There seem to be all these different definitions of success floating around (compiled from several threads):

- Total amount of sales from company to distributors
- Total amount of sales to actual buyers
- How much the game is actually being played at a certain point in time
- How much the game is being/has been played in total since it was published
- How much the game is being enjoyed by its players "on average", however many/few of those players there are
- How much the game is being praised by game designers for innovation/coherency/other criteria
- How much players are tinkering with the rules (for some, this is a measure of bad design; for others, an indication that players are taking an active part in the game)

Some of these can't be measured in numbers; others could, in theory, but nobody has actually done it, or they're not telling. Some of these are held as goals by game designers, others by publishers, others by players, etc. Different game designers will also have different goals, and disagree on what kind of success is most important.

What are your goals as a game designer? And are they in any way related to the different definitions of "success" given above?

I think the difference between a true game designer and a game hobbiest is money.

My goals as a game designer are:
1) control costs so that I can recoup those costs on a modest number of sales.
2) Get enough sales beyond that break even point so that I can afford to send additional checks to freelancers who worked obscenely cheaply on the project when we didn't know whether or not it would sell.
3) Get enough sales beyond that so that my next project can be paid for entirely out of the profits of the earlier ones without needing any additional subsidies from me.

My goals as a game hobbiest are:
1) Gain recognition for doing something in a way that hadn't been done before.
2) Create games that are actually playable and solidly functional, not just clever experiments.


I think both types of goals need to be present and work together in order to define "success".

"change everything"

I'll be honest and say that game design is mostly a hobby for me, though one that combines several elements that I find very interesting. I'm not in it for the money, but a paycheck would be more than welcome. Anything I create will find its way to the web eventually. I suppose I just like coming up with new settings and occasionally throwing out some "clever experiments" when I get a wild hair up my ass. Usually, those experiments end up in the form of board games or dice games rather than RPG systems, also published on the web in some form.

I think that Valamir's "Goals as a Game Designer" really seems to make more sense labeled as "Goals as a Game Publisher/Seller." Not all designers are sellers, and not all sellers are designers, and I'm not sure that the only "true" designers are the ones who want to sell their games.

Honestly, my goals as a game designer are very simple: to create games that I can be satisfied with, and that can bring enjoyment to other people, and to harness the bizarre little creative engine that loves chugging along inside my head. In other words, using what Trevis once called the Lxndr Idea Pipeline (and as an aside, I enjoy monkeywrenching around with other games, some of which has actually made it into games-in-design).

Like gobi, I'm not in it for the money, though I'm not above trying to sell a few of my products (though I agree with Matt Snyder's "If You Love Your Game, Set it Free" philosophy - and am taking a page both from that thread, and from games like Sorcerer, SOAP, tRoS, by planning to keep a scaled down free/apprentice/quickstart version of my for-sale games available after the final version is put up).

Anyway, my definition of success has nothing to do with sales, no matter how big of an ego-boost sales might be. My definition of success also has very little to do with how many people are playing the game - I've long since learned that the points of intersection between "Lxndr" and "other people" are few, so trying to judge myself based on the actions of others is fruitless. Quality over quantity, in other words - even just a few people who like a game is all I really need in terms of outside validation.

I'd agree somewhat with Lxndr about the difference between "game designer" and "game seller/publisher". My goal is to create games I'm satisfied with; the approval of others would suggest that I'm satisfied with something that's actually a good product, but that others like the game, much less wish to pay money for it, is pretty far down on the list of motivations for me.

Honestly, I have little interest in the actual publishing side of the game-making process; I would be just as happy to hand over something I made and let someone else do the actual publishing, so long as it was the game I had made. And while money that would come to me would be nice, and money that might come to some theoretical publisher willing to publish my game would be handy to encourage said publisher to put out more games I made, I just...don't really care much about the money as such. Not the right hobby for that, after all.

