Topic: Streamlining Design
Started by: Asrogoth
Started on: 3/10/2004
Board: RPG Theory
On 3/10/2004 at 5:36am, Asrogoth wrote:
Streamlining Design
Since I opened the can of worms regarding "Streamlining the Creative Process" (see this thread http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=9943) and have accepted the challenge of making my "vision" come to life, I am opening a new thread in order to seek the questions which we can determine are most helpful and authoritative in helping to streamline our creativity -- most specifically within RPGs.
Bankuei started a thread with something like this in mind (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=9979), but I would like to have a slightly different focus in order to gather the information I am looking for in my attempt at creating a "document" of pointed questions to aid designers in their quest to create quality RPGs.
I am asking for those of you who post to provide questions which you feel are essential to designing an RPG. I want to start out with "general" questions and lead into more detailed questioning in order to allow designers to think critically about their desires. This future document (fueled by our questions) should allow these designers to deal with their work before taking it to the forums and allow for a better and deeper discussion that reaches beyond the "simple" and often repeated questions arising on the Forge.
So, without further adieu, I will post some of the questions I have in mind which I have picked up from various posts and which seem to be critical to design. Some of these questions will be inter-related and may need to be revised. I am not attempting to create an exhaustive list here by myself. These are the questions which I have come up with so far. Please post your own additional questions and possible comments on the questions raised.
Questions to Ask When Creating an RPG
Why am I making this RPG?
What are my motivations in creating this particular game?
What is the goal of my RPG?
What makes my RPG "unique" or "different"?
Why would anyone want to play "my" RPG?
What am I trying to achieve within the game? (i.e. do I want the players to encounter moral conundrums or to focus on "gamist" play?)
How do I want the gaming session to look? (This would have a link to the Structured Game Design sticky in Indie Design http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=1896).
What kind of "power" should the GM have? What about the players? What "power" does the System have?
What can characters "do"?
Who has ultimate "authority" during the gaming session? The GM? A coalition of players and GM? The players? The System?
How do I handle character generation?
What resources do I have available to "characters", players and GM within the game?
What is the setting of my RPG?
What I would like to do is break these questions into groups which follow a standard guide, such as Ron's Creative Agenda pattern (i.e. [Social Contract [Exploration [Creative Agenda --> [Techniques [Ephemera]]]]])
For example, we would have different sections which would be divided as such:
Social Contract:
How do you envision players interacting with one another during gameplay?
Exploration:
What is your setting?
Creative Agenda:
What is the goal of your RPG?
Techniques:
Will you use randomizers? What kind -- dice, cards, etc?
Ephemera:
What are standard character resources?
How are players rewarded for "proper" play within the RPG?
Okay folks, I leave this to your input.... Any and all advice will be appreciated if not coveted!
Forge Reference Links:
Topic 9943
Topic 9979
Topic 1896
On 3/10/2004 at 3:51pm, thelopez wrote:
Re: Streamlining Design
Asrogoth
Thanks for posting this message. You have compiled a great list.
New questions:
What kind of enemies do I want in my RPG? Fantasy, realistic, mixed?
What will character deaths mean to players of my RPG?
Should my RPG be diceless?
An expansion on:
Asrogoth wrote: What is the setting of my RPG?
What kind of genre, if any, do I want my RPG to encompass?
What time period is my RPG in?
An expansion on:
Asrogoth wrote: How do I handle character generation?
What will the general set of attributes be in my RPG?
On 3/10/2004 at 5:35pm, lumpley wrote:
RE: Streamlining Design
How will you protect player authorship?
How will you provoke the players to moral judgement?
Which decisions do the players make before they pick up the dice, and which do they make after the dice hit the table?
How do your resolution rules keep conflict escalating?
How will you encourage the players to contribute to setting and situation? Where will you limit their contributions?
How will you encourage the players to suggest things to one another? What will you do to command the players' audience engagement?
-Vincent
On 3/10/2004 at 10:06pm, Mike Holmes wrote:
RE: Streamlining Design
OK, I'm hoping that Vincent's post was facetious in relation to thelopez's. Because I think that they both fail to hit the mark badly. They both imply a set of preconceptions that just shouldn't be part of this excericise. What Asrogoth is trying to put together is not some list that, when answered, will produce a RPG, but just a set of starting questions that RPG designers should have answered before posting a game to the Indie Design forum.
