Any direction is better than none. Here is one approach (and to avoid getting into a ton of theory), try to think about the game systems in two
general ways "high" or "big" and then "low" or "small". The high is what you, as a game designer, are trying to do. In other words: What is your general goal here? The low is how you answer that question.
For example, taking what I've done above with the class system:
High: I'd like characters to be unique and build their own class.
Low: They will choose packages and have generally, 18 abilities when they are finished building their class.
This'll give you some direction and make things more manageable than just saying "I need a class system." That is pretty open ended, eh?
Here is another example taken from the game:
Note: This hits on combat, which will be explained in a future post!
High: I want combat to be risky and make characters interact with the game during combat.
Low: There will be a risk system that will keep track of the player's risk in combat. This will modify the player's incoming damage. Abilities will affect the current risk - moving it up and down. Also, whenever a player is attacked their risk will go up. This will make players manage their risk and be interactive in combat.
One additional bonus to approaching it from this way is the fine details of the systems can be completely ignored. Looking at the second example, with the combat risk, the designer doesn't have to know exactly how the abilities interact (how much they raise or lower the current risk), how the risk system modifies incoming damage, or any other detail. You can worry about those when it is time to worry about them. They aren't important to the overall design. Though, some details can be made important for whatever reason, such as saying "around 18 abilities". This is important because I wanted the abilities to be manageable from a design/implementation standpoint and to ensure we make meaningful abilities.
I use this approach sometimes, and it has done me well.
Hopefully you find this helpful...I sorta started to ramble there a bit
What language are you making your game in? How far along are you? What sort of troubles have you ran into? What is your biggest accomplishment so far?
Finally...
The understatement of the thread!
