This OrcCon I had a moment of abstract sorrow.

I'd wandered into the dealer's room, all rearranged in the new hotel, and right where you couldn't miss it was the Indie Press Revolution booth. It was manned by Josh Roby and Paul Tevis. So I wandered over to chat with them for a bit. We traded updates about who was at con, and what was going on and all. And after a moment, I realized that, hey, there were all these books, mostly digest format, some of them with titles I recognized. A few with names on the cover of people I've met. So I took a moment to look over the stock.

And I missed something. That little jump, that excitement about new ideas and games, and being able to hold and skim games I've only heard things about on line. There's Steal Away Jordan on one end, and In A Wicked Age on another. Passages kinda in the middle. I knew that I expected to be just a little jazzed over the sheer potential at that table. That at least one of those games would have some shining gem in it. Or that the praise I've heard about one of these games is really justified.

It wasn't there. And I missed it, the way you might miss a favorite cousin who couldn't make the family reunion. I'm still trying to figure out where it went. I've got some ideas, but I'm still chewing them over. But the regretful fact remains:

I looked at a table full of new games, and I wasn't excited.

Hey Judson,

I, for one, am interested in more details on your experience. I know you and I look for very different things in a game, so I'm curious as to where your disappointment was focused. Subject matter? Execution? Do you just feel jaded?

To some extent I agree with CK's recent post in that genre approaches don't really jazz me anymore. For Swords & Sorcery fantasy gaming I'm quite happy with Sorcerer + Sorcerer & Sword. In a Wicked Age... interests me pretty much because a) I trust Vincent and b) the pick-up aspect of it since Sorcerer & Sword is a little hard to play on the fly. And weird genre combos leave me cold, "It's NOIR but with FAIRIES!" unless there's some very specific underlying take beyond the color mash up alone.

But in the last year there HAVE been games that jazz me.

Spione & Dirty Secrets are two games that I feel have finally done two particular genres the "right way" in which no other RPG has in the past.
Grey Ranks and It Was A Mutual Decision - Personally this is where I want design to go. Highly specific situations with highly specific structures and mechanics for addressing a particular set of issues inherent to that situation.

Jesse

Is it wrong that I take from this OP glee that you noticed Passages?

Posted By: Judson LesterI looked at a table full of new games, and I wasn't excited.

Sounds like it is time for you to design a game, then.

...

Am I allowed to say that?

Posted By: Jonathan WaltonWelcome to the jaded adolescence of indie roleplaying. Let's hope we get through it fast so we can become twenty-somethings.

Agreed.

I used to be all excited simply walking into a game store. Now, I'm not as much (unless something catches me off-guard).

Last year at GenCon, frex, I wasn't excited by a lot of stuff that I saw here and there at the various small press booths (I already owned a lot of it, mind). And yet, I found some truly awesome things that kicked me in the nuts:
The Dragons of Kir (a board game)
Colonial Gothic (Vampires and Cthulhu during the American Revolution)
Dirty Secrets (Fulfilling!)
there were one or two others that I forget now (and I was half-and-half on Solomon Kane).

I could have said, "Damn, GC was disappointing, because the only New Things that excited me were two RPGs and a board game!", but instead I just focused on the stuff that excited me. Like, those above games.
And, and this is the BIG PART, all those awesome sessions I got to play and people I got to meet at the Games on Demand booth and after hours. Holy shit that was worth the trip to GenCon, not the swag or product.

You'll learn to get through being jaded, as Jonathan said.

Personally, I'd think there'd be a problem if you were always excited about Everything, All the Time.

BTW, to that end, how about the rest of the con? Did THAT make you excited? I really want to know, honestly.

-Andy

Posted By: Andy
BTW, to that end, how about the rest of the con? Did THAT make you excited? I really want to know, honestly.

To be perfectly honest, the con at large was swimming upstream to excite me. I did get into some good conversations. I took an arbitrary 2nd place in a Container tournament that I got randomly seconded into. I played a rockin' game of Roanoke with a bunch of cool people, including two girls who were still younger than me if you added their ages together.

It's a different thing, though. If you don't mind me chewing it over in public a bit, part of what struck me was this: I saw In A Wicked Age on the table. I thought to myself, "huh, I remember reading Vincent's notes on anyway - and there's been huge buzz about it." Then I moved on. I didn't open the book until someone at the con said "here, look at this," and handed it to me. I wasn't impressed with the book as an artifact, or as a text, based on a whole five minutes inspection.

I think that disjoint between expectation and fulfillment is becoming more common for me.

Posted By: Judd

Posted By: Judson LesterI looked at a table full of new games, and I wasn't excited.

Sounds like it is time for you to design a game, then.

...

Am I allowed to say that?

This is what Jesse said to me when I was trying to explain I was still okay with working within a "broken" game system to tell the stories I wanted to tell in that world. Like, if I want to play a game about Fate Witches (7th Sea). Or about Moya (D20).

