Learn from my mistakes

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya,

I've been going over several design threads lately both here and on RPGnet.  There are some common questions I see newer designers raise that in the end, really don't matter all that much.  I recall when I was working on my first RPG design and having many of the same concerns and fears as they do.  I made a lot of mistakes back then because of stuff I was worrying about so much.  I realize now that many of those mistakes and concerns were pointless of worry over.  For the most part, I have overcome these fears and, in this post I hope to enumerate what they were and why they really don't need to be worried about.  That's basically the point of this rant.  The request will come at the end.

#1:  Don't include something extraneous in your game just to "please everybody."  Here's why:  you won't ever please everybody, and you certainly won't sell your game to everybody.  Does your sci-fi game need psionics to make it more appealing?  No!  If something like that enhances your game, great.  Put it in there.  But it's totally not necessary for the game to be complete, appealing, fun, marketable, or anything else along those lines (same goes for magic in a fantasy game).  Don't include something solely because you think it might increase your buying audience.  Chances are, it won't.  Focus on what your game is really about and use your mechanics to enhance that.

#2:  Don't worry about creating a whole line of products based off your initial game.  There's no good reason to do that.  You don't know how your initial sales are going to do, let alone any supplements.  Chances are you'll end up saving some of the really cool stuff for some later supplemental manual.  If that second (or third or fourth) book never comes out, people will miss out on all the fun they could have had with your game.  Why would you not want to include the really fun stuff in your first RPG anyway?  In addition, after your game has been on the market for a bit and some actual play has gone on, you may find that what you originally planned to expand isn't nearly as interesting as something new that's come up.  The future is way too unpredictable to *plan* on a whole line of products.  So don't waste your energies designing supplements if your first book isn't even out yet.

#3:  Speaking of books, don't get caught up in thinking that your RPG isn't a real RPG unless it's in printed, book 8.5" x 11" format.  PDF games are just as real, just as viable as printed games and cost a fraction of the start-up price.  There are plenty of outlets now for online sales of PDF games like RPGNow, Drivethru RPG, Lulu, and many more.  Don't fall into the trap of believing in the "my game will be better if it's bard bound with nifty color illustrations..." mentality.  Do what makes best business sense for you.  If it's going strait to print, fine.  If it's starting out as a PDF first, then super!

#4:  If this is your first RPG, don't make what creative agenda your game supports the first thing you worry about.  That will emerge from your design and the conversation process you have with folks at the Forge.  To be sure, the CA is important, but look at the Big Model illustration in the Provisional Glossary.  The CA is only one part of what a game is.  Don't obsess about it first thing.  Describe what kind of play you'd like to see for your game and go from there.  The people here at the Forge are excellent for helping you hash all that out.

#5:  Don't worry about people stealing your ideas.  That is not what the Forge is about.  The only way you're going to get useful feedback is if you divulge everything your game is about.  The people here aren't here to steal from you but to help you.  They can't do so with incomplete information.  Also, bear in mind that only a game text can be copyrighted, not the mechanics.  If people really do want to copy your design, there's not much to stop them.  And if your game really is so brilliant that everyone does want to emulate it, there can be no better advertising for you than that.  Everyone will be talking about your game as they go to write their own.  It's a win-win situation for you.

#6:  Don't obsess over the name of your game.  When it comes to sales, the name isn't going to make all that much difference.  Take "Sorcerer" for example.  It's a rather simple and plain title.  Ron didn't invent the word, and the idea of a guy summoning a demon has been around forever.  So why do we think that name is so cool?  It's because of what's between the covers.  That's what sells the book.  It's not a flashy or weird name, it's the content.  Now one may point out Vincent Baker's brilliantly named "kill puppies for satan" RPG.  It definitely has a name that grabs attention and one might thing that would lead to extra sales.  I'm pretty sure Vincent would back me up on this when I say that he wouldn't have sold half the copies he has if it weren't for the excellent play the content inside offers.  If a game sucks, it won't matter what the name is.  If it's great, the name will just be window dressing.

#7:  The last thing I'm going to list is don't worry about being made fun of or hated here at the Forge because of what you design.  That's totally not what people are here for.  Ron has worked very hard over the years to emphasize common sense and common courtesy in our posts.  No one's here to score points.  No one's here to ridicule others and build themselves up.  Well, I should say almost no one.  The occasional bastard that dos show up and act like a jackass gets moderated pretty quickly around here.  So don't worry about him.  Be brave, put your design out there and let us help you with it.

At some point I have made every one of these mistakes myself, and I'm sure plenty of others here have too.  But I don't anyone else to have to go through the crap I did.  It took me a long time to come to an understanding that it's okay to design the kind of game I like.  I don't have to be ruled by fear, I should be ruled by courage.  I hope that my meager words here have helped some.  We're all in this together.  Mistakes are okay as long as you learn from them, and it is my hope that you can learn from mine.  Nothing would make me happier.

My request is that others chime in with common mistakes that they have made too.  Everyone can learn and benefit from our experiences of the past, even the negative ones.

Peace,

-Troy

[Josh Roby]

If I may be so bold...

