Peregrine's Nest: Four Game Design Tips

There is no single way to design a game. The wonderful thing about this industry is that it is full of people trying out new ideas. But that lack of borders and a distinct path can be daunting. So here are a few of the ways I approach game design, but not in terms of numbers and system so much as deciding what your game actually is. One of the best ways to do this is ask yourself a few questions about what you really want the game to be.

Picture courtesy of Pixabay.​

What genre are you working with?​

It will initially help to pigeonhole your game into a genre of some form. This is not to limit it but to cut down the noise of all the other games you probably have in your head. Marking it as a fantasy, sci-fi or swashbuckling game etc. will help you focus. Ideally, mix two together. Horror and Sci-fi gives you Alien, Westerns and Sci-Fi give you Firefly, mix pretty much everything together and you get Star Wars. Every genre has accepted styles and tropes, and while you shouldn’t let that limit you they provide you with a solid foundation to change and adjust, which is often easier than a blank page.

Who are the characters?​

The player characters are going to be the driving force in your games, so who and what they are is a big part of the setting. Are they going to be highly experienced heroes (Leverage), rogues outside the system (Shadowrun) defenders of the established order (Legend of the Five Rings) explorers of the unknown (Star Trek) etc.? What drives the characters will drive the adventures. So you need to know what their goals and ambitions will be before you can create adventures.

Crunch and Fluff​

Every good game needs a good balance of both of these things. A good system without a good setting won’t engage the players. A good setting without a good system will fall apart when the rules won’t let the player characters act as they want to. This is the main reason I utterly despise the terms crunch and fluff. It implies a complex and involved rules system is something you can get your teeth into and setting is just some extra cream on the top of your game rather than vital and foundationally important. If you have a good rules set and no setting, or a great world and no system, you do not have a game. If you are good at one and not the other, find a partner with the reverse problem. Very few people are good at both. Either way, put equal time and effort into both.

Fit the rules to the style of play​

No matter how good the rules system you have in mind is, it needs to fit the game you are running. A game where you are all warriors and involves a lot of combat probably needs a more simulationist system. That way, different characters can use different tactics. But at the same time a combat focused game needs to be fast and easily resolved to keep the action going. We come back here to ‘what is your game about?’ What are the characters going to be doing? Whatever it is, they need a system that lets them do it in a way that helps immerse them in the game. If everyone is a scientist, you need a system that allows experimentation and layered tests so the players can feel they really are working a problem in a laboratory. Just making them make a single science test to create the vaccine will seem anticlimactic. Fast moving games generally need simpler rules, but planned action and detailed focus usually require more complex systems. There is no one system that fits everything, even though there are plenty that will function with most settings. This tailoring of system to setting is what makes the difference between a good game and a great one.

I'll have four more tips in the next column.

Your Turn: What else should you consider when creating a game of your own?

 

[sevenbastard]

In my opinion the first thing you need is a great adventure. Something that highlights how you play the game and what the rules are trying to accomplish.

In the 90s my group all bought Vampire, but the book didn't really provide a blueprint for what and adventure session and campaign looked like. We never really played more than a few one offs where our vampires robbed banks or lived out or power fantasies, but I don't think that's what was intended.

Shadowrun on the other hand had a bunch of modules right out the gate that showed the play cycle ( get job, find job has complication, get screwed over by Mr. Johnson). And we could build off of that to make our own leading to long campaigns (even a few were Mr. Johnson didn't try to screw you over).

Too many game sit on my shelf because they build a big world but don't show me what to do in it, or have crummy adventures that don't inspire.

 

[GMMichael]

Crunch and Fluff​

Every good game needs a good balance of both of these things. A good system without a good setting won’t engage the players. A good setting without a good system will fall apart when the rules won’t let the player characters act as they want to. This is the main reason I utterly despise the terms crunch and fluff.

Thanks for going outside your comfort zone for us! Be careful though - I heard the Great GURP rumble when you said a game without fluff isn't a game.

 

[Ulfgeir]

Make sure you know not just who the characters are, but also what they are supposed to do in the setting. And how does said characters fit into the setting?

And make sure the rules actually support the intended way of playing. If you for example are supposed to to have swashbuckling adventures make sure that the characters actually can do such things relatively easy without having to be high levels with maxed out stats and skills.

Also check if there are abilities or items that break the premie of the setting. For example if you are supposed to investigate crimes, then abilities that trivially ena les you to speak with the dead or compel people to tell the truth will probably make it too easy.

 

[Sir Brennen]

In my opinion the first thing you need is a great adventure. Something that highlights how you play the game and what the rules are trying to accomplish.

I think that should be an important rule for publishing a game. But you can't create an adventure until you've designed the game.

 

[aramis erak]

Intended audience, and also their reading ability...

These are not uniform items. I'll note that one of the nice things about Palladium is that it has a relatively low reading level - and so when I was teaching grades 5 and 6, mostly recent immigrants, the RPGs they were able to read and run were those with relatively low lexile scores... Palladium was their brand of choice. I learned an awful lot of rifts lore from reading responses once I pointed out that it was fine to use the RPG books....

Likewise, River Horse expected upper grades elementary - so My Little Pony: Tails of Equestria is laid out like a 4th grade textbook, and uses a 4th to 5th grade reading level writing.
Now, having discovered that they were underestimating the age of their audience, the new one is written for a much more high-school level audience.

 

[Ramaster]

Very good set of guidelines!

 

[Corone]

Thanks for going outside your comfort zone for us! Be careful though - I heard the Great GURP rumble when you said a game without fluff isn't a game.

lol! Fair. However I’d argue the strength of GURPS is that it puts the rules in one place and setting in another, but doesn’t tell you that you only need one of them (although I’ve used plenty of their setting books for other things).

 

[Corone]

In my opinion the first thing you need is a great adventure. Something that highlights how you play the game and what the rules are trying to accomplish.

In the 90s my group all bought Vampire, but the book didn't really provide a blueprint for what and adventure session and campaign looked like. We never really played more than a few one offs where our vampires robbed banks or lived out or power fantasies, but I don't think that's what was intended.

Shadowrun on the other hand had a bunch of modules right out the gate that showed the play cycle ( get job, find job has complication, get screwed over by Mr. Johnson). And we could build off of that to make our own leading to long campaigns (even a few were Mr. Johnson didn't try to screw you over).

Too many game sit on my shelf because they build a big world but don't show me what to do in it, or have crummy adventures that don't inspire.

Very much agree, although I’d be adding an adventure after making the game. But you are Absolutly right that many games go unplayed because they don’t give you a good place to help you get started.

 

[Starfox]

Shadowrun on the other hand had a bunch of modules right out the gate that showed the play cycle ( get job, find job has complication, get screwed over by Mr. Johnson). And we could build off of that to make our own leading to long campaigns (even a few were Mr. Johnson didn't try to screw you over).

Gawd how we hated the obligatory "get screwed over by Mr. Johnson". It got to the point we were considering just shooting the Mr. Johnsons at the very start and looting their bodies for paydata on the score they were setting us up for. That's when we gave up Shadowrun.