White Wolf discussion (split)

[eyebeams]

Wow, what an exceptionally testy thread.

I gotta say, I really do love the WoD. As a setting, yeah, even with the early '90s goth-zeitgeist thing in play.

However, I really only love it as a setting. Honestly, whenever I've bought I WW product, I've truly wished I could magically eliminate all mechanical references from it, keeping just descriptive text and artwork. Don't feel bad Eyebeams: I feel that way about several other games as well ( Jorune comes to mind).

As for newbie accessibilty, I gotta tell ya, Universalis has it in spades. The only things more newbie friendly I've seen are two freebie kiddie-rpgs ( Shadows and The Nightime Animals Save the World). It would be nice to see companies, like WW that do have name recognition and market access actually experiment with more "rapid-deployment" game design.

I will most likely be picking up the nWoD materials. I'll likely be playing inthe setting with non/new gamers. But I'll probably be using Universalis as the engine...

k-Bob

Like I said, it's designed to require minimal math and on the fly calculation, but it's not really aimed at young kids. I will say, though, that I've found it exceptionally easy to teach to non-gamers so far -- moreso than the old game, by far.

[eyebeams]

And if you don't believe there's any prep outside of RPGs? well, there are a hundreds of HALO websites that disagree, and millions of inane conversations about HALO level design and tactics that supplement it.

But they don't need to do this to play HALO, correct?

To clarify, the issue is about necessary pre game prep.

I haven't found any prep besides chargen and maybe 1 page  of notes necessary in years. I think I've done more reading trying to learn to controls, customize them and crack campaign mode in HALO than any one of my players *ever* has playing an RPG.

Most RPG game prep is fanfic, tactics and generalized ego stroking. It's unnecessary too, but deeply ingrained in the hardcore. I'd say that the average campaign mode computer game that has anything more than straight FPS and the typical RPG are about even for prep. You can play HALO without reding the manual or making any attempt to learn the game, but you would suck and have no fun.

Drift is good. Drift is the way to be. Drift is, in fact, the ideal form of gaming, provided people do not intervene with their own agendas in bad faith.

Drifting is also a skill/series of skills, the learning of which can be aided by a book.

Unless it's something that must be learnt/developed in issolation to ensure the artisitc purity of the eventual drift? Or so the user doesn't follow the guideline like a robot? Is that what you meant?

[/quote]

It's acceptable to have a basic locus of play, but group dynamics can break that over time if folks want changes based on good-faith decisions and sentiments. The big mistake is to think of the game as a fucntion of the book rather than the group. The division of games into separate "campaigns" as a real distinction is probably the dumbest thing in gaming. Game groups out to serve themselves before the text. The text points out a way to do things, but the group shouldn't bother changing itself to support some game writer's idea of what to do unless it wants to challenge itself. It's like music. While a band may find it useful to imitate its influences and do faithful covers, for the most part, it works on collaborating on a distinct sound.

[John Kim]

Hmm.  Quite a bit of harsh talk on both sides.  

First of all, Malcolm -- I agree with most of your points.  However, I'm not so sure about your last one...

7) However, if you want to get right down to it, my personal agenda is player driven, and I think extremely narrow games that try to shove the game author's creative agenda down the players' throats is horse hockey. I think Drift is the way God Himself intended us to play, and if you disagree with me fundamentally on this point, we are simply two solitudes.  

At least in principle, having a coherent Creative Agenda doesn't make a game particularly narrow.  i.e. There is in principle an enormous range within each Creative Agenda to shift the game.  The term "drift" is jargon specifically for changing between CA's, not for any personalization of the game.  For example, Ron cites GURPS as a coherently Simulationist game, but there isn't IMO any shoving from the author in that case nor is it particularly narrow.  

Now, I have lots of disagreements with GNS -- but on this point I don't think you're accurately representing it.  

