The Blog

Winter was a difficult time for me, this year. I was unemployed and in a pretty isolated living situation (in a cabin, up a mountain, surrounded by heavy snowfall, without a driver’s license). My game design energies oscillated from frenetic to exasperated, but just couldn’t find a balanced resting place.

Spring brought with it a lot of hope and opportunity. But unexamined hope and opportunity bring with them their own mania, if you’re not careful. I was dreaming big, but still hitting that blank page syndrome that I’d experienced in winter. The gap between my vision and my practice was widening.

So I made a pact with myself, one that turned out to be a really good one. If I sat down to my computer, or to the table with a notebook in hand… if I wasn’t actually writing and creating within five minutes, I’d get up and do something physical instead.  I cleaned my room. I went through everything I owned and got rid of a bunch of stuff; Salvation Army received an entire car-load of donations from me. I started a garden. I expanded the garden. I expanded the garden again. That garden’s now growing squash, pumpkins, zucchini, two types of beets, radishes, carrots, two types of cucumbers, lettuce, chard, tomatoes, scotch bonnet peppers, and about 10 herbs.

It was feeling really good to work with my hands, to see tangible results, and to know that I was doing something real and good. I decided that if the inspiration didn’t strike me, I’d just not return to any of my writing and design projects. Indefinitely.

And then something really cool happened. A burning need to continue working on The Quiet Year (my newest project) surfaced. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It was important. It was vital.

Other projects have been resurfacing as vital, too. Recently, I published a setting hack for Perfect Unrevised, allowing you to play games set in New Phyrexia (a setting from Magic). It was a fun little afternoon project. It wasn’t something I’d even thought about before that day. But when it arrived in my mind, it felt necessary. It felt vital.

I’ve got a couple observations I’m taking forward, from all this. The first is that it’s easy to burn out without realizing it. This is especially true when all of your projects are similar – all creative design endeavors, or all physical labor endeavors, or all experimental music endeavors. Pulling back from your insular bubble helps you see what’s important and what’s not. Contrast is rejuvenating.

On the topic of rejuvenation, I’ve got two Buried Without Ceremony announcements, of a sort. The first is that I’ve begun talking publicly about The Quiet Year, a game of post-collapse community building. There’s a page for it on this site, and it’s worth checking out.

The second announcement, much more visually obvious at this point, is that I’ve redesigned the look of the site, including making up a new logo. The old one presented some difficulties as a brand logo (difficult to place on a variety of backgrounds, too textured), and I feel like I’ve outgrown the dandelion. So, a rejuvenated look. What do ya think?

So, the print version of Perfect Unrevised has been 99% complete for the last month. Or, at least, at any given moment, I’ve been under the impression that it was 99% done. But then as I round the final hump, I encounter a frustrating setback, and it puts yet another hump between me and finally ordering this print run.

Here’s where I’m at now: I’ve received the proof, and with a friend gone and checked it page-by-page, line-by-line. I noticed some typos, as well as some sentences that would be clearer with revision. The border graphics for Chapter 5 looked really muddy, and I decided they should be replaced with something similar.

I made all those changes, and then the file I was working in corrupted. I had made a back-up shortly before ordering the proof, thankfully… but I still lost several hours of tedious work. I’m on the road right now, still, and so made a new plan: when I arrived at my next destination, where my friend owned a computer with ID CS4, I’d re-do my work there. But, his computer was a Windows machine, and the fonts that I’m using are Mac formatted… so it’s not possible here. So, when I move on to my next city (Olympia, once more), THEN I’ll be able to re-do those edits and send in updated files and order my print run.

So, I guess this is just a status update, to say: in a week, I’m going to be able to make all the edits that I made half a week ago. And then I’ll be able to order the print run. And then I’ll be able to ship them out. And then I’ll be able to hold a book in my hands, smiling, and say, “I made this.”

Soon!

