Half-Baked Games and Design Culture

[xenopulse]

Ron,

In the spirit of critical self-reflection, do you think that Sorcerer, with its long period of development, lives up to its potential straight out of the book for most people who bought it?

[Ron Edwards]

Christian,

Whatever Sorcerer is to the people who bought it, it's not because it's half-baked. If anyone thinks I picked their pocket, then it's because the book - what it is, as game or text - isn't what they wanted or isn't good in some fundamental way.

Sorcerer went through the ashcan process. If it's no good now, or not good ever, or not well-done, that's a feature of its real, up-front nature. It's due entirely to my own deficiencies, not to a failure of the process itself. I own what it is, I can't say, "oh whoops, forgot that bit, sorry, I wasn't thinking."

This is key. I'm not guaranteeing that anyone will produce the world-class spiff perfect game if they pay attention to this point I'm making in this thread. What I'm saying is that recognizing and valuing the ashcan step makes it more likely that you will put out the game that you want to, which then can be judged on its merits or lack of merits without missing pieces, broken pieces, or weird shit of that sort.

Best, Ron

P.S. Ben, you might be interested to know that Universalis was ages in appearing. Or, for that matter, so was Legends of Alyria. Waiting for a game is no big deal, except if one buys into the poisonous and wholly adolescent status-culture that seems to have sprung up over the last three years. ("What game did you publish?" "Oh, you don't have a game?" smug nod) That culture is a blight and needs to die.

[xenopulse]

Fair enough

[guildofblades]

>>Waiting for a game is no big deal, except if one buys into the poisonous and wholly adolescent status-culture that seems to have sprung up over the last three years. ("What game did you  publish?" "Oh, you don't have  a game?" smug nod) That culture is a blight and needs to die.<<

I agree. Its actually quite amazing that is has developed at all. In this age of desk top publishing software and POD printing technology absolutely anyone who cares to publish a game can do so. The simple fact that one is published does nothing to guarantee it will be a good game, a game designed as intended, fiscally successful, or any other measure of quality or success that can realistically be applied. I know a bunch of industry veterans that will be happy to tear down such self appointed designer snobs if anyone feels one becomes too obnoxious about it.

Ron, regarding ashcan versions of games. I don't really agree. A good design process and plenty of third party play testing can weed out most flaws in a design. I do agree with you that there is no better way to find everything thats wrong with a game than to "put it out there" and leave an open channel for consumer feedback. However, I see nothing wrong with publishing a first edition and then if a game develops enough of a following to justify it, come back later ad correct anything that turns up with a second edition or a first edition with minor corrections.

Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Publishing Group
http://www.guildofblades.com
http://www.1483online.com
http://www.thermopylae-online.com

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Ryan,

Good point. I know I'll need to present my outlook in several steps, and you're providing an opportunity to move forward to the next one.

Which is: everyone's process may be different. Some people, or perhaps nearly everyone some of the time, can rely mainly on fairly short-range testing and reflection. It worked for me with It Was a Mutual Decision, I think. It may have worked for Kevin with Primitive, although perhaps I'm just ignorant of his process and maybe it had an ashcan-like stage I don't know about. Sometimes the vision is so powerful, forcing one to sit up in bed in the middle of the night, or just stop still in the shower, dripping soap, that the road to "done!" is almost like demonic possession. When that happens, well, who's to stop you or say what you should do? More power to you if you think you can make it.

But I don't trust it very well, and the data across all these years is clearly indicating that an ashcan step is better.

Again! Not everyone's ashcan process is the same! The only requirement is that step I mentioned before, letting go of the game as a project for a little while, and perhaps enjoying and playing it for what it is. Then one comes back and then, entirely then, decides whether to move the thing into another level of production value and marketing, and if so, with what changes.

Before 2003, such a process was basically mandated by technology. We published spiral-bounds or pamphlets, in hard copy, and PDFs. The exact nature of the step isn't important. In fact, several ashcans I can think of were published as books because the author thought he or she was done, and it's only lucky that they didn't break the bank in doing so. Most of us were prevented from that risk on the basis of budget alone.

