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Hi everyone,

Here's the single thread for running commentary, questions & answers, and general schtuff about the September 2005 Ronnies. Check out Introducing a new contest (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=16624.0) for the rules.

So far? First day? Two submissions, one from the illustrious Jared Sorensen and one from the inimitable Ben Lehman. The question is not, who will vanquish whom, but rather, is either up to snuff? Do I want to play these gleaming, crystalline gems? The answer has twenty days to percolate.

That's right! Twenty more days of accepting submissions to the Ronnies. To recap the rules in clear & full form:

1. Write a 24-hour RPG according to the rules at their site (http://24hourrpg.com/) (and I'll talk more about those rules in just a moment). Submit it there through the usual and very clear process.

2. Once you've submitted it, let me know you've done so, using email, to sorcerer@sorcerer-rpg.com. Do not use PM or a post here at the Forge (I want all the documentation in one way, one format, one place).

3. After September 24th, I announce who gets Ronnies. Remember: one, some, all, or none of the contestants will get one.

Criteria are listed in the parent thread, but to repeat them here:

QuoteIt has to include exactly two, no more and no less, of the four terms I'll provide for each given time period.

"Include" means as a significant component of the game, not just a mention or an arbitrary label for an attribute. If you'd like, think in terms of my five components of Exploration (Character, Setting, Situation, System, and Color). Remember, two of the terms. Using more than two of them is not extra credit; it will make your game ineligible.

The time period that I designate is important. If you submit a game after the deadline for those terms, it's ineligible. I hope everyone understands that I am talking about real time and the dates of submission, not the in-game setting time period.

There are no other restrictions on the contest submissions aside from merely being a role-playing game.

I plan to keep this going for quite a while, in fact, as long as I can stand it. As soon as one time period is over and winners are decided, then I'll post a new time period and four new terms.

Criteria for winning are as follows.

1. It's not a pain in my ass to read. Conciseness is a virtue, and if you want to use colorful wordbrush, it'd better be good.

2. I want to play the game. This is utterly subjective on my part and depends as well on the vagaries and relationships among my fellow role-players in our groups.

3. I don't have to guess or extend the content of the game in order to play through and repeat "reward cycles" for it. In other words, it's not just a resolution system or a bunch of funny genre information.

Strong warning: do not try to ramp up the "innovative" dial in order to impress me. I am easily annoyed by this tactic and already have seen and playtested things you cannot spell, so don't try. Concentrate instead on clarity, playability, and the fruitful interactions among character creation, resolution, and reward.

Now for the important part of this post. I want to make a very strong statement about the 24-Hour RPG concept, which is obviously related to this contest.

The statement is: the nature, intent, and benefit of this concept is badly misunderstood by many people. They think it's a kind of Iron Man thing, that only the roughest and toughest, the best and the brightest, have a chance of succeeding at this teeth-gritting and mind-threatening challenge. This is utter bullshit. Just as with the 24-Hour Comic, the point is not how hard it is, but rather how easy. You don't have time to fuck around with pleasing anyone else, especially for this contest. Note my standards carefully; you cannot successfully guess at what I might like to play, so simply must please yourself. You don't have time to put in stuff that "should" be there according to conventional wisdom (which for RPGs is clearly conventional stupidity). It is possible to write an RPG you don't like over the course of several months or a year; it's practically impossible to do so in 24 hours.

The consequences of misinterpreting this crucial point are vast. People try to make it harder than it is. They re-cast the guidelines as brutal, impossible standards and then hold themselves to them. Here are the most common examples. Let me absolutely clear: All of the following is total bullshit.

"1. Inspiration must arrive during the 24 hours. The entire creative process must be encompassed in those 24 hours. Nothing can arise from any influences, thoughts, notions, or what-ifs that date before that time. You can't even get inspired, then start the clock, 'cause that's cheating too.
"2. You can't even friggin' ask anyone how to do something on your computer, for layout or format or whatever. No, you must lock yourself in a wretched garret and dine on Saltines alone, with only the gifts God gave you.
"3. The rules, setting, and so forth cannot have any antecedents whatsoever in your role-playing history. No! All original, all the time, total innovation, from the moment of inspiration in the 24 hours."

