This topic has taken over another thread but deserves its own. Paul writes:

Posted By: Paul CzegeThis is where I think you want to be in an ashcan:

The game rules have been playtested and are 90% solid in the your opinion. You're doing an ashcan not because you can't manage a playtest of your own, but because the game isn't quite delivering on your design goals and so you don't consider it fully baked yet.

The text is written not with the aim of a fully baked game, to communicate the architecture of play to the customer, and to inspire play with the fullness of its vision, but with the goal of provoking playtesting and feedback toward the as-yet-unrealized design goals. As such, the text includes overt language about the game's design goals, and directly calls out mechanics that need validation and/or refinement.

The text invites the purchaser into conversation with you the designer.

The book as an object has a hand assembled or copy shop aesthetic and is clearly not "store ready".

But neither should it be cheap looking. If you can manage it, you want to put some love into the crafting of the books, like the indie comics guys do with their little photocopied comics, because that's how you subliminalize a message to prospective buyers that you love the game and won't be flaking out if they choose to enter into your design process.

Price: ~$10.00. Your design work won't be furthered by an over lubrication of the price. You want a price that triggers self identification of an engaged feedback community.

Yes, unless you have illicit access to printing or photocopying at your workplace it's going to cost you more per unit in time and materials to make ashcans than it would to use a POD printer to print books. But this isn't the profit taking stage of indie publishing. This is the development stage.

My initial thought is to question the value of a lovingly printed product. I recently sent .pdf files of the current version of Grey Ranks to a few people for comment - considerably cheaper and more efficient. Is there a psychosocial benefit to having a semi-product you paid a few dollars for? The tactile advantage of paper versus screen? Let's discuss ashcans, because it seems like a model that is useful and effective in other media.

OK, I'm not opposed to this, but I need to ask some hard questions here - why should people pay for the privilege of helping you refine your game? It seems backwards to me - you should be sending them out free, with a Mountain Dew coupon tucked in them or something.

"My game isn't done. Playing it may not be fun. I'm charging you five bucks for a copy. Please help me make it better."

Again, I don't think I have a handle on all the angles here, so help me out. Eric, you may be right about payment = investment, but somehow it seems abusive to me.

Me, I'd sell ashcans at cost (just print cost, not including any promo art or whatever). I think there's a substantial chance that print copies of games would get played more, since they're easier to carry around. It's harder for me to get away with printing off a playtest draft PDF at work than it is to lug around the $3 ashcan I got from Lulu. And I don't really see it as people paying to help you with your game. After all, they're not required to tell you anything. They can just enjoy playing the game as is. And that's what I think of an ashcan as. It's like going to an early screening of an unfinished film or watching dress rehearsals of a play.

Here's an idea, put up our playtest documents(not the alphas and early betas) on Lulu for 0 income, just for base cost.

Can't hurt, can help.

Need to see if such an experiment has any legs.

Another issue is relative circulation. Do you want to make money back, or do you want to get it into lots of people's hands? Will the price affect this? I sent free copies of bti at GenCon 04 brought me a lot of feedback and recognition of the game. It was just a cheapy, I doubt as many people would have picked it up if it had cost anything.

Also, to repeat an idea from the other thread that was awesome: taking copies to conventions and giving them to people who sign up for your game. Their buy-in isn't cash, it's that four hour block of time. They've got real play experience under their belt, hopefully some excitement about the game, and are perhaps more likely to get their friends at home to play the game they enjoyed at the con.

Thanks guys, I can see the value in an ashcan much more now than I did before.

Alrighty, as a basis for further ashcan conversation, here we have Scott Knipe's Wyrd:



It's an awesome ashcan. It's a 36 page book, half letter size and saddle-stitched, with cover stock slightly heaver than the interior pages, and with at least ten illustrations (including the cover). Scott gave ~80 of these away for free at GenCon in 2001. Some toner on the cover of mine is worn away from use when we playtested it. Here's a scan of a two page spread from the interior:



I'm showing Wyrd because I think ashcans should be more than just printouts of playtest texts in booklet form. Your ashcan should have aesthetics that subliminalize how much you love the game.

This is Kill Puppies for Satan, from back when Vincent would mail it to you for free, with the suggestion that you send him a fiver or something in return:



It's letter-sized with a velo binding and a plain uncoated black cover stock. It has no illustrations, but still conveys Vincent's love for the game as powerfully as Wyrd conveys Scott's. Note the use of a mailing label for attaching the game title to the cover. There's another one on the inside lower left corner of the cover with the copyright information. And the interior is set entirely in lowercase in the same vintage typewriter font you see here on the cover. I scanned Kill Puppies for Satan to show some of the range of aesthetics designers have already used to good effect for ashcans.

