Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;547556I've found there's a website here which sells pdfs of the Different Worlds magazine here, incidentally ($12 each however).
http://www.diffworlds.com/dw_01-12.htm

Those are print copies and, as you point out, the price is steep.  Because of that, I put off getting a few issues that I'd like to have, which are no longer available.  
 

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;547556*The notes on movement vs. board size were interesting in the light of say 3E/4E design - these have way more movement than the author recommends, with squares being there I suppose more to resolve 'zone of control' issues, I suppose.

While that book talks about at least 4 hexes per turn, the Greg Costikyan article I also referenced (The First Course on Game Design?) about SPI had this bit of advice:

QuoteAs an example of "tips and tricks," consider this piece of wisdom from Jim Dunnigan: units should move about seven hexes. In a typical wargame, with its 2' x 3' game-map, and 16mm hexes, the ability to advance roughly seven hexes in a turn provides a sense of reasonably rapid movement while enabling players to respond to each other in a reasonably logical fashion. If movement rates are much slower (say, 3 hexes a turn), the game feels slow and wooden. Contrariwise, if movement rates are much higher, the game can feel chaotic.

The normal D&D 3.x PC movement of 4-6 squares (20' to 30') per turn is well within those recommended ranges.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;547556*odd that I'd never thought of Chess as being a wargame with non-defined distances, in retrospect (duh).

It think it shows up more clearly in Chinese Chess, where the king is confined to a palace with guards and there is a river between both halves of the board.
 

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;547556*interesting to see that so many of the original RPG companies were wargame companies - I hadn't realized that GDW was, for instance (and I had forgotten about SPIs existence completely, until I got to the ads in the back).

You should go back and read the Greg Costikyan articles I posted links to in the hex map discussion.  His background was SPI.  See also his SPI Died for Your Sins.

Given my design process I suspect that the designers notes on most of my games would be longer than the game itself.  The only one I'd feel particularly inclined to write said notes for would be Dark Passages and that would probably really drive people away.

The design notes for Age of Heroes 'sold' the game to a couple of my (initially reluctant) players, who wanted see if the game lived up to it's bold intent in execution and emergent play.

Also, writing design notes can help you re-examine ideas/mechanics that you took for granted or glossed over during writing the actual game.

Quote from: David Johansen;547564The only one I'd feel particularly inclined to write said notes for would be Dark Passages and that would probably really drive people away.

Can you expand on what you think would drive people away, at least at a high level?

Quote from: John Morrow;547563You should go back and read the Greg Costikyan articles I posted links to in the hex map discussion.  His background was SPI.  See also his SPI Died for Your Sins.

Sad reading.

I really miss those days, the arrival of the new issue of S&T was a good day indeed. The combination of history and gaming (they would often match the main article to the subject covered by the game) was pure bliss.

Quote from: John Morrow;547590Can you expand on what you think would drive people away, at least at a high level?

Bearing in mind that I really, really loathe D&D and see its only utility being a bad experience to drive people away from its stranglehold on the mainstream in search of decent rules?

Quote from: John Morrow;547563Those are print copies and, as you point out, the price is steep. Because of that, I put off getting a few issues that I'd like to have, which are no longer available.

My apologies, hadn't realized those were print.
 

QuoteWhile that book talks about at least 4 hexes per turn, the Greg Costikyan article I also referenced (The First Course on Game Design?) about SPI had this bit of advice:
 
The normal D&D 3.x PC movement of 4-6 squares (20' to 30') per turn is well within those recommended ranges.

True, though a 3.x PC can hustle twice as far (8 to 12 squares) as a full turn if they don't otherwise attack. I've been struck before by the differences between, say, the D&D Miniatures game (which I used to play awhile back) and where IIRC it normally took perhaps 2 turns to fully close with the opponents and say Warhammer, which I've only really observed from a distance but which seemed to take longer and definitely set up on a much larger board.
 
I'm mentioning this only out of interest; how far apart PCs and opponents start will be very situational in any case, giving different contexts to the movement rate figure. As such I'm not going to conclude that 3.x movement is "wrong", or anything like that.
 

QuoteYou should go back and read the Greg Costikyan articles I posted links to in the hex map discussion. His background was SPI. See also his SPI Died for Your Sins.

Thanks! I've read through these now. Excellent articles (overall you're helping me achieve a feeling of ignorance I haven't had for awhile ). I found GC's description of a game as aimed at producing particular feelings or experiences in actual play, and minor tweaks as producing major shifts in end play (e.g. Everquest vs. Ultima) quite enlightening. His writing style is very pleasant, too.
I had seen the SPI article before. Very much a shame what happened to it. From a wargame perspective a cataclysm, and still very unfortunate from just an RPG perspective, as regards DragonQuest and its other RPGs.

I found some more designer's notes for Metagaming's Wizard and Dragons of the Underearth on the Sword & Shield RPG Blog:

http://swordandshieldrpg.blogspot.com/2011/05/strange-fascination-2-wizard-tftmelee.html

http://swordandshieldrpg.blogspot.com/2011/04/tft-basic-set-that-never-was-and-wasnt.html

See also Howard Thompson's letter here on the same blog.

Quote from: gleichman;546428As would I, and I would have love to see something about why all three games (M-t-M, TFT and GURPS) were so Stat focused (I've always considered that the prime failure in GURPS).

This is more fan appreciation from the Sword and Shield RPG blog, and not Steve Jackson designer notes, but it might offer some clues to what the thinking was there:

http://swordandshieldrpg.blogspot.com/2009/07/dicey-business.html

Also along the same heavy '80s game theme, you can find an article in Avalon Hill's Heroes Role-Playing Magazine titled So What's So Great About Powers & Perils by that game's author in a scan of the magazine  here.