Vincent, could you tell us more about "colour first" design?

I understand the term was coined by Ron Edwards, and you've said that AW is that kind of game. I believe I understand what that means, but could you give us some more insight into it...like, what's your process like or whatever? I would greatly appreciate it.

Also, I thought this was broader than just AW, so I put it here, but it could easily fit into Blood & Guts, I guess, so feel free to relocate it, if you think so.

Thank you.

Here's what I've written about it most recently, back in the spring:
2010-02-16: Things on Character Sheets (2)
2010-02-18: Currency - Spanning Divide and Range
2010-02-19: Shared Positioning at the Micro
2010-03-01: Reliable vs Unreliable Currency

I'm happy to say more, but I'm not sure where to start. Help me out with a question or two?

Ok, cool. I read those back when they were originally posted (and I'm pretty confident I understand it all) but I guess I just never made the mental link between those and "CF design".

So ok, I'll try asking more specific questions:

When you design colour-first you start with some colour, then extracts elements of that colour and then the design comes in where you tell these elements how to behave so that they are consistent with the fiction you had in the first place? CF is essentially about starting with fiction, and getting everything else out of that, am I getting this right?

If I am right: In the example of AW, what was the process that led you from colour to mechanics? I think you said you designed the Angel first. Did you have a mental image of the Angel in a situation, kinda like the picture of that guy in "Things on Character Sheets (2)" and then started extracting the Angel's Effective Qualities, Resources and Positioning from that mental image?

Also, were Moves and the shape they come in a direct result of this process? Or were they a tool you already had and applied? Or did you have to invent them precisely to deal with this?

If so, do you have any general suggestions or advice on how to do this stuff, beyond everything you've already written? Those blog posts were darn awesome and expansive on their own so I understand if you have nothing to add.

I'm asking because I have this game in my head - well, it's not a game, it's just a whole load of colour that I want to turn into a game - I'm just not sure of where to start. (Although this conversation is already pointing me in the right direction, I think.)

One factual nod that may help - the forerunner of Moves appeared with entirely different Color in Storming the Wizard's Tower. I must, of course, leave all other answers entirely to Vincent.

Despite months going by, I am still really curious about this. 

I understand design game design as: Figure out what your game's payoff is, and then work backwards to create that payoff moment. 

I don't understand color-first design at all.

Hey Ry,
Think in terms of genre; picture the fiction in your head; think about the rules as a physical object.
That's usually almost always where I start - the trick, for me, is to make the leap to devising mechanical ideas, and then integrating them together, so as to keep that bright, awesome Color front and center.

Does that help at all?

Color-first is a feature of a finished design, not a description of a design process. Color-first design means that your game puts color - fictional details - first, ahead of (particularly) mechanics and the other elements of exploration.

Swing a stick at Story Games and you'll hit a game that puts situation and system coequally first, then character, with setting and color in long-distant last. In these terms, which player has the best dice position and which character has the most at stake will decide the outcome, and the layout of the warehouse, who's at the top of the stairs vs who's not, and which character has which kind of firearm won't matter at all.

I think there's some confusion because of something Ron said on the Forge recently. I'll see if I can find it.

My recollection is he talked about designing a TSoY hack "colour first" in the sense of he knew what he wanted play to look and feel like, and then he was designing to reach that goal.

This was before "colour first" was being used consistently to describe games like Apocalypse World and D&D3E which privilege fictional details over situation and stakes in resolution. "Fiction first" is, in my opinion, a better term for this approach.

Apparently I hallucinated that entire thread, because it's nowhere to be found. Maybe it was lost in the transfer to archives? That or I am having vivid dreams of forum conversations.

Ron's been talking about "Color-first" a fair bit (note the spelling) in the last year or so.

Here's the thread about his TSoY hack:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forge/index.php?topic=30195.0

Thanks, Paul.

It does seem like Vincent and Ron are using the terms to mean different things, TSoY not being, as far as I can see, a particularly "fiction first" design.

EDIT: I see now why I couldn't find the thread. The archives are not held in the section marked "Archives" as one might expect, but in "Inactive".

I take it back! You're right, "color-first design" could obviously mean either: a design that puts color first, or a design process that puts color first. Apocalypse World happens to be both, and I expect that usually they'll go hand in hand.

Here's where Ron coined "color first," I believe: Color-first character creation project.

So Ry, say more about what you don't understand, maybe? I see designing for payoff and designing color-first as fully compatible.

OK, so I'm taking 'design process' as stuff that happens between getting that concept of a game and actually getting the design of the game together.

I totally understand color-first if we're talking about going from design to book, rather than from concept to design. 

I also understand color-first if we're talking about some endpoint payoff.  Say I am making a game about struggles between generations.  I can see how my payoff - the THING I'm designing the game to get more of - being tied in with color. 

The color that gets my blood rushing might be:
Greek Mythology
dystopian future
the 60
elves retreating and being replaced by humans.

I can see all of those ways that color could inform the payoff.  The design process that I'd think of for each of those would be, more or less the same.  Creating the sense of intergenerational conflict and organizing the players in a way that would really deliver those clashing perspectives would be job 1.  That's not color-first design, right?  That's... player psychology first design.

Right?

So what's would be color-first design?  Something where I did all this work 'capturing' the 60s and then tack the intergenerational stuff on later?  Wouldn't that be, more or less wrong design?

Payoff suggests a climatic moment where all this design comes together. But in color first design, I think it's more about that smaller moment-to-moment play and the infusion of color at all points.

Firstmost and as clearly as I can: I'm just brainstorming. I have a certain commitment to color-first games, but none at all to a color-first design process. "Wrong design" my butt, one way or the other.

Given that, here's a thing you can consider, Ry. Take one of those arbitrarily, let's say the 60's. One possible payoff embedded in the 60's is a struggle between generations, sure. But it's not the only payoff embedded in the 60's. There's exciting idealism vs practicality vs cynicism stuff too, which needn't break out on generational lines at all. Gender stuff, race stuff, sex stuff, causes and violence and interpersonal drama of all kinds. Art vs advertising vs kitsch (which don't, despite the casual glance, line up with idealism vs practicality vs cynicism). The range of payoffs embedded in the 60's is pretty wide, and it's a different range from the equally wide ranges of payoffs embedded in Greek mythology, dystopias, and elves.

Can you design a game that takes the 60's as established and then drives play toward one of the 60's' embedded payoffs, without choosing which payoff upfront? That's how Apocalypse World works.