Diary of a Failed Game Designer

Microtransactions are destroying my love of video games. (kind of a bonus post not related to the rest of the blog. I'm not going to announce this one around, so if you are reading this, Thank you.) I am a gamer of that original gamer generation. I'm 38, I remember playing pinball and Pac man in the arcade. I owned an Atari 2600, even Pong was part of my early years. I did not have every system through the years mostly for financial reasons, but once I had my own cash I have had the systems I have wanted and played the games I have wanted to play. So that's a solid 20 + years of steady plying. However this also puts me in a group where games are still just games. To some of the the younger gaming generation games are the movies, the competition, and the culture. Halo is their star wars, call of duty is there Monday night NFL, and they seem to be willing to spend cash to get ahead. Here is my gripe: It used to be that when you bought a game you got whatever was on the dis

This might be a bit too much. I tend to go limb climbing when I write games. I climb way the heck out there on the limb and then start sawing behind myself. So when I look at my latest project I start to wonder, where I am on the limb. So far I started out with a blind bidding game, and then moved to a game that starts with narration and moves to a kind of skill based risk vs. reward bidding mechanic. I’m still not sure exactly how well it will work in play (you never really know until you play test anyway.) One of the best ways to judge how far out on the limb you have climbed is from feedback and luckily I have been getting some. So on the blog and in G+ comments I got asked a couple of questions. First from:   Robert Bondoni off of G+ “What do you think the true goal is with the system? Is it to get players to interact more?” I posted an answer but I’m not sure I nailed it really well. When I re re-read it my answer sounded kind of pretentious and that’s not really how I wanted it t

Rewards…“There Can Be Only One”… kind of. For me, there is only one reward in RPG’s and it’s not experience points and it’s not gold. In my opinion the true reward when playing an RPG is the opportunity to build and effect an interaction between friends while building a story. Yowwza! That’s Meta gaming weirdo talk there… However even back in the   beginning when the player got experience for slaying monsters and taking loot, the loot and the exp were only in game elements that were measures of how much the –players had effected the story. Kill a scrawny Kobold for 5 experiences you there’s arguably not much world impact from the loss of that poor Kobold. (A butterfly flaps its wings in china; a kobold dies in Aleria, cause and effect.) On the other side of the coin if ye old player characters offed a dragon, they were rewarded with a hefty number of experience points and a mountain of gold. (HUZZZAAAAHHH!)   The reward being presented as a measure of how hard the monster is, but in my

Setting and Design, hand in hand knife fighting. I am going to write something now that might be just about unheard of in the world of amateur, Indy, internet RPG game designers. (what are we again?) I may cast aspersions on myself that I might not be able to shake. I am not really that well read. There I said it. I don't make a habit of reading a ton of fantasy or science fiction. I’m a biography and real history guy, and even then I am not a page devouring bookworm. Sure I have read the obvious stuff, J.R.R.T., Shannara, Amber, Fritz Leiber, but that’s about it. So when I start talking about setting, I’m seriously not some kind of expert. With that preamble in place, I will say I know what I like when I play RPG's. Now that I have settled into that spot in everyone's mind that was once occupied by their crazy uncle who would eat anything and yell, “I don't know if it's good, but dang, I LIKE IT!” As much as I like universal or setting agnostic game design, I

The Gm’s not rolling for that and looking beyond combat: So far so good: I have started the mental gym work that will eventually lead me to a playable Role playing game. Part of that mental gym work was getting straight two things that seem simple yet will inform the rest of my design moving forward. First, once it is done, I will likely GM this sucker more than anyone else. And I don’t want to roll dice. This came to me after reading a blog by Wil Hutton found here: http://rivetgeek.blogspot.com/2013/10/i-dont-fudge-die-rolls.html I see his point. I might even take it a step forward. I have GM’ed enough games and fudged enough die rolls to make the story flow better that I now see the hypocrisy of it. I am not a killer GM, I am not out to off party members. In my view if I often fudge rolls to make things go well for the players, when someone’s character does get killed than I am directly responsible for it because I did not choose to fudge the roll. In other words in my opinion if I

I would like to talk about a horrible and fictional illness that afflicts me and I am sure at least one or two other people in the world. B.P.G.D or (Blah-puh-ggud) better known as ( Bi Polar gamers’ disorder) Let me explain, unlike true Bi, Polar disorder or any true non-fictional disorder this is not serious, life threatening or found in the DSM-V. This makes sense considering I made it up. It is however annoying to me and I’m sure those around me. B.P.G.D. is effectively a cyclical disorder, where in every few months the victim, just stops being motivated to game, run games write games etc. (usually accompanied by notions of , no time of this waste of my time, dark thoughts about Cuthulu and video games) The down months are followed by a period of, “HOLY SHIT I HAD THIS GREAT IDEA …OR FIVE!”   These periods can last weeks or months but they definitely cycle. Right now I am in a down month, I want so bad to work on a new RPG idea I had a few weeks back but right now I’m just not moti