The Den Design Challenge!!!

Dean · Post by **Dean** » Tue Aug 14, 2012 6:22 am

So I figured I would gauge interest on a project I'm thinking of running here on the Den, which I plan on calling "The Den Design Challenge".
Most of us have really strong abilities to analyze, value, and critique mechanics but to actually PRODUCE them is a different skill entirely. So I figured I could create an avenue for us to increase our skills. The idea would be to make 2 challenges a month, each challenge lasting about two weeks which to me is just enough time to make something meaty and to not get bored. Each week there will be a "Challenge" with a central theme like "Design Rules for Fires and Firefighting" or "Design a System for Gear Modification". Everyone who wants to participate will talk about, create, and post a system they made for the theme within a two week period, and then we will have a poll for who's system was best. People vote and the person who won picks the theme of the next challenge and the process continues as long as we want.
This uses deadlines, goals, and gives a sounding board to bounce your ideas off of and I think it could really strengthen our skills and let us produce stronger work in the future when we want to do it for ourselves. So what do you guys think, who's interested? Any suggestions, questions, or critiques?

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Tue Aug 14, 2012 6:30 am

Sounds cool. I might try it once or twice, but I'm not sure if you'll get more than one or two participants on average.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Tue Aug 14, 2012 7:43 am

Will these "challenges" be based off a core system of some sort or will this just be a collection of generic design pieces?

erik · Post by **erik** » Tue Aug 14, 2012 8:12 am

Indeed, it seems kind of backwards to design a system in a vacuum. You will desire different systems for Horror, Pulp, Heroic or otherly themed games.

I could see people comparing apples and oranges though and still having an interesting contest if you were pitting a Horror system mechanic versus a Heroic system mechanic.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Tue Aug 14, 2012 8:31 am

sounds like we just use our own system (or probably modify 3.X as a default?)

Well that'd be fun, I already have a basic mechanic worked out. This challenge gives me some goals to reach.

Dunno about making it a poll and voting though, I like just discussing things or hearing the reasons behind decisions ("this is horror so" "it's heroic so..." etc.)

Well I'm sure pretty much everyone here has half of a heartbreaker in their minds, maybe throughout the challenge we each approach it in terms of a single system we've been refining.

Dean · Post by **Dean** » Tue Aug 14, 2012 8:40 am

Sounds cool. I might try it once or twice, but I'm not sure if you'll get more than one or two participants on average.

I probably agree but who knows, I plan on participating myself. And even if not everyone talking in the thread makes a completed system it will still be a continual source of material for people to talk about and peer review. Which is also a win IMO

Will these "challenges" be based off a core system of some sort or will this just be a collection of generic design pieces?

No particular system. If you want you system to use another systems rules as a base that's fine and will often be true I imagine. I planned on every system people submitted having a "Foundations" section at the beginning where they talk about stuff you need to know for their system to work. In this section you would say things like "This Firefighting system uses the Shadowrun rules as a base" or even just "This system uses a single 1d12+modifiers, and beating the listed DC's indicates success"

Indeed, it seems kind of backwards to design a system in a vacuum. You will desire different systems for Horror, Pulp, Heroic or otherly themed games.

I disagree. The time constraint on this means you couldn't be designing something like a character creation engine or a combat system or something large like that which should severely impact the theme and play style of the game. I think solid mechanics can stand on their own merits and if your gear modification system modifies laser eye implants and cyber-limbs and mine is entirely based on modifications to Noir-era pistols then they could still each be judged on which one does what they are intended to do best and compared to each other on that standard.

Stubbazubba · Post by **Stubbazubba** » Tue Aug 14, 2012 1:14 pm

Sounds nice, actually. I'd participate if the flavor-of-the-week was fun.

K · Post by K » Tue Aug 14, 2012 4:52 pm

This sounds like a "Design My Game for Me For Free Challenge."

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Tue Aug 14, 2012 5:04 pm

Pick the first topic and try it out. It either catches on or it doesn't. I'd recommend fairly tight restrictions on length and topic, on the general principle that creativity loves limits.

Pick something impossible first up, that should help. You know, 100 words that make 4e skill challenges do everything they promised up front. I set myself "fix 3e grapple in 50 words" once, but that was easy, and worked pretty well too.

But then, I'm a fixer, because that's what I've been doing for ... 20 years? More. Most of them are worse than the original, but that's what I've been doing anyway.

...You Lost Me · Post by **...You Lost Me** » Tue Aug 14, 2012 6:50 pm

K wrote:This sounds like a "Design My Game for Me For Free Challenge."

It certainly could be, but plenty of things are like that. I enjoy doing yard work, and it doesn't matter to me that I'm pulling up blackberry bushes in order to save some wetland.

This could be good, but you'd need some unified rules like 3.x only or SAME only, and even then I'm not sure how often you'd get entries. I've seen contests on GitP (with hundreds of people on the boards) get only a few entries, one of which is good, and the others of which suck. Judging from the tens of people here, you'd be more likely to get a couple mediocre entries.

Wrathzog · Post by **Wrathzog** » Tue Aug 14, 2012 9:26 pm

I'd be okay with this. My brain needs the exercise and this is a good place to get candid feedback for ideas and concepts and whatall.

As far as the system is concerned, I think it that should be decided with each individual challenge than right now. There's no reason to limit the design space before the game has even started.

Dean · Post by **Dean** » Wed Aug 15, 2012 12:27 am

K wrote:This sounds like a "Design My Game for Me For Free Challenge."

