FrankTrollman wrote:This is in reference to the perplexing morass that the 40k design thread got to. Here's a step by step of designing a game.
Name the PCs
In D&D the characters are called a "party", which stands for "war party" and it colors the entire system. In Shadowrun it's a "Team", in Vampire it's a "coterie". If you name the PCs a "squad", a "pack", or whatever, it matters.
Step 2: Write up a Six Person Party
Seriously. Using words, not numbers, write up a six person party. Think about what each character contributes to the story, to the action, to completion of mission objectives.
- Does everyone have something to do? If not, start over.
Remember that it is entirely possible that you'll have 6 players or more at the table. If there is a structural impediment to the way you've designed the character "classes" such that you can't fit six players into a whole where each contributes, it's not going to work as an RPG.
Step 3: Write up a Three Person Party
Again, using words not numbers outline a group of potential player characters. Only now you've only got three characters to work with. Think about how the group can respond to challenges and complete mission objectives.
- Is there a talent critical to the group's success that that is missing from the group you've outlined? If so, start over.
Remember that people don't show up sometimes. Also, some games are small. If the game can't survive without a full team, it can't survive.
Step Four: Outline an Adventure
Using words, not numbers or mechanics, outline an adventure. Block it out in terms of time. Figure that you have somewhere between 2 and 6 hours. Any discussions that happen "in character" are resolved slower than real time. Any tactical combat is likewise resolved in much less than real time. Travel is handled almost instantly unless you make players describe in detail that they are "looking for traps/ambushes/their ass with both hands" - in which case it takes practically forever.
- Are there substantial blocks of time that one or more characters have nothing to add to the situation? If so, start over.
- If you use major "mini-games" such as puzzle solving or tactical combat, is every character able to contribute significantly to these mini-games? If not, are these mini-games extremely short? If the answer to both questions is no, start over.
If you have a tactical combat mini-game (or the equivalent) that takes up a significant amount of the overall game it will inevitably become the benchmark by which a character's worth is measured. Characters who don't measure up... don't measure up.
Players who don't have anything meaningful or valued for their characters to do will wander off and play computer games.
Step Five: Write out a campaign
It doesn't have to span years of epic tales or any of that crap, but it does need to have a story arc and outline a potential advancement scheme as you envision it.
- Does everyone have a roughly equivalent available advancement scheme? It's OK if noone advances during the campaign or even if negative advancement accumulates as people run out of ammunition and get injured. But if you envision some players going on to become a world dominating sorcerer lord and the other characters becoming better dog trainer - start over.
It's really frustrating when one player is flying around fighting gods and other characters are not. It really isn't better if the game ends up that way than if the players start off with that kind of disparity.
Step Six: Choose a Base System
Based on your previous work, consider what base system would best correspond to what it is that you're doing. There are a lot of game systems that you just plug numbers into (d20, HERO, SAME, BESM, etc. and whatever); there are a number of other systems which work fine for what they do and can be adapted to whatever it is that you want to do (Shadowrun, Feng Shui, WFRP, Paranoia, etc.). Consider the play dynamics and character distinctions that you want and the limitations of the system in question. If you want some characters picking up and throwing cars, d20 doesn't work. If you want all the characters at roughly human strength, HERO doesn't work.
- If you intend the game to have a high and permanent lethality rate? If so, start over if your system takes a long time to generate characters.
- Can you figure out how to model all the abilities that characters need to fulfill your concept in your system? If not, start over.
Step Seven: Do the Math
Once you've got this going, you can do the laborious, but not difficult task of actually plugging numbers in to generate the abilities you've concepted.
- Run the numbers. Have the numbers you've generated actually provided you with a reasonable chance of producing the story arcs you're looking for? If not, start over.
- Check yourself against the Random Number Generator. If high values that are achievable within the campaign can't lose to the low numbers also available in the campaign, you don't actually have a "game" at that point you just have "I win" - is that OK for the situations it comes up in? If not...
-Username17
Step 1- Name your party members
Step 2- Make a 3 person party
Step 3- Make a 6 person party
Step 4- Outline an entry level encounter
Step 5- Outline an 'end game' encounter
So if you want gunfights and hacking consider how much table time each takes vs how much fiction time it occupies during a gunfight.