Have you ever designed a game that was based on something you wrote in another form first ... say a short story that you decided would be a good game? Have you ever taken a look at stuff you''ve written, anything from poetry to a rough story idea, and considered turning it into a game? I wanted to say, try it! Try taking that picture you drew and envisioning it as an rpg world. Try taking something creative you did in another form and making it into a new and innovative game. Do you guys think it would work?

yeah, I did that more than once. I had this cool picture ... and some weeks later, I have ten pages of idea on the rest of the world this picture is in.
Of course, theses are only ideas, for now.
Plus I want to avoid the gimmick thing. You know. You have this one cool creature, and you''d like so much to have it in a game that you design endless stuff around it so it take consistence. I don''t want that. so instead, I jsut store the initial idea, with all that it spawns. then i jsut leave it. For a long long while. And once in a while I browse through it, and see if it still looks so cool. Most of the time I am glad to say it does But still, more work could be done, so I just leave it.

I get this a lot when watching movies. I get this surge of putting the emotions I had into a more tangible way. So I end up drawing a lot, doing stuff ... and usually, since I am in computing, it ends up as a scenario, an idea for an interface, for some game mechanics, etc.

Ultimately, I''ll have some consistent thing I can actually work on.

youpla :-P

I came up with a science fiction pen & paper RPG in high school that serves as a lot of the inspiration for my current game design. A lot of backstory, vignettes, and (probably not so great) short stories came out of that work. One of the best things about it was the rolicking adventure, huge scale (nearly 600 star systems, much of which I once mapped-- heh, talk about geeky ), and intimate way in which players directly struggled for the fate of civilization. It was a blast, especially when I got into GMing for 10+ players at once!!!


It''s the main thrust of my effort to let players impact a dynamic, changing cosmos. I think that, and the multiplayer element, was the most fun.


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Just waiting for the mothership...

I once created a Pen and Paper RPG setting that I realized would make a better computer game. SO I filed it. You''ll see it someday.

I often wrote my scenarii after having seen a picture and working around.
Sometimes it''s a music and I create around it.

I wrote a scenario for a CRPG and played it as an Tabletop RPG, it was interesting since I have seen where my players were going.

Maybe I should have keep that secret, but I think that testing a CRPG as an RPG is pretty nice, and leads you to unexpected places and add some interesting gameplay.

-* So many things to do, so little time to spend. *-

You guys are a lot like me! I''ve drawn pics that inspired me (even if the pics weren''t very good, lol), and maps of universes that I never got around to finishing. But I never thought of playing something as a tabletop RPG to test it out. Good thinking! I bet that helps to work out some of the flaws before you implement them in code.

Proceed with caution. Tabletop RPGs and CRPGs are completely different animals. Don''t look for any similarities that aren''t immediately apparant, that causes problems (like a certain Goblin Genocide thing).

There is some knowledge to be gleaned from this kind of comparison, but it''s use is limited. Keep in mind that your table-top players have way more commands they can execute than their computer counterparts.

I agree with the Landfish on that one. I''m having some difficulty finalizing game mechanics for my current RPG project, so I''m considering converting it to P&P so my friends and I can playtest it (we get together every weekend and role-play).

Unfortunately, my mechanics are very statistical. We''d have to crunch a lot of numbers to do just about anything. Computer mechanics almost never convert to P&P mechanics.

For example, back in junior high I designed a really simple system based on (take a guess) Final Fantasy. So, it was pretty much nothing but combat. I had a billion weapons, spells, and monsters, but nothing that inspired good role-playing. The whole project was doomed to failure from its onset. It wasn''t until playtime that I realized this.

That was many years ago. I''ve strayed far away from combat as a basis for role-playing. My friends and I call this "roll-playing," and I''m sure many other people have exploited this pun before us.

Now, onto the topic at hand...

Yes, many times have I drawn a picture or written a story and realized almost immediately that it would be a great element to a video game. Just the other day I drew a picture of a long-haired woman with an oriental sword, and the first thing I thought was, "she''s going to be the star of an action game."

But more often than this, I find myself writing stories based on background created for games. So, it''s the opposite of what you said: game first, drawings and writings second. In fact, I just recently wrote the introduction for a story that takes place on an alien world that a friend and I specifically designed for a CRPG. What''s even more shocking is that he wants to use this background for writing his own novels someday.

Game design-turned-book? Stranger things have happened.

I take inspiration from everything that excites and fascinates me, whether it be the imagery of a rainy day that song lyrics produce, or the memorable adventure over a 12,000 foot pass in the High Sierra.

We can draw ideas from the Victorian architecture of a beautifully restored home we see in a movie or the application of forensic medicine we read about in a Patricia Cornwell suspense novel.

The key is to derive something cohesive and complete from the ephemereal visions in our mind. Bits of wonderfulness from here and there often don''t go together, and we find ourselves contriving a story that is nothing more than a melting pot of ideas.

Whatever it is we wish to share with others, simulate, and define, we must first understand. We must know it cold. The best authors spend a great deal of time researching their subject matter, and often live or work in the field they so effortlessly seem to write about.

So if you wish to expand on this picture, this poem, or this short story, ask yourself this: What do I know about this? What ideas will I really draw upon to flesh this concept out? Ultimately, you will draw upon what fascinates you, and you may deviate entirely from what the picture represented, or you may find yourself having writer''s block.

Everything seems to boil down to the details. The greatest ideas stop dead in their tracks because on closer inspection, you realize you don''t know the subject matter. The best stories are the ones that don''t tell the greater story, but unfold by way of the small personal events which sum to the greater.