#8 Trust your Players to be Creative.  Assume that your players are just as creative or more creative than you are.  You do not have to provide every scrap of information that they will ever need to know; they're smart, they're creative, and they can fill in the gaps of what you provide.  The only thing you need to provide is a strong sense of setting, system, and character, backed up with evocative examples rather than didactic lists of facts.  If you do that job, your players will do their job, which is coming up with actual content of play.

[Brennan Taylor]

Wow, Joshua, let me just say how true #8 is. That was the wall I was beating my head against with my latest design. I had lists of creatures and powers, and was working on a massive spell list, when I finally realized that what I wanted was a resource players could spend to add their own content to the game, and then it all came together. In short, hear, hear.

[Paul Czege]

Great thread, Troy. Just chiming in for that. Thanks.

Paul

[dindenver]

Hi!
  Here goes:
#9 Don't change gears in mid-design. If you set out to make a rules-light system, stick to it until it is done. Once the first draft is complete, you can go back and revise it later if you come up with a more complicated, yet cool, mechanic.

[Saxon Douglass]

I'm new but here is something i've picked up:

#10. Only change something if you know how it currentley works, what it aims to acheive and what it actually does acheive.

If that isn't clear I'll use expand on that. The most common "houserule" for D&D 3.5e is to remove alignment. The thing you have to think about before removing it though is how it works mechanically and theologically, what it attempts to acheive mechanically and theologically and lastly what it actually acheives mechanically and theologically. Thing to remember si that you would have put something in, hopefully, for a reason and any change you make should take that into account. Adding in a combat system might seem to make your RPG better but if the idea was to foster socializing in the game you're shooting yourself in the foot.

I've certainly broken this rule myself :P

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya,

If I may be so bold...

#8 Trust your Players to be Creative.  Assume that your players are just as creative or more creative than you are.  You do not have to provide every scrap of information that they will ever need to know; they're smart, they're creative, and they can fill in the gaps of what you provide.  The only thing you need to provide is a strong sense of setting, system, and character, backed up with evocative examples rather than didactic lists of facts.  If you do that job, your players will do their job, which is coming up with actual content of play.

-Yep, that's a good one.  It took me a long, long time to trust the players too.  Designing Cutthroat without a GM was a HUGE step of faith for me.  I admit the design is very rough, but even getting it on paper was a stretch exercise for me.  I had never trusted the players like that before.  Now that I've done it, I realize that it's not so bad.  So yeah, good addition, Josh.

Peace,

-Troy

[TonyLB]

#11 is more about publishing, but it feeds into #12, which is totally about design:


#11 -  Know and value the people who will utterly loathe your system and want it expunged from the face of the earth.  If you are doing anything of value, somebody is going to hate it.  It's going to rub them just exactly the wrong way, and the more powerfully it does what it does, the more they're going to hate it.  That's one way you know it's good.

#12 -  Design your game with an eye toward how it doesn't follow advice.  Not gratuitously, not offensively, not pointlessly.  But you will get to a point in your game design where you say "I know that the right thing to do here is X, but all these smart, hip, helpful people are telling me that they'd do Y in my place!"  If you know (not just think, because of your past habits, but know in your gut) that X is the right thing to do then you must do X.  Otherwise it's no longer your game.

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya,

I'd say that some of the things folks are saying are really subsets of #7 of my list.  However, I think it is excellent that they be listed too.  Nothing wrong with explaining things a step further :)  I'd just like to add to Tony's #12 that he's totally not saying "Blow off the advice you get here at the Forge" because that would just be ignorant.  What he's saying is that if you have a clear vision, a design that you know in your heart or hearts will work and be loved by those who play it, then it's okay to not take the advice you get here.  But if you are not 100% convicted of what you are doing, then take what suggestions are given and consider them carefully.  He is right that your game is your game, and if you're not happy with it, then no one else will be either.

Peace,

-Troy

[Kirk Mitchell]

Just reading through this and all of the other threads popping up recently takes me way back to my first design attempt, where I made exactly the same mistakes. I'd pop up and say "this is a grand new game! Totally unique!" and people would very nicely and politely pummel me with questions until I realised that making a fantasy heartbreaker wasn't what I wanted to do! It metamorphosed pretty quickly into a (relatively) streamlined narrativist game that died only because of its obscure-as-all-hell conflict resolution system. So, from personal experience dindenver, I'd actually have to sit up and say that I don't really think that #9 is really neccisary. The design process varies from person to person. There is one thing though that is an absolute must whenever you design the game, and it is the area where I repeatedly fail (due to continual fluctations of my gaming group. Nothing can be more frustrating): Playtesting. Ground absolutely everything in actual play. Ron's been saying this for years (or at least ages), and I'm joining the chorus, but it is absolutely vital. The rules are not the game, what happens when people play the rules is the game.

Oh, and #8 is one of the most important things in designing a game, ever. Its a direct precurser to what is alternately called Emergent Properties, Fruitful Voids, The Elegant Art of Wabi as Applied to RPGs or Cube-With-One-Corner-Missing. Pick one that suits you best, but its the same principal.

Now, off to kick my brother's ass in an attempt ot persuade him to play with me...