I admit mine have shifted over the years.  I think for the longest time, my top priorities as a game designer were to create rules that best represented what style of gaming I wanted.  I think most game designers probably do that.  But as I get older, I think the key to truly good game design goes deeper than that.

My current priorities as a designer, in order of importance are:

0: Do it because you like it, not because you expect anything from it (recognition, profit, etc).

1. Encourage a cooperative social interaction. Tabletop rpgs are a face-to-face activity.  Unlike boardgames, they are not really meant to be competitive.  The number one goal is that the rules of the game should support or actively encourage the players to work together as a group, to make each player feel part of the experience, to allow players to get along with each other.  I think in modern days, most of us designers have lost sight of this and have focused on "balanced gameplay".  Balance is great, but the social interaction part of the group is more important.

2. Players have different motivations, and the rules should allow them to achieve the experience they want. Some players are motivated by exploration, others by combat, and others by interaction.  Some players like to play a certain archetype like a thief, while others prefer the sorcerer.  The rules should allow players to play the archetype they want (as defined by genre and scope of the game or course) and feel like their character is just as important as any other character

3. The rules should allow the GM the freedom to modify, add, or remove them to fit his or her preferred style of play.  Core rules that cannot be changed or removed should be limited to as few as possible.  In addition to this, the rules should give the GM the proper tools needed to create his or her own worlds and adventures.

4.  Everything a player will need should fit on the character sheet.  There are exceptions of course, like a high level spell caster and all of his spells.  But for the most part, players shouldn't have to be looking up reference tables and whatnot in a book.  Players knowing the rules is OK, but they should be able to play without knowing anything beyond the core mechanic.

5.  You are not a know it all.  Some rules sound great in your head.  But keep your sacred cows to as few as possible.  Refusal to budge on certain things will result in an empty game table.

6.  Playtest, change, playtest, change.  Sort of related to #5.  Be prepared to throw out large swaths of your rules because they don't work as well on the gaming table as they did in your head.  Also, I don't care if you have an English degree.  You will not catch all of your errors yourself, no matter how many times you reread your stuff.  Have other people look at it.  And not just experts.  Have "mundane" people look at it.  After all, it's them who will be trying to make sense of it.



You may have noticed that no where up there do I have, "make the game fun", or any derivative thereof.  Fun is so subjective, and chances are that the rules won't be the main attractor to people picking up your game.  They'll pick it up because it's a genre they may like, or the artwork, or word of mouth.  Those are the first things.  So if you've gotten them to pick up the game and be interested before they've even read the rules yet, you're halfway there.  And if you follow the above rules, they will probably have fun if it's a type of game they like.  And if they don't have fun with it, it doesn't mean it's a badly designed game.  It just means it wasn't what they like.

1. Enable others to reproduce the awesome times I have at my table.

I like my system snappy and with a bit of zing, so it doesn't get in the way of fun but rather enables it. I like my settings to rock so hard that the players stumble out after the end of the night with a look in their glistening eyes that says they've just had more fun with a group of people than they've ever had before while clothed.

I appreciate fun is subjective but an important, perhaps the only goal I have when I put games together is to tap that vein for as many people as I can. That doesn't mean monty haul games where everybody wins or aiming for the lowest common denominator, it means balancing the challenges just right to make the rewards rewarding.

On your substantive points:

0: Yes.

1: People tend to do that anyway but you can encourage it by setting group and personal goals in cooperation with the group before the campaign starts. It sounds like common sense but everyone running off to roll up their characters before coming back to strain the GM's brain finding a way to make them all work together is not really a great idea.

2: Goals are seperate from character preferences for the most part. The GM should ask the players what they're looking for and try to make that happen of course. Most people are pretty relaxed once the fun keeps coming.

3: Agreed. Rules that will cause other rules to break if removed should be highlighted.

4: Eh maybe. If most of the stuff they need can be printed out on a laminated sheet I call that a win.

5: Agreed.

6: A thousand times this.

All good stuff said so far.

My choice points would be:

1) Write what I know.

Focusing on genres and ideas I'm familiar with, or getting familiar with them so I can write them. Yes, I was reading books on the Revolutionary War to write a pulp/supers game: The Keys of Liberty. I'm also researching wuxia stories for my un-named wuxia game.

2) Write games how I run them/prefer to play them.

Just that. I know my players usually have a good time. I  try and convey my game rules, tools, and ideas so that others can reproduce my (usual) gaming success.


3) Keep It Simple, Stupid.

I've played and run a lot of games in my almost 32 years of gaming. I've learned that for me, simple games are better for what I want. They let me focus on the elements I want, as I want to focus on them, and not force me into false constructs/abstractions that get in the way of the genre.

Quote from: Silverlion;653017All good stuff said so far.

My choice points would be:

1) Write what I know.