It was a fortuitous constraint! It produced the valuable attitude around the Forge community that publishing meant "make it available" in any form, in any economic model including free, and that the book version was an add-on option rather than a baseline expectation.

That's what's been lost. The book version as an add-on option rather than a baseline expectation. Much as I value Lulu's existence, its ease leads people astray. But it's not Lulu's fault; the fault lies with that vile culture I spoke of, the thing that makes Ben a higher-status dude than Jason, but then Jason published, so now they're both higher-status than Christian, et cetera. Even aside from the inherent shittiness of such interactions, the core attitude I just described is then lost, and if a person misses that core attitude, they miss out on what made Forge-ish games reliably usable and inspirational prior to the last couple of years.

To be clear: it doesn't matter what your ashcan step looks like or what format it's in (hard, electronic, whatever). It doesn't matter whether you monetize it, or how. It doesn't even matter if it's wholly public (Paul's so-called playtest My Life with Master was an ashcan, shared among about fifteen people, I think). It doesn't matter whether you remain the center of the process, or whether you really rely on the feedback or even direction of others. Your ashcan process is yours to manage, per person and per game. What matters is that it happens, with that key notion of stepping back, then coming to the thing as it stands and choosing to develop it, from what is now scratch, into a new form.

With the all-important point that for whatever reason, one might choose to say "no" and to keep it as is, and to move on. I wrote Trollbabe in early 2003, I think. It's a monetized ashcan. When I sell it at cons, it looks like one (photocopied, comb-bound, clear plastic cover. I've never pretended it was anything different. I fully realize it's a good enough design to be upgraded, and that it would require an artistic and organizational revision. So far, my answer has been "no." Why? Lots of reasons and none. To quote Napoleon D. I don't fffffeel like it. Control of this big No is a huge, huge thing.

Does any of that make sense, to anyone?

Best, Ron

[GreatWolf]

In his book On Writing, Stephen King talks about what he does after finishing a novel.  To wit, he puts it in a drawer for six weeks and doesn't look at it.  Then, after that time period, he comes back to it and reads it.  By that point, he is far enough removed from being the writer that he can actually read what he has written as a reader.  At that point, he begins poking at stuff that doesn't make sense.

This is the principle that I'm hearing from you, but applied to games.  Walk away from it for a bit, then come back and check it out.  Am I restating your point accurately?

[JSDiamond]

That culture is a blight and needs to die.

A few examples will be needed to convince the others.  I'll bring the rope.   

On ashcans, the point (I think) is this: Get the game finished.  The game is all there, finished and playable.  "Ashcan" less as a format and more as a punk state of mind; be it stapled, spiral bound, GBS, velo'd, tied with yarn, whatever.  Just finish the thing so it can be handed to someone else and played without any further maintenance.

Side note: It would be cool to recruit player-only members to the Forge, give 'em their own soap box and (unlike every other game site) ban all game designers/industry whatevers from posting in their forum.  They'd get all the free play-test games they want by just asking and the designers get a pool of people who only want to play their games.  And if they really want to talk to the creator, they'll look him or her up.  I suggest this because pure game players (those who have zero desire to write, design, illustrate or publish games) are possibly more committed to gaming than game designers.  Designers use phrases like "took up the last x amount years of my life" while players use phrases like "what time are we meeting up?"  Game players are every bit as "kewl" as any game designer.  Probably more so.  This hands off approach would also drive a much needed rusty railroad spike through the heart of the pseudo celebrity cult of published vs. unpublished, because the Forge players wouldn't give a shit about the wrapping paper and wouldn't expect to receive a hardcover book via email.  What they would expect is one complete game per request; no more and no less.     

Publishing is just a fancy word for making copies and then selling them.           

[JSDiamond]

In his book On Writing, Stephen King talks about what he does after finishing a novel.  To wit, he puts it in a drawer for six weeks and doesn't look at it.  Then, after that time period, he comes back to it and reads it.  By that point, he is far enough removed from being the writer that he can actually read what he has written as a reader.  At that point, he begins poking at stuff that doesn't make sense.

True.  Funny it's almost more difficult to walk away than to keep grinding to work on something.

Yeah, I'm naming names. I'm going to be doing that a lot soon, specifically in reference to actual play.