Lest someone misread this list as criteria, let me put it plainly again: All of the foregoing is total bullshit.
Frankly, I think this is a defensive, loser posture: "Oh, I won't cheat. I'm an artist of integrity. [and then, later] Oh, well, see, I couldn't find the time or concentration to do it to the most rigorous standards, and rather than cheat, I'll pass. I could have finished a fine little game, but I won't, because I'm so virtuous." It's an arrant and grotesque way to justify what a big wanker you are being.

Look, people, the point is to make games without having time to second-guess yourself and distract yourself by crusting on a bunch of pseudo-industry crap in lieu of making sure all the parts are there. This is an easy and fun way to make games. Let's say in the future that one of the four words I provide is, oh, beer. Wow! You say. I had an idea for a fun beer-ish role-playing game a while ago, but never did anything with it. Let's see, where's that notebook?

Is that cheating? No, it isn't. It really isn't. Now, if you'd written up a whole notebook worth of beer clans and aggravated beer damage, and just 'ported it from the notebook, that would be against the point. But using the contest to jump-start your original inspiration is totally by the rules at the site. If you've been interpreting the rules at the site in that bullshit way I listed above, you are missing the point.

A role-playing game needs some things in order to be playable. If you're interested in what they are, read my essays. If you want some standards for what ways these things might work, review your own play-history and experiences. If you're stuck on what it's about, just pick the two terms you like the most out of the four, and spin off how they relate. All the 24-Hour RPG experience is for is to get you into the groove of doing this stuff first, then putting any and all other stuff in there later.

One last thing. The 24-Hour RPG process produces alpha games. Alpha means that the game is present in all of its parts, but should now enter the cycle of playtest and revision. An alpha game is almost certainly going to be mis-written here and there, to have a couple contradictions or backwards pieces of its rules, and to have a couple things which probably need to get fully retooled later. I realize this. What you might not understand is that I want this.
Alpha games are the best way to understand role-playing as a procedural and imaginative process. They are the font of learning. They are the meat, on the one hand, of inspiration and innovation, and on the other, of imaginative fun. When you try them out, stuff works that you never expected, and stuff that doesn't hold up jumps right out at you.

Still seem inadequate or paltry to you? Oh, I see. So being in the company of (to name some alpha games I've played back-when) The Pool, My Life with Master, InSpectres, and Dust Devils is no good, according to you. Well, fuck that.

Recognize that I am looking for alpha games, and that writing a game in 24 hours is not supposed to provide me with the Sistine Chapel. It's supposed to provide with something that can be played, and which might work well as best you could figure, in that short amount of time.

Believe me, a playable game with bog-standard mechanics which merely (!) connect the two terms you've chosen in a neat way and which merely (!) offers a 50% hit rate on how well it hangs together is well worth a Ronny. Much more so than any sort of pervy oooh-impress-Ron halfwit attempt to demonstrate what a genius you are, or what an Iron Man you are. The 24-Hour RPG is there to help you design games, not to make it weird and hard. Do it right.

Best,
Ron

At the risk of asking one of those annoying questions..

Are we allowed to ask someone to take a look at it, give a few brief opinions? No specific helping, suggestions for mechanics or anything of the sort. I just want to know if I'm allowed to get a second opinion on whether or not it's sufficient to meet the criteria.

Hi Lance,

That's a good question. I am generally inclined to say that's OK, but then I changed my mind. I want to stress that you-as-author should simply take the bull by the horns, get some courage with your convictions, and just look at the thing and say, "Do I like it?" If so, then submit.

The criteria aren't all that hard to meet, I think. The definition of "RPG" is who-knows-what. The readability thing, well, I trust you to go over it once and that's probably enough. The will-Ron-play-it thing is totally not something you can tweak one way or another.

Remember, turning it into a really fine game is something to do later.

So, reluctantly, I'd prefer you kept it a one-guy's-eyes thing along the way.

Best,
Ron

Disturbing, but reasonably good news for everyone else, I suppose:

Andy Kitkowski has promised an additional $10 to whichever Ronny-winners chose "girlfriend" and "hatred."

With a worried sideways glance,
Ron

Yay!

So far:

1 "rat girlfriend" by Joe Prince
1 "suburb hatred" by Ben Lehman
1 "suburb rat" by Jared Sorensen
1 "rat hatred" by Manu Saxena

This is fantastic! I love reading this stuff. I am awash in role-playing niftiness.

The guys at the 24-Hour site are being pretty good about uploading the submissions, but just to keep me all pink with pleasure, feel free to email me a copy of your PDF with your notification email after you've submitted it to the site.

