who is a game designer that does not suck at his job?

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Wed Jul 18, 2012 5:31 am

One thing that I need to point out to people is that good game designers nowadays tend to avoid RPGs like the plague - and really good game designers now tend to either end up in the video game industry, the CCG industry, or the boardgame industry.

And of those three, only the first two allow you to actually live off game designing as opposed to being merely a part-time job. Even Martin Wallace (who is one of the most prolific boardgame designers) says he has a day job beside game design. Only a tiny handful (i.e. Knizia) can actually make a career out of designing boardgames.

Which is why, on a personal level, I've also veered away from doing design work on RPGs. All of my current projects are now boardgame concepts; and the field is so fertile that I've even managed to do some actual development work (play test + rule fixing) for a local start up and a Canadian group.

K · Post by K » Wed Jul 18, 2012 6:28 am

Yeh, I'm not at a point in my life where I can do any writing for anyone unless there is at least a chance that I'm getting paid.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Wed Jul 18, 2012 6:30 am

Kaelik wrote:Of course I am a content producer. That's what all the content I have produced is clearly demonstrating by it's existence.

But all the discontent you have produced evens it out to zero-sum

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Wed Jul 18, 2012 6:46 am

Zinegata wrote:One thing that I need to point out to people is that good game designers nowadays tend to avoid RPGs like the plague - and really good game designers now tend to either end up in the video game industry, the CCG industry, or the boardgame industry.

I enjoy reading the articles by M:tG designers. Where can I read about other well designed games, or their designers?

I like the games workshop games, but honestly I haven't played any other tabletop skirmish stuff, and the balance in 40k is bork'd by a really slow release schedule for rules updates.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Wed Jul 18, 2012 6:49 am

K wrote:Yeh, I'm not at a point in my life where I can do any writing for anyone unless there is at least a chance that I'm getting paid.

Just out of curiosity, what would you charge if someone wanted you to write a D&D-ish adventure?

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Wed Jul 18, 2012 7:35 am

OgreBattle wrote:I enjoy reading the articles by M:tG designers. Where can I read about other well designed games, or their designers?

Boardgaming is really reaching its heyday, and there are plenty of YouTube reviewers (i.e. Tom Vassal) who look at games. As for OpEds from the designers themselves, there's various magazines and the designer's notes from a lot of games. For instance:

http://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/6609/ ... aybook-pdf

You can very easily download the Play Book from the BGG website for the game Sword of Rome, which is arguably one of the best card-driven games ever made. In it Wray Farell (one of the best designers to design only one game) describes his source materials (other games that served as his inspiration) as well as his thought processes.

Most significant of his innovations - which have rarely been repeated in other similar games - is the fact that each player has his own seperate deck, making each faction (Romans, Greek, Gaul, Etruscans & Samnites) unique and have exclusive powers. In addition, giving each player a hand size larger than they're supposed to use (7 card hand size, when you're only supposed to play 5 of them) helps streamline some of the card-drawing randomness that plagues CDGs while at the same time giving players more opportunities for strategic planning (i.e. Do I hold this awesome card for next turn for better long term gain, or do I play it now for a quick VP?)

Just as important are the Developer's notes - as it's their job (and the job I'm finding myself best at) to tweak and streamline rules.