I'll start: My own magnum opus.  I picked it up last night and read it for the first time with only a faded ghost of familiarity, because I've been building custom motorcycles and freelancing illustration for the last three years.  I flipped through pages and read things at random and I realized what a brilliant fucker I am --at creating a complete setting.  What I suck at is system mechanics.

That was the path of my failure, rushing to get it into book form; to be validated as a "real" game.


     

[Valamir]

Yeah, Universalis didn't have a published distributed "Ashcan" the way Ashcan Front is envisioning.  I'm not sure how many people actually saw the early texts outside of Mike and myself, but it was a pretty small group.  Maybe half a dozen.

But it did go through the "sit-on-a-shelf" process several times.  A process that typically looked something like this.

"I'm getting really tired at trying to make this game work.  Oh look Civ III just came out...sweet"
...weeks go by...
"Hmm, I should pick up Uni again, people have been nudging me...holy crap...this is terrible..."
...fix fix fix...
"Hey Mike, look I fixed Uni again...its cool and shiny now"
...<Mike gives me the electronic raised eyebrow>
"Ohh...so THAT'S what you were talking about 6 weeks ago that didn't make any sense and I said wouldn't work...I basically just reinvented what you'd already told me."
...repeat...something like EIGHT times.


Basically there's such a thing as being too close to the project.  You spend so much time thinking about it that the way you've been thinking about it gets emblazoned on your brain, like wearing a trail across a lawn.  People give you good helpful feedback, but because your thoughts are stuck following the trail you can't see / grasp / understand / appreciate the feedback as much as you can once you've been away for a while. 

One pretty killer way to accomplish this forced removal is to get the game into a form that ready to be tackled by a broader audience.  Once its out there in other peoples hands...you can just let go.  There's nothing more to do for a while...you're forced to move on.  Move on and let the grass grow back.

[xenopulse]

And after it's been out there for a while, you do a revised version. Like Universalis, Primetime Adventures, Dust Devils, The Shadow of Yesterday, Conspiracy of Shadows, Burning Wheel... and Dungeons&Dragons, Vampire-Werewolf-etc., GURPS, Hero Wars, Das Schwarze Auge, ...

[iain]

I think this is a really interesting topic and is something I have been mulling over in my head for a while now.

It seem to me that there is a problem a lot of the time with hype being built up before a game comes up but not enough based on the actual realease. I would like to provide an example of my own like Ben has.

I went to Gencon US for the first time in 2004 and met lots of cool people, got my game ripped apart by Mr. Crane and Sorenson (they were great) and played lots of demos. I heard lots of good things about a lot of games and I bought several of them. One of them was 'Capes'. Now Capes was getting a lot of love and I had a demo based on that hype. The demo was fun, tony made it interesting, but I was none the wiser as to how the game worked.

I bought the book and read it on my way home. Still none the wiser. I lent it to a friend who is into games as much as I am and has a good head on his shoulders. He was none the wiser. I have since come to the following conclusion. 'Capes' is really poorly written. It forward refrences about 7 times per page and is impenetrable to anyone who hasn't played the game fully with Tony. There may be an awesome game under there but i really can't get to it and from others I have spoken to about the game I am not the only one.

Shock, I have not read, but it seems to have suffered from the same problems: lots of hype beforehand, when you actually get the game in your hands you are left thinking 'what?'.

If we as a community continue to hype things a lot before they come out, and don't base that hype off the finished product we are going to end up with punters buying product that is completely inferior when compared to the hype we have manufactured.

Cheers

Iain

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

Seth, you're pretty much on target, with the proviso that empirically, feedback on the game from others is especially powerful during that exact cool-down phase.

Jeff, I think we're agreeing pretty well, but I can see people struggling over the term "finished." The ashcan step is indeed finished in the specific sense that it has taken the creator(s) as far as they can go based on the initial inspiration, its immediate results, and its momentum. And it's crucial to understand that it can be in any format, and in fact, is probably better off not being a book (although in POD and Lulu-terms, that's maybe not a big deal). But any format, as long as it's available.