Best,
Ron

Hey Ron,

I'm a bit confused about the four terms.  I can't find them anywhere in your posts although I think I found them in Andy's.

Can I assume that they are: suburb hatred girlfriend rat?

Can I use any of the terms by their NOT number 1 meaning in the dictionary?

May the wind be always at your back,
-Empyrealmortal

Hi Eric,

The four terms are listed in the publishing thread; use the link in the top post of this thread. Yes, they are suburb, hatred, girlfriend, and rat.

Use two of them as central features of the game. You may not use the other two as such features.

No, you are not limited to any sort of specific definition of them. At all. Do not impose restrictions I have not imposed.

Best,
Ron

Hey Ron,

I reread both threads, and didn't see anything addressing this question one way or the other, so: could one person submit multiple entries in one time period? If so, is there any limitation to ingredient choice (as in, you have to choose a different combo for each one, or they would all have to use the same one, or whatever?)

Thanks muchly.

Good question, quick answer: one entry per person.

If you find yourself compelled to create multiple 24-hour games using the contest terms, then I suppose you can post them. The first one will be the contestant.

I should also tell you: pseudonyms are not permitted under any circumstances.

Best,
Ron

You guys are nuts! As of now, the end of day 3 (my time):

suburb hatred 1
suburb girlfriend 0
suburb rat 1
hatred girlfriend 2
hatred rat 2
girlfriend rat 3

I was thinking I'd have maybe, oh, ten games to look over by the end of the month. I recognize there'll be some initial spiking, but this? Yeesh.

Best,
Ron

Hey, it only takes twenty-four hours.  Not like it's a major commitment of time or energy.

Fun game design without any chance of it devolving into a chore?  Hell yeah.  I'll be gettin' 'round to it too (just as soon as pre-school starts... oh, blessed pre-school).

<yawning, trying to stop head from smashing into the keyboard> No, not much time and energy at all. But then again, I've been up until 1 in the morning for the past 4 and a half weeks, so I've got an excuse for being tired!

This would have to be one of the best exercises and opportunities for a novice such as myself, a chance to learn how to actually design a game without all the frippery that is traditionally (stupidly) associated with design time. Actually, to be perfectly frank, the main item that really got me into this exercise would be the fact that we have been promised feedback on the game from Ron.

That about sums it up for me. Still, it was kinda fun. And very educational.

Kirk

Heya,

Got a quick question.  If we play our own 24 hour RPG that we submitted for this contest, do you want us to hold off posting about it in Actual Play until you are finished judging?  I only ask b/c I don't want to run the risk of biasing your experience with the game in any way, unless you don't think that will matter.

Peace,

-Troy

H'm,

I'm not sure whether it will matter to my judging. But I do know that it's good design practice and to the benefit of the site in general. So go for it.

Best,
Ron

Quote from: TonyLB on September 06, 2005, 11:34:26 PMI'll be gettin' 'round to it too (just as soon as pre-school starts... oh, blessed pre-school).

Yeah, here's me in the same boat as Tony: "24 hour game? HA! Try 1 hour game." Damn unmarried kids with their childlessness pullin' design out of their butts thanks to lack of constant familial interruptions...{grumble, mutter, swear, grumble}

End of day four ...

suburb rat
Ratpack by Jared Sorensen

suburb girlfriend
(none)

suburb hatred
Want by Ben Lehman
All Growed Up by Steve Hickey

rat girlfriend
Munch-Mausen Tales by JJ Prince
One Can Have Her by Jonas Karlsson
The Rat-God's Girlfriend by Kirk Mitchell
Me and the Rat by Jasper McChesney
Cutthroat by Troy Costisick

rat hatred
Attack of the Giant Rats by Manu Saxena
Rats in the Walls by Lance Allen

girlfriend hatred
I Think My Girlfriend Hates Me by Sean Musgrave
Best Friends by Gregor Hutton
Sleepover by Brandon Parigo

There are a couple of glitches so far, in that Ben's game isn't at the site yet, and that someone seems to have misunderstood the rules and submitted it via the Yahoo discussion group (which I'm not counting; he has to submit it to the right place and email it to me).

But so far? All reviewed and many notes taken. It's fun!

Best,
Ron

I'm probably just too dumb. Where on the 24 hour rpg site can I see the entries? When I click on "Entries", there don't seem to be any "Ronny" games at all.

