The Bleeding Edge

[pete_darby]

My guru-in-my-pocket, Keith Johnstone, has something to say about this, but he called it the avant-garde instead of the bleeding edge. Same thing though.

He reckoned that the folks identified as the avant garde were all very much concerend with getting works created that looked like what everyone thought the avant garde should look like...  in the case of theatre in the 70's, lying around in naked heaps, or reciting haiku while trying to stare the audience down.

Meanwhile, the real development and "cutting edge" was the folks trying to make relevant theatre that folks wanted to pay to see.

I've committed, in my only putative design submitted to the design forum, a game that's probably unplayable, but pretty damn cutting edge. Didn't develop it further, because other games did what that system wanted to do, but better.

Same problem faces games designers as theatre practitioners: invention is all great and good, but unless it makes a game better, WTF is it doing in the game, apart from giving the designer an ego-stroking?

As long as, as designers (which the gods know I'm not) we're commited to producing the best games we can, they will be by their very nature new and exciting and different, because I hope we're honest enough with ourselves to answer the question "Why would any potential player choose your game over brand X?" If Brand X is doing it better, I'd hope we can say so.

[Hunter Logan]

I admit it. I'm concerned about the tenor of this thread. Stop me if I'm wrong, because I really want to be wrong here. I see Ralph, Ken (Asrogoth), and Pete making a case that the Forge should somehow mostly advocate roleplaying games with commercial appeal, that games developed on  the Forge should contain some predetermined level of quality, and that designing games different from the norm is somehow less worthy than designing games that build on what has already been done. I'm disgusted by what I've read.

As I've already stated, the Forge has a mission. That's the mission Ron gave it within parameters he already defined. Frankly, I think Ron knew what he was doing when he wrote a definition of publication that includes free download from a website. I sincerely doubt commercial appeal was ever a primary consideration for his mission statement. Ron's a big fan of indie comics and underground entertainment. A lot of that is about expression of ideas that don't/can't/won't necessarily have a big commercial appeal. I'm not trying to speak for him, but it seems to me he wants to promote growth and expansion of roleplaying. He admits, he originally released Sorcerer with a hope that at least one person would have an interest. So, until he writes a new mission statement for the Forge, or comes here to tell me I'm full of shit and you folks have it right, all this talk about what the Forge should or should not advocate is specious at best. At worst, it's an unwarranted attempt to bully designers with different goals into conforming to a tired, mannered, and unoriginal norm.

I must ask, what is this quality? How do you determine which games have it and which games don't? Whatever it is, don;t we invariably support it with our posted opinions, advice, and comments? What is it that makes a game better? And better than what? And what makes you so sure a so-called bleeding edge design will lack quality? If you haven't even seen the game yet, isn't it a little early to pass judgment?

Pete, you're going to be sore at me now, because I looked at your game. http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=7382&highlight=>Here's the thread. Looks to me like you were off to a good start. I think Mike Holmes can be trusted as a pretty good judge of system ideas, and he said,

Wow, that's very rigorous. I like it a lot.

That sounds like solid support, so what's the real problem? Who did it better than you? What did that person do? What would you do different? Maybe you're right. Maybe your idea is unplayable and other people have already done it better; but in light of the actual thread, I'm not convinced.

Anyway, I don't think the Forge needs a policy of what to support. People do that on their own. The less certain designers who show up with half-baked ideas seem to get more help because they need more help. That's appropriate. The people doing more mainstream work get more attention because more people understand the work. That makes sense, too. The people working off the beaten track, people like me and my Cash System, we get attention. We may not get as much attention, but it's from kindred spirits, which is what we're looking for to begin with. So, it seems to me, everything  is working the way it's supposed to. Again, what is the real issue? Is there an issue, or are we just talking in circles?

I hope I have not broken the standards for etiquette. If so, I apologize.

[Ron Edwards]

Hiya,

Unsurprisingly, I agree with you, Hunter, about the actual issue - there is no "what the Forge should support," only the support itself if the game is creator-owned.

