Eero asked such a great question at the end of the Son of Iron Chef thread that I took the liberty of transposing it over here where it won't get lost amongst all the design and smack talk.

Eero Tuovinen wrote:
If there's something I've taken home from this competition design-wise, it's the strength of system color. I've tended towards abstraction in design myself and saved the color practically last, to be applied when detailing the finished product (or not applied at all, as the case is with these hurried competition entries). There is a number of games here that take the opposite route with extremely good results. It's almost comical how overdeveloped systems my games have compared to virtually any game in the competition, which all focuse and limit play in sensible ways. Compare to my designs which all three have customable skill systems for essentially scenario-based games. How dumb can I be, when I realized the fact about three days after finishing the last game? There's a clear blind spot for me.

Anyway, that's that's only one thing I learned from the competition. It's a great way to get to compare your thinking to that of some great designers. Did any of you others learn of any fundaments here?

I think my lesson, finally beaten into my head after 3 of these competitions, is that I shouldn't be so... impulsive, I guess, with my designs. Since there's a time limit, I usually just go with the first concept that pops into my head, running with it and developing it along the way. This is true of most of my designs actually, and may be the reason I have so many different types of projects planned, instead of a few that integrate different concepts together.

The Pale Continent: Occidental Adventures, from the first Iron Game Chef, was a great concept that just never got worked out in practice. The game mechanics were gimicky, instead of solid and playable. Likewise, the early version of Argonauts from Iron Chef II was based on a cute gimick. I feel like most of my designs are either 1) based on some cute flavor-of-the-month idea, which I just came up with, or 2) trying to prove something. They're games with chips on their shoulders.

For instance, Seadog Tuxedo is both at the same time. First of all, there's the cute icecube mechanic, which was the first thing I thought of when considering how to make a game about icebergs (combining the ice and island elements). Secondly, it intends to prove something about resolution mechanics and the Lumply Principle, which is, basically, that you just need some system that allows players to challenge or cause difficulties in the narration of other players, and that will run the game by itself. It's part of the whole "minimalism" kick I'm on, also evident in all my designs from Humble Mythologies to Nine Suns Will Fall (a.k.a. the Shang Dynasty game). Finally, like all my games, it's a Color-slut. Everything is about Color. Color, Color, Color! Breathe deep and taste the Color!

So, while the games that I admire more and really want to play are the stuff Shreyas, Walt, John, Zak and the like turn out (Color-based, mechanically-solid, elegant games with heavily interconnected systems), mine tend to excercises in "No Myth design," if you follow the metaphor, just starting with something and going with it. This means that they often need to be heavily revised and picked apart before they're completely servicable. Lots and lots of revisions, instead of just building a solid foundation in the first place.

So, I guess that's what I've learned: take your time. Starting out with something solid is much better than building yourself into a corner.

Jonathan Walton wrote: They're games with chips on their shoulders.

I'll second Jonathan's "Color-slut" thang.

My pattern, in half-a-dozen proto-games in my notebooks, seems to be to first isolate the color or genre that I want to produce, then come up with a list of five or six things that I would need the system to cover, then come up with a simple mechanic that expresses something common to the setting, and then shoehorn the five-or-six-things into that mechanic.

You can see that in the Snow Day! posts - The teaser blurb talks about Snow Forts, Ice Monsters, Snowball Fights, Neighborhood Kids, and Hot Cocoa.

On a whim, I decided to use d20's because I have a sparkly d20 in my collection, and it's sort of snowball-like. The "Age" mechanic was a flash of inspiration borne from procrastination at work; Just roll under or over your age for Reality or Fantasy checks. With the added bonus that a Fantasy/Reality opposition in a snowy landscape is straight out of Calvin & Hobbes.

Then it was just a matter of going down the List and writing up rules for each thing. Where a new thing couldn't be adequately covered by the Age system, the overriding goal for new sub-mechanics was that they be able to play nicely with the uber-mechanic. Hence Hot Cocoa and Slush Points.

---

And with that, I'll drop out of Iron Game Chef Stance (it's like Author Stance, but more pompous) and tell you my own personal Iron Game Chef Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique:

Read Paul Czege's My Life With Master. I've never played it; I'm hoping to remedy that soon. Just reading it, though... wow.