Perhaps he wasn't clear about it, but this relates to the thred here:
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=9943
Anyhow, Asrogoth, so far good brainstorming, but I think that even some of your suggestions go too far.
Why am I making this RPG?The person's motives, e.g. cash, are probably not relevant in many cases. I think the later questions handle it better.
What are my motivations in creating this particular game?Slightly better, but mostly the same. A better question is what the target audience of the game is. Who do I want to play? Is it just my game group, or do I want to convert all D&D players? Also pertinent is the question of publishing, which is required for games to be discussed.
What is the goal of my RPG?Vague, and there's more likely to be more than one. Really the following are subset questions.
What makes my RPG "unique" or "different"?Or, why won't my target audience play something similar that already exists instead?
Why would anyone want to play "my" RPG?Vague, and related to the above and below.
What am I trying to achieve within the game? (i.e. do I want the players to encounter moral conundrums or to focus on "gamist" play?)Vague again, except for the GNS focus, which I'd argue is not something that designers need to know to start. Surprised? I'm the guy who's always telling people to not worry about it until later in the design after some twink tells the new guy that they need to think about it up front.
How do I want the gaming session to look? (This would have a link to the Structured Game Design sticky in Indie Design http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=1896).This is key in determining if the designer has a vision that can be worked into a game. If he can't do this at least in part, then he's not ready to start.
What kind of "power" should the GM have? What about the players? What "power" does the System have?You'd have to define these things, and again, these are topics for later discussion in the design.
What can characters "do"?Not quite. What do characters do? That is the important question is what is play about in terms of the in-game events. Often designers have an idea of a setting, but then no idea of what happens in that setting other than "anything you want". This is another sign of unreadiness.
Who has ultimate "authority" during the gaming session? The GM? A coalition of players and GM? The players? The System?Again, these apportionment issues, though the topic of lots of debate here, aren't things that have to be worked out from the start. In some ways they're covered by the vision requirements of the Structured Design question.
How do I handle character generation?Hmmm. More brief, the designer only has to know the basics as they pertain to who the characters are.
What resources do I have available to "characters", players and GM within the game?Here you've totally lost me.
What is the setting of my RPG?I'd change this to, "How is setting presented in the game?" For example, Sorcerer has no setting per se, but delivers a sample, and notes on how to create a setting for the game.
So, to distil down, so far what I see are with a couple of my own additions:
• What's my target audience - what are my tentative plans for publishing?
• How is setting presented in the game?
• Who are the characters, and what do they do in play?
• How are the characters created in general terms?
• What would a typical session of play look like?
• What sort of play do I want to reward?
• How do I want to reward that play, and what can the rewards be used for? Punishments?
• Does all of the above form a basic concept of which I have a relatively clear vision?
• What makes my RPG unique, and more worth playing than other games that my audience might otherwise play?
• Do I like my basic concept enough to really work on it, and understand that it doesn't matter if anyone else likes it or not?
• Do I have an idea of where to go from here such that I can ask focused questions about my game?
All of Vincent and lopez's questions are predicated on others already being answered (Does the game have attributes. Is it about moral judgement. etc). We could work on a huge tree to get to these, but I think that's not what we're looking for here. We just want people to arrive in the Indie Design forum at a point where they're really ready to discuss their design.
So, given that, can anyone point out some crucial questions that we've missed so far?
Mike
Forge Reference Links:
Topic 9943
Topic 1896
On 3/10/2004 at 10:34pm, lumpley wrote:
RE: Streamlining Design
My bad.
In an effort to actually contribute, then:
Do I like my basic concept enough to really work on it, and understand that it doesn't matter if anyone else likes it or not?
I'd be sure to include "really play it," too.
How are the characters created in general terms?
More important than how are they created, what bits do they need to have in order to fit into the other rules? Even a general sense of character creation process can come much later, out of initial play. Most important upfront is: what needs to be on a character sheet, however it gets there?
-Vincent
On 3/10/2004 at 10:40pm, andy wrote:
Moral conundrums
As a proud gamist who has been known to engage in narrativism, I don't think that moral conundrums are the exclusive province of any one style of play. For me, a good RPG accomodates multiple styles, preferably at the same time (although this is probably more attributable to the GM than to the RPG).