It's more the "Design Your Game for Free Challenge". Like Ogrebattle said I think everyone has a somewhat ill-defined heartbreaker in mind and this would let us give real form to them.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Wed Aug 15, 2012 5:10 am

What kind of idiot would refuse to participate in a design challenge for fear that his 1337 system will be used to make mega-bucks by the other competitors? That's a fantasy.

Korgan0 · Post by **Korgan0** » Wed Aug 15, 2012 7:10 am

I'd probably give it a go, despite having literally no experience doing this sort of thing.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Wed Aug 15, 2012 1:02 pm

How about getting the challenge started?

Like
"A system for striking, shooting, and grappling"
as something we're all familiar with, but also have many criticisms on of existing systems (especially the last bit)

Stubbazubba · Post by **Stubbazubba** » Wed Aug 15, 2012 3:02 pm

A combat engine? I thought that was one of the "probably too broad" examples.

K · Post by K » Wed Aug 15, 2012 5:25 pm

Chamomile wrote:What kind of idiot would refuse to participate in a design challenge for fear that his 1337 system will be used to make mega-bucks by the other competitors? That's a fantasy.

So I guess you think that all artists should give away ideas for free?

I'm sure the painters, writers, movie makers, engineers, scientists, and other intellectual workers of the world will take it under advisement. It's not like thier ideas are the thing that they trade to eat.

Still, have at it. Ghost-writing other people's games for free is a personal choice.

Zaranthan · Post by **Zaranthan** » Wed Aug 15, 2012 5:37 pm

K wrote:
Chamomile wrote:What kind of idiot would refuse to participate in a design challenge for fear that his 1337 system will be used to make mega-bucks by the other competitors? That's a fantasy.
So I guess you think that all artists should give away ideas for free?

I'm sure the painters, writers, movie makers, engineers, scientists, and other intellectual workers of the world will take it under advisement. It's not like thier ideas are the thing that they trade to eat.

Still, have at it. Ghost-writing other people's games for free is a personal choice.

I think he was being sarcastic, though exactly what incident he's alluding to escapes me at the moment.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Wed Aug 15, 2012 5:59 pm

I quite like when I see my ideas in other people's for-money books. It makes me feel slightly less stupid for a moment. But that's something I'm supposed to work on, eh.

So I guess you think that all artists should give away ideas for free?

NB: You can't actually copyright ideas, or game rules, or a whole bunch of other shit. Only the unique snowflake expression of said idea is copyright.

And if it's copyright, then posting it here doesn't prevent that. This very place would be all a court would need to grant you everlasting ownership of said potential for-money book.

The real idiot would be someone soliciting ideas for a money book without getting people to carefully sign away their rights to everything they write in any form for the rest of eternity. Except the ideas and rules, which are never copyright in the first place.

K · Post by K » Wed Aug 15, 2012 6:40 pm

tussock wrote:
So I guess you think that all artists should give away ideas for free?
NB: You can't actually copyright ideas, or game rules, or a whole bunch of other shit. Only the unique snowflake expression of said idea is copyright.

Don't be stupid. Getting paid for ideas and getting paid for the rights to a work aren't the same thing.

For example, Mike Mearls is getting paid for his ideas on 5e DnD well before they are fixed into a work. Many of those ideas won't even be used, but he gets a salary because he can produce them at a rate that is acceptable to his employer.

That's how most intellectual workers get paid. They get paid to have good ideas well before those ideas are fixed into a form.

This is also why the many of the heart-breakers on this forum won't ever get made or even completed. Lacking ideas to begin or complete a work is fatal to the task.

...You Lost Me · Post by **...You Lost Me** » Wed Aug 15, 2012 7:18 pm

Chamomile was saying that fear of your stuff being used for free is dumb because the things people riff off from you won't be for "mega-bucks". No one is going to use your rules and then turn those into enormous profit at your expense, because even if we have people willing to do that, no game is going to make you more than $50.

K · Post by K » Wed Aug 15, 2012 7:24 pm

...You Lost Me wrote:Chamomile was saying that fear of your stuff being used for free is dumb because the things people riff off from you won't be for "mega-bucks". No one is going to use your rules and then turn those into enormous profit at your expense, because even if we have people willing to do that, no game is going to make you more than $50.

Getting credit for ideas is as important as getting paid. It's the only way that people know that you are good enough to get paid.

Literally, it's how several people on this board have broken into the RPG business.

As for whether the ideas are worth anything or not, I think it's pessimistic to assume that all the ideas that you could get from Denizens are going to be financial failures.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Wed Aug 15, 2012 7:28 pm

K wrote:That's how most intellectual workers get paid. They get paid to have good ideas well before those ideas are fixed into a form.

This is also why the many of the heart-breakers on this forum won't ever get made or even completed. Lacking ideas to begin or complete a work is fatal to the task.

Hey, my Parabellum idea is completed on the rules developer side; it just needs to be finished on the artist and editing/playtesting side, then it's getting published...and promptly ignored by the community because it's yet another D&D heartbreaker.

...You Lost Me · Post by **...You Lost Me** » Wed Aug 15, 2012 7:34 pm

I think it's pessimistic to assume that all the ideas that you could get from Denizens are going to be financial failures.

Perhaps you should count me as a pessimist, then.

K · Post by K » Wed Aug 15, 2012 7:43 pm

...You Lost Me wrote:
I think it's pessimistic to assume that all the ideas that you could get from Denizens are going to be financial failures.
Perhaps you should count me as a pessimist, then.

It seems hard to be a pessimist when people like Frank have actually been paid to design stuff for financially successful products. He really did go from "guy who posts on the Shadowrun board" to "guy with a writing credit on a major RPG release."

Today's forum poster really is tomorrow's paid game designer.