Release early, release often

I’ve suggested that you should try and keep the rules of a game as fixed as possible once you’ve released it. It gives people a chance to learn them, to play on the same field, and to not have to deal with collating a difficult set of errata and rules updates into a coherent document.

When you are dealing with gaming aids and resources, there’s a lot more freedom. Here I think you should release early, getting a version out as soon as is possible, so people can start making use of what you’ve done. You should also release often. Add incremental features and content as and when it’s available, don’t save it up.

I’m following my own advice with the Map Tile Generator I’ve developed for DnD. It’s had a couple of improvements, so every map should now be guaranteed to include some doors, and to have the number of missing pieces you select. It also generates a map tile automatically on loading the page for the first time.

I’ll be adding more improvements in the days ahead, I’d like to make it so that the tiles are always fully connected, and I’ve got some work to do on the layout of the page. If you think of any other features you’d like to see, drop me a line, and I’ll see what I can do.

Glossary

If you are working on a particularly complex set of rules for a game (anything over 20-30 pages), then seriously consider adding a glossary of terms to the document.

A good glossary will quickly define the major terms that are repeated throughout the rules. It’ll let you get on with writing the rules as coherently as possible, leaving these definitions to the glossary.

It’ll also be a handy reference point. Instead of hunting through all the rulebook to find out what something means, they players can look in one place, it’ll speed up game play, and hopefully reduce time pent discussing the rules (rather than playing the game).

A good glossary of terms will make you complex game play better, and the rest of the rules shorter and easier to work with. Adding a glossary will improve the quality of your game, you should do it unless there is a pressing reason not to.

Dungeons and Dragons: Map Tile Generator

I’ve just released the first version of a Dungeons and Dragons Map Tile Generator. It lets you pick a board size, number and size of doors and a number of spaces to remove from the grid. It will then generate a random board within these parameters.

It’s brand new, so can generate some strange and useless boards, but if it does that, just create another, until you get something useful. I’ve found that leaving the settings on random will generate a cool tile about once in every 10-15 attempts.

I’ve only tested in Firefox so far, please let me know if you have any problems, I’ll be improving this as time goes on, and I’ll prioritise feedback suggestions to give me somewhere to target my efforts.

Don’t forget to check out my other DnD resources for characters, scenarios and other ideas for use in your games.

Breaking out of the Echo Chamber

As well as concentrating on your advertising, you need to make sure that you can break out of the Echo Chamber, and find a wide enough audience to support you.

The Internet is a wonderful thing, and just being famous on the Internet can be enough to promote your game out to the wide world. That’s not always the case though, you might easily find yourself caught into the Echo Chamber of blogs and niche sites, not able to break into the big time.

You need to be aware of where your games are being discussed and played. Engage with this audience, but also look at ways to spread your ideas further.

Play your games out in the real world, consider donating copies to local schools or libraries that will take them, or to local gaming clubs. Make sure people can find you and your website when you do this.

Move in different Internet circles. Break out to some sites or forums you don’t usually spend time in, get used to their culture and foibles, and promote your games there.

Don’t just spam places or throw around advertising, as this will never build goodwill, but look for opportunities in related parts of the Web, and build on them when you find them.

Practice makes perfect

The only way to get better at designing games is to design lots of games.

Taking a game all the way from idea to production is a lot of work, and it’s not always worth it.

As well as walking away from bad ideas, consider just sketching out designs before diving in fully. Brainstorm through a lot of quick designs, take them a little way along the path and drop the weakest.

Spend time working on perfecting this process, if you can get good at sketching you’ll see where you develop into a masterpiece more quickly.

Try just sketching some game ideas, and see where it leads you.

Not all ideas produce great games

It’s sad to say, but not every idea you start to develop will turn into a great game.

It’s important to recognise when what seemed like a good idea turns out to be rubbish, either over complicated, too difficult to produce or just not fun.

Look for ways to change what you are developing to remove the pain, but be ready to put the idea out of it’s misery if it’s not coming together, and move on to something else.

There are lots of good ideas, but not enough time to develop them all. Don’t flog a dead horse, but move on to the next thoroughbred when it feels like it’s time.

Repeating yourself

Don’t be afraid to repeat yourself on occasion. Returning to previous themes is a very valid way of expanding upon them and developing the ideas within them.

Multiple blog posts on the same topic will catch your new readers, and remind your long term ones of the previous posts. Multiple games focussed in the same style or theme allow you to build on previous ideas.

Returning to old work lets you see the flaws in it you couldn’t see when you first did it, the detatchment produced by time gives you a more independent view of your work, and allows you to improve it.

Don’t rely on repeating the same themes, mechanics and ideas, but always be aware that returning to the past can help you build something new.

A Bit of Bad Luck

A Bit of Bad Luck is a new Necromunda scenario for one player and an Arbitrator.

A gang runs into a motley crew of Hired Guns as they leave the scene of a recent gang fight. Battered and bruised, they need to take on these foes before they can enjoy the loot from their previous encounter.

This is a great scenario to make use of my Hired Gun creator, it’ll let you create the adversaries in seconds, and allow you to get going with the game nice and quickly.

I’m also trying a new look for main Necromunda page, check it out, and see if you like it better than the old design.

Fantasy Worlds

It’s easy to set your game in a fantasy world, and much harder to get by in a sci-fi realm. Using the real world falls somewhere in between.

The reason for this is the shared understanding of the faux-medieval culture to most people likely to be playing your game. Everyone understands knights, dragons, merchants and maidens. Using these cultural shorthands save a lot of explaining, allowing you to focus on the differences that are important to your game, whilst being able to farm out some concepts to a shared understanding.

It’s a lot harder in a science fiction setting as there’s no shared understanding, especially if you are creating your own future. The world building has to be much more in depth, you have to make choices over what you are aiming for, whether it’s Blade Runner, Star Trek, Firefly or something completely different, you have to make your world choices, and make sure people understand them.

Picking the middle ground of the ‘real world’ throws up a few more difficulties, you have probably got a shared understanding of some facets, but by no means all. The real problem can lie in the need for correctness that some of your players may exhibit when presented with a real world scenario. In a fantasy world, you get to decide how fast a dragon flies. In the real world you’d better get the airspeed of a 747 right, or have a good reason for the abstraction, or you’ll be defending yourself from nitpickers forever.

Pick your game setting carefully, make use of fantasy settings to give you a shorthand, but don’t force this, and don’t let yourself become lazy. Pick what works for the game you want to create, and be prepared for the work you need to do to make it real.

Trickle down

One of the biggest benefits of the web is the trickle down effect you see when you can put up lots of content, and keep it there forever.

My most popular pages are some that have been around for a long time, especially my Countdown game (over 20,000 games played) or my Necromunda pages. If we were still living in a print world, we wouldn’t see this. Something would get published, then forgotten about. once the next issue arrived.

Taking the existence of powerful search tools into account, and repeatedly growing your content, you can create a snowball effect. It’s not about starting off with a bang, but looking for slow and consistent growth.

Make content available to people, make it easy for them to find more of your content, and keep it around in the same place for a long time, and this will grow your visitors, pageviews, and hopefully you can convert that into people playing your games and haveing fun.