The Start of Something New

In my forays into game design, I'm often left floundering in the balance between originality, simplicity, and realism. There is an oft-crossed line, in my mind, between making a game easy and fun to play and bogging it down with overwhelming rules mechanics that sap the enjoyment out of it. It's also not worth doing something that has already been done countless times before - unless of course you can find a way to take the same old thing and flip it over, fold it a couple of times, and present it in a way that is fresh and original.

I'm going to use this blog to explore my ideas about table top games and hopefully get (and give) feedback on some of the more cerebral aspects of gaming. I'd like to start posting some of the ideas I'm working on for my own games and roll them around on the palate of some of you gamers out there, to find out what makes a gaming experience good and what makes it suck. There are a variety of ways to accomplish this, and the first and most important of these is to get into what games people like to play and why. Is it a game mechanic itself? Is it the storyline and setting? Do you love the way character creation works or the way the races in the game interact with one another? Is there something special about the main goal or objective of the game that is thrilling and exciting?

Hopefully at some point in the future I'm going to be running a podcast - at least, I'd like to do one occasionally. I have lots of gamer friends I know would be chomping at the bit to contribute, and I've already got a studio and the necessary recording equipment to make it happen. So we'll start with a couple of segments and work our way out from there. Welcome to RollTheory!