Jesse: But I don't want to do that anymore. I just want things to -work-.
Laura: Well, I'm not there yet. I don't mind because I still feel rewarded by the story experience.
Jesse: That just means you have to write an indie game about it.

I pfft! at all of you. ; )

I Looked at a Table Full of Games
by Johnny Cash

I had a moment of abstract sorrow
I saw the dealer's room all rearranged
I sought a game to beg or borrow
But something inside of me had changed

I saw Paul Tevis, I saw Josh Roby
Who kinda looks like Ben Kenobi
Inside the dealer's room, I took a look
I scanned the covers of several books

I recognized a few of their names
Something inside me did not feel the same
I looked at a table full of games
I looked at a table full of games

Wanted to feel that little jump inside
That one of these would be some shining gem
Or that the praise was really justified
But I just stood and stared at them

Like my cousin John, who hanged himself
They stared down at me from their shelf
I felt a sadness I cannot explain
And the regretful fact remains

I recognized a few of their names
Something inside me did not feel the same
I looked at a table full of games
I looked at a table full of games

I think this is a case where the book is one thing and the game itself is another. You don't get hit over the head with the awesome stick when you casually flip through Steal Away Jordan, or Wicked, or Gray Ranks. It's not that they're bad books (I think they're pretty good), but the really great stuff emerges in play, not in reading or browsing.

That said, it would be even better if those books where hitting you over the head with the awesome stick while you browsed them.

Let me throw in a glass half full interpretation. It goes like this.

Years ago there was the great suckage. We owned tons of games, they sucked. We played tons of games, they sucked. We eagerly anticipated the release of the next big thing -- only to find that when it finally came out, it sucked.

Then came the indie game explosion. The indie games were not the suck...they were actually <gasp> good. And OMG we had real fun playing them. And the margin of difference between what we'd found and what we'd been used to was huge...HUGE.

And so every GenCon every new Hawtness became like a celebration because that margin was so large it left our feet thumping rapidly like Thumper the bunny in excitement.

But now we've had indie game goodness for many-a-year. Now our game shelves are full of goodness. Now our play is fun.

Now the margin between what we find and what we're used to is not so large...because what we're used to...ain't so bad.


Really Good only seems like ohmygoshfuckingamazingsuperkewlpraisejesus in comparison to the Before Time. In comparison to what we've all been playing for the last several years...Really Good, is just...Really Good.

That doesn't strike me as something to be depressed about. That strikes me as VICTORY!

I don't know if this helps or speaks to anything.

I was feeling all "meh" about gaming. Then I went to Conquest and sat down and played In A Wicked Age all day long with some people I didn't know or hadn't gamed with before. Now I feel better.

Sometimes you just have to pick one bit of the hobby and indulge in it to the hilt for a while.

Sure, went more for the fun of the phraseology than any sort of precision in language.

For me, I'm not done with Y yet. I think we've only started to get good with Y and there's alot more perfection of Y I want to see before I'll have much interest in moving on to Z.

In fact...to the extent that pursuit of Z takes talent away from perfecting Y, I'm actually slightly...anti-Z would be too strong...how about...Z-reluctant.

And it's inconceivable that the latest crop of games just isn't as good as the last one? Every single response in this thread is dismissive. Why is no one even entertaining the possibility that there might be a problem?

From where I sit... look, it's not even that the "indie movement" is losing steam or that the relative difference in turning over new ground is diminishing as the number of quality games increases. There have been a number of games released that are little more than superficial refacing of the old standbys like PTA, with maybe a little color splashed in and a slightly different resource economy that ends up doing the same thing as Fan Mail, except only not quite as well.

We are taking less time editing our games. We are taking less time writing our games (hello, In a Wicked Age!). We are getting less frequent and more insular playtests. Used to be games were the product of years of work; now they start at Game Chef in the spring and are turned into print products by GenCon. Maybe, if you're lucky, the designer skips a GenCon and thus puts a whole what, sixteen months into the product? And nobody seems to be willing to recognize that these changes in the production cycle have consequences for the final product.

Here, I'll end on a positive note: you know what makes me happy? Galactic is not in print. And it's not in print because Matt isn't satisfied with how it plays. I played Business Solutions like what, over a year ago, now? Jason's still tinkering with it to get it just right. Hell, Doctor Chaos got shelved when it became clear to Ron that the project wasn't going to work the way he wanted. The measure of the integrity of publishers isn't what they print, it's what they don't print. A little more integrity, and a lot more honest self-appraisal, would do this community a great deal of good.

Posted By: Josh Bonobo RobyAnd it's inconceivable that the latest crop of games just isn't as good as the last one? Every single response in this thread is dismissive. Why is no one even entertaining the possibility that there might be a problem?

It's not inconceivable. I gave it a lot of consideration, in fact. But I don't agree with your assessment. You see superficial refacings of PTA and games rushed into print, while I see a crop of stellar games in the past year that offer up all kinds of wonderful, new gaming experiences.