One's a publisher at that point, yes. Yes indeed. This isn't about competing with one another for book-prettiness. James V. West was an RPG publisher with less than 2000 words on an HTML page; it's called The Pool.

So the book/marketing, after that point, is gravy. That's the real concept, which I think is related to but distinct from (and more profound than) King's fairly pedestrian point.

Best, Ron

[Eero Tuovinen]

Hmm... I was thinking about writing in this thread yesterday. Decided to let it rest for a bit. Then I just now wrote a long post about unfinished designs. The main point of my post was the difficulty of really judging another person's satisfaction and success as a designer. As in, how does Ron or me or Ben know that publishing 90% completed games isn't actually a viable tact for a given publisher? After doing that, I read again what Ron wrote about publishing unfinished games, and I think I'll just save everybody the headache of slogging through my confused ramblings. It is pretty clear that in cases like Mortal Coil or Shock: excellence and ease of use is actually intented, so the generic question of whether publishing difficult books happens to be viable is rather besides the point.

The lesson being, kids: think before you post, like I do

However, I think I'll draw attention to a spot of analysis that helps explain the phenomenon under deliberation: the actual tools offered to the designer/publisher here at the Forge and by modern publishing technology in general are very much enforcing the phenomenon we're seeing here. In other words, the very process advocated by Ron and the Forge for years has clearly pointed towards the erosion of the publication threshold; thanks to modern technology and know-how spread at the Forge, it's very easy to get your game to print. That alone is a pretty vapid observation, but there's more: the viewpoint advocated at the Forge has never been just that it's easy to publish. The viewpoint has been that publishing should be done in a controlled manner and small steps, with no particular publication threshold for the finished product. The oft-cited publication history of Sorcerer with it's small ascending steps towards full-fledged book status (now conscisely termed "ashcan process") is a clear inspiration here; you don't so much publish a product, you sneak up to having already published.

There has also been the strong idea that actual play and design of roleplaying games should have close ties to each other. I see this message as the obvious ancestor to the current phenomenon: what we're seeing in Shock:, Mortal Coil and others is not, I think, simple crappy design. It's design directed towards the community. And that's pretty natural when you stop to consider how Forge advocates a low publication threshold combined with a tight relationship of actual play and design. These games are directed to other designers, and therefore they conform to different expectations of product quality!

Now, go back and read the first paragraph of my reply to Ben near the beginning of the thread: what I'm saying there is that I can't think of any particularly bad games being published during the last year or so. I did mention Shock:, but even then I didn't think that it was that bad, just somewhat vaguely phrased. Refreshingly so, in fact; I kinda appreciated how light and ethereal the book was when I read it and later on played the game. Definitely not my style of design and writing, but fun to read and easy to understand. The other examples Ron mentions I didn't even acknowledge, even when I have read and played some Mortal Coil and read carry.

OK, so why I wasn't seeing bad games, while Ron was? It's not just that I'm vapid while he's not, it's that I was judging these games as directed towards the Forge core and therefore me as the target audience. Shock:? Perfectly playable with my background. Mortal Coil? You can search the forums for my interpretation of how the game was supposed to be played from when I first read it. I didn't even stop to think of how to fit those parallel and perpendicular actions together, it was obvious to me after having played my share of The Mountain Witch.

Now, looking at these games like Ron is doing, as something that should be comprehensible for a general audience, I agree that they lack polish. Simultaneously, I can totally see the thought process that resulted in publishing these games anyway: Joshua is writing for me when he's explaining the rules of Shock:. It's rather easy to follow and fill in the gaps. I can totally imagine how he never even stopped to consider how narrow an audience he's actually assuming in his text. The text shows in all ways how it's directed towards another Forgeite and as a continuation of the internet discussions that have taken place during the years of development.

My point: ascribing this phenomenon of eponymous "half-baked games" to simple status hunt and short-sighted laziness is not the fair and complete truth about what's going on here. Rather, I'm pretty sure that a considerable part is played by the fact that the designers are, perhaps instinctively, expanding their everyday community discourse in the form of games. And why not? They communicate with each other constantly and can instruct each other in how to play the game. They are well-invested and competent to bridge the holes of the game themselves. From that viewpoint, a game like Shock: or Mortal Coil is completely functional, it does exactly what it's supposed to do.

