So you want to write a game. You fire up your favorite word-smithing tool and stare at the blank screen. As you glance around the room to draw inspiration there are questions you may be asking yourself. What makes a fun game? How are my players going to react? Why am I sitting here in my underwear?

Yes, I have been there. I have written three live action role playing games (LARPs) and collaborated on a few more. I have also drawn inspiration from others, such as Tom Javoroski of BYOV and Ron Faltus of SLUGS, both of whom have generously discussed their writing with me. All of this experience has given me insight into some great ideas that you can use to make your game great.

BREAK THE GAME INTO ACTS. Start your game with a introduction. Typically this includes reviewing the rules and giving safety instructions. Then, set the narrative. Prepare and read a statement that describes the setting. Here’s an excerpt from Kobolds on a Plane:

Rival Kobolds disguised as the famous Kobold chef Emerald and his kitchen staff visit your cave. The sneaky bastards arrange a cooking demonstration where they take your entire clan by surprise capturing you in a huge wooden cage. While dining on your clan leader in an epic-level BBQ and contemplating tasty new recipes for their Torg Foreman Grilles(tm), a strange Gnome arrives. He is Phil T. Olaf, an entertainer and entrepreneur. In exchange for two pairs of shiny boots, a bag of cheesy doodles, three Atomic Squash T-Shirts and a yummy Human baby, he acquires all of you! His plan is to transport you to a human zoo where you will be caged and put on exhibit as a rare type of prairie dog.

You are prisoners aboard Olaf’s Gnomish airship, the Pike Maiden. Most of you have managed to claw through your crates and chew your way through the dunnage. You are ravenous and angry (well, that’s normal). Find a way to escape your captivity while managing to live.

Next, consider breaking your game into three acts. The first act is set up. Players are learning their characters and discovering the sandbox which you created. The second act introduces conflict and raises the game to its climax. Players have overlapping and conflicting goals. Throw in some plot twists but make sure they make sense in the universe you have created. The third act resolves the story and the player’s story arcs. Make players aware of time constraints to allow them time to complete their goals.

End the game with a wrap-up. Players enjoy discussing their characters and exploits. Ask them to give a post-mortem but not to give away other character’s secrets. Sometimes the character’s perception and the game’s “reality” are different. Here is an opportunity to reveal character’s true motives. Characters may not know the truth about the story until the wrap-up.

LARPS ARE SOCIAL. When I wrote Kobolds on a Plane, most characters belonged to a tribe. But I gave characters selfish goals. I expected players to work alone and socialize with others when it helped meet their goals. That is not what happened at all. I watched as players united as a tribe to find common tasks to accomplish and then split off occasionally for their specific goals.

I have learned that humans are social animals. That is why we live in cities and towns and not in hovels equally spaced apart jealously protecting them like red-winged blackbirds. Great games group players into clans, tribes, organizations, classes, agencies, allies and opponents. Give the group a reason to exist and explain their shared goals. Whether the player chooses to betray them is their choice.

For the next game, Tabriz School of Magick, I gave the school four houses into which the players were assigned. The houses entered three different competitions for the house cup. Some of the funniest moments of that game took place when the players creatively collaborated.

HAVE A BOX. The author Kurt Vonnegut does not like suspense, but your players will thrill at a mystery. Unlike a written story where the author gives you a guided tour of his fantasy, LARPs exist for players to explore and change. Introduce a mystery box or a strange artifact into the game. Maybe the character who possesses it does not know its true nature. Let the players puzzle over it. What’s in the box?! Then wait until the third act to let them find out.

USE THE PAWNS. How boring would chess be if every piece was a queen? Do not make every character in your game a super spy or an über bad vampire lord. Provide a variety of different characters and strive for balance.

Chess pieces are a good metaphor for types of characters. Consider that there are six different chess pieces:

• Pawn – Pawns are expendable foot soldiers who may, if her actions are brave, be promoted to a Queen. They are the soul of the game and defend each other against more powerful enemies.
• Rook – Rooks move in straight lines. They are governed by systems of rules and laws. Although they may be predictable, they pack enough muscle to survive getting into trouble.
• Knight – The knight’s unique movement makes them the least predictable. They are sneaky and capable of balancing out deficiencies of their group.
• Bishop – Bishops are the smart ones. They most often end up where they are least expected. But it is impossible to win a chess game with only two bishops.
• Queen – Queens are the most powerful and versatile type of character in the game. They hold great potential to sway friends and enemies alike.
• King – Kings are leaders who encourage loyalty and teamwork. They are capable of bringing people together and coaxing the best out of them.

Breaking the Tower

I told my brother that I’d post an entry with some of the freely available video games I am playing. I listen to the Bytejacker netcast for the latest in free indie games. The host does a good job of covering everything from downloadable games for consoles to Flash games.

The adventure game genre has totally been snubbed by all of the mainstream game studios. Thankfully, several indie developers have stepped up to produce some great games. I enjoyed Spooks produced by Erin Robinson. While I did get stuck once or twice, I felt compelled to figure out the puzzles and finish the game.

Here are other adventure games on my list of titles I plan to check out: Cave Story, Dirty Split, Duty and Beyond, Kaptain Brawe, Life of D. Duke II, Loftus and the Sky Cap, Reactor 9, The Chef, The Guardian of Paradise and The Winter Rose.

A few weeks ago I went to over to my buddy Tom E.’s place to play some Duke Nukem 3D. The game was released by 3D Realms way back in 1996. Thanks to the efforts of the guys over at EDuke32 it is possible to play it on Windows Vista PCs. It was painful getting a networked game going. But we had fun once we worked it out.