I'm not being dismissive when I offer a counterpoint to Judson's ennui, I'm just offering a different viewpoint. It's not that I'm failing to see a bunch of "obviously" mediocre games. It's that my value judgment of games might be different than yours (or anyone's). To take one concrete example, you think Wicked needed more writing time. I think it is beautifully written. It's a spartan style that I find very appealing, in fact.

So yeah. I'm saying, "I see a crop of fantastic games that make me very excited." That's my honest assessment, taking into account the warts and all.

EDIT: And to put this in a slightly different way:

My hobby is not buying and reading awesome game books. My hobby is playing awesome game sessions. For some people, getting some errata off a website to add to a game book in order to play it better equals a massive failure of the game. For me, it's a negligible inconvenience that then allows me to have awesome game sessions, so I never give it a second thought. Like, as a book and game designer, I'm very happy that Shock: 1.1 is easier to understand (as a book) than Shock: 1.0. But as a player of the game, it has no impact on me at all. My sessions were really, really fun in either case. That's the sum total of what I want out of this hobby, as a hobbyist and consumer.

Posted By: Judson LesterYou forgot the verse that starts "I cockpunched a man in Reno/ just to watch him cry"

Nice. :D

You know, it seems like there haven't been any good movies lately, either. Or video games. Guess it's just the winter gloom. Reckon in a few weeks, it'll be like, what were we talking about? Look at all these cool games!

Ditto what Ben said, Josh. Speaking for myself, Passages was in development for more than two years, was playtested at two Gen Cons (in addition to personal and standard outside playtesting), was edited by a third-party professional editor, was laid out by a third-party professional layout artist. You mention a handful of counterexamples yourself. I know you didn't do that with FLFS. Where are the examples in support of your premise? I don't see it.

Edit: And, of course, the art direction for Passages was by Jenn Rodgers.

Posted By: John HarperNo good movies?! No good video games?! Man, thatmustbe February talking. Craziness.

2007 was the best year for video games since '99 - across multiple platforms. 2007 was the best year for movies since '01 (I think that's the year...) 2007 was also a great year for fiction, non-fiction, and comic books. I feel like I could quit my job and live in the entertainment options available from '07 for several years. February indeed...

Posted By: Judson LesterWhere've you been? Three of the five Oscar nominees are incredible - and I haven't seenAtonement.

Yeah, you got a point there. My wife's a member of the Producer's Guild, so I saw all those movies before they came out. Now they're in theaters, I'm like, yeah. I seen it. But you're right. There have been some good movies lately. Just not for me. *cries*

Posted By: Judson LesterAnd um, Rock Band?

Played it. Beat it. Old news. More! Must have more DLC!

At OrcCon, when Judson said this I completely agreed. Over the last little bit, I've been trying to unpack why.

The first reason is easy: the games I was excited about last year, I bought.

The second reason, though, cuts at the heart of our community: it's hard to get excited when I can't trust the opinions of anyone here. I read comments about how great IAWA is, or how great Play Unsafe is, and I have to wonder if I'm the only guy in the room that sees the white rhino in the room tearing stuff up. Frankly, I'm at the point where I'm done buying bad book after bad book and watching people here talk about how amazing these books are. (To be more clear: I'm not talking about these as games, but as books -- communicators of ideas -- that people ask money for.) I just don't trust the opinions here of anyone anymore. There's no sense of objectivity. The thing that I have to wonder is: maybe there never was, and I'm just kidding myself to think that.

So, when half the books I own copies of and the other half I now am trained, by circumstance, to view with distrust and suspicion, I have to say that I'm lamenting the loss of that same feeling that Judson is.

Posted By: Josh Bonobo RobyBen, the opening line ofIAWAis "Somebody pick an oracle." It doesn't explain what an oracle is or where to find it, just plows on through. Whether or not the game iswell-designed, that's crappy instructions. The whole thing reads, not like a book or instructions for a game, but like Vincent's notes on how the game is played.

I'm with you Josh. I played IAWA Sunday night and it not a very satisfying experience. I was explained the game by the GM. That's fortunate, because if I had been forced to figure out the game by reading the text and not had access to somebody who already knew how to play I don't think I would have bothered. I haven’t seen any feedback from anybody who has (if there is please link me). I don't think being able to understand the game from just reading the text is an unreasonable expectation.

As it turns out even with having the game explained I still missed some critical points on conflicts. I’m not sure if that was my fault or if the GM didn’t understand and or convey them well. I’ll need to talk with him about it again.

Even as a ... Champion ... dare I say ... of In A Wicked Age I have to admit the game took a lot of reads, several posts, and even a few games and I'm still having some issues with it.

</blockquote>
To be perfectly honest, the con at large was swimming upstream to excite me. I did get into some good conversations. I took an arbitrary 2nd place in a Container tournament that I got randomly seconded into. I played a rockin' game of Roanoke with a bunch of cool people, including two girls who were still younger than me if you added their ages together.
</blockquote>

Speaking of...where are my dealer dollars pal?!?

