Diary of a Failed Game Designer

Update to the dice chess, dice movement. Each side gets 16 six sided dice. Roll your dice then set them up chess style Players take turns moving and taking dice. The die value is the  number of dots showing on it's upward side. (1-6) Movement of dice is based on the pattern of dots on the upward facing. Ones can move 1 space in any direction and take any die regardless of value. A two can go up to 2 spaces diagonally in the direction it is facing, and take dice of  an equal or  lesser value. A three can go up to three spaced diagonally in the direction it is facing,  and take dice of an  equal  or  lesser value. A four can go up to 2 spaces in any direction, and take dice of an equal or lesser value. A five can go up to s spaces left or right or forward and back,  or up to three spaces in any diagonal direction,  and take dice of an  equal  or  lesser value. Sixes can move up to three spaced in the direction...

I have been giving this some thought, what do players do in a game that makes the game a role-playing game?   And furthermore, how can narration be tied into fantasy sports games? There is a ton of ways to look at this question, but I think for me the best way to approach it is to define games that are definitely not role playing games. Board games like Blood bowl, Decent, or Zombiecide are not role playing games. In those game players move pieces, use some kind of tactics, to determine the outcome of the game either vs. the game or vs. other players. There is no attempt to force the perspective of the pieces on the player, and there is no attempt to weave and kind of narrative. The new wave of group story telling games, are not role playing games. Games like “Once upon a time,” “Project Ninja Panda Taco (PNPT)” would fall into these categories nicely. These games make you take the stance of story creator more than of a character. Using (PNPT) for an example, it is a bang up good t...

INTRO: Here is the process I used. I played the game solo and wrote it as I played just like I narrated it in my head.. It is DARK AS FUCK.. especially in the end when it was clear to me I was going to loose. Honestly it's slightly disturbing , cause I don't like horror, and I don't write that way (if at all.) It left me with a bad feeling when I was done, but I felt something , so that's better than a game that leaves you feeling nothing. In a group it might get more silly , like the goonies.. but as a solo play it was kind of hard to see my character fall apart in front of me. My brain was left to it's own devices to think about what this character must be going through mentally, and it was not a good place to be. bad rolling was my undoing. The dice and the cards determined every element of the story. I had not idea what I wanted to do when I started. So here you go .. You have been warned. SOLO PLAY TEST STARTS HERE: Down on old mill road actual solo play Charac...

Looking at historical fantasy for a role playing game. Recently I floated an idea of hooking the gaming group to the historic Lewis and Clark exploration of the Louisiana purchase. Using the expedition as an underpinning and plot hook, to get the players into the wilds. The next step is to re-mystify the forests and fields from a time before “we” were all over them. A straight up historic re-walking of Lewis and Clark would be interesting if well done, I just don't think it would be a heck of a lot of fun. I also don't think I am built for straight up historical reconstruction. This is where a bit of research and “stretching the real” comes in. What were people afraid of in 1804? How did they view the wild places of our continent? It will be my job as Gm to set a stage where those fears are real, and not simply imagined. Another challenge is this. In RPG's walking is not fun, to say your party walked or canoed or whatever is simply not as fun or as descriptive as doing th...

Found it on my thumb drive. The table top basketball game is one of those ideas I have written and deleted several time over the years. I have a board drawn up, I have pieces built, but it's the die mechanic and the game play that has killed the idea more than once. a game that looks to simulate a sport is tough. Sports are visual, visceral, exciting. A player has to be a certain type of sports fan to want to boil that down to purely tactical x and o’s. I have to face it any table top game of basketball I create is not going to have the thrill of watching a player swoop down the lane and dunk. The reward for the players has to be getting the most out of each procession, being efficient, basically not playing form the stance of being a fan or player but, playing from the stance of being a coach. With that said the rules have to be detailed enough to be realistic (offer realistic tactical tradeoffs and risk vs. reward), and fluid enough that the game still feels like basketball and n...

Blank page syndrome I guess. I was thinking of updating the concept of PARANOIA to be a bit more topical for today (Though Paranoia is technically always topical.) So I was thinking of a game where every character has a camera installed in their eyes when they are born. When the characters reach young adult hood the dormant cameras switch on and they become part of the worlds biggest reality show. You can literally tune into anyone, the camera is never off, every one is watching you. Naturally you would be given a bunch of similarly aged room mates, and stupidity would ensue. Each player would have a turn interacting with the world, the other players as the “audience” would give the player dice to do things with. Good rolls would raise the character popularity a bad rolls would raise the characters infamy. Each player would have two stacks of 6's in front of them (like hell for leather) one to represent popularity one to represent infamy. With mechanics to move dice between towers ...

I’m not sure about the one page game of this week. Busy at work and intellectually lazy at home, I am drawing blanks for games I can fit on one page. I went three weeks though, and it's only Wendsday! What I am thinking of doing is running a test solo game of “down On Old Mill Road” and then publish it here. That game idea drew some atention, so it might be worth fleshing out a bit. Dread Ball talk:  Aound the end of this week or the end of next week. Once that happens I will post an unboxing over on my youtube. Everyone can get a look at what teams we have to play with and start thinking about which team suits them. For the record Dreadball is not Blood Bowl and the comparisons I see on line are not really all that valid. Some of the terms are the same but the game plays much differently. The way I see it Blood bowl is very strategic in that how you are going to reach your goals is often largly predetermined by your team choice. You can choose to play how you want to pay before th...