Game Diaries

[theMonk]

Since starting my rpg over a year ago, I've been keeping a game diary to capture some of the creative process along the way.  I was wondering, however, if anyone could recommend someone else's game diary (or if anyone is even keeping one)?  I'm curious how much of what I've experienced is shared with others doing the same thing.  I've done google searches, but most are for computer games, not PnP, so if anyone can recommend one, I'd certainly appreciate it!

If you want to read mine, click here.  If you don't want to use Google Docs, you can also see summaries on my blog here.

Thanks for the help.

[theMonk]

Since this post hasn't gotten a response, I'm wondering if such game diaries are useful in any way.  Can anything be learned about studying someone else's process, or does each designer have to experience things entirely in their own way?

Discuss!

[fig]

Not that you can't learn anything from someone else's process, but I find that people do experience things differently. I remembered when I started designing, my original intention was to just retool d20 (and that spiraled into working on my own system). When I started, I talked a bit with a more experienced designer via rpg.net and he had started out exactly where I did. However, he ended up leaning towards more free-form storytelling games, and I less so. I did get a lot of good advice from him, but his process and mine diverged pretty early on.

[theMonk]

I think one of the things that interests me is not just the mechanics of another person's game, but the actual process (the ups and downs) of designing the game.  I mean, you see each game that's out there for sale, but each one has a story behind it.  I think if people can read these diaries and see that's there's a lot of effort that goes into it, including a lot of difficult times, then people might be better able to deal with their own issues, knowing that others have gone through it too.

[Jason Morningstar]

Hey William, there are a bunch of blogs and fora where people ruminate about their games in progress.  If you prowl around you might find some that are interesting to you.  Here are a couple I check out frequently:

http://mastermines.wordpress.com/
http://planet-sg.ogrecave.com/
http://www.rpgbakery.com/forum/

These aren't as detailed as your diary in any single case, but in aggregate might prove useful. 

[brainwipe]

In a sense the news of my game, Icar is a game diary as it's only me who writes it and I list all the things I've been up to a answer some email questions I get. The full news page is here and runs back to 2002. Before that, I didn't really bother publishing news.