To Ron:

Anyway, back to White Wolf. Its four-game, supplement-heavy treadmill tactic failed in the mid-90s. People are gonna argue with me about that, but you'll have to get over it. It failed. The goth thing was over, and the company's initial success based on becoming gear for goths was past its sell-date. The company faced financial crisis.

The company survived, in my view, by switching away from the supplement-support of those four games and into the scorched-earth approach, by regularly releasing new games. By new games, I include highly-colored revisions of old ones, new settings for them, and so on. (I hesitate to speculate on whether and how shifts of power and ownership within White Wolf itself, at this exact time, are related to this shift in policy. None of the insider accounts are especially pretty, but all of them seem so jaundiced that I have no idea where to assign credibility.) This takes us through Trinity, Aberrant, Adventure!, Hunter, etc, etc. Arguably Dark Ages and Kindred of the East count too, earlier.  

Can you give examples of big-company games which do not fall into these two categories?  Because this seems like a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't situation.  If they keep coming out with new stuff for a game, then they're engaging in the "supplement treadmill".  If they instead don't keep coming out with new stuff for a game but instead move on, then they're engaging in "scorched earth".  

Now, I don't follow White Wolf releases much.  I am perfectly willing to believe that they behave in stupid, short-sighted ways.  But I don't see even in principle what distinguishes "scorched earth" from other games.  

I think it would be helpful to talk about what is positive: i.e. do what you consider good company practice to be, and what would be your advice to White Wolf on how to publish?  i.e. What's your alternative?  Shutting down the business and instead selling a few dozen PDFs over the internet on nights after their day job?  I don't think that's going to go over very well -- nor do I think it would be good for the hobby.

[contracycle]

Eyebeams wrote:

However, I will rise to the bait though, and say that, yeah, the WoD is more accessible than most indie games, because most indie games are designed to be played one particular way and thus, will be dead boring to anybody who doesn't want to play that way. I know that this observation is probably so pedestrian -- so mind-numbingly *normal* as to probably be rejected out of hand by more sophisticated appraoches, but new gamers aren't sophisticated theoreticians either, I've noticed.

No actually, its a difference of opinion.  The reasons you give are exactly the reasons I think such a game is bad for beginners.  Because they don't know what they want yet; they have not experienced play yet and have not tested their choices and preferences.  IMO, more focussed designs that go further to actually creating a particular experience are more valuable.

I will agree that WoD is quite attractive to newbies, but mostly for the art and colour rather than the game itself.

I haven't found any prep besides chargen and maybe 1 page of notes necessary in years. I think I've done more reading trying to learn to controls, customize them and crack campaign mode in HALO than any one of my players *ever* has playing an RPG.

That I just don't believe, unless you have the most extraordinarily lazy players on the planet.  There's a reason for the computing acronym RTFM, you know, and games are not exceptions to this rule, not by a long way.  A shoprt trawl on any games forum will reveal any number of players knee deep in the storyline asking basic control questions.

[Valamir]

However, I will rise to the bait though, and say that, yeah, the WoD is more accessible than most indie games, because most indie games are designed to be played one particular way and thus, will be dead boring to anybody who doesn't want to play that way. I know that this observation is probably so pedestrian -- so mind-numbingly *normal* as to probably be rejected out of hand by more sophisticated appraoches, but new gamers aren't sophisticated theoreticians either, I've noticed.

You mean "dead boring to YOU".  

Monopoly is meant to be played one way.  Risk is meant to be played one way.  Clue is meant to be played one way.  Chess is meant to be played one way.  Variants abound but the rules are all perfectly 100% clear about how the designers expect the game to be played.

Any one of those games is enormously more popular, played more frequently, owned by more people, and racks up more annual sales than D&D or WoD.

THAT is what a "normal" person thinks of as a game.  THAT is what the majority of "normal" people played when they were kids and now play with their kids.  The farther away from THAT a roleplaying game is, the less accessible its going to be to new gamers.

