RPGaDay: Part 3 (Days 22-31)
Bit of a more epic run with this posts 10 entries compared to the previous days where I've done 7 at a time... but here goes.
22. Lost
Many of my ideas over the years have been written on scraps of paper, sometimes pasted into diaries or journals. More often than not I don't get to finish working on them because something comes up in my life with a higher priority than game design. I often find that these game ideas become lost for months, years, or even decades before I find them again, then choose to ether integrate them into my new designs, modify them because they've evolved in the meantime, or occasionaly just chuck them out completely because the concepts have been superceded.
I was going to develop a wedbsite that was purely a library of lost ideas a few years ago. It was going to be a series of pages of scanned images from those notebooks and paper scraps, for use by anyone who might be interested. But then I realised that most designers probaby have so many oftheir own ideas like this, that mine probably wouldn't interest them.
23. Surprise!!
I'd be surprised if we ever end up seeing that Buckaroo Banzai RPG that was promised a few years ago.
Another great surprise would be if we'd see a few more licensed RPG products that portrayed the feeling of the setting more accurately, rather than just being a vanilla set of generic rules with a bunch of photos (or comic panels) from the the intellectual property that the game is said to represent.
If I had the money behind me, I'd love to give it a shot. But getting that money to design a game for a property I'm passionate about would be the biggest surprise of all.
24. Triumph
Let's call this "Part 1: Success".
I'm still really enthusiastic about the system I've generated for "The Law", where dice are allocated by the player into categories of success and sacrifice. It's a system where the protagonists have a better chance at succeeding in their tasks, but they also need to make careful choices with every action they make. Is the success worth the collateral damage that might occur? This feels more heroic, it places more control in the hands of the players and when things go well, they go very well.
In many other games, there isn't this duality of outcomes, it's just success or failure (sometimes with a degree of success indicating how well something has been achieved). A few games (like those put out in recent years by FFG) have action results where positive or negative influences might be applied to actions that might otherwise be successes or failures, but the players don't have much influence here...the dice are rolled and the outcome determined.
25. Calamity
Let's call this "Part 2: Sacrifice".
I touched on the idea of a metaphorical doors in an earlier part of this series. Sometimes there are elements of game systems that stop the story from moving forward. I've seen elements like these completely derail sessions and entire campaigns.
I prefer the idea of failing forward, where an unsuccessful action doesn't stop proceedings, but instead diverts them in an unintended and possibly unexpected direction. This turns a calamity into a story opportunity. It's a pretty simple twist that can be applied to virtually any game, but I try to make sure it's a fundamental part of the systems I design rather than something tacked on afterward.
26. Idea
I touched on the way I get some of my ideas in the "Dream" part of this sequence. Other than my dreams, I guess I get ideas the same ways most game designers do; I identify problems in certain elements of existing products and I try to fix them, or I identify things that I haven't seen adequately addressed elsewhere and I try to fill in the gap.
A problem here is that something I might see as a problem might be seen as a feature by someone else, but that's where the variety of gaming products is important. Everyone likes things a bit different, and they too can pick and choose the elements and ideas they want to incorporate into their games.
27. Suspense
I find one of the most suspenseful elements of any game is that moment when modifiers have been worked out, stakes have been set, and the dice are about to be rolled (or cards drawn, or whatever other elements of randomness have worked their magic). It's that moment of uncertainty, before the unknown become known and the story resumes its course in accordance with the random outcome. The way that point is reached, and the way the storyline resumes thereafter is where different game systems play out their variations... but it's that moment where the suspense lies.
28. Love
Love is hard enough to identify and quantify in the real world, trying to do so within the mechanisms of an RPG seems a futile task, it's certainly a task I haven't attempted. It's hard enough trying to develop social systems, or methods of simulating emotional responses... add to that the metagame responses when characters are under mind control effects, and trying to apply a system as fickle as love to a system of interconnected game mechanisms becomes even more complicated. It's probably best to leave something like this to the whim of the story.
On the flip side, I know a lot of gamers who found real word love through gaming.
29. Evolve
The nature of roleplaying games has always evolved, new ideas have come, old ideas have been refined, the designed systems have filled plentiful play-style niches. Overall, the process of evolution is a system that sees refinement and improvement, but a lot of that is due to confirmation bias... we see the elements that survive, but not those that fail and die. For every successful gaming product, there are dozens of others that barely turn a profit, and for each of these completed games, there are many more that don't even see completion. At an individual level, the process of evolution is a series of mutations and adaptions, some successful, more unsuccessful; but without any attempt to change, the hobby would have died of stagnation decades ago and would not have spawned the vibrant communities that drive it today.
I can't wait to see what future evolution brings.
30. Connection
Most of the connections and friends I've made over the years have come through gaming in one form or another. It's a highly social pastime, and when combined with an imagined narrative that everyone contributes to, powerful bonds form. It's little wonder that religious conservatives are scared of the pastime, especially when it uses the same ways to bond people that they've been using for millenia.
Connections between people are also something that I've been exploring in Walkabout, but I've written heaps about that in the last year or so.
31. Last
Another one I'm not too sure on... my last game was a session of The Law, a few weeks ago. My last published game was The Dispatch Guide for The Law.
