The Matter of Design
The Matter
of Design
Scattershot's Design Specifications
Where is It!?!
Scattershot is a design in progress for a role-playing game that will one day hopefully be available to the public. While I'm not going to discuss how and why Scattershot is being designed (I save that discussion for the Scattershot Forum over at The Forge), however I would like to 'bring you up to speed' on where we are with the project.
The first question everyone asks is, "Where is it?" I'm sad to say a lot of it is still stuck in my brain. The second is, "Why don't you just type it up?" That's a bit more complicated. I am a passionate game designer; I've been working on Scattershot for over 8 years through thick and thin. However, there is a large plate of mitigating factors I think you should know. First off, I have a family; my two children and my wife together are the most important thing to me in the world. I consider myself a father first in all things; that means I have a lot of responsibilities to my family (I like being a father). Secondly, I am the breadwinner in this one-income family; I take my job seriously and work at it very hard. Third, I'm not going to sacrifice my health to my passion.
A lot of people in my position would cut out game design for 'quality of life' issues. That's a nice thought, but not very workable. I could no sooner give up game design as I could give up breathing. I may not get much time to design, but it's never far from my thoughts. In the shower, on the road, walking from one room to another, I find myself thinking about design issues. What does this lead to? Slow incremental completion, and I mean very slow. I spend a lot of what's left of my time interacting with The Forge and I get the bulk of my ideas explaining my concepts to younger designers. Around there I refer to our production schedule as 'as fast as grass grows.'
What are You Going to Do with It?
This is an equally tough question. You see, one of the things that makes it interesting to me is the challenge. How do I keep up the challenge? By self-imposed limitations. One of the first we selected was making it 'fit to print.' I don't mean simply getting all the spelling correct, I mean making it the kind of product a publisher would feel foolish to turn down.
I have a lot of experience all over the role-playing game market; retail, design, networking, distribution, as well as a number of friends who make their living selling role-playing games. One thing I know for sure is self-publishing means being a business owner first; I don't want to own another business. You can't make me. One of my friends spends more time dealing with printers, distributors, retailers, and customers, he hardly gets a chance to design, much less play, his games. I don't want that. (I have a family, remember?)
That would leave finding a publisher. I used to be a novelist and I've had about all the rejection I'd ever like to take. Sure, I could shop Scattershot around and I might even 'get lucky,' but there's more to a game than just sending off one manuscript. There's supporting the product. I don't mean going to signings and running demos, I mean writing the next part...and then the part after that and the part after that. And you know, once you've got a publisher, you're gonna get deadlines, lotsa mean, old nasty deadlines. (Did I mention I have a day job?)
Since I am looking at this in terms of its support, it should be obvious that I'm not just writing a single game, but a whole product line. I'm also thinking in terms of what would make it a better seller as a product line. And support to me means more than just product line too. It's a commitment. It's our name and reputation on each product, so we've got to stand behind what we write. That means we don't want to get into a situation where quality takes a back seat to deadlines. I mean sure, someday I'll offer this to someone (maybe even one of my publisher friends), but that will only come after we're 'far enough ahead' of the deadlines to let 'the grass grow.'
Where does that leave us? Well, officially that makes Scattershot a thought-experiment in role-playing game design 'for the print market.' Nothing more. No matter how much it sounds like I'm going to publish this, you must always remember that's a part of the design specifications of this thought-experiment. I don't have a problem being totally committed to nothing more than a pointless idea. (I said I was passionate, didn't I?)
Heaven forbid if I drum up enough popularity that publishers come to me with offers.
So ultimately, I've got these imaginary customers who I have to plan support materials, web service, novelties, customer service, product placement, and obviously the game itself, for. That's a pretty heavy burden, but I like to think I have the integrity to stick it out until it's really ready. And the humility to keep it to myself if it never is. (To me, all of this is what makes it so interesting.)
One funny thing we've already realized is that support and customer service are often at odds with deadlines and financial performance. Likewise you can't launch a product that reflects consumer input, until you get some.
Where'd It Start?
About ten years ago, shortly after we (as newlyweds) moved into an apartment with a friend of mine, we started gaming together. We were struggling with the then relatively new Shadowrun by the now-defunct FASA Games. One day, our Roommate, John, said (after struggling to make a character for my best man's game) that you can't make cool characters in Shadowrun.