I'm currently working on two major projects, of which I expect one to be at least mildly popular and the other to be completely ignored by pretty much everyone. And I fully expect to spend far more money on publishing the second, because it's more complex and larger would require a great deal higher production cost to be worth doing. But I still focus on the second one, because it's going to be more satisfying as a game to me when I'm done with it. And that's the reason I bother at all.

...hrm. That does sound rather self-centered, doesn't it? "If I like it I don't care what anyone else thinks." But it is reasonably true. I'd like other people to like what I design, but it's far, far down the list in my reasons for designing games.

Right now, I guess my goal as a game designer is to take responsibility for my game.

One responsibility is to make the game as whole as I can, for lack of a better word; coherent (in what style of play it supports), complete (wrt background and system), well-crafted (to the best of my ability).

The other responsibility is to make sure it ends up in the hands of as many people as possible who will play it the way I envisioned, and who will enjoy doing so.

The money I make from it is a by-product, but also a sort of payoff: Getting money means your stuff is worth paying money for.

Which kind of adds one more definition of success:

- The joy of knowing you've made a really good product in every way you know

Heather Manley wrote: ...hrm. That does sound rather self-centered, doesn't it? "If I like it I don't care what anyone else thinks." But it is reasonably true. I'd like other people to like what I design, but it's far, far down the list in my reasons for designing games.

matthijs wrote: What are your goals as a game designer?

I want to design games that work well for a broad array of people, and that provide them the tools to solve any questions that arise during play, one way or another.

I hope I've done that so far.

--M. J. Young

oooh, good question.

a gane designer is so many things, i think. a rules maker, a writer, an artist. so, alright, as a game designer, i really try to make games that are fun for all players involved, a goal that i think should be at the center of any gaming creation. Just like Ron Edwards i think that system is central to any game. i think of a system as the most obvious and glaring window into the ideas that you want to express in your game, so i tend to create metamechanics that evoke the setting, themes or mood that i am trying to deliver. i, personally, don't care for overly wrought systems, so i tend to make more stripped-down and basic systems. all of these concepts and parameters are used to temper my creation, in an attempt to keep the games from becoming too idiosynchratic.

your question seems to revolve around the goals of being a game publisher though. i guess i could say that, in honesty, my main goal is to have people enjoy my games. most of the games that i have created i have freely given away, whether it be something like the one i had created for 24HourRPG (the only one that i currently have online), or the ones that i have created and given to my local gaming communities. In turn, i think that i would consider myself succesful by the amount of people that were able to take something from one of my designs and use it.

as for my current gaming creation, it's for a setting that i have had in my head since i was a teenager. it's probably the most personal game that i could ever create and, i hope, one that is playaable and enjoyable by others.

okies, bed time.

laters,

-m

Heya,

My goal is to see and experience things in a deeper way that I have never seen or experienced before. When I began designing, I was reading hte letters of CS Lewis nad JRR Tolkien. Specifically, those that related to thier works of fiction. You could just sense the love they had for their creations. I devoured thier methodologies and admired their attention to the most minute detail of how the trees looked and the animals walked. And loved how language (especially for Tolkien) played a major role in history and geography.

I design games to liberate my mind and to love my creation. Monetary success, while nice, is secondary to me. Designing is a personal expression for me now. It's not a job and not a main source of income. Like several others it is just a hobby for me and is there for me (and those who are brave enough to play my game) to love and enjoy.

Peace,

-Troy

My goals are pretty nicely summed up by Ralph Mazza as a publisher. My design modus operendi looks like this:


I usually start with a "I've always wanted to see a product covering X", then writing something that fills the niche for X, then finding it grossly complicated, and then distilling it down. Then usually a fan will suggest something, I'll try and integrate it, and it'll get complex again until I boil it down again.

I usually /don't/ write RPGs because I don't enjoy GMing RPGs. I prefer board/war games because nobody's stuck with the job of GMing.

