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I'd love to design my own wargame system/setting; I think it'd be a fun project, and in today's environment it's both more possible and more necessary to have competitors to the "big ones" than ever. Unfortunately, I have run into a bit of a weird problem- instead of a complete lack of inspiration, an excess of it!

Thanks to my horrendous ADHD and equally monstrous hobby-butterfly-syndrome, I've somehow managed to come up with a rather excessive number of loose ideas for settings/systems to create, to the point where I'm genuinely not sure where to start. I begin to brainstorm ideas for one concept, and then a few minutes later it evolves into something completely different! It's gotten so bad that I've actually lost track of how many half-baked plans for homebrew games I've hatched in my brain.

However, as just complaining about having too many ideas is unlikely to get me anywhere, I'm instead going to try and list out three of the more promising ideas I've had, in the hope someone has some suggestions for what would be best to focus on?

>"This City Hates You"- A skirmish game set in a separate dimension that takes the form of a colossal, hellish sentient city, constantly shifting forms to suit its own insane whims. Intended to provide players with as much fun kit bashing the terrain that makes up the twisted, Moorcockian urban architecture of the city as the poor souls trapped inside and trying to escape. I'm thinking it would be a relatively (but not excessively) rules-lite system due to the extremely miniatures-agnostic nature of the game, about on par with Stargrave?

>"With a Rod of Iron"- A 15mm fantasy system which features good ol' fashioned rank and flank action...but also mecha/robots. Think Escaflowne for the sort of Medieval Mecha Mayhem I have in mind here.

>Untitled Mahou Shoujo skirmish game (working title "Puella Magi Necromunda Magica"- another skirmish game, albeit a bit more crunchy maybe, revolving around a magical girl anime inspired setting. Notably, the setting itself features magical girl gang warfare (hence the working title). The basic crunch could also be adapted to work with your favourite settings!

Any thoughts?

 GreycapTheUnwise wrote:
Any thoughts?

Pick an existing game that you like and that is close to how you imagine the game going, and modify it to suit. Game mechanics cannot be copywritten or trademarked (which is why GW used patented dice to try to lock down their stuff).

That's not just my advice, but that given by the godfather of modern wargaming Jim Dunnigan. No need to reinvent the wheel or try to create a killer system on your first attempt.

Great, you have some concepts! You are 5% of the way there!

The next step is to think about how the $Ms work in your game. Movement, missiles, melee, and morale.

You don't even have to stick with one game at a time! I flit between projects all the time! The key thing is to know the steps you are working on, and make some progress towards a finished game every week.

To be a game designer you need two things: a finished game, and people to play it. That's it.

Keep the end in mind, having a finished game!