Underkoffler's Overviews: Xenolithik "CharGen Playtest"
This Overview is going to be another off-model one for a couple reasons:
1. Xenolithik is my own game-in-design-hell.
2. I'm talking about playtesting and workshopping more than the actual game here.
[ Underkoffler's Overviews Archive ]
Xenolithik "CharGen Playtest"
Written by Chad Underkoffler / chadu
Website: [ Not even on a bet. ]
Reviews: [ See above. ]
So, at Dreamation 2009, I was hot to give my game-in-design-progress, Xenolithik ("Strange adventures in an age of stones and spirits") another playtest attempt. This game is a mutated version of my "Campaign in a Box: The Flint Age" (caveman superheroes) column from Pyramid, and I had had a very positive character generation focused playtest at GenCon 2008.
However, given people's schedules and the number of very cool games being run (when I wasn't playing something already), finding a slot where cool people were available was nearly impossible.
However, I managed to corral a bunch of spiffy people between game slots on Saturday afternoon, to at least help me playtest chargen again for forty-five minutes or an hour. These folks included nikotesla, Luke Crane, Amy Garcia, rob_donoghue, Dro Chadsucksbecausehecan'trecalllastnames, and memento_mori. (I think that's everybody, and if anyone knows LJ handles for the above, ping me in comments.)
Note, folks, that that is a high-powered group of gaming brains.
Upshot is that they tore Xenolithik apart. Ruthlessly. And exactly as I'd hoped.
(Afterwards, Amy expressed disbelief at how full-contact the critique was, in very salty terms I shall not repeat here. The look on her face when Luke explained they were actually being kinda nice to me because they all like me, more or less, was priceless!)
Here's the thing that was true in that ruthless brutality, and actually informs how I critique stuff, be it fiction, nonfiction, poetry, or game material: the author is a cool person, Rule Zero (Honesty, always) is always in effect, and the work is a piece of crap that needs to be beaten out of crapstasticness, praised when it rises above the level of mediocre, and sharpened to razor-levels to represent what the author is trying to say or get at.
If you're not willing to let your work -- and a smidge of your artistic pride, admittedly -- get a little banged up and bloodied, your work's not going to be the best it can be.
(For those of you in the audience who've been in a critique/workshop with me, am I walking my talk for both giving comments and receiving them?)
The actual details of their comments on Xenolithik are actually kinda irrelevant, except in it led me to a couple ideas:
But the most important thing was that on the ride home, during a long talk with drivingblind about the playtest experience and the game, Fred offered me a strangely shocking idea: why not forget aiming for publication on this one? That is, keep it as a sandbox or game I run at conventions. You know, just "for funsies."
This blew my mind, in the very best way.
I could do that. I could avoid my own misgivings and the snarky comments of "Yeah, cavemen with magic powers is gonna be the hot thing next year" that I not only have said to myself but have heard from others. I can liberally steal mechanics from other systems (Mythender's Storm-Thunder-Lightning, I'm looking at you). I can change the damned thing everytime I run it.
I do not have to publish it.
Shocking. Appalling. Awesome.
Just the thing to kick me out of this writing rut I've been feeling for awhile.
I can write and design for fun. Just for fun.
Pathetically obvious, but hey.
Check it out, if you see it on a con schedule near you. With luck, it'll suck less.
1. Xenolithik is my own game-in-design-hell.
2. I'm talking about playtesting and workshopping more than the actual game here.
[ Underkoffler's Overviews Archive ]
Xenolithik "CharGen Playtest"
Written by Chad Underkoffler / chadu
Website: [ Not even on a bet. ]
Reviews: [ See above. ]
So, at Dreamation 2009, I was hot to give my game-in-design-progress, Xenolithik ("Strange adventures in an age of stones and spirits") another playtest attempt. This game is a mutated version of my "Campaign in a Box: The Flint Age" (caveman superheroes) column from Pyramid, and I had had a very positive character generation focused playtest at GenCon 2008.
However, given people's schedules and the number of very cool games being run (when I wasn't playing something already), finding a slot where cool people were available was nearly impossible.
However, I managed to corral a bunch of spiffy people between game slots on Saturday afternoon, to at least help me playtest chargen again for forty-five minutes or an hour. These folks included nikotesla, Luke Crane, Amy Garcia, rob_donoghue, Dro Chadsucksbecausehecan'trecalllastnames, and memento_mori. (I think that's everybody, and if anyone knows LJ handles for the above, ping me in comments.)
Note, folks, that that is a high-powered group of gaming brains.
Upshot is that they tore Xenolithik apart. Ruthlessly. And exactly as I'd hoped.
(Afterwards, Amy expressed disbelief at how full-contact the critique was, in very salty terms I shall not repeat here. The look on her face when Luke explained they were actually being kinda nice to me because they all like me, more or less, was priceless!)
Here's the thing that was true in that ruthless brutality, and actually informs how I critique stuff, be it fiction, nonfiction, poetry, or game material: the author is a cool person, Rule Zero (Honesty, always) is always in effect, and the work is a piece of crap that needs to be beaten out of crapstasticness, praised when it rises above the level of mediocre, and sharpened to razor-levels to represent what the author is trying to say or get at.
If you're not willing to let your work -- and a smidge of your artistic pride, admittedly -- get a little banged up and bloodied, your work's not going to be the best it can be.
(For those of you in the audience who've been in a critique/workshop with me, am I walking my talk for both giving comments and receiving them?)
The actual details of their comments on Xenolithik are actually kinda irrelevant, except in it led me to a couple ideas:
- The game has drifted too far from what its initial hook is (clearly stated by Rob): "Spider-Man, in a shaman's mask, punching dinosaurs, for the good of the tribe."
- While constraints enhance creativity, those have to be the right constraints; bad constraints just lead to suck.
- Building rules to lead to a game effect or express a games philosophy, but never explicitly detailing/mandating that effect or philosophy, can be a powerful thing.
- Sometimes playtesters/players don't realize how cool they are being -- they're the fish who doesn't see the water. (Despite all of Luke and Jared's yattering about how they were just "making shit up," I think they actually did come up with a compelling tribe of characters, and I don't think I expressed how awesome that was in a way they heard.)
But the most important thing was that on the ride home, during a long talk with drivingblind about the playtest experience and the game, Fred offered me a strangely shocking idea: why not forget aiming for publication on this one? That is, keep it as a sandbox or game I run at conventions. You know, just "for funsies."
This blew my mind, in the very best way.
I could do that. I could avoid my own misgivings and the snarky comments of "Yeah, cavemen with magic powers is gonna be the hot thing next year" that I not only have said to myself but have heard from others. I can liberally steal mechanics from other systems (Mythender's Storm-Thunder-Lightning, I'm looking at you). I can change the damned thing everytime I run it.
I do not have to publish it.
Shocking. Appalling. Awesome.
Just the thing to kick me out of this writing rut I've been feeling for awhile.
I can write and design for fun. Just for fun.
Pathetically obvious, but hey.
Check it out, if you see it on a con schedule near you. With luck, it'll suck less.