‘service-design-39’ by Tobias Toft on Flickr

This post covers public websites with features useful for the game designer during design. In other words, this isn’t about publishing your game (that’s another post).

Often, you’ll need to share game materials with other players, or you want to work on your rules from multiple places. Some folks forget the utility of Google Drive. You can create a shared folder on Google Drive for your game, then drag-and-drop your rules PDF into there and share the folder with playtesters. Or you can write your draft rules in a Google Doc, which you can access from any PC.

If you’re creating a game with components, like a board game or card game, or an RPG that uses special counters, The Game Crafter is invaluable. You can not only buy components (tokens, pawns, miniatures, etc.) in any amount you choose, you can actually build a game: upload art for custom cards or a game board, list the components, and order a copy. Prices are reasonable, and you can buy just one copy of anything (in other words, you never commit to a 10,000-copy print run). Particularly useful for RPG designers who use custom cards.

If you’re writing a tabletop RPG and want to self-publish the rule book, Lulu is one of the go-to self-publishing companies out there. Just upload your book as a Word document (or similar), and they’ll create a book out of it, which folks can buy straight off Lulu; you get the money dropped into a PayPal account once a month. They offer a reasonably wide selection of book types (softcover and hardcover at various sizes), and reasonable prices. Just as with The Game Crafter, you can buy as many copies as you want; you’re not ordering a big print run.

If you know of any others, please let me know in the comments.

by Kars Alfrink

This post continues a series of blog posts in which I provide recommendations about tabletop game design. This won’t necessarily teach you how to design a game, but it will help you along as you build it.

In this post, I’m going to talk about the prototyping.

The Crappy First Prototype

When I get an idea for a game, I rush to a Word document, a pack of index cards, or a physical notebook, and I write down everything that’s pouring out of my head. I document abstract ideas, specific mechanics, materials, and anything else that comes to mind.

Then I need to see what it looks like on the table, and I build my Crappy First Prototype.

I intentionally use scrap for the first prototype. I use torn-off bits of paper for counters, printer paper for boards, binder clips for pawns; anything that’s nearby.

I do this for a couple of reasons:

1. Your game will change so much that any time or expense you put into any item probably won’t be worth it. You won’t use that item in the final product anyway.
2. If you invest time and thought in “perfect” materials, your unconscious mind will favor the mechanics using them. It’ll be harder to change something that’s a poor fit for the game.
3. Cheap materials will spur you to create a cooler game. Your mind will spawn all sorts of cool ideas for materials as you struggle with paper chits.

For an RPG, you may not need any materials. For a card game, I recommend blank (that is, unlined) index cards, which you can buy in huge, inexpensive quantities at any office supply store. For board games, use 8.5×11″ paper taped together for boards. I take a highlighter to a paper and tear off bits to create tokens, markers, and pawns. Coins and binder clips are great pawns.

The Early Play Test Prototype

Eventually, you’ll need to show the game to other people.

At this point, I replace the low-quality materials with something better, but still simple. For tokens, I’ll use plastic poker chips, for example. The point is to move away from scrap, but still avoid investing serious cost. Your game is still going to go through a lot of changes.

I’ll also format my rules into a form that’s easier to read, with headers and some form of organization. This isn’t anywhere near the final version with cool fonts and fancy art, but it’s at least formatted in a way that other people will understand, and I fill out any “(NEED TO FILL THIS OUT LATER)” sections.

Remember, you’re not showing this to everyone in the world; just a few friends who can give you an idea of whether the basic mechanics work.

The Reasonably Nice “Public” Prototype

Once you’ve run your game with a few friends, you can turn this into something closer to a final game.

Find materials closer to the final version. For a board game, The Game Crafter sells spare tokens, player pieces, etc. For a card game, you can also use The Game Crafter to order a cheap version of your cards. You’ll be showing your game to people who are less familiar with your aesthetics and expectations, so it’s important that the components suggest the game.

Now’s the time to really think about how to format your rules and make them look interesting and inviting. If we had large budgets, we’d plan for art ahead of time, but indie developers rarely have that luxury. Now you can look for art to slot into your rules and the actual presentation of your game.

Once you’ve gone through a few playtests with your “public” prototype, you can look into actually publishing your game. But that’s another post.

‘Right in the thick of it’ by Nic McPhee

Do you want to design a tabletop game?

I’ve designed a couple of indie tabletop RPG games and a couple of indie board games. I’m in the middle of developing one of those board games, so I’m going through the process I’ve cobbled together over the years.

This is part of a series of blog posts in which I provide recommendations about tabletop game design. This won’t necessarily teach you how to design a game, but it will help you along as you build it.

There are four things I’ve learned that dramatically improved my ability to design interesting games.

3 Unique Things

At the beginning of your game document, describe 3 things about your system that are different than almost every other game.

If it’s really not different, why would people play it?

Shape the Conversation

The fundamental activity of a tabletop RPG game is talking. Your players will talk whether they’re playing your game or not, and whether they’re playing your game “correctly” or not.

The goal of your rules is to direct that conversation towards specific topics and experiences.

You should know those topics and experiences as well as you know the inside of your car. You need to know exactly what you want players to be saying. (And here’s a bonus trade secret: they’re perfect for examples of play in your game document.)

Design the Game, Not the Mechanics

This is a corollary to the advice above, but it bears expansion.

Don’t apply dice rolls (or card pulls or whatever) to your game initially. Imagine people talking and playing the game, narrating their characters’ actions.

Write the game to push the players towards the conversations you imagine. Tell them how to create their characters and what kinds of adventures they’ll go on. Build mechanics where you see the conversation getting bogged down.

Conversation usually gets bogged down in conflict resolution, but conflicts in your game may be very different than in other games, so don’t rush to apply another game’s resolution mechanics to your game. Look at how conflicts are shaped in your game, and build mechanics appropriately.

Mechanics Emerge from Play

When designing, don’t create rules for every conceivable situation, and don’t spend a lot of time polishing each rule. Instead, get your game to the table and playtest it. Watch the experience of people with the game, and modify or invent rules to deal with the actual situations and frustrations that you encounter in play.

It’s better to start with a one-page game with only a few basic rules and shape the game as you playtest it, than to try to design it all in your head. Let the games you play make your rules for you.