And no I don't mean "has a board and tokens that move with the roll of a die".  There is a lot of variety in the "normal" game market, but they all have a few common traits.  Players take turns.  Players generally get the same number of turns except when there is a clearly articulated special rule that applies.  There is a list of what a player can do on their turn that is short sweet and to the point.  There is an ultimate object that informs the player what the game is about so they know how what they're trying to accomplish when they take their turn.

The closer an RPG is to that paradigm, the more accessible it will be to new gamers because they won't have to relearn everything they already know about how to play a game.

The farther an RPG is from that paradigm (and WoD is about as far as any traditional RPG is) the more alien RPG play is.  The more that has to be learned about how to play.  


I've made that point several times now.

You've not addressed it.  Not even acknowledged it.



You've taken to venting alot recently Malcolm.  Taking pot shots at the theory.  Taking pot shots at Forge games.  Its pretty juvenile, and only serves to undermine the points you have that are worth listening to.

If you have a problem with the theory, take it to a thread and state them out clearly and articulately in a manner that demonstrates you actually understand what the theory is saying.  If you're just interested in being snide then you really aren't contributing anything valuable.

But here's a little tip.  Quite a bit about what you've said in this thread and others (once one strips away the venom, the irrational frothing, and the nonsense) is stuff few here would disagree with you on.  That you attribute to us nonsense positions so you can then rail about how narrow minded we are is vaguely amusing, somewhat frustrating, but mostly just a stupid waste of time.

Nobody has called Vampire players philistines.  Nobody has called White Wolf a horrible company.  Nobody here (beyond the normal range of human opinion) thinks the game is a stinking pile of shit with no redeemable qualities.

Why you feel the need to label us as WW haters so you can then play the victim is beyond me.  The game has flaws.  The publishing strategy has flaws.  From time to time we've pointed those out.  If you disagree, fine.  Disagree.  But yet again, another post by you full of nothing but opinion and ranting and NO evidence.  NO information.  NO anything other than your unsupported opinion and cheap shots.

I really don't understand that.  What is your motive behind the cheap shots?  

1) White Wolf does not work the way a lot of you think it does or, perhaps, wish it did for the sake of ideological justification.

Really?  Well, why don't you start by outlining how you think "alot of us" thinks it works.  I think you've created this imaginary straw man which you've labeled "what the Forge thinks about White Wolf" but which is largely a figment of your own imagination, and THAT'S what you're railing against.

So instead of ranting, why don't you identify specific statements that have been said regarding WW practices.  Quote or link to them, and then explain why you disagree with them.

7) However, if you want to get right down to it, my personal agenda is player driven, and I think extremely narrow games that try to shove the game author's creative agenda down the players' throats is horse hockey. I think Drift is the way God Himself intended us to play, and if you disagree with me fundamentally on this point, we are simply two solitudes.

Sooo, everything you've written here REALLY boils down to:  Malcolm doesn't like focused games.  

And further, that you have no interest in discussing them, or discussing your dislike of them.  You characterize focus as "shoving agenda down the player's throats"...which is rubbish, but don't let actual fact get in the way of your ranting, and you end up stating that you will never change your mind.

So why are you here?  You don't like Forge theory.  You don't like Forge games.  You don't like the imaginary caricature of WW that you ascribe to the Forge.  

Why are you here Malcolm?

If you aren't interested in open discussion where all sides present evidence for their opinion and enter into the discussion with the honest interest in learning something from the other...why should I spend any further time reading your posts or responding to them?

Alternately, you could come to a less silly conclusion, like the fact that I'm bound by contractual obligations. The fact is, though:

1) I have been as specific as I can be.

2) If I knew one thing to be true about the design agenda, I would not argue its opposite.

3) You see that I have said several times now that new gamers do matter to the company. I have not pointed out.

So you are left with believing I'm a liar, or not. Do you think I'm a liar?