Then we tried a game of the one of my favorite pointless games called Red Pixel. It is a multiplayer deathmatch in which you can destroy parts of the world. It was fun to blast away for a while. But soon it became tedious. With more players the game becomes mass chaos! Basically it has all of the fun of a modern first-person shooter without all of the eye candy.

I found this Java-based game I like called Breaking the Tower. It is the closest I have come to enjoying a strategy game since Dune II. No, I am not going to crab about the things that modern RTS games do wrong. Also, I have no schadenfreude when the folks who make those games fail. Hey guys, maybe you could make some nice adventure games instead!

There are scores of Flash-based games available. At best most of them are forgettable. I like 41st Reality for its catchy soundtrack and decent design.

Lastly, another genre that has been snubbed these days is the space simulation shooter. I recently installed Freespace 2 (FS2) thanks to the FreeSpace Open Installer. Now I am playing through the game again. It is amazing that its creator, Volition, managed to produce the game in under a year. It helped that they were able to leverage the work that they had done for the first Freespace game. FS2 features a deep story and awe inspiring effects such as beautiful nebula clouds that wreak havoc on your sensors and battles with massive capital ships that shoot impressive beam weapons. If there is a genre that is crying out for a revival, it is this one! Can you imagine a big battlefield filled with a great number of space ships each lovingly rendered with shader magic and high polygon count love? Be still my heart.

Donations for Pizza

When I was back home visiting relatives for Thanksgiving, my brother told me he was planning on a having a LAN party. For those who don’t know LAN parties are events where people bring their computers, network them together and play multiplayer games. What follows is some sage advice I have gleaned from organizing several LAN parties.

First of all as the host you have to choose the location. Make sure there is plenty of power to supply everyone. The largest event I had involved 11 computers. I planned to spread the participants over two floors of my house. But everyone choose to set up in my basement. Thankfully, there were no power issues.

Here is a list of items the host should provide (or ask somebody to bring)

LAN PARTY HOST

• Network Switch – Switches are good; hubs are an adequate alternative. These days most cheap switches made for home networks have 4-5 ports. Make sure you have enough ports and crossover cables to support the number of intended players. Ask somebody to bring a switch/hub if you don’t have enough.
• Wireless Router – It is common that laptops have wireless network cards built into them. A wireless router can handle the assigning of IP addresses (DHCP) to both wired PCs and wireless laptops.
• List of Games – Do some research. Many multiplayer games have demos that are freely available. Try some of them out and see what you like. Provide a list of games to your guests so they can install them before the event. Oh yeah, pirating computer games is evil. I don’t care how you justify it to yourself. Don’t do it!
• Food - Something that has worked for me is to ask for donations for pizza/soda. You can have a donation jar. If donations are low, carry the jar around to the guests. You do not get any points for subtlety.

Watching people play computer games is lame (kinda like watching televised poker *yawn*). If you show up to a LAN party, be prepared to participate. There are several things which guests should be expected to bring. The following is a list of those items.

LAN PARTY GUESTS

• Functioning Computer – Hey, any of yose guys know how to install an operating system? Although there are usually a lot of technically saavy folks who can help, it is a bummer to spend your time working on your rig.
• LCD Monitor – Limit yourself to a single monitor. Multi-monitor setups are pretty common these days, but aren’t really necessary for LAN play. Also, LCD monitors are infinitely more portable than the old CRTs.
• Network Cable – Wireless connections will never beat the performance of a wired connection. For that you need a network cable. Bring an extra if you have one.
• Powerstrip – A powerstrip with a surge protector is invaluable. Daisy-chaining strips is not recommended. But if you find it necessary, limit the chaining.
• Headphones – There is a lot of noise at a LAN party. If everyone brought speakers, it would be even louder. Headphones also have the benefit of allowing you sneak up on your friend in a game without announcing the approach over your speakers.

I should also mention that there are some nice party games for consoles these days. I have been to a few events now where the host has fired up a game of Rock Band and Guitar Hero. I am excited to play the Burnout Paradise Party Pack. But we will have to wait a couple more months before it is released.

I was organizing my gaming stuff today. So far I have written three games: one Spycraft LARP and two Kobolds Ate My Baby LARPs. At Archon this year we discussed what the next Spycraft game will involve. I am going to join Jason and Ron, a talented writer who writes for the SLUGS Vampire LARP, in putting together a game set in the late 70s, arguably the golden age of spy movies. This gives us a lot of material from which to draw.

As I thought about what the next game might be like. I wondered if I would be onboard to write a third, a fourth or more. I recalled the conversation I had with David Collins at GenCon. He has written dozens of LARPs using his Courting Murder rules system. He told me that he usually writes five or six games in a setting before he moves on to another one. This made me realize that perhaps there is such a thing as a creative limit. This may explain why some of our favorite shows jump the shark in dramatic fashion. I loved the X-Files but, friends, the latter seasons were never as great as those that preceded them. I want to believe that I can realize this in my work before it happens.

Every game I write I like to challenge myself to introduce conflict in new and fresh ways. The conflict can take many forms: character vs character, character vs environment and even character vs herself. For “The Black Tie Affair” we used a dysfunctional family. All of the family members were at odds. The father was missing and probably dead. The mother put out a hit on her son. The son was a dope fiend with no love for his mother. For “Kobolds on a Plane” the clan leader was dead and two different Kobolds wanted to claim his spot. In “Tabriz School of Magick” there were two houses with many rivalries between them. Of course, sometimes the players take the conflicts and turn them on their ear. The player who played the mother in “The Black Tie Affair” decided to cancel the hit and reconcile with her son. I’m okay with that. After all the game is for the players and we should never make them a slave to the story.