Great discussion. I have already used several of the questions posed in helping focus my RPG.
Andy
On 3/11/2004 at 6:36pm, lumpley wrote:
RE: Streamlining Design
What's the core of my game: where could I compromise to make my game better, and where couldn't I?
Totally independent of what I think about my potential audience, what in my game drives me absolutely wild? Where in it is my heart and passion?
Answering those two will help you deal with advice and criticism.
-Vincent
On 3/13/2004 at 8:55pm, Ole wrote:
RE: Streamlining Design
Mike did a good job of distilling and elaborating on the questions, but I cant resist a little nitpicking. (I`ve cut points that I had no comments on)
Mike Holmes wrote: So, to distil down, so far what I see are with a couple of my own additions:
• What's my target audience - what are my tentative plans for publishing?
Split this into two separate questions.
• How is setting presented in the game?
More important than how, is what. What is the setting of this game?
• Who are the characters, and what do they do in play?
• How are the characters created in general terms?
How are the characters quantified?
• What sort of play do I want to reward?
• How do I want to reward that play, and what can the rewards be used for? Punishments?
What sort of play do I want to promote? And how do I intend to promote it?
How are uncertain situations resolved?
This probably makes for a good list of general questions, but if I understood Asrogoth correctly there should also be more specific questions.
On 3/18/2004 at 3:50am, Asrogoth wrote:
RE: Streamlining Design
Well, I was waiting to see if I got any more replies before responding.
I actually like all of your suggestions. Mike you made some good summations.
Ole, you're right. I was hoping for a broader-based coverage of how to make an RPG, the Forge way.
What I'm really trying to distill for the newbie and the long-time Forge-ite is a resource that we can go to and examine our ideas in-depth before needing to take them to the group (i.e. Indie Design).
My hope is that by being as directive as possible in game design without promoting a specific type of play (G/N/S) we can encourage deeper discussion about our games and turn out even higher-calibre results.
On that note...
What I meant by my "resources" question was a general question for the game designer where he thinks about how he engages the players and GM with the various resources available to the characters/GM/NPCs/players. I am not all that hip to design language, but I believe resources are things such as "Fate Points", "Experience Points" and even "Hit Points" that provide a measure by which to aid the character or judge the character's "condition". I may be way off base, but that's where I was trying to go.
Anyway, that's all I can handle right now... I'm pretty swamped.
Later,
-Asrogoth
On 3/18/2004 at 4:11pm, timfire wrote:
RE: Streamlining Design
If you're looking for board advice on designing a RPG I'll relay the advice that was given to me regarding playtesting.
You need 2 types of playtesting: Your own personal playtesting, and then playtesting by others. Both forms of feedback are important.
I was adviced to stat with a rudimentary version of your system, and then playtest that personally. If you like the way it plays, rewrite a public version (this version should contain 80% or so of the final text), and get feedback from others. If at any point things aren't going the way you wanted them to, go back to the first stage and do more personal playtesting.
Forge Reference Links:
Topic 9707
On 3/24/2004 at 6:22am, Asrogoth wrote:
RE: Streamlining Design
Well, I've had some time to work on this, and I have tried to take your revised questions (thanks Mike, Ole, Tim, Andy, thelopez and Vincent!).
Following are my somewhat revised versions of the questions as Mike put them with a little revision. As I stated earlier, I really hope that someone can use a document with these questions as not only a starting point, but as a working document in order to flesh out their own designs (at least I tried to make that statement).
What I plan to do with these questions is to add links to various appropriate threads and then perhaps have the whole piece dedicated as some sort of starting point for Forge RPG design (given the blessing of Ron and Clinton of course!).
Anyway, here are the questions (in bold) with sub-set questions as I felt appropriate:
RPG Creation Questions
Who is my target audience?
Am I trying to reach hard-core gamers? Gaming novices? Specific GNS-style gamers?
What about this game will attract this audience?
What are my tentative plans for publishing?
What is the setting of this game?
How is setting presented in the game?
Is this setting unique, different or interesting to me?
How are the characters quantified?
Who are the characters?
What do they do in play?
How are the characters created in general terms?
Do I want to use "attributes", "skills", "descriptives" or some other device?
What are the primary goals for characters in my game?
What would a typical session of play look like?
