My disconnection from the "RPG theory" community

[lordsmerf]

I mentioned yesterday I might delve into this a bit, but first a weird note. I was talking to people about sub-leasing for the summer, and one of the places I went to talk to people at I met someone who I knew of from work. I think this is the first time I've ever crossed paths in real life with someone I've taken a complaint from with the police

Comments

[tundra_no_caps]

Well, you can't really expect different from a place where the model is eventually releasing your game and at least calling it even, monetary, if not succeeding beyond that.

Unless you have a very large group of friends with whom you game, you have to assume they don't have your assumptions (hah!).

I am finding it my bane. I write games, and my best friend can understand them instinctively, grokking them. Whereas other people complain they can't understand how play goes, or what play is.

I guess not all of us are cut for "publication mode", but then again, it can be a good training for writing publishable papers.

[lordsmerf]

Sure, but my point is that there are perfectly valid models which don't involve the publication thing. Like I said, I'm not opposed to the publication model, but I do think it's somewhat unhealthy that we don't seem to be have much support for other models. There are a lot of people out there I think have great ideas but aren't cut out for the Forge paradigm of publishing, and there's no one telling them that they don't have to be.

There's a lot of support saying "you can publish" and that's awesome, but there's not a lot of "Hey, you can publish if you want, but your game is just as good if you don't."

Thomas

[tundra_no_caps]

You might be interested in the half-baked discussions on SG and the Forge, while they are mainly geared to make sure games are ready for publication, their lessons, and applications thereof will probably benefit "Not for publication" games as well.