the players (and GM) jump out and take a risk with their characters. Since then I have ordered a few more from IPR (Dogs in the Vineyard, Blossoms are Falling and Agon). I guess they won't ship until after GenCon due to when I placed my order but I am thrilled to watch for that box in the post.

Now, to the point. Over the years I have had inspirations to create settings for other games such as D&D. However, after reading all these other game systems I am itching to just make my own game. The unique concepts have me coming up with ways to steal them, twist them and come up with new ones that work toward a specific feel to fit a setting. Over the last couple weeks I have been scribbling notes for rules I like and how I want to play around the gaming table.

With all the indie games that are out there and how impressive they are, where does one start? I have few setting ideas at the moment but I have piles of mechanics ideas. I used to come up with setting ideas all the time but at this point I don't want to just create another version of a different game that already exists. I don't want to rehash a setting by just adding a new set of rules to it. This dilemma could end up dropping a brick wall in my way.

Thanks for listening to me natter on.

Victor

[Selene Tan]

Hi Victor,

Welcome to the Forge!

A good first step is to figure out what you want from gaming. There's an interesting "two lists" technique described here. One list is of things you like and don't like about rpgs you've played in the past, in a general way. The other list is of things you like and don't like about a specific session you've just played.

Or you can post in the Actual Play forum here about a particular game session you really enjoyed, focusing on what parts really made the game for you.

(BTW, the rest of the RPG Design Handbook is pretty good, even if it's not finished yet.)

[greyorm]

You learn more from failure than success. That's true in design as well. So don't be afraid of reinventing the wheel, because you will learn a great deal in the process of doing so. And don't try for perfection, don't stack yourself up next to these other games you've bought and played, because that's a good way to beat yourself down before you even start. Just design a game. And eventually, stuff will click and you'll come up with something you love.

[Nathan W]

Yeah, what they said (above).

Also, start small. I have some pretty ambitious plans for RPGs that I'd love to design, write, and play. For now though, I'm trying to develop a series of small RPGs first. Each of these is meant to be no more than about 20 pages of setting information and game mechanics, and are meant to be played over no more than 2 or 3 sessions. This gets me practice and experience designing a variety of games. With each game, I focus on creating just one particular kind of experience for the players during that session. It really gets me thinking objectively about what exactly I want a game to accomplish, and how I'm going to make it do that. When starting out in anything, set small, attainable goals. That way you can build momentum gradually and learn a lot along the way, instead of trying to tackle a mountain-like challenge right away and quickly losing steam.

I wish you the best, and look forward to hearing more about your endeavors.

[burner2501]

Thanks much to the three of you. I will have a look at those links. They do look like a promising read. In addition to them I came across a PDF on RPG game design structures by Whitson John Kirk III. It's got some good ideas and really breaks down structures well, but it can be a dry read, at least it's not too unlike the programming books I had to read in school.

I'll work on a list of what I want the game to do in way of feel and intention and what it shouldn't do and see where that takes me. At least I am learning to look at games and see how the components came together to make the whole and how they also affect the game's flavor.

[burner2501]

I've started working on what I like and dislike in roleplaying games and gaming in my blog. It's just a set of rudimentary lists at the moment but they will get refined as time goes on. Instead of retying it all out here again I thought I would just link it. When I have anything I need direct feedback on I can pop in here and give a post or two. I'll also start weeding through the posts here to see what nuggets others have come across and how they handled those unwieldy rocks that are bound to turn up.

Thanks for all the inspiration in this forum and thanks for all the inspiration from the many podcasts I listen to. (Checking my blog will give you an idea of the podcasts those might be.)

Red Box Geek

Victor