The Learning of Design

This weekend, I was visiting with friends, and ended up talking about how I learned to make games. I constantly tell my friends, family and complete strangers how much fun game design is, and that they should give it a shot. The short answer is that I studied game design in college, and took classes, but that's far from being helpful.

Welcome to the Hamster Wheel!

So, the other day, I was talking with somebody who was interested in working on an RPG, and was excited with the idea of a more conversation focused game, but had a small issue with it:

The other problem with conversation-based instances/encounters is that I'm unsure how they'd have signifigance to the game aside from "that was interesting." The player could gain items, but what signifigance do they have? Are they just used for the next instance?

This statement is, well, interesting, and it is fairly common among gamers. If I don't get something cool out of it, what was the point? Why did I run across the country just to get some boots that I'm never going to use?

The Role of RPGs

A friend asked me what aspects and themes I liked about RPGs, and I responded with a word vomit. It is not clear, concise or even likely representative of my opinions, but it includes some, if not most of them and it is from the perspective of a designers, a GM and a player, so it is worth including here.

Mind Control for Practical Purposes

Earlier this year, I designed, organized and ran a campus wide Mafia game (Rules here). Surprising nobody other than myself, it required a lot of work and effort to keep on top of it. This was the first time the game was played, so I had to make rules decisions and re-balance the game while it was being played. As a designer, it is important to note that people are really crazy, and they'll come up with questions you wouldn't think of asking, much less answering. This is particularly pertinent when you are designing an open RPG as the question of "What can I do?" is often answered with "What do you want to do?". Eventually, however, they will want to do something outside of the rules that you have codified, and someone needs to decide how things should play out. For this, as I was running the game, the decisions fell to me.