First I cry bullshit on your "contractual obligations".  Its a convenient skirt to hide behind but no one has asked for any information that would require you to reveal any deep dark secrets.  In fact, above I asked you to simply find the places in the text of the actual book that demonstrate consideration for new gamers.  You must have a pretty bizarre contract if you aren't even allowed to do that.

You keep repeating this mantra "White Wolf is designed for new gamers" over and over.  Do you really expect me to take your word for it?  

I've asked you repeatedly what your definition of being accessible to new gamers is.  I've asked you for your criteria in judging what makes a game accessible to new gamers so I know if we're even talking about the same thing.  And I've asked you to then demonstrate how, in the actual text of the rule book, the game supports those criteria.  What is actually written in the book that achieves your defininition of accessible to new gamers?

You've done none of this.  You've made no effort to do any of it.  You just keep repeating your mantra.  Opinion in the absence of evidence is just noise.


Do I think you're a liar?

No.  I think you've just ranted yourself into a corner and can't figure out how to get back out without having to admitt you're talking out your hat.  

Answering my questions above would be a good way to start.

[Callan S.]

Mmmm, I think this thread is devolving into 'convince Malcolm'. Err, what benefit is there in that? Personally I found after a few instances and finally at the 'learning halo is about as difficult as RPG prep stage (after years of play)',  I'm just not gelling with him thought wise to get any benefit out of further discussion, for the moment.

Of course, just giving up and trying some other time can lead to 'you wont believe what happened at the forge today' stories, but hey, chins need to move.

So what are we aiming for? An idea of what newbie friendlyness in a game really is? Really you want a good bit of too and fro with other posters, but if it's not good too and fro but just fro, just try and pick out some other poster who'll mentally tustle the way that produces the sort of neat stuff the forge does. I mean, I'm sure some posters have given up on arguing with me in the past, and it's been for the best (but not for me, of course. But it did give me time to reflect on what I was saying).

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

This thread ultimately comes down to "Malcolm feels victimized." No one is going to get anywhere in that context.

Malcolm, if you can provide actual references for victimizing you and/or White Wolf, please do so in Site Discussion. I know you think you have with all your whining about corporate this-and-that, but this is the deep end of the pool - people are going to say things you don't agree with and you'll have to accept that as something to discuss, not as something to wave around as a sign of oppression.

So far, your points are feeble. ("Think of the children!!" Feh.) I strongly suggest that you start a Site Discussion thread which specifically focuses on the only reasonable point you've made: we should, at the Forge, as a community, consider whether we rely on empty and baseless concepts about White Wolf or similar publishers. I do think plenty of people need some educating about them.

I also think most of the other substantive topics here have become Publishing topics. I've answered John Kim's questions to me in What should White Wolf do? (I'm asked) over there, and I recommend that most of the other topics in the thread be brought there as well.

Best,
Ron

[ADGBoss]

Sorry, Malcolm. Just my harsh mellodrama. If there's any non-fictional villainy in white wolf, there are much bigger fish to fry.

-I rebuke all attacks on White Wolf. Blessings, innocence. All happy. They're my favourite art.- (Fight Pentex!)

Oh, there are reasons to object to the way the business end of the company affects the creative end. It's just that the way these things actually work is not exactly what people tend to claim.

Many of the things the company does are really very straightforward. For instance, I noted earlier that there are goals the ST chapter needs to meet that will, for the most part, never be a concern for folks who design games here. None of you need to assume you're dealing with people who have never played RPGs before, but White Wolf does.

The products the company puts out are much, much more driven by the creative end than most people assume. The default assumption here -- that creatives are just hand puppets for management and development -- is an interesting one considering the alleged value placed on creativity here. The diffference in development and management styles are also much, much more radical. Where one developer might do a line by line redline, another might leave two or three words. Sometimes the outline is king. Sometimes it's only a very loose suggestion.