- Frank

They're not there. I'm not sure, but it seems like that list might only include the Grand Event entries, or just be updated infrequently. But you can see everything by going to their partner-site, 1km1kt: http://www.1km1kt.net/24hourrpg/

Quick question on these, Ron.. Are you going to be waiting until the end of the competition to start sending out feedback, or will you do that when you get it finished?

I'll admit to being a little anxious.. ReCoil was almost an attempt at a 24 hour game, and it was horribly broken when you tried to playtest it (only playable when I ran it because of the score of little assumptions that were never put in print) so I'm wondering if I managed to do better this time.

Not trying to hurry you or anything, I just would like to know the general timeline.

Ah.

My plan is to provide all the feedback after the contest period is over. I recognize that this is no fun - I actually wrote my own first 24-Hour RPG on September 1-2, and was literally obsessed with the need for feedback for several days. Fortunately, this feeling passes.

Today's the 9th, so that's 15 days from now! Geez Louise! I really don't want to give any public feedback at the moment, and Ronny-based feedback requires some comparison among all the contestants. I realize that seems weird, because they are technically not competing against one another, but the pack as a whole does provide a standards-baseline for some of my decisions.

I also recommend that you and the other authors not leave the games alone. Save the original PDF, of course, but then, go ahead and mark up your copies and make any edits and changes into new files. The original submission is best understood as the draft of an alpha, and as such, you have plenty of room to bake it some more. You don't need my feedback for that, at this stage.

That's another fallacy of the 24-Hour defeatist-think syndrome - that whatever you produce has to be finished, never to be refined in any major way.

Anyway, therefore, you don't need to be sitting there in pain waiting for my mighty words. It's your game, so continue to look it over, congratulate yourself on successfully doing the main thing (actually getting all of it, however, lumpy or crackly, into one place), and then work on it some more.

Best,
Ron

Heh, was planning on tweaking it up a bit. I've never seen a 24-Hour game or an Iron Game Chef game go to print without some revision, no matter how good it was originally. It's just that obsession you've talked about. I'll just go back to my other projects and channel it in there, and see how long I can stretch the productivity.

When I get the chance to playtest (probably not this Saturday, my normal gaming day; I game with Lxndr, and he's planning on doing up a submission himself sometime around Sunday, so I don't want to taint his inspiration with my own.) I'll definitely be considering some changes and additions, and I'll post my thoughts in Actual Play.

Thanks again, Ron.

Quote from: Frank T on September 09, 2005, 03:25:04 AM
I'm probably just too dumb. Where on the 24 hour rpg site can I see the entries? When I click on "Entries", there don't seem to be any "Ronny" games at all.

- Frank

Click on "RPG" and they're all there apart from Ben Lehman's "Want," which I can't find for my life.

TTFN,

Yoki

Quote from: Yokiboy on September 10, 2005, 02:04:02 PM

Quote from: Frank T on September 09, 2005, 03:25:04 AM
I'm probably just too dumb. Where on the 24 hour rpg site can I see the entries? When I click on "Entries", there don't seem to be any "Ronny" games at all.

- Frank

Click on "RPG" and they're all there apart from Ben Lehman's "Want," which I can't find for my life.

TTFN,

Yoki

I still haven't uploaded it, because I've been very busy prepping for my book tour.  Will try to get to it tomorrow.

yrs--
--Ben

Quote from: Frank T on September 09, 2005, 03:25:04 AM
I'm probably just too dumb. Where on the 24 hour rpg site can I see the entries? When I click on "Entries", there don't seem to be any "Ronny" games at all.

Sorry, s'my fault.  24 Hour RPGs (www.24hourrpg.com) is in dire need of a facelift.  And that facelift will be pretty much coupling with 1km1kt, taking off all links from 2004-2005 for games, and pointing everything to 1km1kt.net.

Yeah, you can find the newest entries to the contest WITHIN HOURS of submission over at 1km1kt.net, here's the direct link to the latest games list:

http://www.1km1kt.net/latest_games.php

And Ron, holy fuck but you've got a lot of work cut out for you, bro. The entries Just Do Not Stop.  I just got another 4 in the past 24 hours!

Good luck!

-Andy

Hi there,

If people would EMAIL ME THEIR SUBMISSIONS DIRECTLY as well, AS REQUESTED, then it would be lots easier.