Your Container Predecessor,

Tom

Here's another thought: Reward Mechanics.

There's a strong reward for having an only-partially functional game text.

Why is this?

Imagine two text, functional text, and semi-functional text. What's the process.

Functional text:
1) Pick up text. Read it. Get excited.
2) Find some friends. Get them excited.
3) Play. Have fun.
4) Play again.

Semi-functional text:
1) Pick up text. Read it. Get excited but confused.
2) Post to the forum of the designer. Have involved conversation about the game.
3) Find some friends. Get them excited.
4) Play. Be more confused.
5) More internet conversations with the designer.
6) Play again.
7) More internet conversations with the designer.
8) Play again. Have fun.
9) Write on the internet about how now you get it and man is it awesome. Maybe phrase it in a stuck up "difficult to learn games" way that looks down your nose at the people playing the first game.

Note that the reward, in terms of exposure, goes to the semi-coherent text.

I've noticed this with Bliss Stage. Despite serious, serious editing errors (like a discrepancy about Bliss from broken relationships, and a missing rule about starting age), the game text teaches you in exhaustive and slow detail about how to play the game. Thus: zero posting about it.

Fortunately for me, my target audience isn't y'all, so this isn't a big deal. The game plays well (I get private letters from people saying that they're having fun with it) and it's sales are remarkable, considering, which I have to assume is word of mouth in its target audience (anime fans).

But if you're designing not for profit, but for social cred on Story Games? Oh, man, a semi-coherent text is the way to go. And I'd give that advice to anyone.

yrs--
--Ben

Book design is all about target audience.

IaWA is definitely NOT how I have or am designing a game book. But that doesn't necessarily make it a bad book. Its a book very clearly targeted at a very specific target audience (I think I even used it as an example of this in some other recent thread). The target audience is "people who already know all this and don't want to waste money paying for instructions on how to play...when they already know how to play...or can just ask me on-line". Its a game targeted very specifically at people who've been following the development of the game for the last year+ several groups of whom have already been playing from piecing together forum post discussions.

And that's fine. I doubt the Poison'd final text will differ dramatically from the ash can, and the ash can was similarly targeted. No one but story-game insiders could reasonably expect to pick up Poison'd and play it even remotely how its meant to be played based on the text alone. But based on the text PLUS Vincent's online presence...?

What if what you're paying for when you buy the book is not JUST the book...but all of the personal attention the designer is more than happy to lavish on you. What if that means the designer isn't going to hold your hand in the text of the game but is more than willing to hold your hand on an on-line forum to help you get it. What if this is actually a new publishing paradigm that goes beyond notions of "this is a book" and begins to leverage our current multi-media age. Vincent's written more text online about play of IaWA (not to mention the even more text written by fans) then would ever have been written in a book...even a thick hand holdy one. And you get all that too for the bargain price of $12. Why isn't that considered? Why does it ALL have to be "in the book". Why is it assumed that the online stuff is just errata that wouldn't be necessary if the book had been written properly to begin with? Maybe the online stuff IS the product that you're buying, and the pamphet sized rule book is just the teaser.


Now that's not how I designed Universalis, and its not how I'm designing Robots & Rapiers or Blood Red Sands. And frankly, yeah, it drives me a little batty. I've bitched at Ron for his Sorcerer Text for years until its become something of a running gag because he wrote to a very specific target audience of people who already "got it" and then set up shop on the Forge to lavish all the attention you could ever want to help those who didn't.

Better or worse as a model I'll leave to individual opinion, but why isn't that approach just as valid as (my preferred approach) of writing a game that anyone can grok just from reading it?


Last Forge Midwest there was alot of criticism like that Josh leveled above...I added my critical voice to it as well. But actually, since then, I thought 2007 was way better in terms of individual quality control than 2006 or 2005. Things seem to be better in this regard then it had been...unless there's some rash of shoddy games that just aren't on my radar...

Look, criticize my writing, my layout, my approach, my book, sure. But my plan is for you to have fun playing my game. Ben's painting my motives wrong.

-Vincent

Isn't some of this, assuming there is a real pattern, just the inevitable by-product of publishing getting easier and the hyperfocus on print publishing that has traditionally been a part of the community? I mean, I'm glad people are bringing it up, if they do perceive a real problem, but isn't it a time for self-reflection and looking for solutions instead of increasing criticism? I think this thread is really important, but I guess I worry about the tone and the dearth of constructive suggestions for making it better. I mean, yeah, spending more time on playtesting, development, and writing sounds like a great idea, but how do we encourage people to do that or create an environment where that is the norm without picking on projects that people have put their work and soul into? I just worry that once the mud starts flying, it'll be impossible to stop it. This is, after all, the internet.

Posted By: RemiRyan,
Be the change you want. Honest self-appraisal starts with you. Speak the power, brother! Start tearing apart texts to the designer's faces instead of just another interview!

This is why Ryan is my editor for Penny.