I've read and GM'd both Inspectres and Wushu, both of which made me go "Huh, I wonder if I could do something as good as this". Then I read MLWM, which made my jaw drop and made me think "If I can make a game that's one tenth as wonderful as this, it'll be worth the time and effort." It's... so... wow.

So, go get it, and read it, and be inspired. (Thanks, Paul!)

In my last IGC concept, I didn't have any mechanical idea whatsoever for my game. Boom, no game.

This time around, I had a mechanical idea - I wanted to make a slightly opaque Gamist number game - and I had Color to wrap around it - hey, Japan has islands, and it's cold in Korea, and iaijutsu duels...

So then the game just sort of snowballed from there - as soon as hanschristianandersen nudged me to start using Japanese-language terms, I just couldn't stop writing. Even now, I'm working on the "for Eero" version of the game, where there are more points of contact between the two character groups. Honestly it's not a great entry, in my opinion, because it only barely grazes the edge of fantasy, and it uses the ingredients at several removes - on Iron Chef, does it count of you use wine when the theme ingredient was grapes? But I'm very proud of it as a game.

So what I'm saying is that IGC has taught me holistic design - a game is, essentially, all of its parts, and just as importantly, its mettle will be proven in the way that they interrelate.

I had been thinking, myself, about writing something up about the lessons of Iron Game Chef. it seems to me that writing games that please Chaiman Holmes isn't too different from writing games to please a larger audience: in a sense, the RPG market *is* an Iron Game Chef competition, where the gaming public has chosen what generic game type they want to see and which 3-4 concepts they'd like worked into it.

the only difference is: we don't know what concepts and game type the public is looking for; we just know what has been selected in the past, and that is no longer valid.

but there are other lessons to be learned from pleasing Chairman Holmes that I think apply to pleasing this mysterious gaming public. for one, note that setting is not really the clencher in these contests. this shouldn't be a surprise, since there's even a standard rant about cool ideas. and yet, we always get too carried away in describing the coolness of our setting, without remembering that this is a *game design* competition, not a *setting design* competition. it's the reason why my Iron Game Chef Simulationist entry Empedocles: Daemons of Strife and Love didn't make it: too much reliance on the cool idea of reincarnating greek philosophers and not enough translation of that setting into actual rules that tend to produce the desired feel.

that's what you have to focus on: making rules that will generate setting, rather than rules you can use in a cool setting. I think that's why my first Iron Game Chef design made it: I came up with a rule that produced an interesting setting. motif matching encourages a very dreamlike setting by virtue of its mechanics, instead of by exhortations in the flavor-text. contrast this to my most recent entry: IceRunner's weak point is that there's too much setting description that should have been converted to rules that produced the desired setting as a consequence.

now, while writing this, I checked the thread and notice that other chefs are mentioning more or less the same thing, but in different words. the "color slut" approach was something that occurred to me, too; I think it was Jared that warned us never to have more that 2 or 3 weird rule twists/gimmicks in a game. less is more. now, I haven't read all of Tuxedo Penguin, but I think Jonathon is being a little too hard on himself, because it actually seemed to be not too bad in terms of the "less is more" principle, although it is definitely very focused on its color and thus loses some flexibility. my main worry about the game was that it only allows nonalcoholic beverages for the underage. also, I'm not sure if Eat Me Foods still makes Rat Bastard Root Beer.

but back to the lessons learned. focus more on mechanics and less on setting, as I said. try not to design the game while writing the game might be another good lesson, because that's how inconsistencies creep in (I think I may have changed the way rerolls are handled somewhere in the middle of IceRunner; I definitely came up with the Curse Dice rule for hallowed ground after I'd already posted the list of places that invoke Curse Dice.) Situation is the most important element; go with a simple mechanic to begin with, then figure out how to modify it to produce the kinds of Situations you want in the game. since Situation arises from Character in Setting, those two are also important, but not as much. instead of a game with cool characters, you need characters that will get in cool situations.

there's bound to be other things I'll think of later.