...there, finished by the end of August, that's got to count for something right??
Many of my ideas over the years have been written on scraps of paper, sometimes pasted into diaries or journals. More often than not I don't get to finish working on them because something comes up in my life with a higher priority than game design. I often find that these game ideas become lost for months, years, or even decades before I find them again, then choose to ether integrate them into my new designs, modify them because they've evolved in the meantime, or occasionaly just chuck them out completely because the concepts have been superceded.
I was going to develop a wedbsite that was purely a library of lost ideas a few years ago. It was going to be a series of pages of scanned images from those notebooks and paper scraps, for use by anyone who might be interested. But then I realised that most designers probaby have so many oftheir own ideas like this, that mine probably wouldn't interest them.
23. Surprise!!
I'd be surprised if we ever end up seeing that Buckaroo Banzai RPG that was promised a few years ago.
Another great surprise would be if we'd see a few more licensed RPG products that portrayed the feeling of the setting more accurately, rather than just being a vanilla set of generic rules with a bunch of photos (or comic panels) from the the intellectual property that the game is said to represent.
If I had the money behind me, I'd love to give it a shot. But getting that money to design a game for a property I'm passionate about would be the biggest surprise of all.
24. Triumph
Let's call this "Part 1: Success".
I'm still really enthusiastic about the system I've generated for "The Law", where dice are allocated by the player into categories of success and sacrifice. It's a system where the protagonists have a better chance at succeeding in their tasks, but they also need to make careful choices with every action they make. Is the success worth the collateral damage that might occur? This feels more heroic, it places more control in the hands of the players and when things go well, they go very well.
In many other games, there isn't this duality of outcomes, it's just success or failure (sometimes with a degree of success indicating how well something has been achieved). A few games (like those put out in recent years by FFG) have action results where positive or negative influences might be applied to actions that might otherwise be successes or failures, but the players don't have much influence here...the dice are rolled and the outcome determined.
25. Calamity
Let's call this "Part 2: Sacrifice".
I touched on the idea of a metaphorical doors in an earlier part of this series. Sometimes there are elements of game systems that stop the story from moving forward. I've seen elements like these completely derail sessions and entire campaigns.
I prefer the idea of failing forward, where an unsuccessful action doesn't stop proceedings, but instead diverts them in an unintended and possibly unexpected direction. This turns a calamity into a story opportunity. It's a pretty simple twist that can be applied to virtually any game, but I try to make sure it's a fundamental part of the systems I design rather than something tacked on afterward.
26. Idea
I touched on the way I get some of my ideas in the "Dream" part of this sequence. Other than my dreams, I guess I get ideas the same ways most game designers do; I identify problems in certain elements of existing products and I try to fix them, or I identify things that I haven't seen adequately addressed elsewhere and I try to fill in the gap.
A problem here is that something I might see as a problem might be seen as a feature by someone else, but that's where the variety of gaming products is important. Everyone likes things a bit different, and they too can pick and choose the elements and ideas they want to incorporate into their games.
27. Suspense
I find one of the most suspenseful elements of any game is that moment when modifiers have been worked out, stakes have been set, and the dice are about to be rolled (or cards drawn, or whatever other elements of randomness have worked their magic). It's that moment of uncertainty, before the unknown become known and the story resumes its course in accordance with the random outcome. The way that point is reached, and the way the storyline resumes thereafter is where different game systems play out their variations... but it's that moment where the suspense lies.
28. Love
Love is hard enough to identify and quantify in the real world, trying to do so within the mechanisms of an RPG seems a futile task, it's certainly a task I haven't attempted. It's hard enough trying to develop social systems, or methods of simulating emotional responses... add to that the metagame responses when characters are under mind control effects, and trying to apply a system as fickle as love to a system of interconnected game mechanisms becomes even more complicated. It's probably best to leave something like this to the whim of the story.
On the flip side, I know a lot of gamers who found real word love through gaming.
29. Evolve
The nature of roleplaying games has always evolved, new ideas have come, old ideas have been refined, the designed systems have filled plentiful play-style niches. Overall, the process of evolution is a system that sees refinement and improvement, but a lot of that is due to confirmation bias... we see the elements that survive, but not those that fail and die. For every successful gaming product, there are dozens of others that barely turn a profit, and for each of these completed games, there are many more that don't even see completion. At an individual level, the process of evolution is a series of mutations and adaptions, some successful, more unsuccessful; but without any attempt to change, the hobby would have died of stagnation decades ago and would not have spawned the vibrant communities that drive it today.
I can't wait to see what future evolution brings.
30. Connection
Most of the connections and friends I've made over the years have come through gaming in one form or another. It's a highly social pastime, and when combined with an imagined narrative that everyone contributes to, powerful bonds form. It's little wonder that religious conservatives are scared of the pastime, especially when it uses the same ways to bond people that they've been using for millenia.
Connections between people are also something that I've been exploring in Walkabout, but I've written heaps about that in the last year or so.
31. Last
Another one I'm not too sure on... my last game was a session of The Law, a few weeks ago. My last published game was The Dispatch Guide for The Law.
...there, finished by the end of August, that's got to count for something right??
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