The Ronnies, September 2005

[Ron Edwards]

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

[Frank T]

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

[Jasper]

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/

[Lance D. Allen]

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.

[Ron Edwards]

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

[Lance D. Allen]

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.

[Yokiboy]

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

[Ben Lehman]

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

[Andy Kitkowski]

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

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

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

Thanks,
Ron

[Ron Edwards]

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

[Lance D. Allen]

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

[Gordon C. Landis]

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.

[J. Tuomas Harviainen]

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

[Frank T]

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