Posted By: noclueCertainly not like DitV which made me want to start gaming again

You see, IAWA got me gaming again. The text, while not perfect, really got me to think about my gaming, and the design solved things that I'd been trying to fix on my own for years. I love the game, and if that's caused me to say "I love this book" a few times and made myself untrustworthy, well that's too bad.

Mmmm.... the thread changed tone between my starting to write my last post and my posting it... I would like to assure Ben that I was joking about what he said because I found ironic that the author of the story-game that got us more confused than any other posted that, but I wasn't accusing him of having written a bad game. I know that at least half of the problem we encountered were cause by our own misunderstanding, and I did really want to write that post because I really did want to be able to play his game...

Said that, it's true that from when I started reading story-games.com, there threads spring up regularly every 3-4 months, every time with people talking about problems with "a game" or another... but without using names.

Now, I understand that it's difficult to accuse a friend of having written a bad game, but I would really like to hear some of these names sometimes. As a consumer, to avoid making bad choices, and as a user in this forum, to avoid hearing all this again two months from now...

[edit: crossposted with Ben - OK, I will try to regroup my notes and get back to you in another thread with some questions]

Posted By: Josh Bonobo RobyWhen everybody keeps nodding their head in unison like a cult, you start to wonder if they're all cult members.

Do what now? I consider that a very uncharitable and somewhat hostile thing to say, Josh. What gives?

Some people like stuff you don't like. Some people think stuff is beautiful and well done and you think it isn't. This doesn't make them simpering yes-men cultists with no critical eye. Please. I expect crap like that from the Pundit, but not from you.

Look, if someone's game sucks, I tell them so. If someone else asks me if it sucks, I say yes. What I don't do is run to Story Games and start a thread about how game X sucks. Instead, I praise the games I love. I think this is true of a lot of people 'round these parts.

Posted By: WillowI'll say what John Harper wouldn't. The book is bad. Bad bad bad.

I think you meant "what John Harper didn't." It wasn't a case of reluctance. It's a matter of taste. I think those books are pretty good, like I said.

Posted By: lumpleyLook, criticize my writing, my layout, my approach, my book, sure. But my plan is for you to have fun playing my game.

I appreciate that. You see, I think I will really love this game, once I can figure it out. It has the sword and sorcery stuff, which I love. And I really enjoy doing the making characters from the oracles thing. When I get a chance to play, I'll definitely come back and post about how the game worked for me and if any of the mechanics were difficult. I do wish that there was more book here so I wouldn't have to go on the forums to figure out how to play it. More discussion. More examples of play.

Posted By: Ben LehmanLet me be clear: I'm not painting Vincent's motives.

Uh...I didn't mean to say that Ben had the 411 on Vincent's motives here. Just that I was wondering if there is some secondary benefit that might have worked against a more comprehensive description of the game, or might have encouraged a rush to printing. On rereading it, my approach reads pretty negatively. I don't think you're being purposefully confusing Vincent, even though that's how my post came off. I do think the text could try harder to put the goods front and center where I can get at them, as you have in other games. And I think this lack of clarity can sometimes result in experiences like Will mentions above, which might have been avoided.

My take on the clarity of some other indie games, in no particular order:

Prime Time Adventures -- excellent game, excellent design; completely opaque when read from a trad point of view. Drop it on a group of people who have only played trad games, and I don't think they would be able to make heads or tails of it. "You mean we're not all together in the same scenes most of the time? You mean it's OK for PCs to be in conflict with other PCs? Huh?"

InSpectres has design notes that tell the reader what the author intended to do, and then clearly explains rules that do it. (If Octane had been written that way, I could have had my first indie "Aha!" moment a lot earlier...)

Trollbabe -- Very clear procedural explanations, and it actually goes a little way toward creating an understanding of what indie games try to do. I can't actually ascribe motives to anyone, but it seems to me that Ron was trying to write Trollbabe as a teaching tool, and it works.

Galactic -- Fairly opaque to me, and I suspect very opaque to a trad readership. Still, it's an ashcan, so it can get better.

Bliss Stage -- Reasonably clear explanation of the system (with some holes), but I suspect it would be utterly opaque to trad gamers. Possibly more accessible to people with no gaming experience whatsoever, and a background of watching lots of anime. (That may in fact be Bliss Stage's target audience, rather than indie gamers.)

Spirit of the Century -- Very well written and well explained. Only the Aspect rules are actually that 'indie' in design, so trad gamers could understand and pick it up without too much trouble (although I have read posts from people who just don't 'get it'). I've also read posts from people who complain that the book is too long, and spends too much time explaining things... ::Sigh:: SotC or FATE 3.0 make a great 'first taste' of the indie experience for trad gamers. (Remember, the first hit is always free... :) )

Full Light, Full Steam -- Excellent explanation of procedures, and well-explained examples to boot; but it does presume that the reader has an indie gaming background. Someone with only a set of traditional RPG experiences is going to have a tough time playing the game as it's meant to be played, and using Thematic Batteries to good effect.