Focusing on genres and ideas I'm familiar with, or getting familiar with them so I can write them. Yes, I was reading books on the Revolutionary War to write a pulp/supers game: The Keys of Liberty. I'm also researching wuxia stories for my un-named wuxia game.

2) Write games how I run them/prefer to play them.

Just that. I know my players usually have a good time. I  try and convey my game rules, tools, and ideas so that others can reproduce my (usual) gaming success.


3) Keep It Simple, Stupid.

I've played and run a lot of games in my almost 32 years of gaming. I've learned that for me, simple games are better for what I want. They let me focus on the elements I want, as I want to focus on them, and not force me into false constructs/abstractions that get in the way of the genre.

Yeah, pretty much on par across the board, especially #3.  I tend to initially have really complex rules to cover as many scenarios as possible, but in actual gameplay, no one really wants to take the time to do all that figuring.  I'm sure there are people out there like that, but unless you have a genuine desire to design a game the way you like to play it, people will notice.

Quote from: Brad J. Murray;6530041. Enable others to reproduce the awesome times I have at my table.

This is pretty much where I am too. One rule to ring them all.

-clash

Here are mine:
(Not neccesarily in order, some fluctuates, and some really shares first or second places.)
1: That i am making the kind of game(s) that i would like to play myself goes without saying.
2: As fast rules and Character Creation as possible, while still including all the detail i think is neccesary. (One could make a fast game with one stat and 3 skills, but i prefer the detail of 8 Attributes and a total of 30 skills to choose between.)
3: Currently, i am able to do it for non-profit, so that is what i'm currently doing.
Recognition is nice, though.
4: Give it at least some potential for multigenre, even though the game concentrates on one genre.
5: Give the GM rules, advice, and freedom to break the rules when neccesary.
6: Encourage the GM to be Creative.
7: Give the "bad (and worse?) guys" reasons for why they are like they are. ("Evil" guys rarely considers themselves evil, but pragmatic, neutral, or even good.)
8: Playtest, playtest, playtest.
9: Do not be afraid to question your own decisions.

Hm. I don't think I would make a checklist. It kind of depends what project I am working on.

If I was pressed for an answer though, finding an underlying thread throughout my projects, I guess it would be to make sure the game's user gets what he or she wants out of it. In other words, it's become a pattern with me to keep the idea in mind that ultimately what will result from the article or product or whatever I'm working on right now will be played by other people, not me, and that they should be empowered to play THEIR games with the material if they so choose, not mine.

I built a sort of experiment out of this where I wrote a module from a map but without going very much into the specifics of the rules or anything like that, just describing what each item on the map was in my game, and then, for each item, giving a bunch of suggestions meant as starting points for what it could be in YOUR game.

It's not published yet. Hopefully soon.

I don't know that I qualify as a "designer"; I'm more of a writer.  That is, I write about my modules then sort of shape them in to the outline I've envisioned.

Challenge the players is the first item.

Try to make things easy on the DM would be the second.

Provide an interesting backdrop, too.

...

sorry, that's about all I have.

(1) To vanquish my fanbase, (2) see it driven before me, (3) hear the lamentations of their message boards.

(not a designer, but I couldn't resist)

Quote from: The Butcher;653623(1) To vanquish my fanbase, (2) see it driven before me, (3) hear the lamentations of their message boards.

(not a designer, but I couldn't resist)

This quote was running through my head as well when I saw the thread title.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;6530000: Do it because you like it, not because you expect anything from it (recognition, profit, etc).

I think that's probably in a sense a good rule even for organizing a for-profit corporate game design project, because people are more likely to do outstanding work when they are enthusiastic about it.

Quote1. Encourage a cooperative social interaction. Tabletop rpgs are a face-to-face activity.  Unlike boardgames, they are not really meant to be competitive.

Except when they are, as in the case of OD&D and Gangbusters. That's a mode I might pursue if I were designing something to run frequently at the games shop, because the old campaign format might be well suited to that situation.

For my regular weekly home group, though, I follow your suit here.

QuoteI think in modern days, most of us designers have lost sight of this and have focused on "balanced gameplay".  Balance is great, but the social interaction part of the group is more important.

I'm curious as to how you see them in opposition.

Quote2. Players have different motivations, and the rules should allow them to achieve the experience they want.

Perhaps because I tend to be involved in relatively free-wheeling things like old D&D, this tends for me to be an aspect of scenario rather than of what people usually mean by 'rules.'

Quote3. The rules should allow the GM the freedom to modify, add, or remove them to fit his or her preferred style of play.  Core rules that cannot be changed or removed should be limited to as few as possible.

There's no getting around the fact that 'cannot' is always a self-imposed restriction, so one's best efforts as writer of a text may be confounded by the eyes of readers (and the game culture they build among themselves).

That said, I am in favor making things by design clearly modular.

QuoteIn addition to this, the rules should give the GM the proper tools needed to create his or her own worlds and adventures.

