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.

This past weekend I attended DieCon 9 in Collinsville IL. I ran a game of Stone Age for the Atomic Squash gamer group.

The setting for this year’s Spycraft LARP was a disco in a divided Berlin in 1972. I also wrote a character, a Polish businessman who would black out and lapse into a psychopathic rage.  We had about a dozen players turn out. Due to a shortage of female players, I took the role of a lady photographer for the Rolling Stone magazine. Rick R was absolutely entertaining as Andy Warhol! Amy S played a bartender who “dosed” quite a few patrons.

It was great to see friends: Tom W, the Imbodens, Amy, Cuban, Joe, Jason W, Adam, Rick R, Ron and Jason A. Good times!

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.

Archon is a few weeks away. I have been putting together a Kobolds Ate My Baby LARP for the Atomic Squash gaming group to run there. The game is called “Tabriz School of Magick”. All of the players are Kobold freshmen trying to avoid death and destruction to win the school cup for their house.

We learned a few lessons from the last game and are using them to make this year’s game better. First of all, I expected all of the players to act as individuals looking out for their own self-interest and survival. What happened was amazing. The players joined together in a group leaving the group occasionally to pursue their own goals. This year we are grouping players in two houses to give them a group of which to be a part.

I gave everyone in the last game a goal of escape and did not give anyone a clear way to accomplish it. This year we have the school cup that one group of players will win.

A player familiar with the tabletop game suggested that we include edges and bogies. This rules are indeed hilarious and work well. But I haven’t thought of a way of including them in the LARP without disrupting game balance. In LARPs it is important that no single player is overly powerful. If there is a powerful vampire for example, it is important to have a powerful vampire hunter. Last game I gave players special abilities taking care to maintain balance. I think it worked well but am thinking about how to improve them.

We charge money for the game. We ask the players to pay one dollar. We aren’t in this to make money. We do this because we limit the game to twelve players and want to insure that players who sign up actually show up to play the game. By the way the money are got last time we gave to a group who came from out of state to run games at Archon.

CptSquash and Pancake have already given me some great ideas that I need to write up in our private wiki. I’m trying to organize a brainstorming session with them for this weekend. I think our players are going to love the great material and improvements we have made this year.