On the other hand, I suppose there's no particular harm in airing one another's personal ideologies, as long as it's clear that it's a "Gonna speak my mind" thread rather than a "Set policy and resolve a confusion" thread.

The usual call applies for mutual understanding and working out an issue in a discourse-y fashion.

Best,
Ron

[Valamir]

No Hunter, somewhere along the line the context for my comments has gotten lost.

My initial remark back in earlier threads was in response to a comment of Jonathan's where he was chiding the Forge designers for not knocking his socks off with innovation.  He was remarking that the Forge was no longer far enough out on the cutting edge.

My response to that was that it is not the Forge's goal to be cutting edge.  Our goal is to publish indie-rpgs that are as good as we can make them.  Whether those rpgs are cutting edge or not is completely incidental and completely up to the individual designer.

My remarks were directed solely at the idea that somehow if our designs are not cutting edge enough (i.e. we spent too much effort mucking around with old boring Fortune in the Middle) that we were not fulfilling our potential.

How in the world this gets mutated into "designing games different from the norm is somehow less worthy than designing games that build on what has already been done" is quite beyond me.


Honestly, I have absolutely no idea how you arrived at your last post from anything that has been said.

[Jonathan Walton]

Ralph, I think we got here from someone implying that "we should write games that lots of people want to play."  It's a question of how to measure quality, really.  Surely you can have great games that appeal to tons of people partially because they're so good.  But you can also have games that are targetted at very small audiences that are equally good.  The audience for such games is just much smaller.

[Asrogoth]

Wow...

Hunter, what a response!  I was quite surprised that somehow this thread has really gone off in a direction I had no intention of it going.  Talk about wonky.

First of all, I had no intention of stating Forge policy as to what games are supportable and what aren't.  All games presented here that qualify as indie should invariably be supported.  *** No brainer ***

I was attempting to take the idea of The Bleeding Edge mentioned in other posts and focus on how The Forge is NOT responsible to be on it, but that instead, it attempts to create "quality" within the games presented here -- and if anything that quality would in fact produce "Bleeding Edge" games.

Now, quality is a nebulous term in many cases -- beauty is in the eye of the beholder (or is that eye tyrant? ha).

So, in an effort to clarify what I mean by quality here is how I would define it -- the way I meant it for this post.

Taken from this link at Dictionary.com, I find I am attempting to use the definition found under Quality is under 3b "Degree or grade of excellence".

On the Forge, I see quality as radiating from the lucid discourses found on our forums through design (Indie Design), the various theories/approaches proposed (General RPG Theory Forum, Articles, GNS Theory Forum) and the practical usage of games (Actual Play).

I would hope that no one that tries to publish any game would WANT to publish anything that they deem of "low quality".

Now I don't expect everyone to have the same understanding of degrees of quality, but I assume that anyone wanting to actually make their works known to others would spend some time attempting to make their rpgs with some "degree of excellence."

Maybe I'm reading too much into the people at the Forge and the games these people have produced, but it appears that even when just presenting games intended to show certain mechanics, these designers desire to present them with some form of polish.

To end... I just noticed Valamir's (Ralph's???) cross-post which also deals with this idea.

The Forge is not responsible to determine the quality of anyone's games -- the Forge is a community.  But I think it is in keeping with that communal spirit that any games presented here be encouraged to seek some form of quality as their authors see fit.  And by no means should any games be favored over others because they are or are not "innovative".

And to further confuse you and attempt to re-establish my original idea... innovation isn't necessarily found in presenting something "new" but in presenting old ideas in a new way, usually noticed as "innovative" because of its somewhat higher degree of excellence.

I hope I've clarified myself.

[Valamir]

See there are two different issues that are being confounded here.

One is what a designer could do, and the other is what is the mission of the Forge.

As a designer you can do anything you want.  Be as bleeding edge as you want.  Design the most exotic, non traditional, "gamers" wouldn't recognize it as even being an RPG game that you want.

