Mother's, Progress, and a Delimma

I made a surprising amount of progress this weekend considering it was Mother's Day weekend and I have both a mother and a wife who's a mother. Happy Mother's Day to them both and to all you other mom's out there. You're a blessing we couldn't live without.

So I began work on defining the rules for my first game, and I surprised myself with how much progress I made in two days. Basically, a few days ago, the game was nothing more than a title in my head. Is that common that game designers come up with a title and theme before even beginning to think about the mechanics? Or should you develop the "game" first in terms of mechanics and then slap a them and title on it as a polishing touch?

I dunno. In the absence of experience and advice, we'll try it this way first and see where it takes us. So far, in a few days, I've conceptualized the board, most of the pieces, and most of the rules. It's not a complex game in terms of rules, but I'm hoping it will be subtle in it's strategies and elegant in it's simplicity. And hopefully a darn lot of fun to play.

As a novice game designer, I'm still debating on how much of it I should share with the "public". On one hand, I want to get all the feedback and advice I can get on it. On the other hand, I don't want anyone to steal my concepts.

That being said, some of the "experienced" resources I've read online don't seem too worried about novice designers losing their ideas to thieves. Generally, their thoughts are that because game mechanics can't be copyrighted, there's little to deter anyone from stealing the concepts of existing games, much less games like mine that are in their infancy and have yet to have any proven value.

Give me a day or two to consult a few friends whose opinions I value, and I'll get back to you on how much about the game I'll disclose here publicly. Any opinions either way will be greatly appreciated.