Evening everyone! As promised, I thought I would share a bit more about myself so I'm not just some random poster to these boards! *chuckles* In my last post I mentioned I was majoring in history with an emphasis on early modern European society. Now why on earth would a game designer-hopeful be majoring in such a narrow time frame (roughly between 1650 and 1825)...and how about history in general?!? Shouldn't I be programming up a storm or creating vast environments in 3D Studio Max, or how about a few business classes so I know how to deal with all those PR people? Well, ever since I was little I have been facinated with the era that brought us Sherlock Holmes, Madame Bovary, some of the greatest operas and who can forget those outrageous whigs!!!! I've always been drawn to the era, its people, its culture and its music (if you haven't already guessed it, I'm an opera fanatic). Now, I've done my fair share of programming, HTML web authoring and 3D modeling but I have to say my strongest skills are in the dreaming industry, dreaming up lands, people, religions, governments, economies, even languages and currencies! When I was 12 years old (wow...1995 seems like yesterday!) I got my first taste of RPG'ing while on my second Boy Scout camping trip in the Olympic Mountain Range. It was a cold April evening and myself and a few others were nestled in a 4-man tent trying to keep warm. One of the boys said he had brought some books and dice that his brother let him borrow for the trip. On the cover was the coolest looking ship I had ever seen, soon I would covet it every mission we went on, desiring to fly such a swift, amazing star vessel. It was sleek, it was fast, it was the Millennium Falcon, and the game was Star Wars RPG. Enter my senior year in high school: I owned (and still have sitting in my room back home) over 50 SW:RPG books, each one read to the point where pages are falling out, each one marked up so much with margin notes that they look more like a college textbook used by 20 different students. I went through 2 core rule books and about 3 personal gear books (the players just eat those up!). I had become head GM back in 9th grade and had amassed over 15 full length campaigns using running 4 or 5 months on a weekly basis. It was in 10th grade that I decided to branch out and see what the other games could give me. First was an interesting future-earth scenario game we all like to call Rifts...I now own over 20 books and have run 4 successful campaigns, many implementing house rules and made-up classes and such. 11th Grade saw the coming of Dungeons and Dragons, Shadowrun and Vampire: The Masquerade. When graduation came and went, so did my core group of players, and college was upon me. These last two years have seen almost no activity in the RP'ing, as I had my own PC for the first time and experienced something called Everquest, Dark Ages of Camelot and Anarchy Online. These realms allowed me to interact with an infinite amount of personalities, cultures and age groups. It allowed me to plow through language and sex barriers, enjoying RP'ing with Japanese, Danes and women! (Yes, I thought that girls were too cool for RPG's, a young and ignorant boy I was!) So here I am today, a sophomore history major and filling a few pages worth of text with my ramblings, what on EARTH does this have to do with game design?!?!?! I am a dreamer, a man of many thoughts and ideas. Like Bacon, Voltaire and Flaubert, I have enlightenment, an enlightenment to bring to the gaming industry a passion for excellence and enthusiasm. I come to bring my ideas, my thoughts, and my dreams, so that others may walk down my city streets, fly my Millennium Falcons, and spend an evening attending the Royal Opera's of a kingdom far away. I bring to this community, and hopefully soon, to the world, my love of the possible impossibilities, that of game design. Tyler 'Calaf' Roehmholdt The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living. - Karl Marx [edited by - Calaf on March 12, 2003 9:31:21 PM]

When I first started posting to this forum, I wasn't realy sure what "Game Design" was about. At the time, I had bought my first book on C++ a few months previously, but had still only read the first two chapters. So basically I could only draw upon my knowledge of playing computer games, miniature wargames, and paper and pen roleplaying games.

I actually first started my gaming "career" playing miniature wargames when I was 10 years old (I'm 31 now). I was weaned on historical miniature games set in Napoleonic times, American Civil War, America Revolution, WWII, and modern microarmor. I played Harpoon once or twice as well as games like Seekrieg. I played classic board games like Squad Leader, Panzer Leader, Blitzkrieg amongst others. And as for my roleplaying pedigree....if a roleplaying game came out between 1984-1995, I owned it or played it.

Needless to say, even as a teenager I used to conjure up ideas for games. However being a GM myself in many games, I came to see that there were two sides to game creation. One was setting up what many call "World Creation", and then "Game Design". World Creation is essentially storytelling and setting the stage. If you want a game to have a story to it, it is essential that you develop good skills at this. It includes good storyboarding, artwork and storytelling skills. However, this does not make a game.

Game Design, I believe, is about finding the interactive element that players use to run about in your newly created world. Game Design has to answer questions like balancing (or even the absence of balancing), how the "rules" work, and how all the game objects interrelate with one another. Game Design can add considerably to the "flavor" of the game World. For example, if your Game Design is based on very realistic details, it might not fit in a world which is based on light heartedness. Conversely, if your game world is set in a "grim and gritty" neo-gothic world, having rules which are inconsistent, and which don't accentuate the danger of the world will detract from the gameplay.

As my programming skills have increased and as I try to take my Game Design concepts into actual logic (whether that logic be actual coding, flowcharting or psuedo-code/UML) I've discovered that there's a vast gap between pure design, and the ability to code the elements of Design. In other words, you may have great ideas...but the ideas have to be conveyed in such a way that the programmers can understand how things interrelate and work together to achieve your vision. While I hardly consider myself a programmer, I can at least talk in programmers concepts...so that they can understand how I envision something, and I can understand certain how programming limitations may affect the design.

So, dream your dreams, but be as explicit as you can so that programmers can understand how you intend the design to work. While most games today sadly lack in the storytelling and world creation aspect, it takes more than that to make an interesting game. I personally don't even like the word "game", and prefer the term, "interactive experience". To me, feeling better about ourselves is a more definable goal than "fun". To me, that is the ultimate aim of creating games...to create an experience that makes us feel better, whether that comes from relieving some stress, exploring new lands, overcoming puzzles, conquering online foes, or reflecting on the protagonist's life in a virtual story.

As for the content side, remember that everyone out there has different tastes. When I wanted to play a Castle Falkenstein campaign once...all the other guys were like, "why play in a alternate history Victorian/Edwardian era game? I mean, where's the full-auto assault rifles, giant robots and mayhem". And while Voltaire was a funny author (I had to read Candide in French) Francis Bacon committed bribery Enlightenment is unique and personal, and I think at best we can only make people go off in search of it themselves rather than try to foist our own notion of enlightenment upon others. One of the surest ways to get people to hate your game is to make it a personal soapbox. I admit, the idea is appealing, and you want to get across your own ideas, but it has to be done in a way that doesn't make it seem either too righteous nor too heavy handed. In essence, you have to trick the player into making his conclusion feel like his conclusion rather than your own.

But, best of luck....

[edited by - dauntless on March 12, 2003 10:02:50 PM]

I must say, even on my first day with these forums I learn something! Over the past 10 years I've had the opportunity to create worlds that I knew my players would enjoy because we had known eachother for so long. Gaming brings something I haven't experienced yet, that of the complete stranger. I will have to transition from deciding what my players like into guessing what my players like, hopefully in the process bringing a new spin to the world of RPG's. It will be a learning experience for me, but one I am very willing to make. Thank you Dauntless for your words of 'enlightenment' and support. :D

Tyler 'Calaf' Roehmholdt

The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living. - Karl Marx

[edited by - Calaf on March 12, 2003 10:17:22 PM]