EDITORIAL: Innovation Versus the Merry-Go-Round of the Mind

I have heard rumblings and, dare I say, didacticism, from some that claim that RPG design from the many companies now publishing compatible material should not be about innovation, that it in some way instead equates to a moment which appears to them to be frozen in time.  I will say this in response to those who actually believe this and promote it as truth:  It is the MOST patently absurd idea I have ever heard.

If we had thought that way prior to D&D's publication, the MOST INNOVATIVE GAME in the history of games would have never been published.  That D&D set a standard to be overcome is a matter of historical fact.  The very day that people form companies and cease being amateurs by accepting money for their products they approach the realm of professionals.  There is no differentiating; one cannot slide this way or that by whim nor escape their separate truths while embracing either.  In rising above the amateur state one must embrace a professional acumen that is always being propelled to the forefront and through which you take a hard look at yourself, your philosophies and your ways and means.  If indeed much of what brands itself as emulating the past stands out and proclaims itself as new, then I say:  prove it.  Prove it like the fans turned amateurs turned professionals did to make something innovative, who strived to continue improving upon that innovation, and who continue to do so today.  Embrace professionalism and the future of imagination as the originators of the game did or stop accepting money and remain amateurs--it is not a two-way street of convenience.  It's earned, just as E. Gary Gygax and David Arneson earned it.

To true creators, innovators and those individuals with plans of making careers out of their writing and design like I have done, please follow this advice as a saviour-path to it: Flee!  Run as fast as you can from such abhorrent thoughts and suggestions that your creative paths are best suited to the past.  Separate yourselves from those who do not know or do not care and those who say they do even though in your heart you feel otherwise.  Upon the singular plain of your own creative spirit will you find the true expressions of your soul and mind and not in the endless circling caravan of regurgitated thought or upon a merry-go-round of the mind.  Divorce yourself from the group; for at that time you will have the complete freedom to express yourself; in that hour will come your best work; and in that serene moment you will arrive at your truth.

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"Being involved in the RPG industry as long as you have, surely you’ve collected bits of wisdom and knowledge along the way. Is there any advice you could give to budding game designers?

"RJK:  Seriously: Throw out everything you think you know, including the rules. Challenge established norms, redefine what imagination and creativity “really” are, ignore the jealous and the pundits (re: critics), push past the mundane and open up possibilities, don’t close them, no matter how absurd someone says you are, or how off base they say you appear to be. With that, follow the words of my oft-quoted author, Orson Scott Card: “How can we experience the literature of the strange if we stay in well mapped lands?”-- my advice from one of the many interviews I've given.

"If we all think alike, if we all become uniform and bland, we shrivel up and die, and the great process shudders to an end. Uniformity is death, in economics or in biology. Diversity within communication and cooperation is life. Everything your forebears, your ancestors, everything you have ever done, will have been for naught, if we ignore these basic bacterial lessons." Autopoiesis and the Grand Scheme, Greg Bear

"Most of the time I look at my work as an ocean of missed opportunities...My lack of talent & knowledge bedevils me no end... But I realized a long time ago that my art is a race I run alone..."  Michael Bair

From the Desk Top: The Pursuit of Good Game Design

Some Principles of Good Game Design

irbyz said here: "Indeed, but avoiding wholesale re/conjuration of one's campaign world on a regular basis or because of poor decisions in its development that cannot be easily papered over is still perhaps worthwhile being wary of?"

The above quote is yet another starting point of thought on designing games/game scenarios/and world-crafting.  The overall idea might be recast in this way:  what we adhere to can or will force us upon a path.

Embarking upon game design involves many choices and tough questions.  Of course we know that the end result must be fun for the player(s).  But beyond that, and more importantly as the front matter to this, designers must ask these questions:  Who?  What? Where? When? Why? and How? before, during and after the design has been prototyped. For published RPG adventures this tenant is most important as it points to areas where they are weak and in need of improvement.  Designers, unlike fans of their games, must stand aside and let critical intercourse take place in order to effectively achieve their creative ends.  If this is not apparent in the initial process, or worse, if the chosen model  is a worn one, then it will not push the boundaries of design but will merely imitate something, with varying results.  This raises the question which should be at the heart of every designer to begin with:  Why?  If the answer is less than the sum of the reason for providing a new idea which has worth in standing apart from other models, then more questions need to be asked to pinpoint their 'why'.  If this process is outright ignored then good design will be ignored; and if one cares not for good design then ultimately they do not care for those who they design the games for and they or their fans must therefore question their artistic morals and/or reasons for proposing or accepting such designs to begin with.