Thanks,
Ron

Hiya,

Here's the tally near the end of Day Eight: 21 games!

suburb rat
Jared R. Sorensen, Ratpack
Seth ben-Ezra, The Great Rat Raid

Comments: seems like 'funny' is the key to this one, with a certain harsh optional tone. Nice that Jared isn't all alone any more.

suburb hatred
Ben Lehman, Want
Stephen Hickey, All Growed Up
Warren Merrifield, Secrets in Suburbia
Michael Mendoza, Suburban Hatred
Graham Walmsley, Get Out Get Away Get Wise Get Back Get Even
J. Tuomas Harviainen, Fink

Comments: Oh golly - who would have thought Desperate Housewives and River's Edge would finally have found their role-playing expressions through this contest? A very depressing bunch - the secret to success is finding the dark humor.

suburb girlfriend

Comments: Not one? We have people hating each other in the suburbs, and boyfriends and girlfriends hating each other, and girlfriends hating each other? No love in the suburbs without hate? Bum-mer.

rat hatred
Manu Saxena, Attack of the Giant Rats
Lance Allen, Rats in the Walls
Keith Senkowski, Untitled

Comments: Clearly the science fiction option, with a strong twist toward the 1970s.

rat girlfriend
Joe Prince, Munch-Mausen Tales
Jonas Karlsson, One Can Have Her
Jasper McChesney, Me and the the Rat
Kirk Mitchell, The Rat-God's Girlfriend
Troy Costisick, Cutthroat: Life on the Highway
Jason A. Petrasko, January's Frost

Comment: By far and away, the most fun combination. Lots of different interpretations of the word "rat." The girlfriends take on all kinds of roles.

girlfriend hatred
Sean Musgrave, I Think My Girlfriend Hates Me
Gregor Hutton, Best Friends
Brandon Parigo, SleepOver
Frank Tarcikowski, My Girlfriend's a Slut / My Boyfriend's a Dick

Comment: I was a little unprepared for the ... enthusiasm demonstrated by the games with this combination. I imagine you're finding them interesting, Andy. Yes, Virginia, there is 'misogyny.' But over what line, specifically, it actually lies, is a difficult question.

Best,
Ron

Fear not; Without discussing any ideas, it has been made clear to me that a suburb girlfriend is in the offing.

Quote from: Wolfen on September 12, 2005, 12:48:09 AM
Fear not; Without discussing any ideas, it has been made clear to me that a suburb girlfriend is in the offing.

I join the mini-stampede (ha!) to suburb/girlfriend - reading Breaking the Ice is provoking me to start my 24 hrs real soon now.  Not that Ron cares - nor should he - until the thing itself is in his inbox.

Quote from: Ron Edwards on September 11, 2005, 09:28:12 PM
suburb hatred
J. Tuomas Harviainen, Fink

Just to be precise: Fink's actually a Suburb, Rat game even though its themes do go very near to hatred at times.

-Jiituomas

Yeah, well, the enthusiasm. You got me there. And I wasn't exactly hiding it. It's probably plain to see how much of myself is in that entry. Hope it doesn't sound like some frustrated geek's whining. It was good, though, stirring up all that emotional garbage again. Kind of cleansing. A little arousing, too. I better shut up now.

- Frank

My thoroughly misogynistic/sexist RPG (hatred, girlfriend) called Black Widows has been submitted. Until it makes it to the 24 Hour RPG site, though, you can find it at:

http://www.anvilwerks.com/files/Black_Widows.pdf

Quote from: Clinton R. Nixon on September 12, 2005, 11:39:18 PM
My thoroughly misogynistic/sexist RPG...

I saw nothing wrong with it. I was, however, dissapointed that the skills were not Violence, Attraction, Gear, Intelligence, Ninjutsu and Acrobatics.

Quote from: Clinton R. Nixon on September 12, 2005, 11:39:18 PM
My thoroughly misogynistic/sexist RPG

I agree with Jared. Compared to many of the other entries, your work was kind, tender and sensitivity-trained. Objectifying, yes, but mainly in a semi-harmless Charlie's Angels kind of way.

-Jiituomas

There will be no discussion of whether a specific game is misogynist or sexist in this forum.

Best,
Ron

I have a bit of a problem I want to enter some thing before the end of the month and get some feedback, but the forum we were supposed to submit our work on is not showing up for me. If its possible could I submit my entry in another way, since at the end of the month I must return back to basic training for 9 weeks. Thank you for your time spent on the ronnies either way they have been a blast.
regards, Seth

Hi Seth,

There is no forum. Nobody ever said anything about a forum. :-)

• Go to http://24hourrpg.com/

• Click the Submit! button on the left.

