Game Design: Do Your Homework

A couple of weeks ago, it was announced here that Nevermet Press was developing an alternate World War II pulp setting for Mutants & Masterminds called Geheimkrieg. We even published some intro fiction on the blog to set the tone. Well, I had yet to complete my homework on the setting.

Last week I discovered that there was a miniatures skirmish game with the same name. It also has some similar supernatural elements to the theme. However, it wasn’t a roleplaying game and it didn’t deal with supers. So I had a few choices.

I could be a jerk and ignore the fact and keep marching on, hoping that no one would cry foul or have the money to pursue legal action. I could attempt to contact the owners of the skirmish game and seek permission, but that would require a complicated (and perhaps costly) legal document to protect both of us. Or I could just change the name.

I decided to kill the working title and choose something else; something that is not already in use and would not lead to future trademark entanglements. Sure, it might mean an early onset of product identity confusion (“Hey, wait a minute, I thought Nevermet was making something else…”), but it’s really early in the design phase. So early it probably wouldn’t even be noticed if I hadn’t chosen to write about it here.

Nevermet Press is pretty open about the creation of our material, so this presents a great opportunity to provide some insight on how we tackle hurdles like this.

Market Research

When I first started laying down the idea for an alternate history setting for WWII, I did thorough research on what was already available. Of course, for our Savage Worlds fans reading this, Pinnacle Entertainment Group’s Weird Wars instantly comes to mind. I also found a lot of miniature games, such as the really cool looking Incursion, and some interesting DIY one-offs.

I had already decided that I wanted to develop for Mutants & Masterminds and discovered that they even had a WWII adventure available for free on their website, Live in Infamy. But there wasn’t really a setting available. Nazis, zombies, aliens, and supers. I was sold.

I then researched a name. I needed something that immediately invoked the idea of the world at war. Something that sounds exotic, at least to native English speakers… I decided to call it “Secret War” because of the backstory I had developed with our writers and artists. A story where WWII has met sort of an uneasy stalemate and the powers are recruiting unconventional forces (read: aliens & supers).

Since I have been trying to teach myself German (unsuccessfully), I pulled out the dictionary and looked up secret in Deutsch.  Geheim. I didn’t need to look up war, everyone knows that word. I slapped the two together and liked it so much I didn’t even bother searching the term.

Proper Prior Planning

In the Marine Corps, we had a term/phrase called the Seven Ps (or 7Ps). Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance. Well, had I remembered my training, I would have double checked my new title, but I didn’t because I was excited about it and pretty sure no one had ever put the two together in the context of a tabletop game.

Wrong.

If there is one thing anyone takes away from this reflection, it should be that nothing is new. I often fear we live in a world of remix and remake where nothing is original. Then I realize it was probably that way for a very long time (like since man discovered his imagination). It’s always been about tweaking an idea just enough that it appears fresh. When that happens enough, you can look at the originating idea and the newest creation and it looks like innovation.

Or I could be wrong, but very rarely is something created from whole cloth. We stand upon the shoulders of giants here (which are really just a bunch of dwarves stacked atop each other in a manner that appears as a giant).

Final Answer Is

So I still needed a name. Well, I went back to the drawing board with our team and put out a bunch of ideas, took some ideas, and finally came out with Schattenkrieg, Shadow War. It fits the theme nicely and I got approval from a native speaking German that it was both correct and sounded way better than the first title I had chosen.

So a big shout out needs to go to Michael Wolf of Stargazer’s World for providing invaluable assistance on verifying our setting’s new name.

But of course, I was very sure to research this new name. I even did several searches with the United States Patent and Trademark Office for anyone who might have registered it as their mark. I didn’t find much of anything besides German references to a Tom Clancy book. Good Deal!

Guten Tag,

Michael Brewer

“The Girl From Brussels”

This article contains content for Schattenkrieg, Nevermet Press’ alternate World War II pulp setting. Our content is community driven so we want feedback from you. Please leave a comment here, write about it on your own blog, or contact the Lead Designer, Michael Brewer, if you would like to contribute directly.
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