A Game Designer's Diary 1

Devoted to game design, art and writing, this blog focuses specifically on the development of the Cosmothea roleplaying game, including the challenges, process and a diary of my journey. Sometimes I'll also take a break to talk about life and being a gamer.

Having written drafts for two novels (one which included an outline for a trilogy, including conceptual art and a great deal of world and race design work), I'm no stranger to chaining myself to a desk for long hours over a great period of time. I relish the thought of applying my creative juices to a project, pushing the envelope of what's been done, the sacred cows, and focusing on what I'm trying to accomplish and how best to do it. Yet designing an rpg - not one of those charming little rpg's that are only 25 pages or so, but a full blown one, including a detailed campaign setting, feels like a herculean task.

I often feel like I'm in a room full of toddlers who all want attention at once, and I have to figure out how I'm going to deal with each of their individual needs, help them reach their potential, and also keep from going crazy - all while holding down a full time job as a graphic artist. That's what designing an rpg is like for me. It's crazy. It's fun. It's exhausting, and it's very rewarding, even though I haven't gotten a paycheck yet.

I'm not starting from scratch, however. The Cosmothea RPG has been around for a long time, but I'm rewriting it and redesigning it almost from the ground up, drawing on years of game design experience (it's never enough) and a campaign setting that's been around for 30 years come next month. (In fact, we're going to throw an online party and probably do a couple contests in mid-late July to celebrate! More on that HERE). Anyway, I thought I would begin laying out some of the thought processes that went into choosing to design an rpg, when there are so many out there, and also why I'm designing it the way I am.

I'll try to make this both interesting and informative, to those of you who were wondering about what it's like and some of the concerns that go into it. I'd also love to hear your thoughts on the matter as well. Thanks for visiting. I haven't posted in awhile as I've been designing like crazy, and although I am still doing just that, I thought this designer's diary might prove helpful (hopefully not just to me) as getting things down on paper helps you to think about it twice, so we'll see where this goes. More to come!