Advice for Designers : comments [benlehman]

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What comes first for you : plot or design?

Do you think of a neat setting or story you wish to tell, then come up with a system that captures that feel, or do you think of cool mechanics first, then let them suggest settings or themes?

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In terms of "story I want to tell:" If I think of a story I want to tell, I write a story! Stories that I want to tell are not for gaming. Gaming is stories we all tell together. If I know what I want, I'm already done.

In terms of GMing: I come up with the idea first, system second, definitely.

In terms of Game Design: I have bits and pieces. Fragments of the Polaris setting have existed since the mid-90s (when I was cleaning in my room I found an old map of "Crateria," which is what the setting used to be called. Crazy.) Several key system elements, especially the whole player roles thing, came out of theory discussions, with no immediate application. Other aspects, such as the Zeal/Weariness track, came only when I squished the two together. So it's a big mess.

Tactics, on the other hand, was a pure system that was birthed nearly fully formed in one afternoon. The setting is a mild afterthought.

That's my answer, of course. It isn't a "you have to do things this way" like the stuff above. Just the way that my process works.

What about you?

yrs--
--Ben

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It used to be System, then Setting.
Then I got through puberty and went to college. :)

Now it's setting first, all the time. But my take on story is different - I think of a story that'd be neat but I'm too lazy to write. So I make it into a game. Less work for me, and PCs will think of things I hadn't thought of, and my ideas for the story will evolve over the course of the game (fortunately, my plots are usually so twistie that I can ret-con anything major without the PCs noticing). Both Utterdark and Star Wars Done Right have been like this.

Design-wise, I'm lazy. I've started campaigns with no system at all, just to get going, then introduced stuff as it seemed appropriate. Or I've just used off-the-shelf stuff that was kinda-appropriate, then tweaked it as necessary . I don't think I've ever run a game (outside of a LARP) with an entirely home-brew system. In fact, I can tell you that in the last five years I have fully completed exactly one system - and that was the card-based combat resolution for D U N E.

I guess I see the system as a crutch - something to get players thinking the right way about the feel of the game, and to give them something familiar to hang on to for when things go batshit crazy.

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I am, perhaps not surprisingly, of the opinion that a good system is far more useful than that. Particularly, I don't consider "GM fiat without numbers" to be a particularly good system.

Have you are Vincent's Blog (http://www.lumpley.com/opine.html)? He has a whole series of recent articles, starting here (http://www.lumpley.com/anycomment.php?entry=138) which go into the hows, whys, and wherefores of system. There is an index of all these posts on the frontpage of his blog right now.

If you are bothering to read the poop that I write, you might as well read the good stuff.

yrs--
--Ben

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I don't consider "GM fiat without numbers" to be a particularly good system.

Yes, but it can still make for a great game.

UtterDark v2, for example ('96-'98), had no system at all. But I dare you to find a player who has bad things to say about that game. Even Treska, who got blown up.

...OK, so maybe they're all too scared to say anything bad about that game. But still. :)

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UtterDark was doubleplus all good. There was no bad thing in UtterDark. There are no bad men. They don't tell me what to say. Go to the happy place. The happy, happy UtterDark. All good. Yes.

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...splendid.

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Not saying that that sort of fiatted freeform can't make a good game. What I will say is that a good system will make a better game, every time.

yrs--
--Ben

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But the system is just a tool of the Man designed to give us the illusion of non-deterministic events!

It's all pre-ordained, dude. Free the dice, and your mind will follow.

/trippy

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I tend toward a similar view. I think system's a good way to create tension, especially in major scenes, but that there are a lot of times when you can resolve a situation without it and it's better--or at least less complicated and math-involving, which are much the same to me--to do so. System's also useful for the "I want to do X crackass thing...hey, it works!" Independence Day situation.

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System's also useful for the "I want to do X crackass thing...hey, it works!" Independence Day situation.

and sometimes it bites you in the ass when your system lets a party member *accidentally* bind the Great Evil Lord of the game by rolling a string of open-ended d100. :)

...yes, that happened to me, once. I learned my lesson and moved on.

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See, I think that's awesome. I think that is *exactly* what system is there for.

See #1 above. If y'all aren't prepared for one of the possible results of the roll, why are you rolling?

yrs--
--Ben

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How can you prepare for a 1 in 10,000 chance?

I mean, really? :)

Conversely, in the same game, the Grand Final Battle on the Mountaintop devolved into a mad scramble in the mud for Ye Sacred Dagger as *both* Hero and Villain rolled fumbles and dropped their weapons.

...yeah, it was funny, even at the time, but it was a rather modernist take on the Epic Climax.

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May I suggest that you were using a system that sucked?

yrs--
--Ben

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Well, I was 14 at the time. Running Rolemaster for the first time. So I don't blame the system so much as my inexperience.

I did have a kick-ass shamanistic magic system, though.

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Read lumpley (http://www.lumpley.com/opine.html)!

yrs--
--Ben

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I think 'plot' is too specific. A big difference between RPGs and, say, novels or scripts, is that they can have any plot.

I don't know if there's a name for 'what one is going for with a good RPG design', but it's not necessarily plot. My Life with Master assumes plot, but most don't. GURPS assumes that you want to generate all the quantitative factors of a character, Dogs in the Vineyard requires you to build a character from hir history and form a moral stance over multiple plots.

I think it's a bigger question: what is the game about, not as in, it's about blowing up the Death Star and defeating the Empire, but as in, it's about learning to use calm observation and iron will, and decisive action to bring peace within families, friends, and society. Figure that out, and you have a skeleton to hang muscles and organs on.

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Theme, perhaps? Aim? Goal?

Star Wars Done Right had an eponymous theme, a bunch of tools (NPCs with familiar names but different histories and motives from the movies) and some new characters (the PCs) as the protagonists. There really wasn't a hard-and-fast plot written before the game began, but there was a general idea of where the story would probably go, if the PCs didn't manage to significantly influence events.

But I certainly didn't think "Oh, I want to explore the relationship between democracies and tyrannies, and how one can become the other through the misguided actions of good men". SWDR certainly explores these, and draws parallels to current events, but it wasn't the driving force behind me wanting to run the game.

I wanted to run it because George Lucas is an ass who has pooped all over my childhood. :)

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"Focus" might be a good word for it. "Aim" works, too.

I don't think it has to be conscious. Like you said, you didn't realize that SWDR was about Democracy vs. Tyranny. It just has to be there. You can discover it later on.

yrs--
--Ben

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So what was the focus of the system? I mean 'system' in the big sense, like, what actions were favored by the GM, the other players, and the rules?

Cuz you don't think that Luke defeated Vader because he had a higher Lightsaber roll, do you?

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Welllll, as the designer, I suspect it works best if you make it conscious. Otherwise, you make compromises unintentionally, trying to match design specifications that you didn't even know exist.

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It's fascinating that the primal motivation for SWDR is such a universal driver. It's with almost therapeutic relief that we finally get to play out a story that everyone knows needs desperately to be retold.

What's even more fascinating, though, is how everyone, with their private versions of how things should have gone, is pretty much on the same thematic page. It amplifies my sense of Lucas' taste being monumentally poor, and not merely different from mine.

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There was certainly enough poop flung around to hit everyone.

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May