Shreyas Sampat wrote: So what I'm saying is that IGC has taught me holistic design - a game is, essentially, all of its parts, and just as importantly, its mettle will be proven in the way that they interrelate.

Eero Tuovinen wrote: There is a number of games here that take the opposite route with extremely good results. It's almost comical how overdeveloped systems my games have compared to virtually any game in the competition, which all focuse and limit play in sensible ways.

John Kim wrote:
OK, I haven't followed or taken part in the Iron Game Chef threads, so pardon any ignorance. I have a question. How are we defining "extremely good results"? i.e. When we talk about lessons learned, is that based on how the games look at the end of the contest, on subsequent playtesting by other groups, or what?

Just FYI, for others who may not have read the Son of IGC thread: there will be an index thread forthcoming, allowing easy access to all the games.

Yrs,
Emily Care

A little note to the designers.

I'm going to run an IRC playtest of at least one of these games in May with the indie-netgamers. No idea which one at this stage. (I may go for one of the 'winners' or I may go for one that I feel confident runnning over IRC)

Its quite possible that others in the indie-netgamers will also run a playtest of some of these games as well. Several others thought it was a good idea...

I'm pulling for "May is Iron Game Chef month", perhaps for our monday night pickup games...

I'll keep ya'll posted.

Reading the submissions for many of the Iron Game Chef I was happily pleased that Game Design, as it stands at the Forge, is not just schlock and crap, it is also Good Stuff.

For a while, I was lamenting the death of innovation on a large scale. I had especially felt that the Forge was becoming a bit too much theorizing without the output. I'm happy to see people can put-up rather than shut-up. A theory only has benefit when it can be applied... otherwise it's just blowing wind.

Now then, make more... and dammit!

Dav

Dav wrote: A theory only has benefit when it can be applied... otherwise it's just blowing wind.

Chris Lehrich wrote: ...the ideological weapon of "practicality" often comes into play in RPG discourse: because a more purely analytic model eschews normative claims in the form of practical suggestions for game design or ritual construction, the RPG theorist codes such classification as impractical, thus valueless. This is the equivilent to a Catholic liturgist saying of an academic theorist's analysis that is is irrelevant because it does not help formulate new dimensions in Mass.

Jonathan Walton wrote: Also, not all theory effects design directly. Often it affects actual play, which is, to many people, more important than game design.

Emily Care wrote: Just FYI, for others who may not have read the Son of IGC thread: there will be an index thread forthcoming, allowing easy access to all the games.

John:

When you utilize learning through play or design, you are applying theory. And, an academic's point-of-view *is* useless for developing dimensions in Mass... unless, for some odd reason, that academic is theorizing and evaluating Masses in general (I dunno, I s'pose that might happen... somewhere).

The Forge should be just that: a forge. It is not a lectern.

Game design should be the first priority, extrapolating odd philosophical notions from such action is a nifty exercise, but there comes a point where ideas and thoughts to this effect must be applied to be relevant. Creating a dearth of terminology that can be bandied about is nice, but, in the end, much of it only threatens to make game design inaccessible to others. Or, at the very least, allow a few people to become something of the "old boys club".

Game design took a flying leap at the Forge. I'm the guy that makes certain people don't start buying their own hype.

Dav

One other thing I learned from Iron Game Chef is that an ounce of design is worth a world of talking about design. It's just so much more illuminating to me to sit and think critically about a particular game than it is to chat about games and theory and design in the abstract.

Whew! "It is finished." ;)

I am so glad to be done with the contest... well, sort of...

I mean now I'm seeing things I wish I could "change" or "add" to my game. I don't know how cheesy and infantile my first attempt at game-making may be, but at least I know I've FINISHED it!

I'm actually very excited about that most of all.

The things I learned was that a wealth of information exists here at the Forge through the mental acuity of the posters and their wide variety of designs.

I look forward to looking closer at everyone's games and possibly playing them.

The biggest thing that I learned from Iron Game Chef is that games with settings aren't the devil.

You see, I have struggled with setting-based games for a really, really, really long time. I love setting. I love creating setting. And, thus, any time, I buy a game, I always end up throwing out the setting, or tinkering it to the point where it is effectively a different thing (I did terrible, wonderful things to Vampire, for instance.) So I've always considered setting to be, well, worthless, as far as commerical game design, because I -- as a player -- never use it.