In terms of my design hooks, I'm pretty solidly Simulationist/Gamist. When I play in RPGs other people run, I vastly prefer Narrativist games, with "die roll in the middle", which I first saw in Feng Shui.

I'm trying to find the split between Narrativism and Simulationism that Riddle of Steel did, for a campaign theme best described as "Kipling In Spaaace" and am (so far) failing.

The way it's breaking (and that I'm failing) are over in Actual Play.

In terms of financial success, I'm still trying to penetrate the three/four tier system. Fortunately for me, I have a product that manages to deliver on a promise that was made 30 years ago, and have had good market timing (space combat games have been dead on the market since the glut of 2000, the market is shifting towards board/wargames for the moment, and everyone's tired of d20 fantasy in the chain.)

In terms of play success, I'd love for there to be ENOUGH people to play my games that they can find one another, rather than buy it, admire it, and put it on the shelf to gather dust. It's only from active play communities that I'll get long term financial success for a product as complex as mine.

Ken Burnside

Alright I currently have three games under a slow plodding development pattern. I have two very diffrent reasons for making them.

One of them is a heart-breaker: I grew up with shadow run not AD&D so it is a shadowrun heartbreaker. I love this game to death. Lovingly I summon up my game world from some creative nether region and craft my world in the fervent hope that someday this game will become a reality. I expect to sell 5 maybe 6 copies of the game, and it will prolly never be played but the joy here is in the writting. I will not end up on this forum. This game is my baby none of you can touch it. I know you just want to help but its mine.

The other two: These are directly forge inspired games that I think are fresh and exciting. They just might have the potential to go somewhere and I will maybe even get to read actual play reports here on the forge. These games will end up on this forum. I want them shreadded apart and built back up again untill they are either judged good, or crap. Then I will get some cheap art from some freinds of mine stick it in a .pdf and sell it for 5 bucks a peice. These games are written specificly for the Forge, I am writting them because I think by doing so I am building a better game. So for respect. I don't really expect to make money, but it would be nice if I got 5 bucks here or there. Thats a few extra cans of soup which are very important in school.

These are little dreams but at least it keeps the desighn process fun and exciting.

I've created many game systems that will never see the light of day. Most of them were based upon my interests in simulating reality at the time, or just a fun idea I had about a way a game should work.

The driving force behind my game design nowadays is to address the problems I see inherent in systems ranging from GURPS to d20 -- crunch, and the lack of fun.

I see rules as a transparent framework, that should fit the flavor of the genre you're trying to simulate. Star Wars d20 was primarily designed for people who have no frame of reference for rules, thus, 1,000+ tables on everything from Force Powers to Droid design were needed.

Risus, on the other hand, is able to do Star Wars in 6 pages, plus a couple pages of supplemental material online -- and not for $40, but for free. It doesn't quite do the job, but the idea of "scribble something down and that's your character" is a sound enough one.

Over the Edge and Unknown Armies are another couple systems that almost do what I need 'em to.

So my quest right now (such as it is) is to design a system that allows for freeform character design, while at the same time allowing quick judgements for the range of possibilities. No long spell lists, no long lists of modifiers for combat, just looking for a system that aids in narrative play.

And, of course, if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.

When I saw the subject header, I guessed that it would be about one's goals for a specific game or games (i.e., what the game is supposed to do well, etc.). That being said, I feel that the subject might better have been "Game Design Motivations". I think both are worthwhile questions so I'll try to answer both, starting with the actual question:

1) My game design motivation could be stated "to build my very own fantasy heart-breaker", but I don't feel that would be completely accurate. When using Forge terms, by calling a game a heartbreaker is saying that the designer is recreating a game (usually D&D) in a manner that they feel is superior to the original, but which unintentionally is full of "been there, done that" material or outright crippling flaws (with possibly just a hint of brilliance in the rough). I'm creating my own flavor of Fantasy Roleplaying so that *it will work the way I want it to* while acknowleging that my ideas are not entirely original. Admitedly, that's a rather subtle shade of meaning. I suppose what I'm looking for here is an asterix by my game's classification "Fantasy Heartbreaker"* that adds the qualifier "Acknowledged". Does this really matter? Probably not to most people, but to me it makes just enough difference so as to dull any feeling of futility that may surface.

