thread: 2011-06-26 : Q & A time
On 2011-06-30, Vincent wrote:
Jason Pitre: "What is your workflow like when developing a game?"
I do make lots of outlines, but not one, like, overall master outline. When I'm designing the game, I make conceptual outlines, relating pieces of the design to one another; later on, when I'm writing the text, I make an outline that will eventually be its table of contents. The two outlines aren't especially closely related.
The relationship between a game and its text is not straightforward, so writing a game is a big problem. I write a game in three stages.
Stage 1: the minimum that I need in order to play the game. For Apocalypse World, this was half a dozen character playbooks and a bare pageful of notes. I start playtesting with only this much written.
Stage 2: a "playtest document": the minimum that other people need in order to play the game. This is short! For Dogs in the Vineyard, it was 15-20 pages long. For Apocalypse World, maybe 50, because of all the damn gear tags and crap.
The playtest document will go through a a few revisions, as I start to get repeat questions from people. Eventually I realize that I can't possibly revise it enough, and that's when I move on to stage 3.
Stage 3: a final text. This is a from-the-ground rewrite of the whole game. Occasionally I'll get to copy and paste a whole paragraph over from the playtest document, but for the most part it's raw writing.
This'll go through a series of drafts and revisions too. Eventually I'll throw up my hands and publish, and hope that I've made, on bulk, good decisions. By then I have no idea what's good and bad and all I want in this beautiful blue world is to light the manuscript on fire and walk away. But I publish it instead.
