As a game designer, when you need a solution to a design problem do you search (the Internet, RPGgeek, enworld?) to find a mechanic that will solve the problem?
As a game designer, when you need a solution to a design problem do you search to find a mechanic that will solve the problem or do you try to think one up yourself? I think a lot of designers do a search. I do not and I’ll try to explain why.
I have read that famous board (and video) game designer Reiner Knizia does not want to know a lot about other games because he wants to make his own solutions; I doubt that he does a mechanics search.
I also don’t do a mechanics search. I'm not averse to using a mechanic I hear about, that's no problem, because it's very unlikely that you are going to make up your own mechanics that are original, that nobody's ever done. If the mechanic works, what counts is how good the game is.
Another mechanism is the Advantage/Disadvantage I learned of from Dungeons & Dragons (fifth edition), though I suspect it already existed. You roll two dice instead of one to determine something, usually two d20s for some kind of check, and if the GM says you have Advantage the best of those two rolls counts. If you have Disadvantage the worst of those two rolls counts.
Also coming from fifth edition (as far as I know) is the personal tuning of major magic items, which limits the usage of magic items considerably. You tune the magic item to yourself (which takes significant time) before you can use it, and can only tune a small number at any given time. No one else can tune it while it’s tuned to you, if I recall correctly. In this case, once you have the basic idea of tuning you can set the parameters as you like.
I haven't used any of these mechanics, but I admire all three.
There's nothing wrong with a mechanics search, it’s just a third resort (after simplification and then figuring out a mechanic to use on your own). There is even a recent book that details bunches of modern board game mechanics (Building Blocks of Tabletop Game Design: An Encyclopedia of Mechanisms 2nd Edition by Geoffrey Engelstein, Isaac Shalev). I don’t know of a book of mechanics specifically for RPGs.
Your Turn: What is your method for solving a design problem, with or without new mechanics?
As a game designer, when you need a solution to a design problem do you search to find a mechanic that will solve the problem or do you try to think one up yourself? I think a lot of designers do a search. I do not and I’ll try to explain why.
Mechanic: A Definition
In case you’re not familiar with the term, “mechanic” (short for mechanism) is a surprisingly slippery idea, but in my book Game Design: How to Create Video and Tabletop Games, Start to Finish (Mcfarland 2012) I call them “methods by which the game moves forward. . . For example, rolling two dice and moving your token the sum of the roll around the board is a game mechanic (Monopoly)”No Mechanics At All
I'm more or less with Greg Costikyan, who said a game without struggle is a game that’s dead. I should point out that your first resort ought to be to simplify the game in a way that also solves the problem. But this is hard to do. Of course, the simpler the mechanic, the simpler the game, which is always desirable. And the number of simple mechanics in the world is likely smaller than the number of complex mechanics.I have read that famous board (and video) game designer Reiner Knizia does not want to know a lot about other games because he wants to make his own solutions; I doubt that he does a mechanics search.
I also don’t do a mechanics search. I'm not averse to using a mechanic I hear about, that's no problem, because it's very unlikely that you are going to make up your own mechanics that are original, that nobody's ever done. If the mechanic works, what counts is how good the game is.
Other Sources of Mechanics
There are mechanics I have learned from other games, but haven’t used (yet). For example I learned from a game called Feudal the idea that you could enforce a limited number of negotiation opportunities. Each player has three tokens, expending a token in order to have a negotiation opportunity. This enables some secret negotiation without turning the game into a long negotiation session (as in Diplomacy). I asked myself, why I hadn’t thought of this?Another mechanism is the Advantage/Disadvantage I learned of from Dungeons & Dragons (fifth edition), though I suspect it already existed. You roll two dice instead of one to determine something, usually two d20s for some kind of check, and if the GM says you have Advantage the best of those two rolls counts. If you have Disadvantage the worst of those two rolls counts.
Also coming from fifth edition (as far as I know) is the personal tuning of major magic items, which limits the usage of magic items considerably. You tune the magic item to yourself (which takes significant time) before you can use it, and can only tune a small number at any given time. No one else can tune it while it’s tuned to you, if I recall correctly. In this case, once you have the basic idea of tuning you can set the parameters as you like.
I haven't used any of these mechanics, but I admire all three.
Borrowing Mechanics
Keep in mind, you cannot copyright ideas in games, so as far as I have ever heard, you can use in your game a mechanic devised by someone else.There's nothing wrong with a mechanics search, it’s just a third resort (after simplification and then figuring out a mechanic to use on your own). There is even a recent book that details bunches of modern board game mechanics (Building Blocks of Tabletop Game Design: An Encyclopedia of Mechanisms 2nd Edition by Geoffrey Engelstein, Isaac Shalev). I don’t know of a book of mechanics specifically for RPGs.
But What About Being Innovative?
Innovation is highly overrated. Most “innovations” in games have been used before, you just don’t know about it. Nor do most players care about innovation, they just want to play the game, and to be surprised by what happens. Innovation is merely a limited way to surprise people.Your Turn: What is your method for solving a design problem, with or without new mechanics?
