Buried Without Ceremony

This Saturday, I ran a game design panel with Brad Murray, one of the authors of Diaspora. We were surprised and delighted to fill every chair in the room. Granted, there were 15 chairs in the room. I’d like to share my outline and discuss how the conversation unfolded, because I think it worked really well. The text in italics is the stuff on the outline we handed out, and the plain-face text is my post-panel thoughts.

1.) Designs Should Have A Guiding Vision (2 minutes)

The plan: In general, discuss the idea of designing a game to deliver a certain set of goals. What does your game do, in terms of… stories, characters, setting, situation, mechanics, play experience?

After opening with some introductions, we dived into the idea that a game should have a guiding vision, that it should seek to deliver something specific. Although this might be a Forge-centric idea, we didn’t discuss it in a Forge-centric way – Vampire: the Requiem has a guiding vision, and that is a major boon to the game. Introducing this idea not as revolutionary, but as something intrinsic to all design work, was helpful in unifying our audience.

2.) Take An Audience Game Pitch, Answer “The Big 3″ (7 minutes)

Audience Pitch: What is your game about? Now, what is it really about?
What is your game about? What do the characters do? What do the players do?

We asked the audience members to share a game idea that someone was working on, that we could workshop throughout the discussion. One guy put forward an idea that he said “wasn’t really a roleplaying game, but more of a baseball simulation exercise”. We took that and ran with it. The guy’s game was a two-player game: pitcher vs batting line-up.

We asked him what his game was about (baseball simulation), then dove into what interested him about baseball simulation to get at what the game was really about (the tension and the psychological mind games at work between the batter and pitcher). We presented the “big three” (what is your game about? what do the characters do? what do the players do?), and learned that both character & player are locked in the mind game component. We probed to find out what else the players do, and learned that they managed resources (batting line-ups, fan support, mechanical resources).

3.) Mechanics Should Support What The Game Is About (10 minutes)

Discuss the notion that mechanics support what the game is about, and structure an intended experience. Talk about things that the designer could do to facilitate their goals. Be sure to question the necessity of given mechanics: Do you need a GM? How about stats? Do you need dice? If so, why? Audience Pitch: What system/mechanics will support this design?

Here, we had about a 15-minute round-table, exploring mechanics that would supporting the evolving game. The discussion came around to the use of decks of playing cards, with suits representing different tactics and the number representing effectiveness. We introduced the idea that the players would take the deck of cards and from it build a deck of ~30 cards (so that if I want to throw lots of curveballs, I take all the clubs and widdle down on the other suits) – this would be part of the resource management aspect.

We had a boon in this game in that we were STARTING OUT with a GMless design, built for only two players. We were miles ahead of the curve to begin with. However, that let us focus on even more interesting questions: do you need a random element in your game to simulate how random the situation in the fiction is? In the end, we ditched the necessity for dice in determining whether batting was successful, though we integrated a secret card-bidding element.

At the tail end of this conversation, I tossed out a question: would there be a “you can’t focus because your wife is having an affair” card? The audience cheered that idea on, and the idea that hearts would correspond to out-of-game dramas was introduced.

4.) Design Is More Than Mechanics (5 minutes)

Design involves more than mechanics – play culture, negotiation, group set-up. Discuss the idea that expectations of campaign length, of social dynamics, and of creative agendas is part of game design.

At this stage, we looked at the play culture and play expectations going on with the game. We came up with something pretty cool – that each game would play out in 45-60 minutes (just like magic or a short board-game), and that the game would promote the idea of tournaments… two people play, and each then find new partners and play against them. A quick, two-player game would support a culture of meeting up to play out “just one game”. We also introduced the idea of playing at a “per batter” level and a “per inning” level – ie, to have a flexible enough scope that you could play quick games or in-depth games.

The idea of collectible cards was introduced around this point, and became a crowd favorite. This totally reinforced the game’s content (trading baseball cards? yeah!), and also the game’s play culture (meeting up for short games, playing tournaments, rotating player base).

5.) Fleshing Out The Idea (10 minutes)

Tying this all together (the big 3, mechanics that support a vision, “soft mechanics” and social expectations), discuss the audience-pitched game and what the finished game might be like.

At this point, we just ran through everything once more – the vision, what players & characters do, how the mechanics structure that, how the “soft system” and play culture around them fits in with that. We talked about appropriate branding & expression of the game, and quickly discussed titles (one idea was Baseball Staredown, though moments after leaving the con I realized that I’d have suggested Curveball).

6.) Playtesting (7 minutes)

When is a good time to start testing a game? (From Playstorming to complete drafts)
Test the game you’re actually writing: play what’s written, stay consistent, check play against the rules
How to invite critique: accept criticism, ask specific questions, discuss goals vs. experience
Taking steps back: having others run your game, blind playtests, post-play discussions

We just burned through this quickly, and discussed our own playtesting experiences.

Post-Mortem

This outline is by no means unique. It draws on similar panels that I’ve been to or heard about, especially those championed by Luke Crane & Jared Sorensen. We had a great time with it, and we tried to empower our audience to become active contributors as much as possible. With around 15 people in the room, we were able to hear thoughts from most everyone. We took the guy’s game in a radically different direction, and we were greatful that he humored the process. It’s vital for this workshop/panel that you choose someone who’ll be flexible enough to do that.