Basing designs on past models is a practical approach and is used in most game designs over the history of games. Let us assume that we have a design proposal for an underground adventure emulating EGG's "D" series.  In fact, let us further propose that the designer "loved" them and wishes to cast his or her design in the same light.  All fine and good, but what is the purpose of said emulation? Why must there be emulation?  Fiction writers and fine artists face the same questions.  I love Hemingway.  Picasso was the best.  Emulation is in itself a flattery; but as our past publishing history has shown, not many unique designs spring forth from strictly limiting creative efforts to wholesale emulation.  When basing one's designs on past models designers must in course properly identify the overall utility for doing so; and while atomizing these parts there may be, in the best cases, found a base of tools for them to work with in creating something unique. These are components, like structure, theme, narrative transitions, dialog, style, design weight, creative range, and so forth.

Short Example:  The Theme. The "Theme" is about an underground adventure. Thematically this has been done a thousand or more times in fiction and RPG.  What will set yours apart from the rest?  Nothing as good as defining if the model has been much overused from the onset:  look around, if you want a unique design, one that will actually challenge your artistic fiber rather than just add another coal to a fire which everyone is throwing said lumps upon, then don't do what others are doing, that simple.

This then begs several questions, such as, "Are the models which precede our own designs unworthy or broken?"  The answer to that is simply no and/or maybe.  What one designer brought to bear on a theme is of consequence in considering ultimate design goals but all of these components are just guides.  But if you find yourself a mere imitator, or worse, only a shadowy part thereof, then the emulation is not worthy in any case, for it takes what is a good example and exalts it with faint praise, while in turn lowering the design standard.  Take for example the imitators of Tolkien's LotR for a good comparison.

The next question is, "Then what am I to do as a designer if faced with insurmountable choices of models to draw upon?"  In answer, one can design their own models.  It is similar to asking what car manufacturers ask every year in their competition with each other.  How will we make a better car that is more attractive to consumers?  More mileage, sexier, more room, drop down seats.  In essence, "Features."  Does this make each separately branded car better? Or is each just another car as every manufacturer is doing the same thing? We are now in a very general area of concern that rarely perpetuates truly unique designs but instead more often roots them to a mocking principle. Specifically, designers must look at their designs to add non-competitive features to them.  That is, do not look at the models beyond the fact of initial realization.  I have a car.  I have an underground adventure.  By peering too long at the path of others' designs, one will eventually walk these paths for better or worse. And as with car manufacturers, more often a designer will then be but a "tweaker" of what already is and has been done, and this is not unique design.  By adding non-competitive features to your design, it will start to grow in uniqueness and sooner or later, through nursing that growth, you'll have something that stands apart from the rest.

Free Form Expression and Thinking as a Tool to Excellent Design.

Note here a recent exchange on this blog that became, and still is, a free form exercise allowed to define its own limits.  What started as a speculative post by Journalizer takes upon multi-dimensions of exchange.  In essence, it becomes free from constraints and expectations.  There is fun in this participation as there are no set limits of proportion or form.  In essence this is ART.  It is at the same time PLAY.  And overall it is a real example of possibilities when one does not confine themselves to a box but instead plays with ranges of expression.  All good designers do this, and more often they do this out of need to continue separating the thought process from the here and now, to stay in the abstract playground of creative expression so that anything can, and will, eventually happen.

As a designer one must ask many questions to promote the idea of an expressive design to successful completion.  What am I expressing here? And why?  How will I best achieve that? If your "base" answer to the second question is 'My Expression should be unique' then you have won the first battle against mediocrity, one which otherwise destroys any long-lasting success at design.  It then remains up to you, the creator, to find a unique ground on which to express and build your creation.  But remember this:  I can express myself by driving a BMW, but that does not make me unique as there are thousands of them out there (and as a car salesman friend of mine once added to this, "Yeah, and even then it doesn't much matter for expression if they are leased...").  Same for any type of design.  Just because everyone is driving them indeed makes them the SAME, and therein should be found the glorious contradiction which puzzles and challenges all those who wish to create anything which reaches beyond these predefined limits.

As I began this article, so will I end it, with a quote from a Scotsman, this one from a letter written by Robert Louis Stevenson:

BONALLIE TOWERS, BRANKSOME PARK, BOURNEMOUTH, HANTS, ENGLAND, FIRST WEEK IN NOVEMBER, I GUESS, 1884. 

MY DEAR LOW

"I am Philistine enough to prefer clean printer's type; indeed, I can form no idea of the verses thus transcribed by the incult and tottering hand of the draughtsman, nor gather any impression beyond one of weariness to the eyes.  Yet the other day, in the CENTURY, I saw it imputed as a crime to Vedder that he had not thus travestied Omar Khayyam.  We live in a rum age of music without airs, stories without incident, pictures without beauty, American wood engravings that should have been etchings, and dry-point etchings that ought to have been mezzo-tints.  I think of giving 'em literature without words; and I believe if you were to try invisible illustration, it would enjoy a considerable vogue.  So long as an artist is on his head, is painting with a flute, or writes with an etcher's needle, or conducts the orchestra with a meat-axe, all is well; and plaudits shower along with roses.  But any plain man who tries to follow the obtrusive canons of his art, is but a commonplace figure.  To hell with him is the motto, or at least not that; for he will have his reward, but he will never be thought a person of parts."