I frustrate myself sometimes.

I mentioned in my very first blog here that I wanted to do a little game design work, but I'm having several issues, and even though I know they're mostly in my own mind, I can't seem to get past them.

Right now I'm working on two games, but one is definitely on the back burner. The other, which I'm tentatively calling Chains of Aether, evolved out of that one, but since I think it'll be a bit easier I've decided to focus on that one for now.

It really started as a solution for an issue I'm having with my other game. I wanted a fairly typical
roll-under percentile system, but I wasn't content with the degree of randomness that a straight percentile roll allows.

Unable to find a good solution I came up with something that I thought offered some predictability and had some potential for an interesting tactical twist. Basically it works like this:

Players have a stat called Centering. It basically represents perfect balance in one's life. The six other stats, which govern the usual things (combat, magic, intelligence, social acumen), all circle around Centering. Raising these things makes you better in the field they represent, but the further any stat is from your Centering, the smaller your die pool is. Hopefully this encourages balanced builds and gives non-magical or unenhanced characters a reason to shine without making focus characters any weaker.

Die pools are important because players roll a number of dice equal to their pool at the beginning of an adventure. Then they line the dice up in front of them, and choose the ones they want to use each time they attempt to use a skill. This gets rid of most randomness and adds a tactical element to the game. Players must choose when to use their high rolls, while bleeding off low rolls on easy or unimportant tasks.

When a die is used, the player rerolls it and adds it back to their pool. The difficulty here is that, should you only use high rolls, eventually you're going to run out and you'll only have low rolls remaining. That's why having balance is important. Large dice pools mean lots of dice to choose from.

Die pools also allow for Chaining, which is a little complicated, so I'll save that for later. Basically it just means creating action chains by sequencing the dice from your pool (and possibly the pools of allies who are assisting you).

The problem is that having a lot of dice just sitting there on the table is asking for trouble. While at GenCon I came up with an alternate idea. I would use cards instead of dice. Cards are easy to hold in large numbers, and much less likely to be knocked over. I really liked the idea, but it didn't really fit with what I was trying to do in the other game, so I spun the idea off into a game of its own.

The problem now is that I'm left with a conundrum. I have no idea what the new game is to be about, and it frustrates me because I can't just think of something. Every time I think about the game I focus on what the characters can do rather than who they are, and that's not what I want at all.

It's an old problem of mine, and one I don't know how to get past. Whenever I design a game starting with the rules I always focus on powers over story or characters. I don't know what it is about my brain that just shuts down, but I do much better design work when I start with a solid game concept first, and just let the rules grow around it.

I guess that's it, that's why I frustrate myself. I know I have this problem, but I have no idea how to get around it.