Ronnies 2011, Round two results

[Ron Edwards]

This was a particularly difficult set of entries to judge. Games seemed to shift in and out of winning status in my mind as I reviewed them, and whenever I put a set of titles into a non-winning category, it seemed coherent at first but then they diverged from one another when I looked at them as a set. At one point I found myself assigning no Ronnies at all, and at another, I had as many as seven titles in the "maybe a Ronny" group. I had to get a night's sleep and then to look at them all over again.

Also, I must clarify that the categories below are not fully hierarchical, save for the Ronnies vs. everything else, and the almost-status of the Runners-Up. The three other groupings below should be thought of as equidistant.

Ronnies

The Secret Lives of Serial Killers, Deathbird Black, Moral Dawn, Anathema

I am disturbed that all three outstandingly morally-freaky designs were included among those which won awards. I also want to stress that none of the winners are mechanically flawless and indeed were outdone in this regard by a couple of titles which did not win Ronnies. I hope to clarify my choices about that in the feedback threads. What they do share, aside from meeting the terms requirement, is my judgment that this title is ready for playtest and the point of play ("the fun") is gorgeously clear.

Runners-Up - As usual, as a judging experience, the death of a thousand cuts. I sincerely hope I do not wake up tomorrow morning and cry out, "Oh my God, these are the real Ronnies and the ones above are the Runners-Up!" These titles fall into this category for profoundly different individual reasons, whether rules issues, vision issues, or a combination of the two. I know how to say it, all of a sudden: I was saying to myself, "This one wins a Ronny," and then some feature of the game/text stalled my perceived ability to playtest in its tracks.

They Became Flesh, Air Patrol, Haunted, The Cycle of Seasons

Gathering Needed - In the sense of "gathering together" a number of the many, many rules components of the games and then sifting out some of them from those which matter most. There's a kind of scattered effect for each of these, in such a way that certain core imagined concepts are being skimmed over in the cloud of almost-wildly interacting rules.

Memory Quest, The Volume of Secrets, Murder: A Game About Crows

Baking Needed - In the sense that the features of the game are largely in place, and either lack fleshing out to the point of being usable, or include stuff which doesn't fit, or lack a certain discernible point or purpose to play. All of which is to say, these games need work on their social rewards and reward mechanics.

Wings of Blood, Realization Dawning

Other - This is really two categories, one for each title. The entry manages to be "not an RPG" in a way which is not negative in the larger sense, but works against it for purposes of the Ronnies endeavor. I'll try to explain that in the feedback threads and also to provide useful help, as opposed to writing them off.

Uncle Louis, Murderwing

I'll get the feedback threads going as often and as steadily as I can. Gregor's already posted a playtesting thread of his own. Also, as one author showed us recently, you can post updated versions of your entry on the same page as your original entry at the 24-Hour site, which I encourage you to do.

Oh yes - and please don't abandon the games of the previous round. I would like to see more playtesting and discussion of those continue.

Best, Ron

[Elizabeth]

Woohoo!

I realized about an hour after time was up that I'd completely forgotten to make the character sheet I kept referencing in the text. I'll do that this weekend.

[whduryea]

I realized about an hour after time was up that I'd completely forgotten to make the character sheet I kept referencing in the text. I'll do that this weekend.

Please do. I'd really like to playtest They Became Flesh. It's my personal favorite--closely follow by The Secret Lives of Serial Killers--of this round.

[Devon Oratz]

Wow. I am genuinely floored. I think my thoughts were more along the lines of "wonder how much he'll hate my game" than "wonder if I'll win". Honestly, I was feeling like I came out ahead just by learning I was capable of making an RPG in 24 hours, something I never would have thought to attempt if not for this contest. So thanks, again.

: )

Looking forward to your (anyone's) feedback. In the mean time, I should really check out more of these entries.

[Paolo D.]

I'm definitely looking forward for Ron's feedback too, I really want to go on with my game's design. I'm already turning on the over to start "baking" it ;-)

AND, I really want to follow the other games development too, some of them seems to be very interesting :-)

[Gryffudd]

Definitely better than I thought mine would do, based on how much I still had left to do when I ran out of time. Can't wait to see the discussions on all of the games. Reading the ones from previous rounds definitely taught me a thing or two.

Pat

[Baxil]

Oh wow!  I'm honored.

Much credit for my award goes to Game Chef 2010.  Participating in that (with "Egregore") was a crucial foot in the door for the design process; reading and playtesting other competitors' games was amazingly broadening; the feedback on my game contained excellent advice and pointed me at some of the theory I was missing; and I was able to get my deep, dark, ponderous game out of my system, which allowed me to write comedy here.

And, of course, if the Ronnies didn't exist - or existed in a different form - I wouldn't have come up with Deathbird Black.  These design competitions have a cumulative effect, and their synergy is amazing. 

I look forward to the ways that my work here is going to shape both this game and my next.  And I look forward to seeing all of our games grow.    (I especially want to see what "Wings of Blood" turns into ... and I may have to follow Ron's tongue-in-cheek suggestion of running DbB and "Haunted" back-to-back.)