Topic for dissection: How do you design a game?

[Eddy Fate]

Jaded
I am pretty much quickly slipping into this phase now-a-days. Maybe It is just a temporary thing, but I don't know. The Jaded Phase is the result of the following:

* I have seen a lot of mechanincs. In fact I feel like I have seen every possible mechanic that an RPG could use. I know this logically to be untrue, but I still feel this way.

* I can pick-and-choose from all the myriad mechanics I am familair with

* I know what I like

So basically I am in a frame of mind in which I feel like there is little or no point in working hard to be different, or innovative because I can create perfectly good, playable games, based only on what I already know, love and use.

Gods, and here I thought it was just me...  The market seems to have moved in a way that implies that a mechanic must not just be functional, but pleasing as well (damn Deadlands!  damn Dust Devils!).  I am trying this with my own Mafia-style RPG (tenatively called "The Family"), but finding that balance of playability and feel is very, very tough.

[Mike Holmes]

Universalis was a special case, in some ways. First it was a collaboration, which obviously affected the way it came out. But also, it was a game that developed from a single idea. That being the notion of having a world that was developed in play, mechanically. That's right, Universalis was supposed to have  GM, PCs, and all the usual jazz, originally. Thing is, just as we were designing it, we were caught in the wave of people expeimenting with directorial mechanics, etc. It wasn't long before we just decided to expand the player's authority to develop the world to developing, well, anything.

IOW, we strted with a simple idea, and the game developed itself from there. Which is to say that I (and I believe Ralph as well) really had no idea that it would end up where it did. Still, the heart of the original idea is still in there, so I can say with confidence that it served as a guidepost for where we were going.

Which seems pretty straightforward, and corellates with much that's been said already in this thread. Basically, have some idea that's compelling to you. Then develop your other goals around the first. Then complete the game based on the goals you've chosen. You'll find that, if you do that, the design is just some work to finish it then. Not to make it sound easy, it's a lot of work to do the design right. But until you have a clear idea of where you're going, at least in one or two particulars, the only kind of product you can complete is a confused one.

That's my philosophy right now.

The other thing I suggest is to steal, steal, steal. Originality, as far as I can tell, is just taking lots of other existing ideas and mixing them up in new combinations. Oh, occasionally somebody will develop something completely new (seemingly, I suppose), but it's rare. And I would hazzard that it only regularly happens as an accidental offshoot of the normal development process. Which means that you have to be stealing, and compliling before you can change things to make them now. So start by stealing, and then try for originality along he way, if you feel the need.

People may note that Synthesis by myself and JB Bell, is nothing but mechanics cobbled together from several games, for example. Later in the design, I found some ways to make it all look a bit new, and I'm satisfied that it's unique enough. But it started very much as a game created from using what I needed to meet my goals taken from several other games. The cool thing is, if you steal from enough sources, the combination is new, anyhow. So, to reiterate, steal, and steal unabashedly. Let originality come later or as a product of mutiple thefts.  :-)

Mike