Essentially, my motivations are "hobby-ist", I'm writing my game for me and my friends. I may share it online in some fashion or other, but it is unlikely that it will be sitting in you FLGS next to the d20 supplements.

2) The Goals of my game design for Aega Mythea (the "Acknowledged Fantasy Heartbreaker" mentioned above) include:

a) Scalable levels of mechanics-generated detail - Though I usually prefer a high-level of detail available to me from the dice, there are times when a lot of detail can bog down pacing forcing much of the game to take a back-seat to combat round-by-round activities.

b) a unified mechanic - admittedly, this is nothing new, but since we are talking about heartbreakers, I felt it worth mentioning. The mechanic I'm using is a mid20 (i.e., roll 3d20 and take the middle result and use the high and low results as flavor text, qualifiers). I like the way it rarifies the extremes without making all results too predictable (i.e., the steepness of the distribution is intermediate between a straight d20 and a 3d6 mechanic). Lots of my detail scalability (see a above) depends on how much the other two dice are relied on for qualification/flavoring of results (Combat Examples: hit location, amount of damage, initiative determination, critical sucesses.....there are lots of other ways this can be used, combat is just the easiest to explain).

c) a pleasant mix of random/point-buy character generation - My use of the subjective word "pleasant" is there to admit that this is being done the way I *prefer* it to work. Nothing new here either. I do understand that others have different preferences and intend to cater to them as (alternative character generation methods) once things are a bit more locked down in the core system (as we all know, assigning appropriate point costs for things can be a bitch).

d) Niche-protection for character archetypes: Though I favor flexible character development, I concede that it is important to protect the uniqueness of the character types to ensure fun for all players (i.e., no one wants to play a "warrior-type" if the "wizard-type" can fight just as well). From my experience, this is difficult to do w/o classes. I'm experimenting with several ways right now, but may end up using some "class-like" structures anyway (depending on how playtests go). I like having a lot of character attributes. Doing this makes it more difficult to min-max, but also complicates closing residual loop holes.

e) deadly combat that's tempered with heroism - the best way for this to be explained is I like to have gritty, detailed combat, but I really like it better when a "satisfying result" is obtained. Anticlimactic combat results are the bane of those who enjoy detailed combat systems but also like to see a good heroic story unfold. For years, we've used different forms of "fate points". Since reading TRoS, I've been monkeying with this concept and expanding it with the idea of "slated fate points" that support the characters passions, fate, etc.

There are other goals, but I think that these will suffice for now. I'd be interested in anyone's thoughts in them. There's bound to be some insight on this forum that I've missed.

-Adaen

As a game designer hobbyist, I've been tweaking existing systems for over 20 years. My first 'game design', i.e., creating a gaming system and enviornment from scratch happened about 15 years ago. Admittedly it was a raw system, but it set the foundation of a trial and error process that has brought me to where I am now.

As said prior, I'm not really into it for the money, although being able to fund my work with money outside of my day job would be nice. My goal is to create a fluid game system that offers flexibility, speed of gameplay, and is easy to learn. My ultimate goal is not to have 5000+ copies of a book sold if the opinion is mediocre, but to have even just a few new people enjoy the work I've created if they are thrilled. And then of course name recognition would be nice as well, but that's only for the ego boost.

Hello,

Matthijs, I'm afraid I'm going to be a party pooper. Tempting as it is to whip out a personal philosophy-statement, and to share it with the hordes of people who (I'm sure) are fascinated to read it ...

... it's not discourse.

