How To Design A SIK Game

Overview

SIK games are very easy and very hard to write. What makes them very easy is that there are very few rules you have to follow. What makes them very hard is that what's fun about writing SIK games is more-or-less irrelevant, and what's not fun about writing SIK games is the part you have to be exceptionally disciplined about.

SIK games are all about their mechanics ("how much armor do people have? How many stim charges do medics get? When/where/how do people rez?"), and not about their flavortext ("you are the 82nd Mechanized Infantry; you have been scrambled due to a Class IV alert from New Phoenix...").

If you get the mechanics right and have boring flavortext, people will enjoy your game. Why? Because they'll make stuff up. You will, by accident, have empowered your players to help write your universe.

If you have great flavortext and bad mechanics, your game will suck and people will say polite things like "well, it was a really cool universe!" when you ask them if they liked the game.

Design

There are three things you need to design, which, collectively, takes 50% of your time:

  1. Scenario (4%).
  2. Flavor (1%).
  3. Mechanics (45%).
Scenario is, at most, a five-word description of your game that your players probably won't get told until Wrapup, but will figure out along the way. "Smash-and-grab." "Horror/mere survival." "Prisoner breakout."

Flavor is the fun part about writing. This is where you get to make up all sorts of stuff. It's far, far too easy to get caught up writing flavortext, when you should be very disciplined about something else.

Mechanics are all the details that go into your game. How much damage do shots do. How much armor/hp do people have? How much repair/stim? How long does it take to repair/stim someone? Is ammo limited? Do people have rezzes, and if so, how/when/where? Etc.

Reviewing your mechanics should be a constant process during writing. At every step in your game, there should be a crystal-clear answer to why every person in game wants to be shooting the opposing force. If this answer doesn't exist, your game will break down. Note that it is easy to write mechanics that are in direct contradiction of the scenario: "This scenario is about two teams that don't like each other working together against a common foe. But the only way for them to win is for them to kill the other team. Oops." Either change the scenario (not done lightly!) or modify the mechanics.

Logistics

Broadly speaking, there are 4 elements to logistics. By "logistics", I mean things that are done in advance of the game. This takes 30% of your total time:

  1. Writing (10%).
  2. Web/Packet organization (5%).
  3. Widget creation: signs, item cards, memory packets, breaching charges, neutron detonators, etc (5%).
  4. Operations prep/pre-packaging/gathering (10%).
Writing everything you have in your head onto paper is key. This takes a surprisingly long time.

Web organization is stuff like your blurb and app, plus electronic packets if you're doing an electronic packet handout. Packet organization refers to in-person packet handouts.

Widget creation is all the props that go into game that you'll need to create.

Operations prep is all the stuff you do the days and night before game day to get everything into one place so that setup can happen easily.

Operations

Operations refers to anything that happens on game day. With logistics, you can punt until the next day to do stuff or just stay up late the night before. Game day, any delay that occurs will delay game start, which makes it an operational, rather than logistical, matter. Note that good logistics is key to good operations.

The 5 elements of operations, which should take 20% of your total time, are:

  1. Gamespace setup (5%).
  2. Signalling/messaging/sync between various teams (1%).
  3. Shots-calling (10%).
  4. Take-down/cleanup (2%).
  5. Storage (2%). Gamespace setup is an enormous timesink. If you prepped correctly, then you should be able to hand packets/chunks of setup to a completely ignorant person and have them be able to deal.

    Signalling requirements should be held to a minimum, as sync is exceedingly difficult to achieve.

    Shots-calling is what a GM should be doing 99% of the time. Note that you need 1 GM per PC team.

    Take-down should be accounted for. If the Guild leaves crap up, this is called Bad.

    Storage means not leaving crap in the Guild office. First, store stuff. THEN, get beer.

    Dave Leung