Our big invisible brain

[C. Edwards]

I was wondering if any games have been designed completely "on The Forge".  Granted, a whole lot of input is often gathered here but have any games been designed from beginning to end by The Forge community as a whole?

If not, I think it would be a fun and enlightening project.  A base concept could be proposed and design could go from there.  An individual or small group would probably need veto power to keep the too many cooks in the kitchen syndrome at a reasonable level.  And as long as it's understood that nobody should feel slighted if their ideas don't get used I think it would work.  Maybe there could be a vote on the various aspects of the design.

Is anyone else interested in this? Would the logistics be too difficult to organize? Any obvious reasons I'm missing why this wouldn't work?

-Chris

[Zak Arntson]

Sorry, but I'm a naysayer on this one. A "Forge" roleplaying game wouldn't be the product of the Forge, considering the wildly varying theories and approaches to game design we have. But then, are you proposing that the Forge be a forum to design this game, or the game is a "Forge" game with some kind of solid connection to the forum?

If you're thinking more on a portion of designers, who also happen to be Forge members, designing a game openly on the Forge and open to input by other members ... well, that's the kind of thing that goes on all the time here. I've designed several games purely through Forge threads, and so have many other members.

[Zak Arntson]

That said, I thought I would add that you can certainly start a project with the intention of holding some sort of ownership/control and use the Forge as your sounding board. Nobody will stop you there and I'd be more than willing to help out.

I've been on several collaborative projects, and my experience is that a successful collaboration needs to have a single person in charge (or a few that get along _really well_) with supreme (but benevolent) control. People who submit must understand that their work is under complete control of those in charge. It's the benevolent dictatorship model.

[kevin671]

I'm using the Forge to design an RPG right now as a kind of experiment.  It seems to be working pretty well, although I've only had comments from like two people so far.  So, I don't really think that it's a good way to design an RPG.  Now, if you want to bounce ideas around it's great for that.  Still, I have had a decent amount of success in large part due to the Forge, the tips and ideas gleaned here are invaluable.

[talysman]

I'm using the Forge to design an RPG right now as a kind of experiment.  It seems to be working pretty well, although I've only had comments from like two people so far.  So, I don't really think that it's a good way to design an RPG.

yes, there are certainly problems with developing an RPG -- or anything -- as a group project. I remember when I hung out on alt.language.artificial, we had a group language design project going on that sort of bogged down when we got to morphemes. someone was delegated to produce something at that stage and the "delegee" never completed the task, so nothing further was done.

[C. Edwards]

Eh, well, it was just a thought.

Delegating would be missing the point.  Besides one person to instigate discussion on various system elements and to tally votes for each recommendation, no other delegation would be needed.

I suppose that is too similar to what is often done here already though.  It would just be acknowledged in a different way I guess.

I'm so good at talking myself in circles.  I should experiment with different flavors of lingual geometry.

-Chris

[contracycle]

I think there are many potential pitfalls in this process; as others have said preferences and theories are very diverse.  OTOH, nobody builds a skyscraper by themselves, right?  Almost everything in human society is a result of collaborative action.  What it would need, however, is a very explicit social contract, and probably some pushing of ideas around before a plan is hatched and a "team" agreed to make it happen.  Generalised "lets design a game" has no focus and will wander badly; comething like "lets devise a Gamist RPG centred around the imperial politics of late Byzantium" would have a much better chance of coming to fruition.

[kevin671]

What if you are a one man show with no website?  I'm not looking for "team" to design an RPG, but a "sounding board" for my ideas, and possibly ways to improve them.  Pretty much all of the work I've done so far has been through posts to the Forge.  I've just recently written out a lot of what I came up with in a seperate location.

[Mike Holmes]

Actually, we did do this way back when we were all over at Gaming Outpost. It was a sci-fi thingie inspired by Space 1999 which I call Space 2099. The premise is that the characters are important members of a moonbase crew when the moon gets thrown through a wormhole or something similar and into other systems at varying intervals. You can probably still look up what was done at GO, and I still have it written up, as I kinda took control of it after it died on-line, and nobody laid claim to it. I'll post 'em if anyone is interested.

It was somewhat interesting. Some people jumped on the bandwagon right off, and the more one participated, the more one influenced the direction it went. In the end we had around ten people contributing, some more, and some very little. There was definitely a sense of "alternate versions" getting created in people's heads as we went along, however, as somebody would have an irreconcilable difference with the current direction. However, the majority would rule as far as continuing work, and things moved along for a while. Then it just seemed to get to a point where the mass of compromises aparently failed to seem appealing to anyone anymore, and it just died.

We also started a second one there, which ended up with the title FantaSea, that I am still theoretically working on with a couple of people in a Yahoo group. The work moved there when it appeared that the number of people working on the project had stabilized at four. That said, this project too has stalled for the nonce.

So, I think that it might be difficult to create such a game and work it through to completion in an environment like this. There is also the queston of what would be done with it if one did (I suppose we could give it to The Forge to freely distribute, or even to charge for if it was good enough).