But certainly, its operations are going to be different from vanity-press style operations. That doesn't change the fact that the company wants people to play the game. Play is sales. It's nice to pretend that people just read and shelve WW's books, but that prestense will, in most cases, be incorrect.

I don't regret working for them, but there are drawbacks, and I'm looking forward to doing my own work as well.

Malcolm thank you for some of the effort and information you have passed on. I know you may have read my rather scathing first impression of the new WOD rulebook and although I stand by my impressions (they have not really gotten any better with more reading) I want you to know the things I say are not personal to you or anyone who worked on them other then I guess any artist will take mean spirited criticism as a personal attack. I tell it like I see it and make no apologies for it.

So you have indeed READ the Story Teller Chapter? Honestly, and this is not meant to be offensive or belittle you but your quote above suggested to me that maybe you had not.  For a little background, I have been roleplaying since I was 8 (I am now 32) and have played or at least read the majority of WW games. (Yes, played them yummm more on that later). I have played many games, made a few (amatuer, non published ones) and one day hope to publish my own work. I have written material for campaigns before, been paid for it and done some for free. So if you would give me the benefit of the doubt that I might know what I am talking about when I say...

...That the new WOD2.0 ST chapter really tells you NOTHING about how to run a game, a campaign, or for that natter how to role play.  It goes on for about 11 pages of telling you what a story is, and what stories do and what stories are made of and stories and stories.  More stories and oh did I mention, Stories?  Nowhere does it mention how to handle peple, especially young Pokepunks who are switching from CCG's to WOD and want to know if they can be a vampiric Yugi-O.

So if I take what you say at face value, and I will for the sake of argument and the sake that we have never met, that WW intention was to help bring new people into hobby (which I will point out is a goal of many Indie designers too including myself) then I would say it was done very badly.  Now I will say that with the exposed breasts and guns and bloody women will likely bring in players and maybe some new players. People love Vampires and Werewolves and things like that and will buy the games simply on the merit of that alone.  So in THAT sense, I will say I have always applauded WW's chosen genre / style.  It is that implementation that I have a serious problem with.



Sean

[eyebeams]

This thread ultimately comes down to "Malcolm feels victimized." No one is going to get anywhere in that context.

Come now, Ron. Swooping in to make this pronouncement isn't astute observation. It's conversational dirty pool.

Malcolm, if you can provide actual references for victimizing you and/or White Wolf, please do so in Site Discussion. I know you think you have with all your whining about corporate this-and-that, but this is the deep end of the pool - people are going to say things you don't agree with and you'll have to accept that as something to discuss, not as something to wave around as a sign of oppression.

This is a straw man, Ron. I have repeated my points many times. None of them have to do with how you may feel about me.

One thing that *is* certainly worthy of Site Discussion, though, is how it looks to me like the ban on by-line replies allows for these kinds of loose slings and arrows, since repondents tend to feel fre to reformulate other people's statements at will, wheras the text references in a by-line normally prevent this.

So far, your points are feeble. ("Think of the children!!" Feh.) I strongly suggest that you start a Site Discussion thread which specifically focuses on the only reasonable point you've made: we should, at the Forge, as a community, consider whether we rely on empty and baseless concepts about White Wolf or similar publishers. I do think plenty of people need some educating about them.

Did I ever say, "Think of the children?" Or anything like it? I invite you to refer to something I have actually written. In fact, you'll not I've summarized my points in numbered form, Ron. Snd I will not feel offended *in the least* if you respond to them, on by one.

Here they are again:

What I'm saying is pretty simple:

1) White Wolf does not work the way a lot of you think it does or, perhaps, wish it did for the sake of ideological justification.

2) One of the aspects that may surprise you is that it designs its games to be played.

3) It is apparently even more surprising that these games have to be written to have broad appeal that encompasses new gamers.

4) By contrast, Indie games never have to mandatorily sell themselves to neophytes, ever.

5) Regardless of whether or not you find the system clunky, aesthetically revolting or somehow worthy of Redefined Capitalized Terms, people do play it. New gamers play it. Lots and lots.