I not only accept that, I endorse it, and eagerly look forward to seeing what comes out of these efforts.


But you implied, no...pretty much stated, that the Forge isn't doing enough to encourage more of that.  My point is that it isn't the mission of the Forge to focus exclusively on bleeding edge, exotic, non-traditional games.  It isn't necessary for the Forge to encourage more of that.  That isn't what we're here for.  

It grates me a little that somehow that point is being construed as being anti innovation.

[Asrogoth]

I suggest that The Forge, while not ignoring "new" ideas, must pursue quality within our RPG theory and design in order to affect the RPG community and present it with the "next big thing".

Ralph,

Is this the statement you're using for my stating what the Forge policy should be?

If so, I want to clarify my statement.  Forge policy is to encourage indie publishing.  

My mistake was assigning the term "the next big thing."  That term implies a mass appeal product.  What I meant by my post was a game that is of such quality (also implying a commensurate amount of innovation) that it is seen by the RPG community as a great work which will affectionately be emulated and appreciated (not so much by the like of WotC, WW, etc) but by the thousands of players and designers out there that care.

Furthermore, I think it is implicit in the very nature of the Forge that we are seeking some sort of quality within our gaming experiences.  The Creative Agenda is a model which can be used to benefit our quality of play and design.  Likewise, in encouraging design and production, aren't we looking to provide the designers with some form of "quality control" (granted only that which is sought by the author.)

Please let me know if I'm completely lost and idiotic, but it seems to me that the argument is against being "anti-indie" when that was never my intent.

I simply thought that we needed to examine what it means to be The Bleeding Edge, if we're "there", if we want to be "there" -- as a community, and if we want to encourage being "there", how we would go about doing it.

Peace.

[Hunter Logan]

Hi all,

Yes, these responses make sense. Thank you. If I've misread intended meanings, I'll accept responsibility for that. I think we're on the same page now. I don't think I stated the Forge should focus exclusively on anything. If I did, that's certainly not what I intended.

For the record, I'm here to share whatever developments I make in roleplaying design, to share thoughts about roleplaying, and to help expand roleplaying beyond traditional, dice-based games that rely on systems primarily designed to "simulate the objectivity of a real world," as Jonathan Dobson puts it in his article, http://www.geocities.com/roleplay_theorist/Elements.htm>"Pursuing the Element." I think there is a profound disconnect between what some (maybe many) players really want out of roleplaying and what dice-based (really, fortune- and fortune/karma-based) rpgs can provide. Certainly, that disconnect applies to me. I don't think that makes me particularly cutting-edge, but that's where I'm coming from. Hope that helps.

Edit to add the following: Thanks to Ron for his statement. I think that really helps to frame the discussion and put things in perspective.

[pete_darby]

You know, I did phrase myself badly... okay, to quote the Blodhound gang, like scrotum, here it is in a nutsack:

I dislike novelty in games design for the sake of novelty, but not as much as I dislike convention for the sake of convention. I believe that pursuing either as a goal of design (ANY design) is the way to shitty design.

And, since you asked, I thought PtA did what I was trying to do, but with a wider range of application. Looking back, that system could be resurrected as a more focused game...

I wasn't talking about popularity when I said "compare to brand x", but lack of that comparison leads to, amongst other thing, ye olde fantasy heartbreaker. Brand X can be any other game you care to name, not even commercially succesful ones: it's questioning whether your game would be played by anyone in preference to any other game, given the choice. It's actually not that hard a test to pass, given the value of "anyone" in the equation, it just asks you to justify the existence of the game, and the effort of making it. It's not a commercial question at all, though I'd see where you'd get that impression from my previous post.

Anyway, that's turned into a "what I meant..." post without much substance, and we're all looking like we're saying "The Forge should promote the design of good games," as if we'd want to do anything else...

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Pete's nailed it. In the interest of everyone hugging and being done, let's call this one closed.

Best,
Ron