Author: Carl (---.rcn.)
Date: 05-01-2004 11:28
If you want to make a successful roleplaying game, there are many game forums out on the internet discussing just this sort of topic, as well as solutions to make everyone happy.
Common solutions have emerged:
1) Pick a game you've always wanted to play, but one the market can't seem to satisfy. Picture in your head how you want play to proceed. Do you want exploration of issues, character, setting? Do you want a detailed combat setting, detailed social interaction, a detailed power structure? Do relationships make or break a character, or are they "character color?" What do you want to see happen during a session of this game that you haven't seen done well in other games?
2) Picture the world you want your game set in. What makes it stand out from everything else out there? What challenges does it hold that other games don't adequately address? Does it have enough ways to hook a character into action without having a story that will go it's own way, despite player-character input? In other words, are the PC's decisions vital to the world around them? And, most importantly, will this setting be the best for the type of games you want to play?
3) NOW we get to mechanics. Research the hell out of the Internet for free games as well as browsing your FLGS for what's out there for games that try to do what you are doing. Go on gaming forums like Gaming Room and The Forge and ask any of them for ideas. There are plenty of people out there willing to help if they know you're serious. Mechanics are important because you don't want them to get in the way of play, but you want enough to cover important situations *and* you want them to enforce the kind of play you envisioned in #1 above. Keep only the mechanics you need, for the type of game you want *and* the setting. Remember, experience is also a mechanic, and a valuable one.
4) Playtest the hell out of it. Filter feedback through your design goals. Keep the mechanics and setting that work, change or drop the elements that don't. See if you're getting the type of play that you want. If not, figure out why. Lather, rinse, repeat.
See, it's simple! Easy, of course, is a wholly different subject...
So what does this have to do with the article? Basically, the issue of "rules-light" versus "rules-crunchy" doesn't mean a damn thing if the game *requires* either one, or a mix of the two. Bad games can have any mechanics they want; good games only have the mechanics they need. Good games also don't try to be all things to all people, they only do what they do as elegantly and flawlessly as possible. Thus, "rules-heavy=bad hackfest" is a flawed paradigm. The only reason it's existed as long as it has is because RPGs in general started out with unnecessarily complicated rules, and the primary course of correction has historically been the paring down of mechanics. You can still make a sucky game going the "rules-light" path.
Also, I wanted to bring up a point: if everyone who enjoyed the RPG hobby spent as much time designing games as 1) settling for what was on the market, and/or 2) settling for *complaining* about what was on the market, the hobby would be in a much better place. Any complaints given would be *informed* complaints that would be more designed to help, and more enthusiasts would be aware that they had options when they wanted to get a good roleplaying experience, up to and including designing a game of their own. Thus, we wouldn't have articles complaining about the lack of available games out there that do X, X being what the gamer in question is looking for, and therefore the hobby sucks because "those other gamer-types" have ruined it. We'd be spending our times correcting whatever imbalance we saw and putting our ideas out in the marketplace, advertising viable alternatives.
Rant over.
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