6) None of the above is an indicator of the relative quality of anything (WW put out WoD: Gypsies for God's sake, and I have a special hatred for the book Destiny's Price -- please do not assume I have unqualified praise for the company), since that's the faction of an individual's agenda.

7) However, if you want to get right down to it, my personal agenda is player driven, and I think extremely narrow games that try to shove the game author's creative agenda down the players' throats is horse hockey. I think Drift is the way God Himself intended us to play, and if you disagree with me fundamentally on this point, we are simply two solitudes.

Because I have no bloody clue who you're talking about with this "Victimized," and "Think of the children" stuff. You're obviously capable of better discursive behavior than an ad hominem spiced with a straw man.

Before you started chopping the ur thread up, I made a simple observation: White Wolf needs to get its ideas across in an accessible fashion t novice gamers. It doesn't have the luxury of a series of highly theory-driven essays. I am *still* curious as to how "indie" folks would write to these requirements, but apparently the answer is that indie games will rely on their innate virtue to attract newbies. Or something.

I also think most of the other substantive topics here have become Publishing topics. I've answered John Kim's questions to me in What should White Wolf do? (I'm asked) over there, and I recommend that most of the other topics in the thread be brought there as well.

It's not about an indie company, is it? I mean, it may be to your advantage to move this topic to somewhere where the entire basis of discussion is policy-mandated to dislike the company, but again -- conversational dirty pool, IMO.

[eyebeams]

Ralph: I don't think responding you you at this time would be enlightening for either of us.

John: I'm not talking about GNS. I'm talking about the narrowly focused games that are currently trendy around here. I think a design needs a creative locus, but that play involves *knowing deviation* from it, as well as adherence. A robust system provides both options. This is rather sarcastically known in non-indie circles as the ability to "play it stupid."

Otherwise, I don't think a shared creative agenda is always necessary. You can run a game that fulfills to wildly different objectives of two different players, as long as you have the tools.

[Precious Villain]

I think this whole "Corporate" thing is hilarious.  White Wolf and WotC are tiny corporations.  They have exactly one office each.  Their staffs are probably under a hundred full time employees.  What kind of cars do their top  people drive?  I'd bet a dollar to a donut hole that nobody at White Wolf or WotC drives a Lexus, let alone a Mercedes or Porsche.

Look around you.  Virtually everything that you see was manufactured, transported and retailed by companies bigger than the entire RPG industry.  Every TV show you watch is made by people with vastly more funding, personnel and bureaucracy.  Just look at the credits.  "Friends" probably employees more people than WotC.  Come to think, "The Magic Johnson Show" probably did, too.

Face facts people.  White Wolf may be the second biggest fish in the pond,  but this is the smallest fucking pond in town.  Let's all extend our eyestalks (or whatever) above the waterline for a moment shall we?  If White Wolf's top people wanted to make money, they could get more of it (and more easily) managing a chain of convenience stores or fast food restaurants.  They'd have an easier time getting the business loans, too.

The *only* reason to make RPGs for a living is because you like gaming, you like gamers, and you want to create things for gamers.  It's too hard and the rewards are too small to do this for any other reason.  I'm betting that "corporate" as he is, Malcolm could make a lot more money doing something else and be working a lot less hard to boot.  And getting more props from his parents for having "a real job."

White Wolf and WotC are about as corporate as my left foot.  Maybe less so.  My left foot is usually wrapped in a Nike.  Calling yourself "indie" is great, but don't think that the "corporate" guy down the street represents some monolithic evil.  It's more of a minilith.

[John Kim]

John: I'm not talking about GNS. I'm talking about the narrowly focused games that are currently trendy around here. I think a design needs a creative locus, but that play involves *knowing deviation* from it, as well as adherence. A robust system provides both options. This is rather sarcastically known in non-indie circles as the ability to "play it stupid."