Committee for the Exploration of Mysteries -- Thorough explanation of procedures, but it expects the reader to understand the indie mindset, and does not explain that at all.

Sons of Liberty -- Again, a thorough explanation of procedures, and it's a blast to play, but I don't think trad gamers would even recognize playing SoL as 'roleplaying' by their definitions. (I've introduced it to trad players and got that reaction -- and they've still had fun playing, which is cool.)

Shock 1.1 -- Mostly clear in terms of it's esoteric procedures, and a truly excellent design. And. like my assessment of SoL above, although for entirely different reasons, I don't think trad gamers would recognize it as an RPG at all.

Dirty Secrets -- Very clear, very concise, especially given it's 'peculiar' mechanics. :) There is some text devoted to explaining the mental positioning for play. I think Dirty Secrets could be used to teach indie-style play. Just follow the mechanical procedures as they are given, and the game will work.

Polaris -- Beautiful book, beautiful text, fairly clear procedural instructions; but unless you have played indie/Narrativist and GMless before, I suspect you will flounder.

Grey Ranks -- Complete and thorough explanation of procedures -- but again, a trad reader would be left thinking '???' and 'Is this a roleplaying game? Where are my guy's stats?' :)

In a Wicked Age -- Although people upthread have had difficulty understanding the text, I found it to be clear and concise with regard to procedures. It contains absolutely no text devoted to explaining the design intent, or explaining what I've been calling the 'indie mindset'. (That seems to have been a very conscious decision on Vincent's part.) But if you follow the steps in the rules, the game works. In contrast to the Art, Grace, & Guts playtest rules, which were difficult for me to figure out, IaWA is very clear. (IaWA gave me my most recent indie "Aha!" moment, regarding dynamic vs static situations.)


...Damn, I am a wordy bastard...

Summing up all my examples, then: I think that the trend in design lately has been to 'preach to the converted' i.e. write games for people who already play indie-style games, rather than writing games for the (slightly) broader 'general RPG' audience. This will tend to look like 'designing for other designers', but I don't think that's been any designer's conscious intent. (There I go, ascribing motives again...)

Here's a wild thought, and probably more controversial than I intend it to be: Play Unsafe is out there (though I haven't got it yet); what if someone wrote Story Gaming for Dummies or some such? A primer on how to play these sorts of games, with explanations and examples. Then we could all point readers to that book, the way D&D books point readers back to the Player's Handbook for basic explanations. :)

I'm kinda disappointed that my post got lost in the shuffle, so I'll ask it again.

What's wrong with a book that is extremely sketchy and bare bones in terms of its how to play text when its married to an internet presence that's extremely helpful and available to teach how to play.

Why isn't Brief Book + Online Support just as valid a publishing model as Extensive Book?
I mean aren't we really talking about personal preferences (and dare I say habitual comfort zones) here...not whether IaWA was a well produced book or a poorly produced book?

Having just come off a series of threads pounding the table on alternate routes for a designer to publish...I'm a little stunned at the pretty narrow (and pretty traditional) view of IaWA as a product.

Posted By: ValamirWhy isn't Brief Book + Online Support just as valid a publishing model as Extensive Book?

It might well be. However, I want the book to tell me it's doing that.

Valamir

I think the objections to IaWA have been made clear now. I don't think this thread should be a class between critics and supporters of IaWA. It should be a call for much more open and honest criticism. If a game has problem people should talk about those problem. Saying a game has problems doesn't mean it doesn't have great points too. It certainly doesn't mean you can't play and love it either. I think we have hit on IaWA enough here. If people want more in depth discussion about its specific problems and strengths they should start a thread for that. This topic is bigger than IaWA. We should focus on the topic and not just IaWA.

Now to answer your question, I don't think the book + online support is acceptable. For one thing I think it's just justification after the fact and not a conscious design decision. Many people who buy and play indie games are not active participants here or on other forums. They hear about games from a podcast or see them on a table at a con. They buy and play the games and we never hear a word from them. I know these people exist because I see them every time I go to a con. These people, along with everyone else, have the the right to expect to be able to play the game from the book alone. This is especially true if the book says "by Vincent Baker,"* because that alone is enough to make some people buy the book.

* Yes I broke my own rule, I'm sorry.

This post is probably a bad idea, but since when have I ever let that stop me?

I seem to have a talent for ambivalence or middle-of-the-road-ness or something. That is, I think that the fact that the games that Judson saw didn't thrill him is... quite normal. That is... we certainly don't expect that every person reading a RPG will be thrilled to death by the prospect of playing it, do we? I mean we only expect that a certain percentage of folks seeing a new game will ever even pick it up and look through it, much less play it. Right?

Now, the problem is that not one game thrilled Judson. While I'm fully willing to believe that this phenomenon might be caused by February, or some sort of indie gaming adolesence or something, I'm also willing to believe that these games just didn't turn Judson on.