• Follow the instructions.

If you still have problems submitting your game, why not contact Ron directly? If he can't help you, email your contribution to me and I'll post it for you.

Cheers,

Thank you very much, I apologize for the misunderstanding.
regards, Seth

Looks like things have slowed down just a bit.. Unless I missed my count, it looks like 26 games in.. 12 days. Still better than a 2:1 games:days ratio though.

Who's rooting for 40 games by day 20?

by the by, I'm going to be trying to playtest Rats in the Walls tomorrow. Things I'll be looking for especially are the rate of change in the traits; Except for Love and to some extent Hate (which has an entirely different method of lowering), I'm not really wanting to see a death spiral of traits. I'm also going to be paying especial attention to how narrations in a contest go. Many notes will be taken for the revisions to come.

Hiya,

So, six days to go. Let's clarify a thing or two about how it's going to end up.

1. Results will not be posted on the 24th, or probably not the next day. I've stayed on top of reviewing the submissions as they arrive, but a few last-minute entries are sure to show up. I'll need a bit of time.

2. It'll begin with announcing the winners, if any. I'll post threads about why you didn't win a Ronny over the course of a week or so afterwards.

3. The final submission time is 12:00 midnight before September 25th ... my time. Yes, Central Standard Time, U.S.A. Not your midnight. Mine. Look it up if you have to. Late submissions will not be considered for the award.

So! How's the tally look?

SUBURB RAT
Jared R. Sorensen, Ratpack
Seth ben-Ezra, The Great Rat Raid
J. Tuomas Harviainen, Fink
Nick Moffit, Sloat and Larkin

SUBURB HATRED (5)
Ben Lehman, Want
Stephen Hickey, All Growed Up
Warren Merrifield, Secrets in Suburbia
Michael Mendoza, Suburban Hatred
Graham Walmsley, Get Out Get Away Get Wise Get Back Get Even

SUBURB GIRLFRIEND (1)
Thomas E. Robertson, The Suburban Crucible

RAT HATRED (6)
Manu Saxena, Attack of the Giant Rats
Lance Allen, Rats in the Walls
Keith Senkowski, Untitled
Jacob X, Regis Furor
Eric Bahr, The World Class Rats Handbook
Przemysław Szkodziński, King Rat

RAT GIRLFRIEND (6)
Joe Prince, Munch-Mausen Tales
Jonas Karlsson, One Can Have Her
Jasper McChesney, Me and the the Rat
Kirk Mitchell, The Rat-God's Girlfriend
Troy Costisick, Cutthroat: Life on the Highway
Jason A. Petrasko, January's Frost

GIRLFRIEND HATRED (8!)
Sean Musgrave, I Think My Girlfriend Hates Me
Gregor Hutton, Best Friends
Brandon Parigo, SleepOver
Frank Tarcikowski, My Girlfriend's a Slut / My Boyfriend's a Dick
Clinton R. Nixon, Black Widows
Peter Nordstrand, Guilt and Frustration
Michael Walton, Alien Angels
Drew Hart-Shea, Vendetta

Makes 30 total, at the end of day 14. Six days left.

Best,
Ron

First up, I'm so excited about this!

The best part for me is that this is actually the first time I've finished a game I've designed...  and of course it's because I only had 24 hours to do it in, rather than in spite of...  The other two I'm working on get endlessly thought about and revised, but the lack of a deadline means I never get down to finishing.

Quote from: Ron Edwards on September 18, 2005, 10:44:09 PM
2. It'll begin with announcing the winners, if any. I'll post threads about why you didn't win a Ronny over the course of a week or so afterwards.

So the feedback is public..?  That had not occurred to me!

Not that I'm unhappy about it, I'd just assumed it would be in the form of an email or something.

I guess the good thing this way is we all learn from everyone's mistakes rather than just our own.

Drew

you can download mine here: Vendetta (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/amarill0/assets/Vendetta_by_Drew_Hart-Shea.pdf)

Heya,

Ron, are you going to make a separate forum for the Ronnies?  30 threads or so seems a lot for Adept Press or Indie Design.

Peace,

-Troy

Hello,

Separate forum? Probably not. I intend to demonstrate what the existing forums are for with these awards. We'll start with announcements here, then critique in Indie Design and Actual Play, and with any luck, Publishing.

