William Duryea's Danse Macabre is a jeepform. William, I dunno if you know what that is, but ... um, you don't have to, because you wrote one. If you're interested in this definitional detour, see Vi åker jeep. Oh, and if you get the chance, check out James Brown's game Death's Door.

So, detour over, it's time to talk about the game. But where do I start with something that's ready to go? I guess the biggest surprise is that someone hasn't done this already considering how well all the parts fit together.

Major suggestions
1. Your discussion of prep is wholly individualized, meaning what each person does with the information he or she has received. How much table-talk, loosely defined, do you see occurring during this phase? Can people talk about their characters prior to play? Compare them? Bounce ideas off one another for purposes of finalizing? Or should character creation remain private until play begins, so that people

The same question applies as well to play itself. How should people talk to one another? Is there any room for speaking to one another about what's going on, in addition to playing one's role? Can one express, for instance, appreciation of a really good contribution made by someone else? I really like the kind of non-naturalistic mosh-pit approach you've described, in which we are not really talking about depicting scenes in a stagey sense. But given this choice, these instructions about during-play talk become important, because there really is no basis to know or to decide in the absence of instruction.

2. I suggest that consensus ideals or no consensus ideals, the person who has brought the game to the rest of the people is going to act as a kind of leader, or at least facilitator of the play process. It may be worth formally acknowledging this role, at least in terms of deciding, for instance, whether character creation is done. I'm thinking about a few people I know who are absolutely incapable of finishing character creation, particularly any process which requires individual creative input, until someone else in the group flatly tells them "choose" and they quit waffling around the options they're stuck in. And in any process where you pass around cards and stuff like that, someone is going to be the one to say "Now we do this," or it won't get done.

3. Setting is a big deal for this game, as I see it. It adds thematic weight that moves the story and insight beyond mere individual psychology. It strikes me that the text would benefit from a single solid setting example, including some source material, or what to read to get it. Then people could use the degree of information and the way it's presented as a model to come up with settings of their own.

Minor suggestions
1. What's all this hoo-ha about a King's power possibly being only "imagined"? Screw that. The nature of that power, and over what, could certainly vary all over the map, but the power's gotta be real or that person is no King. Um, in my opinion.

2. I think adding The Wife as another character rank would be awesome. And it's gender-neutral like the King depending on the details.

3. Considering how customizable each character rank is, I don't see that it's necessary for every one (of those available) to be represented, or that duplication would be a problem. Perhaps people should pick their character rank privately from a list with items equalling the number of players, and let whatever duplication or omission comes up be whatever it is.

4. If you're using ordinary playing cards, the Ace of Spades is death. I can't imagine why any other card would be pegged as such, or what the point of allowing using any other card would be.

Well, that's it. I wish I had more to say, but you're way ahead me for this sort of design on your own.

Best, Ron

Ron wrote:
William Duryea's Danse Macabre is a jeepform. William, I dunno if you know what that is, but ... um, you don't have to, because you wrote one. If you're interested in this definitional detour, see Vi åker jeep.

Ron wrote: How much table-talk, loosely defined, do you see occurring during this phase? Can people talk about their characters prior to play? Compare them? Bounce ideas off one another for purposes of finalizing? Or should character creation remain private until play begins, so that people

Ron wrote: The same question applies as well to play itself. How should people talk to one another? Is there any room for speaking to one another about what's going on, in addition to playing one's role? Can one express, for instance, appreciation of a really good contribution made by someone else?

Ron wrote: I really like the kind of non-naturalistic mosh-pit approach you've described, in which we are not really talking about depicting scenes in a stagey sense. But given this choice, these instructions about during-play talk become important, because there really is no basis to know or to decide in the absence of instruction.

Ron wrote: 2. I suggest that consensus ideals or no consensus ideals, the person who has brought the game to the rest of the people is going to act as a kind of leader, or at least facilitator of the play process. It may be worth formally acknowledging this role, at least in terms of deciding, for instance, whether character creation is done.

Ron wrote: 3. Setting is a big deal for this game, as I see it. It adds thematic weight that moves the story and insight beyond mere individual psychology. It strikes me that the text would benefit from a single solid setting example, including some source material, or what to read to get it.

