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I'm designing a miniature game, and I'd love some help on game theory.

What makes a statline, what makes combat fun, etc. Maybe some faction and story specific things, too. I'm mostly looking to develop friendships with people whom I can bounce ideas on and develop a game with, and of course I'd love to credit you in the rulebook when all is said and done.

Would anyone be interested in hopping on a chat client with me to discuss it?

This might be a helpful concept to keep in mind:
What makes a game something 'good' to play, is the ability for you to have fun. What makes a game something 'great' to play, is the ability for EVERYONE to have fun; and have fun the whole game, start to finish.

This concept can help, or it might be a bit of a thorn in your side depending on what type of game you want to make. If it is a game with direct competition between players, inevitably, one person's level of fun will start to drop down or go empty after a while. Good sportsmanship or not, if you are getting beaten to a pulp, you are not having as much fun as you where when you first started the game.

Don't let that drive you away from competitive play though, it is still a valid basis for game making. Instead, maybe try and think of a cooperative game first, then add the option for direct head to head challenges. Or vice versa.

I'm not willing to go on a chat, but I'll answer every post in this thread the same day. (Before 10pm though)

It's important for a game to have elegant rules and intuitive logic.
But I assume you also want to consider the ability to have lots of different units (leads to excessive stat differentiation, compare space hulk with wh40k), and also seem like real combat (compare epic40k with wh40k).

I think fun has a lot to do with winning and fairness, but also a lot to do with fantasy escapism.

Another helpful tip:

The poor man's copyright:= make a copy of all your notes, concept art, stories, etc. etc. and mail them to yourself. Put them all in an envelope, address it to yourself with your home as the return address and drop it off at the post office. When you get it back, do NOT open it. Having a sealed envelope, with an official government time stamp on it, technically counts as an unofficial copyright in a court of law.

At least here in the states it works, and at the very least it is better than nothing.

It's worth pointing out for the "poor man's copyright" that the point is to produce a sealed package that you can prove was produced at such and such date (or before).

Person X claims that they wrote something at such and such time. At that point you produce your sealed package that the mail delivered, and say "Nuh uh, I wrote this and mailed it to myself on such and such date." And then you point to the convenient stamp that the post office put on the package.

It works in the U.S. because copyright is essentially automatic, and the fight comes down to proving who wrote something and when they wrote it.

Sorry. Poor man's copywrite isn't perfect. It's easy to forged due to the fact that one can send an unsealed letter, and insert any contents in the future.

However, e-mail is copywritten, and is digitally signed with a date and time via the server.

E-mail is truly the poor man's copywrite. Protect yourself, and don't attempted the "letter technique" described above.

Thanks, everybody for the help!

Poor man's copyright... good plan.

Something important to keep in mind:

1. You can't copyright rules, but you can copyright documentation.

2. People come up with the same ideas all the time, so chances are that other people will come up with the same original ideas that you do.

3. Nobody is interested in your idea, only in a finished product. That means that nobody is interested in stealing your ideas: you're not coming up with a working design for a cold-fusion reactor, you don't have to protect them.

Ultimately it is up to you what you think is worth time stamping. The e-mail thing is a good idea too, and technically, posting on dakka dakka time stamps as well. Do as many time stamps in as many different ways as possible if you want. The more you have will only help your case IF it ever comes down to it... Better safe than sorry I always say...

Make sure to distinguish between "game theory", which is a branch of mathematics, and ludology, which is the study of play and fun in games.

Some understanding of probability will be useful if you plan to use any random elements.