It's tricky. Some people just aren't comfortable with letting ideas out until they're "done", and you shouldn't feel pressured itno designing in public unless you are comfortable with it.

My usual line is that ideas are ten a penny, implementations are the hard part. Chatting with a design community can help you move towards implementation faster and their help can make your idea even better.

The other thing is your first few games will suck (mine did). Better to get them out in the open and constructively critiqued, than sitting on a hard drive gathering dust awaiting the day you unleash their brilliance on the world.

Even if somebody does yoink ideas from your game, there's a pretty strong tradition in Indie publishing of credit where it's due, and a time-stamped forum post is better evidence that something was "your idea" than a claim based on "soemthing I once wrote but never shared".

-Matt

Realms Publishing

As another newbie here and indeed in the entire design thing, I'll throw in one of my experiences.

When I did the first draft of MI:666 I came up with this awesome system. There weren't any stats or classes. Instead, the players defined their characters by descriptors. I called them ... Aspects! I was totally blown away. This was amazing. My players loved it, we were making kicking characters and really hitting the table running.

And then we played Spirit of the Century and realised that through parallel evolution I had managed to 'create' part of Fate. Great....

This was the obstacle that I had to overcome - the idea that I did not have total knowledge of every game out there and I might be somehow stealing from them without knowing. In the end, I just thought 'f**k it' and got on with it.

Maybe not dealing with exactly your problem but it's related I think.

Neil

Steve,

Like Matt says, if you don't feel totally comfortable designing in public, just don't. It's not like anyone's going to think less of you for doing so. There are tons of reasons not to do it. So really, don't feel pressured!

On the other hand, there are a whole bunch of advantages to it:

I've found the guys here on this forum are really helpful and insightful. Umläut is definitely a better game for my having shared parts of it's design process with these chaps and getting their opinions. I still feel like it's my game (in as much as a game based on someone else's rules could be said to be mine). I guess someone could come along and decide to use my posts to create a different Heavy Metal based RPG, but that seems unlikely. I think it's a bit niche :)

It also creates a certain amount of buzz. I sat down at a table in May and playtested Umläut with 4 of the best minds in the UK gaming scene. I tested Danger Dudes with another three. The feedback from that was completely fantastic, but also got people talking about my games. They know what I'm up to, will mention them to friends, online and whatnot and that generates buzz about things.

Hi Steve

Welcome to the site!

For me Matt hits the nail on the head.

Now I know in a lot of areas that people keep the ideas they're working on really quiet, lest any rivals release a movie, or computer game, or book, etc. quicker than you can and steal your thunder/market (i.e. make you lose money).

RPGs can be like that sometimes, but with indie games there is also more likelihood that a potential "rival" can actually help you make a better game. The atmosphere we are trying to create is one where if someone likes your thing then they will help you make it better rather than trump you. In other words it is easier for them to help you with your already in progress thing, than to use your ideas and start from scratch.

It's also often the case where you put out an idea and someone else is in fact a better person to carry it through to finish. Agon, for instance, was an idea Jonathan Walton had but John Harper was able to implement as Jonathan couldn't. (As far as I can recall.)

I guess also there is a strong possibility that we are working on similar things and we can save you making the same blunders we have already made. In return you might be able to show us something that we haven't seen yet. I think that's a big advantage of an open community.

We had a talk in Finland where an electronic games designer pointed out that his contract effectively forbids him from talking about games at all with anyone outside his internal design team. He was explaining how the game designs were stagnating or progressing slower than he'd like because of the closed design culture, but that culture had to exist for market reasons. I don't think that's the case for us here, as we're small beer.

One reason I keep some stuff hidden or under wraps is that I don't want to ramp up expectation for something that I'm not sure will go anywhere at all. So, unless I think it has some shot of going somewhere I try to keep those things hidden.

An example of me breaking this to my regret was Good Morning Britain (supers in Thatcher's Britain) which enthused Malcolm but for which I haven't yet done much in the last 9 (?) years.

So, if you have something you are working on and need help then share it. If you aren't comfortable with sharing it yet, then there is no requirement or pressure for you to do so. These are creator owned games and therefore the decisions on them are yours alone!

Thanks for the thoughtful responses, guys, I appreciate the welcome :)

All of the points you've made are the ones that are going back and forth in my head. I'm not thinking that I have some million dollar idea which someone will "steal" from me, but that the concepts I have are worthwhile making games out of and that if I spark off someone else on the same subject then I'll just feel like my own effort is redundant, which I find quite depressing.

I think people should be free to develop other people's ideas, it's just I find it hard to stay motivated if I'm not doing something that feels unique.

However, it seems like what I need to do is plunge in with one idea, see what happens and make a decision from there. Hopefully I may even manage to find a small group of people here that I could share things with in a more private email group or something...

I'll try and get something written up to post here on one of my current game ideas soon.

You don't have to make everything public. As you say, you can make contact via email or whatever if you find somebody with similar interests.

If you have a particular design issue, post about that and don't post everything, just enough for context. That's an art in itself though.

-Matt

Realms Publishing

I'm not sure there is much I can add to the advice that's been given so far, as it has all been really solid.

One thing that struck me was Gregors comments about not talking about certain things for fear of raising expectation that cannot be met. I have been very guilty of this myself (mainly to do with stuff for a/state, but also with other games designs). Gregors advice is good: if you don't want to raise those expectations, then don't feel you have to discuss things.

I have to go now, I'm on a computer in a hostel in Sanfracisco and Sam the Finn is waiting for me so we can go surfing! Oh the pain of it all!

Cheers
Malcolm

Contested Ground Studios

I was having the same conversation with Gregor last night, in relation to how much of Solipsist to put online for people to look at.

He pointed out that there is a big difference between the initial concepts of a game and what he was calling "added value", the actual writeups, rules explanations, examples, descriptinve text, artwork ... all the stuff that actually takes you all the time and effort to do after the first flash of inspiration. Its quite easy to share the concepts without the added value, and if god forbid anyone did steal them off you they'd have just as much work turning it into a game as you already had to spend.