How to move beyond a concept?
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I've been brainstorming ideas for a new game for a while now, but I'm having trouble figuring out a good way of laying it all out in a coherent fashion to share with others. While obviously it'll eventually have to be turned into theme files and the like, there's going to be a lot of discussion and collaboration between here and there.
My initial thought was to develop a one page (or so) document defining the five Ws of the scenario to begin sharing, but I worry that I'll be missing some large aspects crucial to defining the world that's currently stuck in my head. Is there some sort of best practice for doing this? Is there a particular guide somewhere that can assist with laying out the foundations?
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Two quick things when moving towards full on Mu; Purpose, Elevator Pitch.
Purpose, or mission statement, a quick sentence stating your purpose in the whole endeavor. Create a fast paced game that engages people even when RP can't be found, Create a safe place for players to tell stories through their characters, etc.
Elevator Pitch is just like a 4'ish sentence paragraph that embodies the essence of game and theme together.
X-Game is a game of intrigue, where orcs and elves play a cold-wars style game of intrigue while magic builds up like nuclear weapons. X-Game is a fantasy game modelled after late 19th century technologies that are fueled by magic. Players can advance their magical tech, conduct missions of espionage, join secret societies, etc.
The five W's might help you get to those ideas, but purpose and pitch are things you can look back to as you go and consider, does this thing I'm adding contribute to these ideas.
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One thing that might be worth considering at this particular time is not the game itself and its concept as much as it's the timing.
I'm all for new games. Everyone who has an idea should definitely go right for it -- the good ideas will float, the bad ideas will sink, everyone gets to try on new things, everyone wins. But right now, you're not just going up in against 'there are many other games out there, what makes yours special'. You are going up against what's already killing a number of those games: 2020.
No matter how great your idea is, you're up against a year that's only going to get worse as November draws closer, Covid-19 and what it's done to people's finances and marriages, and political chaos -- not just in the US but pretty much everywhere. What's killing games right now isn't that they're bad games -- it's that no one has the energy to play. I'd sit down and work very quietly on those theme pages and your no doubt excellent idea until 2021. Because at this time, the odds of a new game surviving and doing well are bleak, and a good idea deserves better.
That said and onwards:
The first step in game design is to have an idea. You've got that. The next, to identify your audience and your goal. Describe -- mostly for your own use but also to potential other staff -- what kind of playerbase you want.
- What's the pace going to be? The narrative style?
- Are you going to be combat focused, or investigative?
- What kind of players are you trying to attract and keep?
- What kind of OOC atmosphere do you want, and how are you going to achieve it?
- How much activity do you want? Should players expect daily events for everyone, or will it be a race to sign up for that one event every two weeks?
- What about players who can't make the events? Do you intend to keep them involved, or is it on them to make that happen for themselves?
- How strictly do you intend to stick to theme? Will new players have to read forty pages of infodump, or can they jump right in? What happens if someone deviates a bit (or a lot) from theme?
- What kind of positions can players strive for in the game? Are you player versus player, or communal story telling, or both?
None of this affects your theme directly. But in my experience at least, identifying the OOC goals and intentions will start thought processes that will help you narrow down the IC theme as well, and make it more water tight. No plan ever survives its own implementation intact, but the less pitfalls the better.
If this is not the advice you were looking for, feel very free to ignore and move on. I speak from the perspective of tabletop game design where entirely too many great ideas die the death of no one taking the time to work out who the game is for.
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I would just ramble. Put down your ideas, and then worry about sorting them into something more composed once you have them all down and can look at them.
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A world is not the most important part of the game imo. Start bigger. What do you want the theme of the game to be? What will the stories be exploring? How do you want your players to spend their time and focus? Then adjust your world and rules/systems (If you have them) to those goals.
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@Kanye-Qwest said in How to move beyond a concept?:
A world is not the most important part of the game imo. Start bigger. What do you want the theme of the game to be? What will the stories be exploring? How do you want your players to spend their time and focus? Then adjust your world and rules/systems (If you have them) to those goals.
To add my thoughts to that, what players will spend their time doing is the most important question for a new game.
A lot of very lengthy, detailed writeups I've seen over the years failed to answer it; the ideas in such cases looked fine as something to base a book on, but that's a completely different project than an interactive multiplayer world.
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I have a personal wiki. I jot down ideas on a page or two, use tags to get some idea of what a given page is about.
Sometimes an idea is more about how to approach something like player involvement or a generic way to handle resources. Those things go on their own page, but I make sure to keep a link up.
I also keep a small number of blue stickie note with me, and write down anything I think of, even if I've written it down before.
Its those stand out things that shine or draw you or excite you that you want to capture and try to retain.
