I have learned a great deal over the last year.   I tore out 50% of the system and abandoned the text which I _had_ been writing.  I changed my approach and decided that I really needed to get the core system solidified before I tried anything else.   This led to me creating and heavily revising of a 2-page rules summary, just so that I had something to work from.

This is almost all I had ready by the time the convention season began.  Each playtest taught me a different lesson.  CanGames taught me that the game itself had the potential to be fun and compelling.  The Grand Roludothon taught me to simplify the mechanics and adopt a more improvisational style.  GenCon gave me 2-3 pages worth of astounding feedback which I am only now starting to digest.

Now I am organizing all of the rules for the Spark RPG.   I have Google Docs open and I am populating it with a series of one-line statements.  Each statement corresponds to an individual rule, concept, explanation or piece of advice for the game.  When I finish that up, I will be able to organize the content and turn that into a solid outline for my next attempt at writing the rule.  My hope is that through outlining, I ought to be able to write the game in the most concise manner possible without losing clarity.

Are there any readers in the audience who outline this way?  If not, how do you organize your RPG content?

I chose to design generic games games like these not because they are easy, but because they are hard.  The only way to learn quality RPG design is through practice.  Rather than release a series of smaller titles, I wanted to throw myself into the deep end and tackle a large and difficult project.  For my first major commercially-published product, I needed to be exposed to every step in the development process. I needed to teach myself the design philosophies, writing tricks, editing skills, layout, production and marketing. I view this ambitious project as a self-funded undergraduate degree in roleplaying game design.

I have made almost every mistake in the textbook.  I have tried publishing a fan supplement for a White Wolf game without a license.  I have discovered the folly of commissioning art assets prematurely.   I have written a draft text for my game before bringing it to playtesting.  I have spent hours fiddling with formatting when I could have better spent that time cleaning up the writing.  Right now, the beginners mistake I am making is focusing on marketing.   It is so very tempting to market myself and network over social media instead of putting in the hard work of writing.  Paradoxically, the infrequent updates on my website are a sign that I am actually writing the game.
I am designing games to learn and I think that generics are the best teachers.  What are your thoughts?

Things You Think About Games

Event Number: SEM1122700

Presenters: Jeff Tidball and Will Hindmarch from Gameplaywright (http://gameplaywright.net)

Things You Think About Games

The No-No’s of Game Design

Event Number: SEM1128758

Presenters:

Stan! (http://www.stannex.com/)

Jeff Neil Bellinger (http://killerbunnies.com)

Daniel Solis (http://danielsolisblog.blogspot.com)

Matt Forbeck (http://www.forbeck.com)

 The No-No’s of Game Design

Lessons from Indie Publishing

Event Number: SEM1122904

Presenters: David A Hill Jr. from Machine Age Productions (http://machineageproductions.com)

Lessons from Indie Publishing

Design an RPG in an Hour

Event Number: SEM1122800

Presenters: David A Hill Jr. from Machine Age Productions (http://machineageproductions.com)

Design an RPG in an Hour

Game Design is Mind Control

Event Number: SEM1120297

Presenters:

Luke Crane (http://www.burningwheel.org)

Jared A Sorenson (http://memento-mori.com)

Game Design is Mind Control

The Legal Rules of Gaming

Event Number: SEM1118576

Presenters:  Neil A. Wehneman (http://boardgamegeek.com/blog/377)

The Legal Rules of Gaming

In addition to those excellent seminars, I also had the pleasure of running 2-3 playtests of the Spark RPG with some excellent gamers and/or designers.  I didn’t request permission to post those game sessions online from the participants, so I will not post those particular recordings.  I was told a couple of things by all of the different groups of playtesters.

1.  I need to improve the presentation of the rules; teach them in a better fashion with more clear character sheets
2. I should change the GM Fate tracking sheet into a variant of the normal player character sheet.
3. It is counter-intuitive to have conditions which only help you or only impede you, regardless of circumstances.  I will consider changing this around, though I am uncertain how exactly that would affect the economy.

I hope the seminar recordings and I wish to thank all of the fine participants of GenCon who supported my playtesting endeavours.

Also, congratulations to the Evil Hat crew for sweeping the Dresdens  Ennies on Friday night.