--
All this, of course, doesn't mean that we shouldn't be schooled on the finer points of the ashcan process. Obviously it's an ashcan that a designer should create for the purpose of community communication, not a generally publicized publication. So carry on, Ron.

[signoftheserpent]

Shock as a game is the only science fiction RPG ever published.

Um, no.

This is as nonsensical a statement as ever I have heard. Come on!

[Balbinus]

...but I consider that more of a spot of sloppy editing than bad design; nothing that couldn't have been fixed by a good read-through, anyway.

As a consumer, I don't to be honest recognise this as a meaningful distinction.

I don't care whether the game I just bought can't be played as intended because of faulty mechanics, missing play examples, bad layout, egregious typos or because the designer unwisely chose to smear contact poison on every copy, the outcome is the same.

I buy a game, I read that game intending to play it with my group, having read it I am unsure of how to play it or alternatively I think I can play it but discover during play that it doesn't work as I thought. The reason why that happens is in a sense is irrelevant, I bought a game, it doesn't play as intended, sloppy editing is bad design.

[Note I'm talking here about sloppy editing, I am expressly not commenting on games which take a deliberately obscure or difficult presentation as part of the game concept.  There was a game recently which came in the form of loose notes, bits of stuff, a messy package in a rubber band.  That wasn't sloppy editing, it was authorial intent, very different animals those too.]

As a designer someone might think "hey, the editing is part of the presentation, but the game is sound". As a consumer, that's not a distinction I recognise.

Rather, I'm pretty sure that a considerable part is played by the fact that the designers are, perhaps instinctively, expanding their everyday community discourse in the form of games. And why not? They communicate with each other constantly and can instruct each other in how to play the game. They are well-invested and competent to bridge the holes of the game themselves. From that viewpoint, a game like Shock: or Mortal Coil is completely functional, it does exactly what it's supposed to do.

Both my FLGS in London stock these games and sell them as rpgs.  Some of them I have bought.  When I buy them, I buy them expecting a functional rpg that I can play and have fun with, and because I research before I buy I've rarely been disappointed with that.

But the idea that a game marketed to me and sold to me as a fun rpg is in fact a piece of directed conversation between members of a community I'm not especially part of, well, that does sound like picking my pocket.  That means the game advertising blurb is a lie, that although the art and text on the outside of the game is telling me I'm buying a functional rpg in fact that's not what it is at all.

If these games were sold by private sale only, one community member to another, or spread purely by word of mouth then I could see your point.  But they're not, for better or worse they are commercial releases that down my area get sold on the same shelves as any other rpg.  From that viewpoint, I can't speak to Mortal Coil but if I buy Shock and cannot using the book I have purchased play the game, that most distinctly is not functional and I will be most distinctly £12.99 the poorer with nothing to show for it.

Here's the blurb for Shock:

Science Fiction with Meaning

The glint of flexing steel skin and the challenges it brings to its owner. An alien language, whispered in a dream telling truths no one wants to know. Towers a thousand miles tall populated by coarse corporate overlords and surrounded by its impoverished workers. Explore the hopes and dreams you have for science and technology. Plumb the depths as they go awry and turn on their masters.

Shock: Social Science Fiction is a fiction game that gives you the tools to tell those stories, to build a world and people it with the characters that make it work the way you want it to.

Author Ben Lehman's original story Who Art in Heaven, taken from an actual game of Shock: is included with running rules explanation.

Grab that raygun and put it in the service of your ideas.

For 3 to 5 players. 

Now, does the game deliver on that blurb or does it not?  From what I'm seeing here, we're talking not, if I buy based on that blurb is it really ok that I bought something which wasn't as advertised because it was really targeted to other designers?  If it's targeted to other designers, it should say so on the cover so that not being one I don't waste my money on it.

Maybe designers should talk to consumers a little more, from where I'm sitting I think that although there are tangential issues in this thread I strongly disagree with the core point that people are releasing incomplete games for reasons of community status is spot on.  In the long run, that could really damage your whole movement, as people will buy stuff and be disappointed and may extrapolate that disappointment to other indie rpgs undeservedly.