Otherwise, I don't think a shared creative agenda is always necessary. You can run a game that fulfills to wildly different objectives of two different players, as long as you have the tools.

I don't have an issue with that.  My point was just that the terms "incoherence" and "drift" around here are jargon terms for clashes between the three GNS modes.  So when you use them, you seem to be talking about GNS.  If you want to make a non-GNS-related point, you should try to use distinct terms or at least explicitly say that you don't mean the terms in their GNS sense.    

That said, I am sympathetic to what you say about robust systems and differing objectives.  For what its worth, my favorite systems (Buffy, Ars Magica, HERO) aren't particularly trendy around here.  I like having the system having been thoroughly playtested under a variety of conditions and with different creative locuses, i.e. a stable and well-tested base from which to stray (if I do want to stray).

[eyebeams]

I think this whole "Corporate" thing is hilarious.  White Wolf and WotC are tiny corporations.  They have exactly one office each.  Their staffs are probably under a hundred full time employees.  What kind of cars do their top  people drive?  I'd bet a dollar to a donut hole that nobody at White Wolf or WotC drives a Lexus, let alone a Mercedes or Porsche.

Look around you.  Virtually everything that you see was manufactured, transported and retailed by companies bigger than the entire RPG industry.  Every TV show you watch is made by people with vastly more funding, personnel and bureaucracy.  Just look at the credits.  "Friends" probably employees more people than WotC.  Come to think, "The Magic Johnson Show" probably did, too.

Face facts people.  White Wolf may be the second biggest fish in the pond,  but this is the smallest fucking pond in town.  Let's all extend our eyestalks (or whatever) above the waterline for a moment shall we?  If White Wolf's top people wanted to make money, they could get more of it (and more easily) managing a chain of convenience stores or fast food restaurants.  They'd have an easier time getting the business loans, too.

The *only* reason to make RPGs for a living is because you like gaming, you like gamers, and you want to create things for gamers.  It's too hard and the rewards are too small to do this for any other reason.  I'm betting that "corporate" as he is, Malcolm could make a lot more money doing something else and be working a lot less hard to boot.  And getting more props from his parents for having "a real job."

White Wolf and WotC are about as corporate as my left foot.  Maybe less so.  My left foot is usually wrapped in a Nike.  Calling yourself "indie" is great, but don't think that the "corporate" guy down the street represents some monolithic evil.  It's more of a minilith.

I wouldn't be so dismissive of the very real differences between top-5 game companies and others. There is a distinct way of doing things. However, what is often underestimated is that there are *several* distinct ways of doing things even among the top-5 to 10 category. I'm just not convinced that these differences are the ones other people talk about hereabouts.

[Precious Villain]

Could you enlighten us?  I don't have the perspective on how these things are done and they could be illustrative from a theoretical standpoint.

[Matt Wilson]

I think extremely narrow games that try to shove the game author's creative agenda down the players' throats is horse hockey.

Hey, I don't mean to pile on, but I have a question: which games do you consider to be trying to "shove the game author's creative agenda down the players' throats?" I've never gotten that impression from any of the games made by folks who frequent this site, but maybe I'm not understanding what you mean.

And, okay, one more thing. I strongly disagree about this one:

By contrast, Indie games never have to mandatorily sell themselves to neophytes, ever.

Can you explain why White Wolf has to do that but indie games don't? I mean, I think it's a pretty consistent business logic for any company to expand their market, but why isn't it just as sound for the indie games? From what I've seen, I'd say it's just as good, if not better, for indie designers to market to a "never roleplayed before" crowd. Why? Because indie games tend to be a big step in a new direction, and "seasoned" gamers are often enough either a) damn content with what they already have, or b) seriously resistant to change.* Whereas I can explain Universalis or Primetime Adventures or My Life with Master to my in-laws and they get it. How do I explain GURPS to someone who's never gamed?

*often it's (b) claiming to be (a), but that's another story.