What do consider to be "the proper tools" apart from imagination?

Quote4.  Everything a player will need should fit on the character sheet.  There are exceptions of course, like a high level spell caster and all of his spells.  But for the most part, players shouldn't have to be looking up reference tables and whatnot in a book.  Players knowing the rules is OK, but they should be able to play without knowing anything beyond the core mechanic.

This puts me especially in mind of 4E D&D as an example that seems not to do this, but it is a somewhat different matter for people who use the software that prints out power listings as part of the character record.

Quote5.  You are not a know it all.  Some rules sound great in your head.  But keep your sacred cows to as few as possible.  Refusal to budge on certain things will result in an empty game table.

Yes, one thing I like about my regular group is the good communication and good sportsmanship.

Quote6.  Playtest, change, playtest, change.  Sort of related to #5.  Be prepared to throw out large swaths of your rules because they don't work as well on the gaming table as they did in your head.  Also, I don't care if you have an English degree.  You will not catch all of your errors yourself, no matter how many times you reread your stuff.  Have other people look at it.  And not just experts.  Have "mundane" people look at it.  After all, it's them who will be trying to make sense of it.

These are more live issues when you're designing for publication.

Looks pretty good!

Quote from: Phillip;653665I'm curious as to how you see them in opposition.

Not in opposition, but rather one is forgotten.  Maybe it's just me, but I see this really big effort for game balance as the big thing, where the environment where the game is played (in front of each other) is put to the wayside.  I think this is due to MMOs, where game balance between classes is everything, and no one sits next to another player and thus those casual quick conversations are lost.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;653000I admit mine have shifted over the years.  I think for the longest time, my top priorities as a game designer were to create rules that best represented what style of gaming I wanted.  I think most game designers probably do that.  But as I get older, I think the key to truly good game design goes deeper than that.

My current priorities as a designer, in order of importance are:

0: Do it because you like it, not because you expect anything from it (recognition, profit, etc).

1. Encourage a cooperative social interaction. Tabletop rpgs are a face-to-face activity.  Unlike boardgames, they are not really meant to be competitive.  The number one goal is that the rules of the game should support or actively encourage the players to work together as a group, to make each player feel part of the experience, to allow players to get along with each other.  I think in modern days, most of us designers have lost sight of this and have focused on "balanced gameplay".  Balance is great, but the social interaction part of the group is more important.

2. Players have different motivations, and the rules should allow them to achieve the experience they want. Some players are motivated by exploration, others by combat, and others by interaction.  Some players like to play a certain archetype like a thief, while others prefer the sorcerer.  The rules should allow players to play the archetype they want (as defined by genre and scope of the game or course) and feel like their character is just as important as any other character

3. The rules should allow the GM the freedom to modify, add, or remove them to fit his or her preferred style of play.  Core rules that cannot be changed or removed should be limited to as few as possible.  In addition to this, the rules should give the GM the proper tools needed to create his or her own worlds and adventures.

4.  Everything a player will need should fit on the character sheet.  There are exceptions of course, like a high level spell caster and all of his spells.  But for the most part, players shouldn't have to be looking up reference tables and whatnot in a book.  Players knowing the rules is OK, but they should be able to play without knowing anything beyond the core mechanic.

5.  You are not a know it all.  Some rules sound great in your head.  But keep your sacred cows to as few as possible.  Refusal to budge on certain things will result in an empty game table.

6.  Playtest, change, playtest, change.  Sort of related to #5.  Be prepared to throw out large swaths of your rules because they don't work as well on the gaming table as they did in your head.  Also, I don't care if you have an English degree.  You will not catch all of your errors yourself, no matter how many times you reread your stuff.  Have other people look at it.  And not just experts.  Have "mundane" people look at it.  After all, it's them who will be trying to make sense of it.



You may have noticed that no where up there do I have, "make the game fun", or any derivative thereof.  Fun is so subjective, and chances are that the rules won't be the main attractor to people picking up your game.  They'll pick it up because it's a genre they may like, or the artwork, or word of mouth.  Those are the first things.  So if you've gotten them to pick up the game and be interested before they've even read the rules yet, you're halfway there.  And if you follow the above rules, they will probably have fun if it's a type of game they like.  And if they don't have fun with it, it doesn't mean it's a badly designed game.  It just means it wasn't what they like.

Pretty much agree with all points (sorry for coming into this late).

My own games have morphed over the years from the major systems to complex.

Then looking at my own system that has taken years to get to the point where I like it, then threw it through the ringer yet again. Point is #6 is where I'm at right now and it rings true. I've been starting at it so long I cant believe sometimes the "simple" grammatical errors that come through on the 300th look, that you miss the other 299 times prior.

Looking forward to being more a member of this board and in time sharing my own game which is on version 2 of its current incarnation. But not yet, want to get a feel for the boards before I proceed.