In ways, he was right.
What it lead to was many long, late night discussions about the practical problems with then-current gaming product. One day, quite innocently, it culminated in a simple question, "Why can't we write a game?" More dangerous words I haven't heard, though I didn't know it at the time. One of the biggest philosophical 'habits' I have is I always answer this kind of question, "Why not?"
So the idea of creating our own game brewed deeply within my brain for a long time. Over a year later, I had finally become fed up with Steve Jackson Game's GURPS' superhero game; the way it created and priced superpowers just didn't sit well with me. I kept wondering why it couldn't work as well as Hero Games' Champions did. Furthermore, I had already written off Hero Games' magic system as being both unworkable (thinly veiled superpowers) and uncharacteristic (of comic book superhero magic that is).
So I started thinking about what it would take to get both a good traditional role-playing game magic system (like GURPS') and a flexible superpower design system (like Champions') into one system (especially so that comic book magicians would be 'doable'). In the mean time, we were experimenting with 'pushing the envelope' with systemless gaming. Or rather, we were reaching the end of that period, having concluded much of the 'meat' behind the old saying that 'a good gamemaster can run anything.'
And then Dan (my wife's maiden of honor's brother) cried that he couldn't play in our games because he had no way to make up a character without a system. That was pretty much all it took to get the ball rolling. Thus Fish or Sofa was born (for detail on how we got that name, or Scattershot, read this).
Now this probably wouldn't have gotten very far, except about a month later, I injured my back and spent pretty much every minute at home stretched out on the sofa typing away on an old Macintosh. There wasn't much else to type at the time, so the first playtest version of our game came into being quite rapidly. Having something on paper really makes it a lot more serious.
That fall, instead of just hunting for diamonds in the rough at Gen Con, I went on a serious fact finding mission. I kept this up every year. I talked to people about their products, I commiserated with designers (and artists), I spoke with publishers, I even did a little playtesting. I remember one year, having just come from a meeting of The University of Minnesota Gaming Society that looked for all the world more like a bridge club, seeing this little, fantasy role-playing game inspired, card game. I watched the playtesters with their hand-cut cards trying the thing out; I said to my wife, "If they ever see this back home, we may never get them role-playing again." That was Magic: the Gathering.
The next year, Magic: the Gathering had taken the gaming convention (and world) by storm and had upset more than one company's pocket book. I got a real lesson in business ownership and financial liability through the networking I'd built up over the years. I also had an idea. You see, by this point we were already on the second version of Scattershot and, as a system, it was foundering. It wasn't the least bit original or distinctive, nor was the combat system terribly robust. I just couldn't find a defining concept to build it around.
What was the idea?
Well, at Gen Con, I saw literally hundreds of Magic: the Gathering collectors swarming the convention with almost no inkling of what a role-playing game was. I realized that what the gaming market needed (at that time, you have to understand, everyone was insisting that it was all over with) was crossover products. There needed to be a collectible card game that was so close to being a role-playing game that a simple ad in the decks might interest the players in 'something more.' Suddenly, I had the defining idea around which to built the combat: a collectible card game.
After that it became surprisingly easy. Whenever some rule idea or special circumstance Mechanix come up, I have to ask myself, "How does this translate into the card game." If I can't figure it out, it isn't worth adding. Likewise, I always have a rigid systemic model to refer to when checking system integrity.
By this time we had also really committed ourselves to a game that could serve a fusion of genres. (Remember 'magic and superpowers?') Well, about this time, I got involved in a Live-Action Role-Playing game (hereafter LARP) based on White Wolf Gaming Studio's Vampire: the Masquerade. It quickly fell apart because the gamemastering team wasn't terribly coherent. This was an excellent test bed for all the nebulous ideas we'd been collecting about 'a good gamemaster can run anything.' (It also suggested that rock-paper-scissors was terrible LARP Mechanix.)
Since we'd already aimed to have a crossover product for collectible card games and we wanted to support many genre fusions, having LARP Mechanix only made sense. It was in the playtest and design of the Scattershot LARP Mechanix that we really began to make progress in abstracting techniques for any gamemaster being able to 'run anything.'
By this time, I had spent a fair amount of time on the internet on the various usenet groups regarding gaming and 'cut my teeth' on mechanical design with rpg-create. Eventually, I became involved with The Forge and interest in Scattershot yielded an entire forum dedicated to it. And this is both how the game came together and how we developed the thought-experiment idea and created Scattershot's design specifications.
Design Specifications, What's That?
Design specifications are a bit of a queer animal. I mean, they are the goals the design is supposed to reach, but not specifically. You don't just design a vehicle without knowing what it's for; is it for carrying payloads? Is passenger comfort primary? How about fuel efficiency? You need to know if it will be a truck or a car or a van or a railroad locomotive before you start. Before you can even tell what parts will be necessary (and how to design them), you need to know how well it has to do different things.
You can't design a game that does everything, all the time; it's just not possible. When a design calls for versatility it forces compromise on 'depth of treatment.' We had to decide what Scattershot was for even before we started to write it (well, write it for the third time). A good design specification makes design so much easier (none of the trial and error, 'does this seem right?'); a strong design specification can even call for a certain amount of innovation.
Once you have the design specifications you can choose the best approach that suits the product. Really, the only thing that survives all versions of Scattershot (all the way back to Fish or Sofa) is the two ten-sided dice. Everything else had to be tossed at one point or another.
So what do we have so far for design specifications? Well, it has to be 'fit to print' and as a product line. You have to be able to make cool characters with 'a system' that allows a lot of genre fusion. You have to be able to play it as a card game and a LARP and at the 'table.' And it needs to be crossover product to bring 'new blood' into the market. Did I mention I wanted it to be simple enough to teach your mother how to play in less than a half an hour? Oh yeah, when we say 'a system,' it has to be 'familiar' to old school gamers from 'back in the day.' And all those long drives to Gen Con made us want to create a 'hands free' version so you could play while hiking or driving or on the phone or on the internet or et cetera. Easy huh?
A few things became obvious right away. How do you make a game detailed enough for a card game, yet simple enough to teach your mother or to play on a long drive? The 'in the car' and 'at a LARP' actually work together. How can we make it support genre fusion and still be a product line? Obviously it has to be 'customizable' and yet simple and robust. It needs to be both easy to pick up and yet distinctive enough to be a 'different product.' Quite a mongrel, huh?
Well, first of all it has to be a multi-genre game in order to support genre fusion. This also lets you bring in 'new things' and that makes for a long-term product line (a plus when selling to a publisher). 'Simple to pick up' makes it easier to fuse genres and bring in all sort of new and unique things. However 'simple' may be adverse to 'distinctive' and because 'your mother' may need to learn it, we've decided each part should carry many examples. In fact, each will have to lay out specific genres (from which customization should be easy), but how to remain multi-genre becomes an interesting question.
Older multi-genre games were not without their own problems, but we'd like to learn from as many of them as we can. One major problem always seems to be a lack of focus; a book of complicated, detailed, optional mechanics is a bore on its own and quite heavy with an entire genre embedded. All those options beg the question of 'what is this game for?' Many games seem to depend on foreknowledge of a lot of specific gaming jargon and that's antithetical to 'easy to learn' and 'gateway product.' Not being well designed for new-to-gamers means that the target audience must grow smaller and smaller; if the 'core rules' go out of print how will you attract new customers? Very few games offer much constructive advice on how gaming takes place; much like selling tools without a guide to how to build specific things for new 'do it yourself' types. Without adequate instruction where do 'good gamemasters' who can 'run anything' come from?
More locally, many questions have arisen regarding the whole 'product line' idea. How do you deliver 'the goods?' What's good formatting? What is a good gaming product? How do you make a product line 'hang together' without choking the consumer-base on a few 'core products?' What kind of 'package' will the audience easily assimilate? And then who is 'the audience?' How do you bring the 'new blood' into the market? And finally, how do you deliver consistent good experiences? Aye, therein lies the rub.
What Did You Choose?
First off, we decided to separate the complexity of the game into three levels, Basic, Intermediate (also called Tournament), and Advanced (and well, add Hands-Free and Collectible Card Game on the ends of this list). We acknowledged that people have different ways of gaming and that that also needed to be built into the product (without forcing a lot of complicated terminology on the customer, your mother remember?). We had to simplify 'how to play' without boring 'old school gamers;' this lead to identifying things like Solo play. We decided to align the game around the idea of 'creating information' rather than 'mitigating problems.'
Our Mechanix take the form of a set of simple concepts mostly tied to the complexity levels.
Residual Modifiers - Basic
How Are You Going to Present It?
You mean the playtest? Oh, the product line....
Well, as a product line, it'll have to be in stores, on the internet, on your shelf, hey even in your life! On a more practical level, since it's a gateway product, we hope to get it into more than just role-playing game stores. Ideally bookstores would be a start, but toy stores would also be a good place too. Heck how about in schools? Turn play time into learning time. Coffee shops might be neat, if we can come up with the right LARP.
Right now, our internet presence is limited to this playtest support sight, but who knows? On line play? I'd like to get the collectible card game into 'chat room' style playtest; on line play only seems like a step farther. The Hands-Free level ought to be able to handle chat rooms and forums. Both authorized and unauthorized supplements could be all around the internet. Even a truly massive LARP could rightly have an internet presence (people playing their characters who have internet access).
So what form will the 'book' or printed version take? Well, there is the GURPS model; core book of rules and 'slaves' that cannot be played without it. Requiring two purchases seems too complex for a 'get it and go' gateway product. 'All rules in one place' works for Palladium products, but they get too big for that 'getaway' gateway feel (and price). Dungeons & Dragons gives it to you in three packages and then extensions without number; that sells the central product well, but further supplements only sell to return customers. We could follow White Wolf Gaming Studio's model; five 'different' games and then a layer of expansions and then a layer of explicit settings built around a continuing 'story.' The problem is doubled; only return business is interested and the same goes for the 'story' as well.
We need to balance somewhere in between. A set of products that have enough Mechanix to play without another purchase, yet few enough to work like an appetizer; the levels of complexity, specifically Basic, seems like a perfect fit. This creates both independence and breeds interdependence. If we narrow the 'way of play' concentrate the genre on a single 'cool' package, we may be able to burst the 'game store' bubble.
In fact, if we write the Basic level Mechanix well enough, developing additional 'narrow' products like this will go quite quickly. We even speculate chasing fads and licensing product lines (that ought to really open up the market if we choose well) with strong products rather than 'treatment' retreads. And then each of these will wax poetic about the enhancements available at Intermediate and Advanced levels; but those products should be a lot closer to 'do it yourself' kits, perhaps even grouped around a small limited number of 'familiar' genre clusters. This creates a 'satellites around a set of core books' approach. (More on the specifics of the product line soon.)
This will all tie into the whole product line by pulling in players of the collectible card game, the live-action role-playing game, the first person 'dog-fighter,' and so forth. There'll also be a whole host of support products for not only the main product line but to support the tie-in effect. One hidden strength is making customization works more easily after examples.
We've done some extensive thinking about how to arrange these 'core books.' It needs to get the information out there, but also cover everything in depth. How can you talk about playing without knowing the Mechanix? How can you talk about gamemastering without knowing how to play? We eventually decided on a 'twice through' approach. Once, simply to get you playing, and then a second time to really explore what the game is truly capable of. (This'll have to be another article in an issue or two.)
In order to make the game simple and accessible, as well as dealing with a lot of "I don't get it" issues, we conceived of the idea of turning virtually every list of descriptions (Exemplars, spells, superpowers, et cetera) into catalogues of examples. This gives the package a "it's already done for you" feel without dictating what to use. The superpowers will include a rogue's gallery of heroes and villains, the spell schedules will carry a manual of fantasy Monsters, cyberpunk technology Mechanix will include a catalogue of futuristic gear, and so on.
What now?
Over the years our goals have changed quite a bit (happens when you have the kids you tried so hard to get); we went from wanting to be publishers to this. The harsh realities of money and time changed our outlook a lot. One of the biggest changes is the desire to get this whole thing completely fine tuned before offering it to anyone. Instead of just 'getting it out there,' or 'getting far enough ahead to shop it around,' we're going to get it really 'finished' first. A luxury afforded by the status as a thought experiment.
Who knows, we may create a community of players along the way. First we need playtesters; 'consumer' feedback, input, and support; and heck a few satellite submissions would never hurt. I'm looking forward to finalizing a set of Basic Mechanix for playtest and right now, over at The Forge, I'm creating a few custom Genre Expectations that can be used with this 'page of Mechanix' to start some early playtests.
Fang Langford
Where is It!?!
Scattershot is a design in progress for a role-playing game that will one day hopefully be available to the public. While I'm not going to discuss how and why Scattershot is being designed (I save that discussion for the Scattershot Forum over at The Forge), however I would like to 'bring you up to speed' on where we are with the project.
The first question everyone asks is, "Where is it?" I'm sad to say a lot of it is still stuck in my brain. The second is, "Why don't you just type it up?" That's a bit more complicated. I am a passionate game designer; I've been working on Scattershot for over 8 years through thick and thin. However, there is a large plate of mitigating factors I think you should know. First off, I have a family; my two children and my wife together are the most important thing to me in the world. I consider myself a father first in all things; that means I have a lot of responsibilities to my family (I like being a father). Secondly, I am the breadwinner in this one-income family; I take my job seriously and work at it very hard. Third, I'm not going to sacrifice my health to my passion.
A lot of people in my position would cut out game design for 'quality of life' issues. That's a nice thought, but not very workable. I could no sooner give up game design as I could give up breathing. I may not get much time to design, but it's never far from my thoughts. In the shower, on the road, walking from one room to another, I find myself thinking about design issues. What does this lead to? Slow incremental completion, and I mean very slow. I spend a lot of what's left of my time interacting with The Forge and I get the bulk of my ideas explaining my concepts to younger designers. Around there I refer to our production schedule as 'as fast as grass grows.'
What are You Going to Do with It?
This is an equally tough question. You see, one of the things that makes it interesting to me is the challenge. How do I keep up the challenge? By self-imposed limitations. One of the first we selected was making it 'fit to print.' I don't mean simply getting all the spelling correct, I mean making it the kind of product a publisher would feel foolish to turn down.
I have a lot of experience all over the role-playing game market; retail, design, networking, distribution, as well as a number of friends who make their living selling role-playing games. One thing I know for sure is self-publishing means being a business owner first; I don't want to own another business. You can't make me. One of my friends spends more time dealing with printers, distributors, retailers, and customers, he hardly gets a chance to design, much less play, his games. I don't want that. (I have a family, remember?)
That would leave finding a publisher. I used to be a novelist and I've had about all the rejection I'd ever like to take. Sure, I could shop Scattershot around and I might even 'get lucky,' but there's more to a game than just sending off one manuscript. There's supporting the product. I don't mean going to signings and running demos, I mean writing the next part...and then the part after that and the part after that. And you know, once you've got a publisher, you're gonna get deadlines, lotsa mean, old nasty deadlines. (Did I mention I have a day job?)
Since I am looking at this in terms of its support, it should be obvious that I'm not just writing a single game, but a whole product line. I'm also thinking in terms of what would make it a better seller as a product line. And support to me means more than just product line too. It's a commitment. It's our name and reputation on each product, so we've got to stand behind what we write. That means we don't want to get into a situation where quality takes a back seat to deadlines. I mean sure, someday I'll offer this to someone (maybe even one of my publisher friends), but that will only come after we're 'far enough ahead' of the deadlines to let 'the grass grow.'
Where does that leave us? Well, officially that makes Scattershot a thought-experiment in role-playing game design 'for the print market.' Nothing more. No matter how much it sounds like I'm going to publish this, you must always remember that's a part of the design specifications of this thought-experiment. I don't have a problem being totally committed to nothing more than a pointless idea. (I said I was passionate, didn't I?)
Heaven forbid if I drum up enough popularity that publishers come to me with offers.
So ultimately, I've got these imaginary customers who I have to plan support materials, web service, novelties, customer service, product placement, and obviously the game itself, for. That's a pretty heavy burden, but I like to think I have the integrity to stick it out until it's really ready. And the humility to keep it to myself if it never is. (To me, all of this is what makes it so interesting.)
One funny thing we've already realized is that support and customer service are often at odds with deadlines and financial performance. Likewise you can't launch a product that reflects consumer input, until you get some.
Where'd It Start?
About ten years ago, shortly after we (as newlyweds) moved into an apartment with a friend of mine, we started gaming together. We were struggling with the then relatively new Shadowrun by the now-defunct FASA Games. One day, our Roommate, John, said (after struggling to make a character for my best man's game) that you can't make cool characters in Shadowrun.
In ways, he was right.
What it lead to was many long, late night discussions about the practical problems with then-current gaming product. One day, quite innocently, it culminated in a simple question, "Why can't we write a game?" More dangerous words I haven't heard, though I didn't know it at the time. One of the biggest philosophical 'habits' I have is I always answer this kind of question, "Why not?"
So the idea of creating our own game brewed deeply within my brain for a long time. Over a year later, I had finally become fed up with Steve Jackson Game's GURPS' superhero game; the way it created and priced superpowers just didn't sit well with me. I kept wondering why it couldn't work as well as Hero Games' Champions did. Furthermore, I had already written off Hero Games' magic system as being both unworkable (thinly veiled superpowers) and uncharacteristic (of comic book superhero magic that is).
So I started thinking about what it would take to get both a good traditional role-playing game magic system (like GURPS') and a flexible superpower design system (like Champions') into one system (especially so that comic book magicians would be 'doable'). In the mean time, we were experimenting with 'pushing the envelope' with systemless gaming. Or rather, we were reaching the end of that period, having concluded much of the 'meat' behind the old saying that 'a good gamemaster can run anything.'
And then Dan (my wife's maiden of honor's brother) cried that he couldn't play in our games because he had no way to make up a character without a system. That was pretty much all it took to get the ball rolling. Thus Fish or Sofa was born (for detail on how we got that name, or Scattershot, read this).
Now this probably wouldn't have gotten very far, except about a month later, I injured my back and spent pretty much every minute at home stretched out on the sofa typing away on an old Macintosh. There wasn't much else to type at the time, so the first playtest version of our game came into being quite rapidly. Having something on paper really makes it a lot more serious.
That fall, instead of just hunting for diamonds in the rough at Gen Con, I went on a serious fact finding mission. I kept this up every year. I talked to people about their products, I commiserated with designers (and artists), I spoke with publishers, I even did a little playtesting. I remember one year, having just come from a meeting of The University of Minnesota Gaming Society that looked for all the world more like a bridge club, seeing this little, fantasy role-playing game inspired, card game. I watched the playtesters with their hand-cut cards trying the thing out; I said to my wife, "If they ever see this back home, we may never get them role-playing again." That was Magic: the Gathering.
The next year, Magic: the Gathering had taken the gaming convention (and world) by storm and had upset more than one company's pocket book. I got a real lesson in business ownership and financial liability through the networking I'd built up over the years. I also had an idea. You see, by this point we were already on the second version of Scattershot and, as a system, it was foundering. It wasn't the least bit original or distinctive, nor was the combat system terribly robust. I just couldn't find a defining concept to build it around.
What was the idea?
Well, at Gen Con, I saw literally hundreds of Magic: the Gathering collectors swarming the convention with almost no inkling of what a role-playing game was. I realized that what the gaming market needed (at that time, you have to understand, everyone was insisting that it was all over with) was crossover products. There needed to be a collectible card game that was so close to being a role-playing game that a simple ad in the decks might interest the players in 'something more.' Suddenly, I had the defining idea around which to built the combat: a collectible card game.
After that it became surprisingly easy. Whenever some rule idea or special circumstance Mechanix come up, I have to ask myself, "How does this translate into the card game." If I can't figure it out, it isn't worth adding. Likewise, I always have a rigid systemic model to refer to when checking system integrity.
By this time we had also really committed ourselves to a game that could serve a fusion of genres. (Remember 'magic and superpowers?') Well, about this time, I got involved in a Live-Action Role-Playing game (hereafter LARP) based on White Wolf Gaming Studio's Vampire: the Masquerade. It quickly fell apart because the gamemastering team wasn't terribly coherent. This was an excellent test bed for all the nebulous ideas we'd been collecting about 'a good gamemaster can run anything.' (It also suggested that rock-paper-scissors was terrible LARP Mechanix.)
Since we'd already aimed to have a crossover product for collectible card games and we wanted to support many genre fusions, having LARP Mechanix only made sense. It was in the playtest and design of the Scattershot LARP Mechanix that we really began to make progress in abstracting techniques for any gamemaster being able to 'run anything.'
By this time, I had spent a fair amount of time on the internet on the various usenet groups regarding gaming and 'cut my teeth' on mechanical design with rpg-create. Eventually, I became involved with The Forge and interest in Scattershot yielded an entire forum dedicated to it. And this is both how the game came together and how we developed the thought-experiment idea and created Scattershot's design specifications.
Design Specifications, What's That?
Design specifications are a bit of a queer animal. I mean, they are the goals the design is supposed to reach, but not specifically. You don't just design a vehicle without knowing what it's for; is it for carrying payloads? Is passenger comfort primary? How about fuel efficiency? You need to know if it will be a truck or a car or a van or a railroad locomotive before you start. Before you can even tell what parts will be necessary (and how to design them), you need to know how well it has to do different things.
You can't design a game that does everything, all the time; it's just not possible. When a design calls for versatility it forces compromise on 'depth of treatment.' We had to decide what Scattershot was for even before we started to write it (well, write it for the third time). A good design specification makes design so much easier (none of the trial and error, 'does this seem right?'); a strong design specification can even call for a certain amount of innovation.
Once you have the design specifications you can choose the best approach that suits the product. Really, the only thing that survives all versions of Scattershot (all the way back to Fish or Sofa) is the two ten-sided dice. Everything else had to be tossed at one point or another.
So what do we have so far for design specifications? Well, it has to be 'fit to print' and as a product line. You have to be able to make cool characters with 'a system' that allows a lot of genre fusion. You have to be able to play it as a card game and a LARP and at the 'table.' And it needs to be crossover product to bring 'new blood' into the market. Did I mention I wanted it to be simple enough to teach your mother how to play in less than a half an hour? Oh yeah, when we say 'a system,' it has to be 'familiar' to old school gamers from 'back in the day.' And all those long drives to Gen Con made us want to create a 'hands free' version so you could play while hiking or driving or on the phone or on the internet or et cetera. Easy huh?
A few things became obvious right away. How do you make a game detailed enough for a card game, yet simple enough to teach your mother or to play on a long drive? The 'in the car' and 'at a LARP' actually work together. How can we make it support genre fusion and still be a product line? Obviously it has to be 'customizable' and yet simple and robust. It needs to be both easy to pick up and yet distinctive enough to be a 'different product.' Quite a mongrel, huh?
Well, first of all it has to be a multi-genre game in order to support genre fusion. This also lets you bring in 'new things' and that makes for a long-term product line (a plus when selling to a publisher). 'Simple to pick up' makes it easier to fuse genres and bring in all sort of new and unique things. However 'simple' may be adverse to 'distinctive' and because 'your mother' may need to learn it, we've decided each part should carry many examples. In fact, each will have to lay out specific genres (from which customization should be easy), but how to remain multi-genre becomes an interesting question.
Older multi-genre games were not without their own problems, but we'd like to learn from as many of them as we can. One major problem always seems to be a lack of focus; a book of complicated, detailed, optional mechanics is a bore on its own and quite heavy with an entire genre embedded. All those options beg the question of 'what is this game for?' Many games seem to depend on foreknowledge of a lot of specific gaming jargon and that's antithetical to 'easy to learn' and 'gateway product.' Not being well designed for new-to-gamers means that the target audience must grow smaller and smaller; if the 'core rules' go out of print how will you attract new customers? Very few games offer much constructive advice on how gaming takes place; much like selling tools without a guide to how to build specific things for new 'do it yourself' types. Without adequate instruction where do 'good gamemasters' who can 'run anything' come from?
More locally, many questions have arisen regarding the whole 'product line' idea. How do you deliver 'the goods?' What's good formatting? What is a good gaming product? How do you make a product line 'hang together' without choking the consumer-base on a few 'core products?' What kind of 'package' will the audience easily assimilate? And then who is 'the audience?' How do you bring the 'new blood' into the market? And finally, how do you deliver consistent good experiences? Aye, therein lies the rub.
What Did You Choose?
First off, we decided to separate the complexity of the game into three levels, Basic, Intermediate (also called Tournament), and Advanced (and well, add Hands-Free and Collectible Card Game on the ends of this list). We acknowledged that people have different ways of gaming and that that also needed to be built into the product (without forcing a lot of complicated terminology on the customer, your mother remember?). We had to simplify 'how to play' without boring 'old school gamers;' this lead to identifying things like Solo play. We decided to align the game around the idea of 'creating information' rather than 'mitigating problems.'
Our Mechanix take the form of a set of simple concepts mostly tied to the complexity levels.
Residual Modifiers - Basic
- Things that go on affecting things after their cause is removed.
- Who's doing better at battle, a just another Residual Modifier.
- How master warriors perform a sequence of actions in the blink of an eye.
- To compliment Flurries with unique and complex Actions specialized to specific Martial Arts.
How Are You Going to Present It?
You mean the playtest? Oh, the product line....
Well, as a product line, it'll have to be in stores, on the internet, on your shelf, hey even in your life! On a more practical level, since it's a gateway product, we hope to get it into more than just role-playing game stores. Ideally bookstores would be a start, but toy stores would also be a good place too. Heck how about in schools? Turn play time into learning time. Coffee shops might be neat, if we can come up with the right LARP.
Right now, our internet presence is limited to this playtest support sight, but who knows? On line play? I'd like to get the collectible card game into 'chat room' style playtest; on line play only seems like a step farther. The Hands-Free level ought to be able to handle chat rooms and forums. Both authorized and unauthorized supplements could be all around the internet. Even a truly massive LARP could rightly have an internet presence (people playing their characters who have internet access).
So what form will the 'book' or printed version take? Well, there is the GURPS model; core book of rules and 'slaves' that cannot be played without it. Requiring two purchases seems too complex for a 'get it and go' gateway product. 'All rules in one place' works for Palladium products, but they get too big for that 'getaway' gateway feel (and price). Dungeons & Dragons gives it to you in three packages and then extensions without number; that sells the central product well, but further supplements only sell to return customers. We could follow White Wolf Gaming Studio's model; five 'different' games and then a layer of expansions and then a layer of explicit settings built around a continuing 'story.' The problem is doubled; only return business is interested and the same goes for the 'story' as well.
We need to balance somewhere in between. A set of products that have enough Mechanix to play without another purchase, yet few enough to work like an appetizer; the levels of complexity, specifically Basic, seems like a perfect fit. This creates both independence and breeds interdependence. If we narrow the 'way of play' concentrate the genre on a single 'cool' package, we may be able to burst the 'game store' bubble.
In fact, if we write the Basic level Mechanix well enough, developing additional 'narrow' products like this will go quite quickly. We even speculate chasing fads and licensing product lines (that ought to really open up the market if we choose well) with strong products rather than 'treatment' retreads. And then each of these will wax poetic about the enhancements available at Intermediate and Advanced levels; but those products should be a lot closer to 'do it yourself' kits, perhaps even grouped around a small limited number of 'familiar' genre clusters. This creates a 'satellites around a set of core books' approach. (More on the specifics of the product line soon.)
This will all tie into the whole product line by pulling in players of the collectible card game, the live-action role-playing game, the first person 'dog-fighter,' and so forth. There'll also be a whole host of support products for not only the main product line but to support the tie-in effect. One hidden strength is making customization works more easily after examples.
We've done some extensive thinking about how to arrange these 'core books.' It needs to get the information out there, but also cover everything in depth. How can you talk about playing without knowing the Mechanix? How can you talk about gamemastering without knowing how to play? We eventually decided on a 'twice through' approach. Once, simply to get you playing, and then a second time to really explore what the game is truly capable of. (This'll have to be another article in an issue or two.)
In order to make the game simple and accessible, as well as dealing with a lot of "I don't get it" issues, we conceived of the idea of turning virtually every list of descriptions (Exemplars, spells, superpowers, et cetera) into catalogues of examples. This gives the package a "it's already done for you" feel without dictating what to use. The superpowers will include a rogue's gallery of heroes and villains, the spell schedules will carry a manual of fantasy Monsters, cyberpunk technology Mechanix will include a catalogue of futuristic gear, and so on.
What now?
Over the years our goals have changed quite a bit (happens when you have the kids you tried so hard to get); we went from wanting to be publishers to this. The harsh realities of money and time changed our outlook a lot. One of the biggest changes is the desire to get this whole thing completely fine tuned before offering it to anyone. Instead of just 'getting it out there,' or 'getting far enough ahead to shop it around,' we're going to get it really 'finished' first. A luxury afforded by the status as a thought experiment.
Who knows, we may create a community of players along the way. First we need playtesters; 'consumer' feedback, input, and support; and heck a few satellite submissions would never hurt. I'm looking forward to finalizing a set of Basic Mechanix for playtest and right now, over at The Forge, I'm creating a few custom Genre Expectations that can be used with this 'page of Mechanix' to start some early playtests.
Fang Langford
posted by Fang Langford at
1/06/2006 02:29:00 PM
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