Theory From the Closet

Show017: Game Design for Game Designers with James Brown

Here is the first of my Gen Con interviews. I had scheduled to record with James Brown, designer of Death’s Door, Brick Battles, and Blood and Bronze, on Wednesday night. We couldn’t find anywhere to record, so we did a commando recording in the lobby of my hotel. It gave me a chance to use my new omnidirectional microphones and doesn’t sound as bad as I imagined.

James and I discussed Game design, starting with some questions you should be able to answer:

1. What is your game about?
2. How is your game about that?
3. What behaviors does it encourage or reward to achieve that?
4. What do the players do?
5. What do the characters do?
6. What is fun to you and why do you want to play this game?
7. Who do you want to play the game?

We then talk about the elevator pitch, and that you need to consider how art, text, and everything else you do expresses the games mission. Then we discuss various elements of Game Design.

• The reward system: Is a feedback loop that can have positive or negative reinforcement. It’s a way to get players to engage a mechanic or behavior that you want to encourage.
  • A positive example; fan Mail in Prime time Adventures.
  • A negative example; the loser keeping the token in Death’s Door.
• The social dynamic
• Currency: What the game rules give the players and GM to interact with the fiction.
  • In a lot of storygames this will be dice.
  • Can also be statistics on the character sheet. For instance Strength in D+D defines how the character can interact with the environment like doors, weapons, armor, etc.
• Fortune, Drama, and Karma.
  • Fortune is using some element of chance in the resolution.
  • Karma compares things and then the result is generated.
  • Drama
• Escalation
• Player interaction
  • I’ll be there for you.
  • Nobody gets Hurt.

This isn’t quite finished yet, but I need to take a nap and go to work.