OTOH, it makes an interesting discussion, IMO. Just a flexing of creative muscle, as it were. So I suppose I'd be up for another go. I'd just warn people that collaborative efforts aren't always what people think they'll be. While rewarding, they can also be intensely frustrating, especially with more participants.

That said, I'd ask the moderators if we had their blessings first. As it just might not fall under the purview of the forum specifications, as we are only supposed to work on games that are in real production. That is, if it's just an excercise, then I could see them saying that it doesn't belong here. Ron, Clinton? What say ye? If we can't do it here, can we do it over in Theory? As a sort of demonstration?

Mike

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

This thread is already almost more suitable for Theory anyway. The issue breaks down as follows.

1) If one person or a small designated group of people are designing a creator-owned game and using the resources of the Forge forums to get feedback and suggestions, he should do it right here in Indie Design. That ain't more nor less than what already happens here.

2) If people are experimenting with some "group creation" process just to see how it works and so forth, then it belongs in RPG Theory.

Best,
Ron

[Paul Czege]

Then it just seemed to get to a point where the mass of compromises aparently failed to seem appealing to anyone anymore, and it just died....So, I think that it might be difficult to create such a game and work it through to completion in an environment like this.

Something you might consider is coming up with an algorithm that allocates a number of votes to registered Forge users. Perhaps a calculation based on a user's total posts, or on how long they've been registered. Then decide on how many votes it takes to pass a specific proposal. The idea would be to put those who feel strongly about a specific proposal, but who lack enough votes to secure its place in the design, in the position of lobbying for its approval. You might thereby encourage an ongoing influx of new interest in the effort, rather than a bleeding away of interest.

You should, however, probably allow less-interested users to proxy their allocated votes to users actively involved in the project, to avoid ongoing, annoying "get out the vote" efforts.

Paul

[Mike Holmes]

Hmmm. I'm not sure that making people hustle to get their ideas accepted on a project will make them more amenable to participating. Or do I miss your meaning?

Given my post total, I am certainly all for the one vote per post idea. ;-)

But in reality I don't think that's fair. If it were a democratic process, I'd say one vote per individual.

I'm just no tconvinced that this is what such a project needs. The problem as I see it is that nobody has a vision for the project. As an amalgam, it's composed of all sorts of mini-visions. As such it matches nobodies, and despite even being a quality idea perhaps in principle, nobody has a real idea of where the design is going. So at a certain point when the work comes due, nobody wants to do that part.

Everybody is an idea man. Few want to do the hard parts of a project that's not their brainchild. This, to me, is the major stumbling block in completing such a project.

Mike

[Paul Czege]

Hey Mike,

I'm perfectly willing to defer to your experience. I've personally never participated in one of these collaborative design efforts. And I can totally see them proceeding and stalling out, just as you've described. My suggestion was based only on my recognition that when someone is encouraged to spend the currency of their vote on something (e.g. a political candidate) they develop an interest in supporting it, and follow it with greater interest as time goes on.

But as I re-read your posts, I realize the interest of non-contributors isn't the problem. You're saying that active contributors lose interest in doing work on a collaborative project, as it becomes diluted by compromise. In light of that, the voting idea is probably a bad prescription on my part.

Paul

[C. Edwards]

Ron,

This thread probably should be shuttled to theory.  Maybe a project will stem from the discussion, maybe not.  If I had been thinking then I would have posted this in theory myself. Sorry about that.


Mike,

I can imagine the effect that dilution and compromise would have on enthusiasm and the design of the end product.  There are some pretty good examples sitting on store shelves right now I think. This idea was a real stinker. Without instituting certain controls it most likely would not work, well anyway.  With those controls we get exactly what is already going on with grand results in Indie Game Design.

(puts on the hubcap of shame)

-Chris

[M. J. Young]

I remember participating in those forum-created games at GO (I wasn't certain whether to mention them, in part because I don't know how they came out in the end at this point).

Mike is right about the enthusiasm waning.

One of the problems has to do with what might be called the idea rejection factor.  Obviously, as Mike observes, not all ideas can be included, and compromises have to be made. But from the standpoint of the individual contributor, you're watching the game develop, and suddenly you see where you think it's going, and post what you see as a great idea for the next step--and then it gets quashed, because the majority don't see that as the right way for the game to go, and something else gets accepted.

Now, there might be an aspect of hurt pride in having your idea quashed; but even apart from that, there's a disruption of vision. For at least a while, you don't know where this game is going, because it's not going where you anticipated. And there isn't enough interaction through this medium for everyone to really get that consensus back; you have to draw it from following the thread for a couple of days and try to again find the vision and get back involved in the process.

In short, at least sometimes, having a significant contribution rejected puts you out of the process for a while, and getting back into it takes a lot of work. It's a bit like being voted off the island, as it were (no, I never once watched that show), and then trying to figure out how to get back on it.

It was interesting to be involved; on the other hand, there is so much game development happening here I'm not certain anyone would notice.

--M. J. Young