Diary of a Failed Game Designer

Down on Mill Road RPG: Something is going on, something sinister, something strange. People, and animals are disappearing. You and your friends are the only ones who seem to notice, and it looks like you're the only ones who can stop it. Needs: Paper, Pencil, deck of cards 2d10, and 5d6 per player. (A computer with a printer for the set up) Set up: Take the address your at now, Plug it into Google earth, zoom in to max then back out again 5 to 6 steps. Print the resulting image. Take your map and a ruler draw a 10 by 10 grid on the map number each line in the grid on the bottom and along the left margin 1-10. This is your game map. Characters: The characters are mostly normal people, who have some perks and normal things you can find around the house. If your character is starting to drift towards “Police swat team member,” or  “super spy” you are likely missing the flavor of the source material. Name: The player needs a name Make one up. A schtick: this is a hook that puts the c

I’m already kicking around next week’s one page game. The game is going to be called “Down on Mill Road” and will take its influence from classic kid and teen adventure / danger movies like   (from lightest to darkest) “The Goonies”, “Stand by me”, “The lost boys”, “Silver bullet”, etc. The game will take place in one setting with up to 4 players a crossed one “night” of game time. Why say this solid few days before the game gets done and put on the blog? I think because I like the idea, the genre is ripe for the picking, and I have a few good ideas to make a quick game pop a bit. In short I’m a bit excited about it. My biggest sticking point right now is not how to handle success in a game of this type, but how to handle failure? You see in the movie the goonies there was never a total party kill, as great as that would have been. A movie like the lost boys there was some serious danger in the film; vampires got killed, in silver bullet a main character dies. However I don’t ever reme

Unusual parts: So what is the next unusual part for a game? The block game uses blocks of wood to build a dungeon, it's fun but not exactly what I was thinking of. What I am talking about are new randomizers. Dice are the standard because they are reliably random, convenient size, cheap, and most gamers have them in bulk. There is a game that uses stacks of D6’s (Hell for Leather) Dread uses Jenga to good effect. The old prince valiant game used coins. Cards have been used. There are even games that have used different colored marbles pulled from a sack. So what else is there, or what else could there be? I like the idea of a game that uses things that are tied to the setting to figure results. If for example you are working on a game about pirates, why not have coin flips (or doubloon flips) as part of the mechanic?   Cards can be extremely thematic. A western game that uses poker hands as a randomizer sounds cool, or a game about wizards that uses a tarot deck to resolve conflict

One page game of the week : Dice chess. Set up: Take a standard Chess board. Player 1 Takes 16 d6 of one color Player 2 takes 16 D6 of a distinctly different color. Each player Rolls all of their dice then lien them up as if there were chess pieces, filling up the back two rows of the chess board on opposing sides from each other. Play: Moves:    Players take turns moving dice; they may move 1 die per turn. Dice may only move forward, back left or right. Dice showing a roll of 6 may move any direction including diagonals. Dice showing a roll of 2-6 may move 1 square per turn. Dice showing a roll of 1 may move 2 squares. Capture:   A player may capture an opponent’s die by moving onto the opponents square with a die that shows an equal or higher roll. (For example, a die showing a roll of 2 may take an opponent’s die that shows a roll of one or two, but not a die that shows three or higher.) When a player captures an opponent’s die that die is removed from the game and placed near the p

Maths, and Guts Any one who knows me knows I am many things but there are two things I am not. I am not a writer, and I am not a mathematician. However over the years gaming and writing games has given me an appreciation for basic statistics and probability, and even a “practical” knowledge of the stuff. When I start working on a game, once I sort out themes I start sorting out mechanics. Some times I give a lot of thought to what is going on mathematically and try to sort though exactly what I want. For example the 3d20 die mechanic in the block game is purposely built to work how it does for the sake of math. With about 89 skills now there needs to be some mathematically non-stupid frame work to hang all that stuff on. However often times I like to go with my gut, and let the theme dictate the dice. If I am working on an idea that is over the top, giant robots fighting trolls or some such nonsense. I want to roll a hand full of some thing to make the big actions feel big. A more refi