Polaris is a part of my fantasy world that I've known about for a long time, but I've never been able to satisfactorily model in a system (I had some Knights Stellar wander south and get involved with Orcs in a Riddle of Steel campaign once, but they were poorly modeled, and I only got by on a lot of fudging.) When I saw that three of the ingredients were "Ice, Dawn and Assault" I said, "fuck it, this gets its own system, because it's too cool to keep on the outskirts forever."

A lot of elements of Polaris's design are drawn from more general work I've done -- the player roles, for example, are something which I worked out as a theoretical argument with someone about "GMless" play and secrets -- but they all got their little tweeks and, in the end, the system can do nothing but a particular group in a particular setting with a particular goal. The sort of system that I hate. The sort of system that I have publically decried for years.

And damned if I don't love the little bastard.

Other things include: (mostly already said)

1) Wow, I'm a better game designer than I was before I came to the Forge.

2) Wow, everyone else on the Forge is a good designer. Even the people who don't do a lot of theory.

3) Theory not only crosses over into design, but directly impacts it in an appalling way (see above about player roles.)

4) If you spend an entire weekend designing games all day and dancing all night, be prepared to collapse on Monday.

5) Hey, look, two games with drinking mechanics which actually require you to drink OOG. Is this the influence of Over the Bar or convergent design? I think it's great, either way.

6) If you want to play the game you've designed, and not GM, best write it so that every participants gets their own PC. :-)

yrs--
--Ben

P.S. I sat down last night and worked out the math of the Zeal -> Weariness progression, and what that entails for the dramatic arc of the game, and there's whole levels of potential that I didn't even realize were there when I set down the rules. There's this whole Sorcerer thing that goes on at High Zeal and High Weariness, and then in the middle it gets a little more about what your abilities are, and ghah. I leave the interpretation and full effects as an exercise to the reader. Suffice it to say that "experience" in no way effects character effectiveness in terms of chance of success, but instead effects *how* challenges are bid out.

P.P.S. This game is getting published. After judging, I'm going to post a revision / playtesting thread. Are you ready to hash it through with me?

P.P.P.S. If ING wants to playtest (hey, I even mention IRC play specifically in the conflict rules) that would be awesome. If you play on a Saturday or Friday night and only have three people, I'll make a fourth. (It's sort of like Bridge that way, isn't it?) If you end up with an odd number of people, I'll write some rules for it :-)

talysman wrote:
a seperate thread? I though Ron nixed that idea...

I nixed something? Hol' on here.

Rather than clarify it here and drift the topic ... Emily, just PM me with what you had in mind and I'll let you know what I think. If I'm not mistaken at the moment, it's probably a "go."

Please continue with the What I Learned discussion.

Best,
Ron

It doesn't rate up at the epiphany level, but I've got a much better grasp on the degree to which system needs to be integrated with setting and premise to make a game the really fires on all cylinders. I believe that's where Terminator Line is weak.

talysman wrote: if I had the energy and gumption, I'd use some kind of randomizer at the beginning of every month to select 5 random concepts, pick 3 of those and create a game out of them. a game a month, for a year. it would be a good personal challenge, and I am sure I would learn a lot.

I learned never to try to design game X when you're secretly trying to design game Y. It's like putting yourself in a headlock. Sure, it looks cool and impresses the ladies but it doesn't accomplish much.

I learned that one can create an RPG about penguin pirates or ice skating storytellers that I would actually play.

I learned that I love Zak Arnston and am going to have his babies. Squid-headed, telepathic babies.

Best of all, I learned what I already knew: The Forge is home to some of the most creative, productive, and inspiring people that I've ever had the privelege to associate with. You guys rock.

talysman wrote: *snip*
if I had the energy and gumption, I'd use some kind of randomizer at the beginning of every month to select 5 random concepts, pick 3 of those and create a game out of them. a game a month, for a year. it would be a good personal challenge, and I am sure I would learn a lot.