For instance, while others seem to like Vincent's writing style for DitV, and claim it's a great game, I don't like the writing style one bit. Nor the premise, either. I appreciate it's design, and actually have fun playing it when folks ask me to do so, truth be told. That's a testiment to Vincent's abilities. But that's not saying that as a product his book is perfect for me. Far from it.

That might put me in a minority around here. And maybe Judson is in a minority by not liking any of the games that were on that table. But, you know, we're all individuals, and what one player finds good, another will not.


The question it raises is whether or not quality control is suffering. I haven't read IAWA, but is it really a lot worse than DitV? I can't imagine it will be for me. In fact from the description above, I imagine it might be better for me.

There is the perennial question of "target audience." Let's be clear here, all RPGs take this into consideration. Or, rather, what they all don't include are the 300 pages that one could include in every RPG on "What an RPG is, and how to play one well." They all - and I mean all here - assume that either people know how to play RPGs, or that they will just figure it out on their own.

To some extent. Some do have longer descriptions of what RPGs are, and how to play them well, but they all fall short of a comprehensive manual on this. That's because these are not "How to play RPG" books. They are "how to play this RPG" book.

It's similar to the target audience of a book on plumbing that is written for plumbers. It's not going to attach 300 pages on the pamphlet for how to repair X water-heater that runs 10 pages, that covers stuff the plumber learned in his apprenticeship. It'll assume he knows it, or will find it out somehow.

And, yes, some of these RPGs in question do assume an "indie-ready" audience, I think. I think that's non-problematic. As long as the goal wasn't to sell the game to the "mainstream" gamer.

Note that, interestingly this does not make these games any less accessible to the complete non-gamer. That is, the complete non-gamer is going to take a lot longer to figure out all of D&D, than they are to figure out how to play DitV. Period. The only "loss" in the assumptions that are made with some indie games in terms of the target market is that traditional gamers won't have quite the ease of entry into playing that they might have with another traditional RPG. Though their entry into indie a given indie RPG is still likelier easier than the non-gamer into either sort of RPG.

I think that this effect is an unavoidable side-effect of the innovations that make these games the innovative "indie" products that they are. So criticizing them for being this way seems to me to be kinda pointless.

"You've made this crazy new game, and you haven't explained it in a way that the traditional gamer will recognize!" Well no. Sorry. Not possible. Especially not without a lot of bad text that reads like, "Whereas in D&D you have Hit Points, in DitV you have Fallout..."


All of which is not to say that every game is created equal. Perhaps this latest batch that Judson viewed *is* objectively poorer than others. But that, too, is not enough data points to call a trend. Basically you expect that some consumers will be disappointed broadly some of the time. Even while others are beaming brightly about the same products.

Now, I could say to Vincent, "Dude, change your writing style to make it more like the textbook approach that I prefer!" But I don't think that Vincent is capable of that, nor do I think that he'd be well served by doing it... he'd probably be alienating more people than he'd be converting to his games. I have let Vincent know how I feel, just in case I'm wrong, and he can write that way well, and he decides that there are enough data points that it's a good idea to go that way. But I don't expect a change.

Mostly because what I'm pretty sure of is that Vincent is writing his games the best way he knows how. If you've ever met Vincent, you probably have left the encounter with the same impression I have of a powerful sense of his integrity to his work. Telling him to do better is tantamount to telling the leopard to change his spots.

Note, too, that "indie" has always meant a bit of a rough edge to products. Know what? Vincent is not a professional. I think that, somehow, that people equate the brilliance of some of the ideas that come out of the indie movement with a notion that these designers are as talented as real professional designers. I too joke about the "industry," but I'll posit that Malcolm Sheppard is more professional in his productions than most (or maybe all) "indie" designers.

That shouldn't be shocking, right? Doesn't "indie" connote that? The products we make are simply not going to have as much polish as those made by a group trying to act professionally. Oh, sure, Burning Empire wins awards for layout, but, then, Luke IS a layout professional. So no surprise there. Vincent is not a professional writer. Given that, I think he does astoundingly well.

It's like somebody has said, "Gee that punk band sounds a little rough." Well... isn't that part of punk? The DIY sensibility of democritization of the artform? That explicitly says that "more crappy stuff that allows for gems to rise is better than a few items selected by the pros?"

That's key to me. This indie movement will neccessarily have a ton of crap in it. A ton. That's part of the process. That means that, at times, you're not going to like anything new on the shelf.

I don't know about others, but I only purchase what I'm going to play. And there have been GenCon's where I've purchased zero games from indie designers. Does that mean that I think that they should not have been written and sold, just because they didn't turn me on? No, quite the opposite. I'm glad that they're turning somebody on. Or, if they aren't... if they sell zero... that's just the mechanism functioning as it should, winnowing out those entries that don't deserve to be played, which gives us a mimimum quality level check to go up against when we're publishing.

Because we do have some slight standards, even if they're not professional ones.