Up next some scans of indie comics that I think paint a pretty broad landscape of the possible. Here we have the first issue of Matt Kish's Spudd 64:



It's half-letter, with a green cover stock that he's fabricated the shit out of. The black is toner. Over it he's used stencils and silver spray paint for the titling. The graphic is hand drawn on a fairly grainy off-white construction paper and affixed to the cover with spray glue (I think). On the back, which you can't see, he has the letter "Z" done with stamped ink. I believe this copy is from his very first run of 100. I've seen copies from later runs and if I recall, they don't have the individually hand drawn graphic. I love this book.

Here's the cover of issue two:



This time the book is half-legal, but again, the black is toner, and the colors are spray paint. You can't see it, but the design extends to the back cover. Clearly he created a stencil for the mauve squiggles.

Which isn't to say you're SOL on the ashcan landscape if you aren't an artist. Here's the full cover spread of Christoph Meyer's What God Has Revealed To Man:



He's no artist. He designed it so he could use specific smiley stickers.

Here's Pat Lewis' Hideous: A Monster Romance:



Like Kish's covers, the black is toner. The cover itself is taupe cardstock. (I think these guys use the heaviest cover stock they can put through a laser printer without jamming. I'm guessing this book and issue one of Spudd 64 both used 60lb stock.) The graphic was printed separately and affixed to the cover. I think it was actually printed to a largeish white address label and then cut and stickered to the cover. When I look close I can see black guidelines through the graphic, part of the photocopying stage that helps him position the graphic. And then he cuts the book down so it has the aspect ratio of a full sized comic.

I have another indie comic I wanted to scan as well, but I can't seem to lay my hands on it. The cover illustration is the face of a man with a blobby alien creature covering his scalp and invading his eyes. It's a photocopied cover, but it's pretty eye catching from the creator having hand colored the alien with a fluorescent green highlighter.

So, graphics, stamping, photocopying, cropping, stencils, spray paint, highlighters, stickers, address labels--find a way to bring some of the game's character out in the crafting of your ashcan.

Paul

Hey Troy,

Have you written the games like this:

"The text is written not with the aim of a fully baked game, to communicate the architecture of play to the customer, and to inspire play with the fullness of its vision, but with the goal of provoking playtesting and feedback toward the as-yet-unrealized design goals. As such, the text includes overt language about the game's design goals, and directly calls out mechanics that need validation and/or refinement."

Paul

I've been thinking a lot about this thread over the past couple days and I've convinced myself that an ashcan of "The Committee for the Exploration of Mysteries" is a good idea. Getting a lot of solid outside playtesting and advice on the design elements that still perplex me would really help make the game better for an eventual release over the summer.

But here's the sticking point: I don't live near any of the big cons where indie gaming is taking off (MACE, Dexcon, Dreamnation, etc.), and this is my first published design. The ashcan seems to thrive in a face-to-face setting. What can I do to make my ashcan effective despite this? Is the concept of a "digital ashcan" in PDF form viable, or does it fall flat without the physical artifact?

I do plan on taking my game to the local cons here in Arizona, and giving my ashcan to those who sign up for my playtest games is a great idea. But harnessing the insights of you guys out in the rest of world is something I really want to do, too.

Wow, Joshua, you got yourself a deal there! Thanks so much for the offer.

I'll gladly help spread the word on FLFS and help you LA folks with playtesting as well. We West Coasters have to stick together.

Hey Tad,

Y'know, I think lubricating the price is a mistake. Let's say designers start doing ashcans and next year at GenCon there's a bunch for sale at two to three dollars each. So I come home with seven of them. Every single one of those designers disadvantaged themselves with the two or three dollar price, because I can't possibly commit to providing meaningful feedback and/or playtesting to seven games, and each designer sold to me for less than what the ashcans are worth in time and materials. I bought them out of curiousity, at a price that didn't ask for my commitment of interest. The selling of ashcans isn't publishing. It's a design process. You don't want to sell a hundred ashcans. You want to sell twelve, to exactly the right people. You might have to sell sixty to get the right twelve, but if you sell your sixty for two or three dollars each you're making it easy for those twelve to let life distract them from your game. You've satisfied their curiosity without securing their interest.

Paul

Paul,

My apologies
My involvement in gaming is strickly hobby
the solitary editing credit I have in no way compensates for the amount of time, life, money I have put into my gaming and collection
that being said perhaps my comments should be withdrawn, as my gaming and anything I make from it is solely for creativity sake (thanks) and so perhaps I spoke too soon.

I of course wish every designer who wants to make a game to succeed, and to all that have stuff out there to flourish to what their heart wants it to be.
have a nice day
Tad