Not to just go "what they said":

1. Talking about it is all well and good, but nothing substitutes for actual design. I've been slacking since I sent Fastlane off to layout, despite there being many things I've wanted to do. The Iron Game Competition got me going again (in fits and starts, but still) and that's a good thing. Momentum good, and practice helps make better, if not perfect.

2. I've learned a LOT more than I thought by reading and playing, and in designing for this I stretched brain muscles I never knew I had. I mean, "Frigid Bitch"? Wow. And I'm getting the confidence to post my weirdo ideas, at least in contest threads - and people actually like some of them!

3. There's a lot of good ideas out there simmering under the surface just waiting for the right collection of random words and a little kick in the butt to get them to come into form. I'm looking forward to the next breath of fresh air.

4. Social competition doesn't have to be an evil and ugly thing - and I have enough of it inside myself to design games where it's encouraged, yet I don't feel dirty. Well, not really.

5. I can actually do a 24 hour game (my 3rd game was done in under 24 hours, although, like most 24 hour games, it needs tweaking and improvement).

To be honest, I'm not all that pleased with Chanter - there's some ideas in there that I really like, some nuggets of mechanics and setting that stand a good chance of living-on in other games, but as a whole I don't think it really came together too well - which isn't too surprising considering how stream of consciousness the design of it was.

I learned how hard it is to write setting for other people to use; and how much work it is to put together a coherant setting at all.

Next time, I'll try to develop an idea I'm happy with, rather than just shooting from the hip with the first idea I come up with and seeing where it leads me.

I was struck by how the games that seemed most interesting to me were the ones developed over multiple posts. I'm not sure if this is because of feedback in the IGC thread or because the best designers posted early. It may be simply due to many smaller posts being more readable than one long one. In any case, I know the strategy I'd employ next time - many posts and plenty of color.

Also, even though Habakkuk still needs a lot of work to be a workable game, I'm glad I finally got around to more than just starting . If someone has to come in last, I'm glad it could be me.

Hi guys,

My biggest lesson:

Creative insight comes more often, with more intensity and elegance while actually doing the work than while planning it.

Two things I'm really proud of are coining terms for the parts of player declarations: Statement of Intent and Proposal of Effect, and the invention of Apotheosis, which makes my Wisdom scores work as a kind of reverse Humanity.

Writing Wizards of Ice and Twilight was an exercise of filling great swaths of procedure and theory I already had in mind to write someday, and at the same time discovering holes in the system - particularly the dice resolution system - that demanded some creative thought. I think the solutions I found on the fly produced a decent dice system. It awaits playtest, of course.

All in all, I found this very rewarding both in enjoyment and in satisfaction of completing something.

I also second the observation that starting with color components and a genre made the design process flow.

I'm coming in here a little late, I know. But the full realization didn't hit me until I was layed out by a fever.

When designing a roleplaying game, just as with a video or traditional game, you need to define states of play. This is often overlooked or poorly documented in an rpg's rules. You need to dictate which participants can do what, and exactly at what times.

This has been elaborated, with regards to player character actions, as IIEE (Intent, Initiation, Execution, Effect), but it really needs to be addressed at every point during play.

D&D (and many others) assume (or better, clearly explain) that there is a pair of standard states, GM Control and PC Action. PC Action is handled by the GM. Either the PC Action is taken into account and is inserted into the narrative via GM Control, or the PC Action leads to a Conflict state (or set of states). GM Control can also initiate these Conflict states.

Examining and playing with these states leads to interesting variations. With Terra Australis, my Iron Chef game, I have the normal GM Control <-> PC Action states, but a Conflict can be initiated by any participant. The difference is that the game is forced into a Conflict state by anybody, not just at the GM's discretion.

That was my big breakthrough. Examining and learning roleplaying games, looking at it from this perspective of changing game states, now becomes much clearer. I was rereading Dying Earth, a wonderful game if opaquely written (to the benefit of establishing color, but the extreme detriment of clear rules), and it made much more sense!

Zak Arntson wrote: When designing a roleplaying game, just as with a video or traditional game, you need to define states of play. This is often overlooked or poorly documented in an rpg's rules. You need to dictate which participants can do what, and exactly at what times.