One Page Game of the Week:   Wrestling with Dice. A wrestling game where you use pre rolled pools of D6,s to determine success or failure. Narrate the moves as you roll them.. A in the ring story telling game I guess? so Every player has 10d6 that they pre- roll and keep behind some kind of blind. The player will also need a red (fatigue die) Your charter has moves that are tied to combos of dice, simple moves need simple rolls for example a punch might just need a 5 on d6, so if you want to punch you play a die from behind your blind that says 5. If the opponent has a die lower than five he can play it as a counter. Whoever wins narrates the action. “Brutus rears back to punch MR. America but Mr. America ducks blocks the bunch and chops him crossed the chest!” When a move lands the victim must make a roll ho his fatigue die, if the roll is lower than the number of dice just played against him When that round is over the winner of the round can choose to reroll the D6 behind his blind

In my opinion Characters in RPG’s should change over time, but not necessarily via statistical improvements. We have worked a ton of that into Phase Abandon; I would work in even more if I could find a way to do so. Goals push a characters story forward.   You have a goal to learn about the old sword you carry , great , you reach your goal, you tell a story about how the   was your great grandfathers,   a gift given to him for helping some dwarves survive a high mountain blizzard . Your character has grown, become more of a story than a sheet of numbers. Connections work the same way. You meet someone you forge a connection. When you need help perhaps you call on that guy, you strengthen the connection. Latter on in the story you hear of him getting arrested and your character says, “Hey I know that guy I got to find out what’s up?” Your character is automatically more interesting because your character is part of a world. I‘m wondering are purely role-playing based rewards (Character

Side note: Found this on a scrap of paper in my desk drawer. Scribbled in pencil: “5d10 Vs stat (under) 0 !=10 but = = 0 explodes, compare successes.” I get what I meant but I have absolutely no idea what I was thinking about when I wrote it. Now every one knows why I started the blog. PS: In hindsight I think it was for the basketball game I have been working on seemingly forever.

Robotech tactical: Paladium books and Ninja Division which brings together the design talents of Soda Pop Miniatures and Cipher Studios. This excites me. I might even back the kick starter, even though Paladium's release record scares the bejeebuz out of me. I wonder how combat will be resolved, how will they keep the table top game moving fast, how will they maintain that cinematic feel in large scale battles? These questions will likely get me to buy the game when and if if comes out. Part of me wishes Dream pod 9 was doing it. http://robotechbattles.blogspot.com/2013/02/start-spreading-news-kickstarter-inbound.html http://palladiumbooks.com/ http://www.dp9.com/

This idea obsconded from another desinger who's blog I was reading. (I will get you a link  ASAP) However I have not read his game so I have no idea how he does his resolution, it's obvious that he and I both like dwarf fortress a whole lot, so lets mull it over. How to make a solo play dungeon fortress game.. I think a deck of cards would be a good way to determine results in a single player game of dungeon building? I wonder what would be better. The problem with cards is as any card is take the % chance of finding any other card goes up. So if the queen of hearts is out of the pile the chances to find the 3 of clubs just went up. This can become part of the game. Say for example each draw of a card equals 100 years of a dwarf city (give or take). Each card drawn requires some kind of Role play or response from the player. When the Ace of spades is drawn, that card ends that age of the dwarf city. The deck is reshuffled and the player starts over, in a new age. The game ends

Reinventing   the wheels. I was thinking about Car wars the other day. When I was younger I had Steve Jackson Game’s car wars deluxe set, and I have to say it was pretty awesome, for the time. I recently dug it out of the attic because I want to play it again, for old times’ sake and because I think a couple of the guys I game with would dig the theme. Then I started to look at the components, and I remembered how fiddly the whole game is. I understand that the good folks at Steve Jackson Games fixed some of these issues with the scaled up 5 th edition.   I never bought that edition simply because I hated the packaging, and by the time it came out I was on to the next thing, car wars was simply not on the menu. All of that has me thinking about Car Wars and car based combat in general. What would I do first off? I think I would focus a bit on the driver. Traditionally it has been about the cars, and rightfully so, but I think the driver was given perhaps too little attention in origin

So why write table top games? I have asked my self that a lot lately, especially in the past 2 years or so. I suppose it has to start with creative impulse. I possess an artistic temperament. One day I am high on creative projects to the point of almost manic enthusiasm, a day later I am maudlin and just want to scrap or cancel everything. I go through periods where in my view every hobby is a waste of time, then other periods where I simply can't stop the ideas from coming. I have found that this manic, obsessive, depressive creative cycle is as much a part of me my eye color, I can't change it. Part of the answer to why design games is that there are times I'm simply driven to work on things. Is it a waste of time? Yes. Of course writing random game ideas on scraps of paper is a waste of time. I've never made a dime on the things I've written, I'm almost 40, and I should be tending flowerbeds. The rewards however, are great. Playing a game of your own devising