Ron wrote: 1. What's all this hoo-ha about a King's power possibly being only "imagined"? Screw that. The nature of that power, and over what, could certainly vary all over the map, but the power's gotta be real or that person is no King. Um, in my opinion.

Ron wrote: 2. I think adding The Wife as another character rank would be awesome. And it's gender-neutral like the King depending on the details.

Ron wrote: 3. Considering how customizable each character rank is, I don't see that it's necessary for every one (of those available) to be represented, or that duplication would be a problem. Perhaps people should pick their character rank privately from a list with items equalling the number of players, and let whatever duplication or omission comes up be whatever it is.

Ron wrote: 4. If you're using ordinary playing cards, the Ace of Spades is death. I can't imagine why any other card would be pegged as such, or what the point of allowing using any other card would be.

So a player who was left holding the Death Card at the end of the second Life Scene would begin playing Death at the end of the third Life Scene and continue through the following Death Scene until the start of the fourth Life Scene when the next player will become Death. [italics added]

Holy shit, I totally borked one of my comments. I wanted to suggest that the temptations be chosen, and allow for overlap, rather than the social ranks. I'm glad you answered the way you did - shows I was on the right track.

One other thing: your writing is incredibly good. I really appreciate the care you took toward clarity, communication, editing, and everything about the text as prose.

And one more! Please utilize (or ignore) anything I've suggested as you see fit.

Best, Ron

I've been thinking over this game for a few days, and the question that has come to dominate my thoughts is this:

What now?

Do I attempt to polish this into something I can sell? Is there a market for this particular kind of RPG? Is there enough content in this game for it to be expanded into a manual? And so on.

What steps should I take to begin to answer these questions?

I've never really thought seriously about developing a game into a finished, marketable product before, so forgive me if these questions seem too simplistic or too general.

(Also, I'm not just asking Ron these questions. I'd like to hear from anyone who has any insight to offer.)

Well, rounding up people to play it should probably be your first bet. I have one game nearly ready to publish and just getting out there with it and playing it with people answered a lot of those questions for me. Having people be enthusiastic about it or say, "Holy shit you've gotta publish this" answers the "are there people who want to play this?" question.

So I think you should absolutely work on refining it and publishing it, and I think playtesting it is your first step.

Hi William,

I think the most successful publishing is embedded within designing, just as the most successful designing is embedded in play.

It is very reasonable to want one's publishing efforts to be satisfying and practical (for oneself, I mean), and there are a lot of questions and answers to help nail down how you might want to do it. But here, I want to reinforce Bret's point that it's not like selling just another soda brand, in which the physical design, distribution plan, production budget, and marketing scheme can all be figured out absolutely independently of whether the stuff is any good.*

Therefore the main advice I have is, "play the game, enjoy the game, adjust the game" with the primary point being to make something you think works in the way you enjoy it working. Then everything else I'm about to say in this post should be considered from within that process.

First, writing it isn't the same as designing it, nor the same as publishing it. Writing it is an entirely different task, with many pitfalls. The main ones are (i) seeking to placate or draw another audience beyond those who (like you) simply enjoy this kind of thing, or might if they knew about it, (ii) failing to explain how to do stuff that you personally do quite easily and intuitively, and (iii) getting too involved with on-line design discussions and identity politics.

Regarding the publishing itself, there are dozens of primary decisions. What is it, physically, as a product? What sales venue seems to be the best, especially relative to what sort of promotion you can genuinely provide? What sort of budget is available, designed as the amount that you could afford to lose entirely? But I think the most important one is, what does "success" mean to you for the project? That really helps nail down the answers to all the others, and other things like what scale of commerce you're operating in.

The good news is that there's no rush, and there's also a logical sequence to these decisions which means you don't have to write up a 10,000 word mission statement and detailed plan all the way to the end, at least not at the start. There are also tons of people who've done it and have lots of good advice on any given point.

I hope that helps or at least makes sense. Let me know.

Best, Ron

* As an aside: fuck you to all those B-schools out there. Just, fuck you.

Thanks Ron. Sorry it took me so long to reply to these suggestions. I've been digesting them.

From what you and Bret have said, it seems clear that my next step should be to find people interested in playtesting the game and get their feedback. I'll start a playtesting thread in Game Development and see if I can cultivate some interest.

Thanks.