(Yes there are probably some RPGs that have not sold that somehow deserve to have, but that's a whole different point).


To quote on of my favorite quotes from the Who:
"This is no social crisis, it's just another tricky day for you."

This probably seems dismissive. Am I just hiding my head in the sand? Well, here's the other most salient fact about this. The only thing I can do as a designer is to do the best job that I can. Right? Do as much playtesting as is practicable. Get the text revised until it's as understandable as I'm capable of making it. Etc.

OK... got that message loud and clear. I'll do what I can. It'll never satisfy everyone, but, then, I only need it to satisfy a very few people to matter to me. So....

Mike

JD --

Whateverthefuck "Trad" means is: 'traditional RPG players' -- people who have played only D&D, White Wolf games, etc., traditional role-playing games going all the way back to Traveller, Empire of the Petal Throne and Gamma World: Games where there is a GM, who has ultimate authority, Rule 0 and all. Games where the player roles are a party of dissimilar characters, each fulfilling a protected niche, operating under maxims like 'don't split the party' and 'interparty conflict is a BAD THING(TM)'.

(All of which you already sussed, since you identified the type as people you had played PTA with. :) ) And I don't doubt that you were able to play successfully with a group like that -- because you were there to teach the rules and the mindset.

In my overly-long post above, I'm talking strictly about dropping the printed book (or pdf) on a group of people with no previous indie play experience, Forge or Story Games reading, and with no one to help them along. In other words, people just like the person I was a couple or three years ago. Color me pessimistic, but in such a sink-or-swim situation, I'm afraid that most of them will sink.

Granted, if they don't hang out at the Forge, or here, or at least on RPGnet, there is very little chance my example players will ever have heard of any of these games in the first place, so maybe my example situation is a bit extreme. But there are stores that stock indie titles, and some indie titles can be had through RPGnow, etc., so I think it's at least plausible.

Without access to and recourse to the Internet for Online Support, or a real live person to teach the game and it's story gaming techniques, most of the games I mentioned in my post would not be played as intended by their authors in such a situation. The ones that I believe are exceptions to that I noted.


Ralph -- (getting back on topic)

Brief Book + Online Support is fine for people who can get to the online support, or want to bother to get to it. It's what we essentially do now in many cases, and it works fine for us. But we're all here already. :) If one of the designer's goals for a game is to bring new players into the story gaming style of play, (and it need not be), then the Extensive Book model is IMO more effective -- or the Story Gaming for Dummies primer + Brief Book model that I suggested tongue-in-cheek.

I also agree with John that the fact that the game is built around Online Support should be clearly stated. When I buy a game, I like it to be 'complete in the box' even when there is no box. If it requires access to other things, I want that to be explicitly mentioned.

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DainXB

Posted By: DainXB(All of which you already sussed, since you identified the type as people you had played PTA with. :) ) And I don't doubt that you were able to play successfully with a group like that -- becauseyouwere there to teach the rulesand the mindset.

The hell I taught a mindset! I just said what was in the book! I don't have mindsets, or feelings, or anything like that! I am sui generis! And thank god!

So, sui generis, you came to the table, a tabula rasa, never having had any indie roleplaying game experience before, never having any roleplaying experience before of any kind, and read from the book, and played? Now that's cool!

That's a different situation from the one I proposed, where people with traditional experience were learning an indie game using only the book. Many people have noted that non-gamers pick up indie games quicker than gamers with traditional experience.

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DainXB

So I loved IAWA. Had no problem picking up the text, reading it, and playing 15 minutes later. Zoom.

So I wasn't a huge fan of Mortal Coil. It just never clicked for me, and seemed to be missing some situation creation stuff.

So we all know I love Dogs. Dogs is the best designed game on the market, IMNHO.

So I liked Full Light, Full Steam. Hell, I helped playtest and proof parts of it.

So, despite being all in line with Josh's political stance, I've no interest in Sons of Liberty. Maybe because I'm becoming Canadian and am, like the Clash, so bored with the USA?

So I love the way Nine Worlds looks and presents, but in play I don't actually like the game. Or just can't make it work. Or something.

So when I look at Contenders, Classroom Death Match, Monsters and Other Childish Things, Thousand Suns, and say... Cold City (looked it up on IPR) I don't feel anything at all.

Why? Because they aren't at a platonic standard for game making?

Nope.

Because they aren't for me.

And that is FUCKING AWESOME. (Or, to please the Brits, "rather nice.")

Like, years and years ago I was all like "you know what I hate about games -- they're all the same, all written for the same, all written by the same." Now days games aren't all the same, they aren't all written by the same -- and that means we won't like them all. We won't be excited by them all. It means we have actual fucking diversity, and that's what I've always been wanting.

So that's one part.

I think the other part is well summed up in Jonathan's jaded teenager comment. Or, maybe less with an edge -- when a lot of us first got into this we were fucking starving to death for good games. Now, we're well fed. When you aren't starving, its hard to get that same feeling of excitement at seeing food.