What do players do?
What does the GM do?
How prominent a role does System play during the gaming session?
Check out this thread for a specific example: Structured Game Design
What sort of play do I want to reward/promote?
How do I want to reward/promote that play?
How can the rewards be used?
Are there "punishments" in play?
How can punishments be used?
How are uncertain situations resolved?
Does all of the above form a basic concept of which I have a relatively clear vision?
What makes my RPG unique, and more worth playing than other games that my audience might otherwise play?
Do I like my basic concept enough to really work on it, and understand that it doesn't matter if anyone else likes it or not?
Have I playtested my RPG personally?
Have I involved others in playtesting my RPG?
Do I have an idea of where to go from here such that I can ask focused questions about my game?
So, any criticisms, quips, queries, quandaries, conundrums, questions or curses for me at this point? I do not think this is "too" detailed at this point, and it gives creators a chance to think before subjecting their work to the fine-tooled scrutiny of the Forge.
Again, the "reference threads" will need to be worked on, but I gave one as an example.
[Prepares to push "submit" button, crosses fingers...]
Forge Reference Links:
Topic 1896
On 3/24/2004 at 8:31am, timfire wrote:
RE: Streamlining Design
Before I get started, I'm happy you feel committed to this project, Asrogoth, and I look forward to seeing it completed.
Asrogoth wrote: [re:audience] Am I trying to reach hard-core gamers? Gaming novices?
What does "hard-core" & "novice" mean? I'm sure others will chime on this one, but if you are refering to familiarity/ experience with role-playing, I'm not sure that as a desinger that's a distinction you need/ should make.
Asrogoth wrote: [re:audienc]Specific GNS-style gamers?
What about this game will attract this audience?
While these may be appropriate questions to ask, it seems like your putting the cart before the house. It's only the first question and you're already asking if the game will attract its target audience. I mean, that seems like a question you should ask in a later stage of development. Also, as Mike said in his original post, designers don't neccessarily need to decide a GNS focus at the start.
Asrogoth wrote: What is the setting of this game?
This question assumes that the designer is going to provide a setting. As Mike also said, not all game system provide a setting. GURPS doesn't, for example. I like Mike's original phrasing better, "How is setting presented in the game?"
Asrogoth wrote: Is this setting unique, different or interesting to me?
First, I would hope that the setting is interesting to you, otherwise why would you be working on it? Also, I may be misunderstanding you, but you seem to assume that a setting should be different or unique, but I don't always think that's neccessarily.
Asrogoth wrote: How are the characters quantified?
Who are the characters?
What do they do in play?
I think the questions of "who are the characters?" and "what do they do?" should be asked before "how are they quantified?" The former questions are conceptual, and the latter is logistical/ mechanical/ whatever. You can't answer the latter without knowing the former.
Do I want to use "attributes", "skills", "descriptives" or some other device?
What are the primary goals for characters in my game?
I think you already asked these questions. Attibutes/ skills/ etc. relate to how characters are quantified. I think the "goals" of the character is just another way to say "what do they do?"
How prominent a role does System play during the gaming session?
Others may disagree, but I don't think this is something you should worry about. I'm not really sure I (personally) even understand what you're asking here. You mean rules heavy vs. lite? In the beginning i think designers should only worry about what the players/ GM do, and leave tweaking the system for a later stage.
[re:rewards/punishments] How are uncertain situations resolved?
What do you mean here? I don't see how that question is connected to rewards.
----------------------
You know, what I would like to see is different categories of questions that correspond to different phases of development, like maybe 1)Preliminary, 2)Development, 3)Playtesting, and 4)Publishing/ Polishing. I don't know if that is bigger than you were thinking, however.
On 3/24/2004 at 1:11pm, Ole wrote:
RE: Streamlining Design
timfire wrote:Asrogoth wrote: [re:audienc]Specific GNS-style gamers?
What about this game will attract this audience?
If this is for newbies, a link to an article explaining GNS is a good idea.
Do I want to use "attributes", "skills", "descriptives" or some other device?
What are the primary goals for characters in my game?
I think you already asked these questions. Attibutes/ skills/ etc. relate to how characters are quantified. I think the "goals" of the character is just another way to say "what do they do?"
I think these questions should be subquestions of the "quantified" question.
Forge Reference Links: