I come up with many ideas. I don't know why, that's just who I am. Unfortunately realising these and making them credible is an entirely different matter.

I am compelled to attempt to create a game. I don't know why, and I don't know how I'm going to do that. But the compulsion is there. It's part system monkey (I like coming up with funky simple mechanics) and part world creator (I like the idea of creating my own little world). But making this all work is an utter nightmare, even then the compulsion remains - haunting me!

It seems that rpgs and rpg design is inherently schizoid and contradictory. People claim they want innovation, but then something that is innovative gets crticised because it's not convenient or, more likley, familiar. Beyond that there is a glut of systems out there all designed to facilitate anything I could create.

Recently we've had Traveller and Starblazer as nothing more than generic sfrpg's - so why bother trying to pen a new sfrpg when these have been fairly well received. The same can be said for all genres really.

Beyond that people want the familiar, which is why D&D (an ever convoluted mess produced by a terrible company) is still so popular, but at the same time when someone creates that it's criticised as being, to put it kindly, a heartbreaker. Yet when someone creates somethign truly unique it's either convoluted, boring or unplayable. Not many people really want to learn an alien language and read thousands of years of fictitious history.

And yet the compulsion remains. I've got all sorts of half baked concepts. I could reel off a ton of names and ideas here, yet giving life to them as a functional rpg setting or game is something entirely different. I don't want to write a novel either. Trying to create something that has depth in the sense of a setting that serves the purpose of being an RPG setting (not a work of fiction, and yet just that) is the impossible dream I cannot abandon.

That is all.

I am the same but different.

I get a great idea for a game I bang out 80% of it in a week. New system new rules. I playtest it a few times , in a couple of cases plying it exclusively for upto a year but i never finish it.

But for me its never about the setting, the genre yes but not the setting. Mechanics I love tweaking with. How to emulate this how to do this elegantly? how to take that idea over there and combine with this idea? What is hte minimum number of attributes you need? Can I summarise the core rule in a paragraph?

However I would quite like to write a novel. Started a few , all of them shit.

I'm using NANOWRIMO to try and get a novel done. I don't know if it is as good as I would like. I've always received compliments on my novel attempts. From some pretty harsh people-my friends. (At least some of them.)

I write games too--I'm not fast at the latter. I write, revise, revise, revise, playtest, repeat from the beginning. Until I am happy that the game fits the genre well. Genre is more important to setting to me, because if someone doesn't like my setting specifics they can still ditch it and play a game using the rules in the same "vein" as my game setting. I like to encourage that actually.

Does the world need YOUR game? Who cares, you may need it. That is important to me. A game written for your needs, may be awesome for my needs too--but the only person you ever have to prove anything to? Is yourself. (You should always do your best of course. Just that others judgment should weigh less over all.)


It is nice when doing that works out for others in a positive way.

Write! Make stuff you like. The rest will come, or won't, but you'll have done something no one but you could have done.

Quote from: Silverlion;342445I'm using NANOWRIMO to try and get a novel done. I don't know if it is as good as I would like. I've always received compliments on my novel attempts. From some pretty harsh people-my friends. (At least some of them.)

I write games too--I'm not fast at the latter. I write, revise, revise, revise, playtest, repeat from the beginning. Until I am happy that the game fits the genre well. Genre is more important to setting to me, because if someone doesn't like my setting specifics they can still ditch it and play a game using the rules in the same "vein" as my game setting. I like to encourage that actually.

Does the world need YOUR game? Who cares, you may need it. That is important to me. A game written for your needs, may be awesome for my needs too--but the only person you ever have to prove anything to? Is yourself. (You should always do your best of course. Just that others judgment should weigh less over all.)


It is nice when doing that works out for others in a positive way.

Write! Make stuff you like. The rest will come, or won't, but you'll have done something no one but you could have done.

But that's the problem, the rest doesn't come. Coming up with concepts is one thing; realizing them as a gameable premise/setting is something else entirely. It's not even about pandering to the masses (well rpg.net, I suppose ) it's about getting something complete. It doesn't help that I'm also drawn to melding genres/tropes together, though fuck knows why.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;342446But that's the problem, the rest doesn't come. Coming up with concepts is one thing; realizing them as a gameable premise/setting is something else entirely. It's not even about pandering to the masses (well rpg.net, I suppose ) it's about getting something complete. It doesn't help that I'm also drawn to melding genres/tropes together, though fuck knows why.

Well chuck us a melded trope/genre and we can brainstorm

Ghost, one way to get ideas kick-started into a project is to collaborate with some other smart people. Start shopping your idea as a concrete proposal with smart people you trust and see if you can get one or two of those who love to get to production rather than just chat about dice mechanisms.

Why don't you read some short rpg's available on pdf especially the free ones that are out there floating around on Game Chef and 1km1kt. I wrote a very large game and having done that I don't want to do it again for two reasons. The first is that it is very, very time consuming and you wrestle with the doubt that you can complete the thing. The second reason is that I myself now tend to appreciate more succinct accessible games that are easily digested.  

So my advice would be to model your design on something like Kill Puppies For Satan and restrict yourself to under 50 pages or less if you like. Think direct and elegant rather than a comprehensive tome featuring 50 races, 200 magical items and you may feel encouraged rather than deflated.

Quote from: Halfjack;342469Ghost, one way to get ideas kick-started into a project is to collaborate with some other smart people. Start shopping your idea as a concrete proposal with smart people you trust and see if you can get one or two of those who love to get to production rather than just chat about dice mechanisms.

This! I collaborate a lot, and it works wonderfully! As Halfjack says, you need respect and trust, but with these people, synergies can happen!

-clash

Sounds like you have something of a similar problem to me; I have really cool, far-out ideas for settings and such, that are apparently shit for actual gaming. Might make interesting novels, but I have FAR too much ADD for that. The best I ever managed was some G:T stuff for the Journal and a couple books, and even that was 7+ years ago.

So, what I did was fully embrace the tropes and stereotypes of a particular genre. Instead of coming up with orc-analogs, I use the most over-the-top orky-orcs you can imagine. Elves as aloof prigs in the woods? Mine will kill you for daring to look at them the wrong way - which is usually at all. Dungeons? Pfeh - underground cities.

Basically, take the well-establised, cliche'd ideas and crank them up to 10. I'd say 11, but that's over-used.

Most recent example; the Star Wars campaign that kicks off in a couple of weeks is about a sect of Sith from outside the galaxy returning to overthrow the pretender Palpatine. Probably by helping the Rebels. So I have Sith, helping Rebels, beat Sith, and then probably try to take over themselves. Except nobody knows they're Sith. I expect more than a few planets to go up in flames before its over.

Another big advantage to this is that you don't have to spend hours and days trying to introduce new concepts, races, religions, empires, etc to players who probably would be just as happy fighting orcs and swinging lightsabres. There's a reason that McDonald's sells more food than L'Tour d'Agent. Cheap, easy, fast, somewhat tasty, and easy to "get". Plus you don't have to go to France to eat there.

Quote from: Cold Blooded Games;342474Why don't you read some short rpg's available on pdf especially the free ones that are out there floating around on Game Chef and 1km1kt. I wrote a very large game and having done that I don't want to do it again for two reasons. The first is that it is very, very time consuming and you wrestle with the doubt that you can complete the thing. The second reason is that I myself now tend to appreciate more succinct accessible games that are easily digested.  

So my advice would be to model your design on something like Kill Puppies For Satan and restrict yourself to under 50 pages or less if you like. Think direct and elegant rather than a comprehensive tome featuring 50 races, 200 magical items and you may feel encouraged rather than deflated.

This is totally true. The game I just finished is almost 400 pages long. It is a lot of fun, but, I never want to do it again. I think you can make something that will be a lot of fun and fit it into a smaller book. We used to play ninjas and superspies for years, and we never used half of the stuff in it.

Story of my fucking worthless life, man, which is to say on this, I feel some genuine sympathy for you, because I know how it feels.  I have countless cool ideas for all manner of fields of interest, and none of them ever see the light of day, either because of a failure of drive, or lack of skill and knowhow.

It's even worse with the whole "Song in the Dark" thing.  It's just that one core idea, that so far I've managed to fail to implement time and time again through countless revisions.  I've pissed away almost every bit of public interest the project ever had, through this constant cycle of spurts of excited activity, followed by distraction and abandonment for sometimes years at a time.

Frankly, I'm starting to think it's the result of some genuine psychological issue, this perpetual failure of will.  Whatever my damn problem is, I wish I could get the hell over it and just get something out right now, because I could really use the extra cash, even if it was mostly from pity buys from online friends.

Quote from: J Arcane;342499It's even worse with the whole "Song in the Dark" thing.  It's just that one core idea, that so far I've managed to fail to implement time and time again through countless revisions.  I've pissed away almost every bit of public interest the project ever had, through this constant cycle of spurts of excited activity, followed by distraction and abandonment for sometimes years at a time.

Actually I was hoping you would just continue even if just sporadically. I got a hard copy (somewhere) of all your posts on the setting/system which I intend to mash with The Morrow Project. (Of course it was a published book, that would be sweet)

Regards,
David R

Quote from: jibbajibba;342447Well chuck us a melded trope/genre and we can brainstorm

shit, called my bluff now!

Can't bloody think of anything now.

I tend to come up with concepts based on words and phrases that sound cool. I had some ideas, thus, for something in a post apocalyptical S&S (perhaps even sword & planet) setting. I may even have posted them before:

A race of sentient apes called Ongaro.
savage world style post technology dinosaurs called Dieselsaurs originating from places known as Genesis Pits.
A culture of physical perfection based on a drug called Soma known as the Tiger Alliance, from their capital, Tigerstan. Their people (the pc type) are a cross between Dhalsim and Mad Max.
Evil snake people as per the S&S staple at war with an arrogant culture of winged fairly advanced people known as Hawklites.

***

I've also toyed with a superhero horror type game (marvel horror mythology, nocturnals etc). Characters would choose an archetype defining their origin:
Hounded by Hell (Ghost Rider)
Damned by Day (Dracula)
Son of Strange (Blackheart or Dr Strange)
Born of Beyond (cosmic horror)
Shunned by Science (Frankenstein)
(there were more, but i've forgotten them )
Each archetype had a unique suite of powers, but I got bogged down trying to come up with some kind of 'morality' mechanism. I felt the game needed something like this, but everything seemed to come out like the WoD Humanity mechanism which just traduces everything to some angsfest and takes over the game in a way that detracts from the pulp horror fun.

I have also wrestled with, for many months, an idea based around what I called wuxia space opera, but it either became an exercise in too much chinese mythology or it was just star wars. I'm not sure kung fu wuxia style roleplaying works, it's a purely visual medium really. This, ultimately, I think is why Weapons of the Gods isn't perhaps as succesful as it might be: it's based too much around folk systems (such as the secret arts) and resource management for the kungfu.

***

I've also tinkered with a pulp horror/sf ww2 'weird war' setting as well. But ww2 is so dynamic and daunting a subject to work with I found.

***

and recently i've been tinkering with some ideas for a martial arts/video game style game having played Tekken 6 a lot recently. Here are some ideas for arcetypes based on styles:
World Warriors – King of Tournament edition:

Styles:
Characters are defined by their fighting heritage which informs how they handle themselves as well as what motivates them. Their Style is their outlook on life. What they do with their Style is up to them, but how the player uses it to interact with the setting drives game play.
A Style is measured numerically across a gauge measuring the nature of that interaction. At one end, the character is motivated by Power – a selfish temporal desire. At the other he is motivated by Excellence – altruistically motivated to self improvement for the benefit of all. A character motivated by Power can grow to be more powerful than one whose strives for Excellence, but that power is transient and can only lead to one’s downfall.

Luchador – this is the Mexican style of wrestling. Luchadors are masked combatants who fight with flair and agility. Typically a Luchador is a member of the Libre Temple whose warriors descend from ancient times and have long guarded the forests and jungles of South America from evil. Their masks are sacred and powerful artefacts granting great combat prowess as well as prized anonymity. Modern wrestling masks are pale imitations of these. Most Luchadors prove their worth by carving their own sacred mask as a part of their initiation process.
Fried (Chicken Kung) Fu – more pugilism than precision, it is the martial art style that has evolved in the ghettoes of black America, namely Harlem, from immigrant dojos. Fried Fu (for short) favours power and bling; most fighters gain respect through their material wealth (as a sign of having survived the ghetto) which they draw on instead of chi.
Secret Stilleto Fu – the Sisterhood has long existed to protect the interests of women across the world – by whatever means they can. This is their secret art of fighting and it’s more dangerous against men. It fuses seduction, stealth and knowing an opponent’s weaknesses to use against him. Secret Sisters exist everywhere – some good, some bad. It is thought the organisation was founded in ancient feudal Japan by a covert cabal of Geishas.
Siberian Strongarm Wrestling – this is the opposite of the Luchador style though within the same sport. These techniques are the most powerful fighting techniques in the world, in terms of sheer brute force and require a suitably powerful physique. As such they are slow and those who specialise in Siberian Strongarm (also known as Siberian Bear Baiting) are not known for their agility.
Special Ops – this is the only fighting style that doesn’t penalise the warrior for bearing guns. SpecOps is a military fighting style used almost exclusively by secret agents and speies the world over, regardless of their affiliations and allegiances. It is also similar to Stilleto Fu in its use of guile and subterfuge, combining that with deadly handgun forms.
Shaolin Kung fu – the most enduring and deadly of all the Chinese martial arts; its secrets are guarded in mountain top sanctuaries by ancient monastic traditions. Those who espouse it include movie stars as well as wandering Samaritans seeking enlightenment through their fists.
Tiger Thai Fighting – born out of muay thai boxing skills and infused with the mystical powers of ancient people living in the sacred city of Angkor Wat. Once known as Tigerstan these people were a race of shapeshifters who protected the region and shepherded the early natives.
Gentleman Fists – this is a street fighting style born of boxing and pre-boxing pugilism; it originated in England. Those who practise it value honour and an adherence to fighting etiquette above all else; that is their source of power.
Fist of Tantra – the mystic Indian yogic fighting style taught as a means of both unmatched physical prowess and inner peace. This is the path of the peaceful warrior who must never use his power to start conflict, but finishing it yields great wisdom and power.


-That's about it

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;342565shit, called my bluff now!

Can't bloody think of anything now.

I tend to come up with concepts based on words and phrases that sound cool. I had some ideas, thus, for something in a post apocalyptical S&S (perhaps even sword & planet) setting. I may even have posted them before:

A race of sentient apes called Ongaro.
savage world style post technology dinosaurs called Dieselsaurs originating from places known as Genesis Pits.
A culture of physical perfection based on a drug called Soma known as the Tiger Alliance, from their capital, Tigerstan. Their people (the pc type) are a cross between Dhalsim and Mad Max.
Evil snake people as per the S&S staple at war with an arrogant culture of winged fairly advanced people known as Hawklites.

***

I think this is pretty cool a Gor/John Carter/Planet of the Apes/Flash Gordon style alternate 'earth' with these pockets of population based in different geographies.
How would you like this to ?as a standard 'D&D style' RPG were a group of these creatures from mixed backgrounds get thrown together in a quest or in another way? Through the actual media what normally happens is 'normal' humans from earth get dumped into this world and have to work it out for themselves that is okay for a single game but doesn't merit revisits of course subsequent games could have different starting parameters. Also what would the focus of the game? What you have is an interesting setting but you could probably play it fairly easily with something like Savage Worlds. Would you want to define a quique system or build a Savage World type Mod for this setting? Woudl you focus on combat , exploration, politics? Sounds to me like its probably a combat kind of a game where the PCs end up sided with one population or the other and end up liberating them from one of the others or some such.

For me the key things on this one would be

• What sort of games would you want to play
• What woudl a party look like?
• would you look to create your own system or build a mod round an exisiting generic game (Gurps, d20, Savage Worlds etc) ?
• How would the setting stay alive for the players?
• Is there some setting based plot arc or is it a Sandbox?

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;342565I've also toyed with a superhero horror type game (marvel horror mythology, nocturnals etc). Characters would choose an archetype defining their origin:
Hounded by Hell (Ghost Rider)
Damned by Day (Dracula)
Son of Strange (Blackheart or Dr Strange)
Born of Beyond (cosmic horror)
Shunned by Science (Frankenstein)
(there were more, but i've forgotten them )
Each archetype had a unique suite of powers, but I got bogged down trying to come up with some kind of 'morality' mechanism. I felt the game needed something like this, but everything seemed to come out like the WoD Humanity mechanism which just traduces everything to some angsfest and takes over the game in a way that detracts from the pulp horror fun.

I this this would be pretty easy to put together.

• Select an Archetype
• Point buy a base character
• Add a few random elements
• Link the party through antagonism to some powerful external force

Each archetype could actually go beyond its own power and have unique mechanisms. So for example I can a Man Made Horror archetype such as Frankenstein's Monster or a Cyborg actually repair itself from the body parts of fallen opponents. The problem you have is that the WoD does cover a lot of this ground. The morality mechanism is pretty much always going to end up mirroring the WoD model as it is for all its detractors a very elegant solution. You could you a CoC style insanity model but its less satisfactory and looses the idea that at certain levels you get numb to events and actiosn even if they are new to you.
You could push the whole thing really pulpy but then I think you hit Savage worlds again which can cope with a lot of this due to its flexible Powers model (weird Science , Super Powers, Arcane powers all in there)
So here I think as a setting its a good idea as a game i think you can go to exsiting ones.