Beyond that I have a few other events scheduled.  I will be attending the Ennies with Eloy of Third Eye Games, where I expect the Evil Hat crew will win several awards.   I will be attending “Indie Games on Demand” on Thursday Evening and Saturday morning for four hour time-slots.  I also expect to appear on the evenings at the Embassy Suites.  In each occasion, I hope to host some playtests of the Spark RPG and I would encourage you to seek me out and join in!

I hope to meet some of you at the con and I hope I can run a game or two with you!

Cheers

http://www.roludo.ca/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1300

http://www.roludo.ca/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1317

Here are highlights of some of the most significant changes.  I have also attached the new and improved version of that summary sheet which I will be using when I run “Seeking Suki” at GenCon.  Yes, this is the first time I am actually publicly posting the outline of my system.   I would love to hear your thoughts!

1) Trainings have been renamed as Talents
2) Pillars have been renamed as Beliefs
3) The old way of framing scenes has been replaced.  Now one person picks the basic situation, one person states what drives people act and one person decides the fundamental question that people want to answer.  I stole this partially from 3:16 and partially from Microscope/Primetime Adventures.
4) I cleaned up spending Fate.  Now you can only spend it in one specific way during a scene depending on the phase, or as a result of a resolution.
5) Fortune is gone.
6) A difference of 1-3 between sides in a conflict now gives each side a Resolution.  It is impossible to get a “wiff” result since every conflict has _something_ happen.
7) I simplified the list of Resolutions and added “Question” since it seemed to come up constantly.
Paradigms still exist, but only as an option and not one that I will bring out during the con demo scenarios.
9) Ritual Phrases will define when a conflict is started or when a scene ends.

Please let me know what you think about the changes and thank you all for participating!

Jason Pitre

*************************************************

The gameplay is built from a series of scenes, each of which has 5 different phases.

Phase 1: Open the Scene and define what the scene is about.

Phase 2: Collaboration between participants in freeform roleplaying.

Phase 3: Conflict between participants, when the collaboration stops and participants disagree.

Phase 4: Resolution of the conflicts and dealing with the outcomes of the conflicts.  Go to Collaboration.

Phase 5: Closing the Scene and determine what the scene meant.

1 – Open the Scene

1)    Three different participants cooperate to create the scene.

2)    Roll your Spark dice or Support and compare what you rolled.

3)    The highest roll gets to pick the Platform, Tilt or Question.  The second highest gets the next pick one of the two remaining options.  The third highest gets the last option.

• The Platform:  Define where the scene takes place and who is present.
• The Tilt: Define what event or action forces players to interact with the Scene.
• The Question: What is the essential question that you are trying to answer with the scene?

You can spend Fate to Decide;

Spend 1 Fate to immediately pick the Platform, Tilt or Question before the dice are rolled.

2 – Collaboration

1)    Roleplay freely, speaking in character and declaring actions.

2)    All participants can declare what their character tries to accomplish.

3)    If no one opposes what you declare, it occurs.

4)    If you want to add extra details about someone else’s declaration, say “yes, and” then elaborate.

5)    You can declare things outside of your character such as objects, events or non-player characters so long as they have already been introduced in the past.

6)    If you want to prevent someone else’s Declaration, say “We are in conflict” and move to the Conflict phase.

You can spend Fate to Flashback;

Spend 1 Fate to narrate a short flashback which introduces something new to the story.

Immediately after that flashback, reintroduce that new element to the current scene.

3 – Conflict

1)    Each participant picks sides in the conflict.

2)    Determine what dice you roll, based on your Attribute modified by any Conditions.

3)    Determine the highest Talent bonus on their side, used in step 5.

4)    Roll your dice

5)    Each side has a score made of the highest number rolled, plus their Talent Bonus as determined in step 3.

6)    Compare the scores of each side, with the greater score winning the conflict.

7)    The number of successes is equal to the difference between scores.

You can spend Fate to Confirm;

Spend 1 Fate to switch dice between two participants, if one of your Beliefs is confronted.

4 – Resolution

Every die which shows a value of 1 gives the opposing side 1 Resolution

If you have 0-3 successes, each side gets to choose 1 Resolution

If you have 4-5 successes, the winner may choose 1 Resolution

If you have 6-7 successes, the winner may choose 2 Resolutions

If you have 8-9 successes, the winner may choose 3 Resolutions

If you have 10-11 successes, the winner may choose 4 Resolutions

If you have 12-19 successes, the winner may choose 5 Resolutions

If you have 20+ successes, the winner may choose 6 Resolutions

Below are the 8 different types of resolutions.  You may pick them multiple times.