Can you provide a more specific inquiry or point of discussion that can raise this thread above the level of "personal survey"?

Best,
Ron

Perhaps something related to the field of game design. Maybe, "What are universal goals of game design, if any?" or "What are common reasons a designer falls short of their goals?" and "How can a designer reach their goals more effectively?"

For something related to publishing, "Is there a conflict between the goals of publication and the goals of game design?" "Are the two mutually exclusive?" "Does compromise help or hinder either?"

I'll let Matthijs decide since he started the thread. :)

Perhaps: Thoughts for setting, documenting, and achieving goals (as a process). All too often someone goes and designs what could have been a really good game, but falls short due to vague, inconsistent, or nonexistent goals.

Ron Edwards wrote: Can you provide a more specific inquiry or point of discussion that can raise this thread above the level of "personal survey"?

I hope to answer the questions put out and maybe even offer some food for thought (discourse) along the way because this churns up ideas the question always on my mind for both Play and Design:
"Why we Fight" or in this case why we design?

To begin with I think that primarily the act of designing, especially in this Industry, business, Hobby, is a huge act of Ego. I do not mean that in a bad way but I think RPGs have a way of triggering our Egos. Any creative endevor does this I suppose and RPGs are no different. I can do it better! I can go where someone else has not gone! I can go further then they have! This applies both to the design (art) phase and the publishing (business) phase. Ego fuels the creative process to one extent or the another and I do not think can be ignored. Please do not read this as my labeling of this community as Megla or Ego maniacs.

Success. I hope to be create a succesful game. How do you measure success? Thats a tough question. A very tough question. Is D&D succesful? Well TSR was (for a while) and Wizards IS succesful with D&D. Financially it has been a success. Many people play it so from a volume of players standpoint it is a succes. However, was D&D a succesful game design? Is it a good piece of art? I know many people would say no. It was hardly ever one person's vision and over the years the vision has changed. I might say 1st Ed was a better piece of design / art because I think it has been disparaged less then 3 or 3.5 ED. However, it could just be age since I was 8 when I started playing it. RPGs were new and wow for me then so I am not sure my opinion is unbiased enough to say.

Sorcerer has not sold millions of copies and I have no idea if it has reached whatever publishing Goals Ron set for it but as a Design, as a work of Art, is it a success? Well again being a "Forger" or "Forgite" or Fan Boy :) might make me biased but hey, I think it has been as are many of the game designs here.

So what do I expect out of My Game Design?

Success in Art that will provide some Ego satisfaction and hopefully some financial success. Ego satisfaction will come through many people playing the game, good feedback from players, Feedback from Peers and or Awards.

As for the game itself, I want to explore elements of Drama and human thought, I want to get inside of people's minds and make them think outside of the box. Hell just makek them think! I have no idea how succesful I will be although some of my fits and starts seem promising. So I think for myself, Ego plays a big part. I want to be able sit down at a convention or on a net game and say:
"Open your books to Chapeter 7, Verse 9. Bobbi read line 1 and roll a d20 please."

About Game Publisher vs Game Designer, I think the two have different goals (as has been mentioned by others.) I read a very good book on Napolean's Russian Campaign of 1812, and near the beginning the author asserted that Napolean the Statesman/Emperor let down Napolean the GEneral (based on several ideas that I will not enumerate here) and I often dwell on that. I want to be a designer / publisher. Some people want to be pure Artists ie Designers. I would be interested in hearing from anyone here who is ONLY interested in the Publishing side. I am not aware of anyone here fitting that bill (someone who strictly wants to publish Indie Games of others, not make one themself) but I could be wrong.

So, is their conflict between publsiher and designer? At face value I would say yes, the dynamic of financial success vs artistic merit. However, does anyone here make a serious game that think wouldn't be succesful? Even if we did not care that people would buy, we still think the game could and would sell, if we chose to market it. I think I lack enough personal imperical evidence to say yea or nea.


Sean