And yes, the feedback is public. I realize that no one will believe this, but the award structure is essentially three-tiered, not pass/fail. Tier 1 is clearly those who get the award. Tier 3 is those whose submissions do not receive more than a few explanatory statements. Tier 2, the middle one, is the tricky one - those who do not get the award, but who do receive a fairly dedicated critique similar to Tier 1.

Remember, the award involves money and a long-term mentoring commitment from me (if you want it). It's a top-of-the-top award, not an "any good" award. My hope is that the authors whose submissions fall into Tier 2 still recognize that their work is valuable and may give rise to awesome games - they're just not quite baked enough, at this fire-and-inspiration stage, for the award.

Best,
Ron

Ron,

I'm a little bit confused about the three tiers.  Are they to signify how good you thought that the games were, or are they based on how much feedback you think they need based on how complex or whatever the game is?  I'm confused about both methods.

Method one has you giving feedback based upon the game's overall presentation.  Obviously a good game could have a really interesting concept that you'd want to encourage elaboration on or development?  If you were anyone else I'd refer you to Fantasy Heartbreakers.

I'd be confused about method two as well.  How can any game, because of its simplicity, warrant no more than a few explanatory statements?

Basically this: I know it's a LOT of work from you but I think that the primary motivation for this contest is your feedback.  I know that everyone who submitted a game also put a lot of hard work into it.  Just "a few explanatory statements" seems daunting.  I'm confident that everyone would be accepting of waiting a little bit longer if it meant getting a decent critique (or just some helpful criticism from you really).

Hopefully yours (and may the wind be always at your back),
-Pyron

Hi Eric,

You wrote,

QuoteAre they to signify how good you thought that the games were, or are they based on how much feedback you think they need based on how complex or whatever the game is?

Neither. You're creating problems that don't exist and getting anxious about them. None of the above has anything to do with how I'm judging the awards, because clearly what you mean by "good" is off-base. All this talk about "overall presentation," especially, is just a bunch of fear-fog.

You already have my criteria for the awards in the first post of this thread. Instead of providing an even more elaborate explanation of what I'm already about to do, I'm merely going to do it, and you can then judge whether you think I'm being fair or complete or whatever.

Anyway, weren't you supposed to be working on a game? The right answer is not to post a reply, but rather to submit your entry.

Best,
Ron

Ron,

That's a good stance to take.

May the wind be always at your back,
-Pyron

ok, I'm back. it's been a while, but I had a heck of a lot happen to keep me busy... I made a promise I wouldn't post to the Forge until I had written another game and playtested one of my previous ones. but I have still been lurking when I had the time, and noticed this 24-hour challenge, and decided to give it a try. this counts as "writing another game", and I have a playtest for Co9C I will write up a bit later.

I'm not sure if "Darling Grove" is available on the 24-Hour RPG site yet; it uses "suburb" and "girlfriend". I actually started another game called "Meet the Neighbors", using "suburb" and "hatred", but ran out of time; I kept making illustrations, fussing with formats, and thinking up alternative cases to the rules and didn't concentrate on writing down all the core play features. it's actually about 80-90% finished and I may polish it up a tiny bit and post it just for fun.

a friend suggested I should have written a "suburb/hatred" game about Robert Mosley destroying your neighborhood, and I considered it, even worked out a few basics, but it really didn't sound interesting.

now, to rest...

Heya,

Well the most important question is, Ron, did you enjoy the whole process?  What parts gave you the most/least amounts of joy?

Peace,

-Troy

I appreciate that question.

I greatly enjoyed the back-to-basics process of the contest, which is why I started it in the first place. The Forge simply needs more games, more playtesting, and more applications of ideas without getting wrapped up in ego-driven and confusion-mongering debate. These were games; I got to read them and in many cases, became excited about potentially playing them. The original Forge was dedicated to finding and helping nascent game authors, and I consider this contest to be getting back to those goals.

I also enjoyed the interplay of the chosen concepts across all the games, which is something I'd hoped for. As a pattern-finder, I liked seeing how the interpretations of, for instance, "girlfriend" varied and formed new combinations with the other terms. Since these "clusters" of ideas also fueled resolution and reward systems, I now have a bunch of games that make sense to me in terms of why to play them. It's like a great big birthday present from the community.

There are some downsides, which I think will always arise out of the whole concept of "winners" and so on. We'll see whether the upcoming discussions will be constructive. I'm not really looking forward to ego-clashes and resentments.

Best,
Ron