• Heal:  Remove a Damage marker from an Attribute
• Harm:  Add a Damage marker to an Attribute
• Question: Force a character to answer a question
• Compel: Force a participant to perform an action.
• Boon: Add or remove a Boon condition from a character, potentially with a cost in Fate.
• Bane: Add or remove a Bane condition from a character, potentially with a cost in Fate.
• Inspire: Offer another participant Fate so they adopt a new Belief of your choice.
• Summon:  Summon supporting reinforcements to help you in a conflict.

You can spend Fate to Push;

Spend 1 Fate to gain one additional Resolution for every level of Spark Attribute that you have.

5 – Close the Scene

Once the Question has been answered, any participant may close the scene by stating “And we move on.”  Proceed to open the next Scene.

You can spend Fate to Preview;

Spend Fate to narrate a conflict in the near future where you will need an Attribute or Talent. You will gain that Attribute or Talent just in time when that conflict occurs in the next Scene.

A tout les Montréalais qui ont été dirigées ici par la Grande Roludothon, bienvenus!   La plupart de mes commentaires ici sont en Anglais, mais je serais content de discutez en commentaires dans ce que vous vouliez la langue officielle de votre choix.  En addition, chaque page de mon site web présente l’option de le traduire par le service de Google.  C’est loin de parfait, mais il me semble comme une option que pourrais être meilleur que des toutes lires en Anglais.

Merci pour me rejoindre et si tu la aucun question, je t’invite de le partager ici.

It worked. The game held together and encouraged exactly the kinds of conflicts that I wanted to support. We had our cold and callous corporate scientist have a epiphany and change one of the pillars of her personality into “All people deserve respect”. The practical village headsman was inspired by the Shinto android and they were able to overcome great challenges.

There were problems, certainly. I had to alter how the dice were evaluated since botches were a mite too extreme in the old approach. Much of the rules presentation could be improved and I might need to rework some of the Resolutions (mechanical outcomes of rolls). Still, it was fun, fast and lively with excellent players who really seemed to get into it.

Speaking of which, if any of you fine players have found this post, welcome! I neglected to record your names so if you would like to be credited in the book and/or receive some other goodies, please email me!

Now back into the fray.

Links:

http://cangames.ca/

I would absolutely love people to attend these sessions, if they are available.  I will provide any participant with electronic access to my game as it is developed and add them to the credits if they are interested.  The adventure takes place in a “Kurosawa does Firefly” type of setting where the players try to discover what happened to a village and seek the headswoman Suki for reasons of love and honour.

Working on the design has led to a few delays in producing part 2 of that mechanics article, so please bear with me.  I will post that as soon as I can.

I have finished off a series of 3-4 story structured playtests which have been remarkably useful on my end.   Feedback from the three players (M., C. and J.) has led to me trashing the Glory mechanics where I had given thousands of words of examples with no consistency and unique mechanical effects.    I mentioned this a while back, but I thought that it should be emphasized seeing as it has been one of the most significant changes.  While I am not at the stage of a real externally playable draft, I am getting closer.

One of the other modifications that I am making is based on Vincent Baker’s innovative work “Apocalypse World“.   He decided to explicitly name all types of action as discretely named and very specific Moves.  In that game. players and GM’s alike are restricted to certain listed moves.    While I won’t be moving to that extreme with Spark, I am targeting a set of ~14 different “Resolutions”.  Most of the Resolutions performed can be done through mundane means, such as causing Damage or digging a hole.   Some of the Resolutions can be limited to the use of supernatural or superhuman Powers, such as the ability to Resurrect a character or to Transform into a wolf.    I am planning on tossing all of these into the old Powers Chapter, which will now deal with everything _after_ the dice have been rolled and counted.   My working title for this is the “Resolution” Chapter which may mess up some of my art as commissioned.    Oh well, I knew going into this that early art commissions were foolish.

This is what the new outline of the free / players content looks like;

Chapter 1: Character which focuses on exactly the process and traits used in Character Creation.

Chapter 2: Task which focuses on the task resolution system that involves rolling the dice.

Chapter 3: Resolution which focusses on the interaction of the dice roll and the world.

Chapter 4: Story which provides tools for enhancing the narrative, using character-focused tools such as Fate, GM techniques and storytelling principles.

Now, back to the revision process!