Perfect, Unrevised is for sale. This is one of the most exciting announcements of my life. Folks can pick up the PDF for $10, and preorder the book for $22 + s&h.

This moment has been a long time coming. I’d like to share with you how I got here, and link you to some reviews and AP along the way.

In late 2005, I started reading The Forge. I participated in one or two little design contests, before stumbling upon my big RPG idea in early 2006. Imagine a game where your character sheet only told you about the things you can’t do? Imagine if play was about finding out how to work around that?

That idea in and of itself didn’t prove to be very exciting, but it did lead to Perfect. Impatient and seventeen, I rushed to design and release the game as soon as was humanly possible. I was at Gencon with the game in hand that very same year – about 6 months after my initial idea.

That’s, uh, a stupid way to design a game. In May of this year, I blogged about some of the lessons I learned in that experience.

I published the game, and was initially really excited about it. I heard some really lovely compliments from Paul Czege, who was my game design idol. Ron Edwards played it,  and then played it some more. He encountered some glaring hiccups, but generally liked it. Malcolm Craig played it too. He encountered some glaring hiccups, but generally liked it.

Over time, the glaring hiccups came to occupy more and more of my mental real estate, and reports of people having “generally liked it” were less exciting. Some time in 2007, I pulled the game off the market. I was determined to refine it and re-release it once it had been, well, perfected.

I assume this process will take about three months. It takes over three years. The game receives about 100 playtests over this period, some led by me and some blind. I posted about one session here.

I almost abandoned the game several times, because the work of editing and refining turned out to be hard. Gasp! What a surprise!

It’s then that fans and supporters came out of the woodwork, to help push me to keep going. Gary Breinholt is one of those people. He playtested every iteration of the game I put out, for years, and always came back with critique and encouragement. I shared some of that process here, in 2008.

Finally, in the early Summer of 2010, I had something that felt complete, that told the kinds of stories I wanted it to, that was easy and compelling. Playtests started to soar. Feeling immensely confident – cocky even, I put the game up as a Kickstarter project, asking for $7,000 in funds to publish the game. I managed to raise an exciting $2,660… and am ultimately glad that I failed to raise more. The game design was done, but the physical product was still far from complete.

I worked with editor Josh Roby, who was fantastic. And then I spent months slaving away in inDesign. I learned a lot about graphic design in the process, predominantly that it is a much slower craft than you would think it is.

Come to think of it, I’ve learned something about all crafts: they take much longer than you’d think. Artistry isn’t something you can just vomit onto a page. It takes years of training, honing, doing, refining, re-examining, doubting, and trusting.

It’s been exciting to actually go through that process, and give every step its due attention. At the height of my wit, I named this second edition Perfect, Unrevised – a nod at the dystopian, history-erasing setting it exists within. But truth be told, this is the project that’s taught me the value of revising – the value of hard work.

I talk about some of the important mechanical changes here. The folks at the tremendously good Ninja Vs Pirates podcast explore the mechanics and the structure of the game, with me, here.

And now, finally, it’s ready. You can buy it if you want to. Wilper did, and he reviewed it the very next day. The review is really good and comprehensive, albeit short.

I’m just taking a break right now from packing. Packing for a 2+ month trip down the Pacific NW. I’m also packing up the rest of my stuff and putting it into long-term storage.

It’s an interesting feeling. I feel there are two dynamics that compete for attention in my life. The first is being excited about potential, and wanting to really jump on it. The second is being excited about establishing deep and purposeful roots, of reaping the rewards of invested energy. Whenever I think about traveling, especially the type of free-as-the-open-road traveling I’m about to depart on now, those two dynamics go to war.

Often, the purposeful roots dynamic wins. But, without that “excited new potential” underdog getting the upper hand now and then, those roots have nothing to grow for.

So, here’s to new enterprises. And to figuring out what you want to bring back home with you.

Oh, also! Speaking of new enterprises, Perfect is done. Expect the PDF to go on sale the moment I figure out how to host/distribute it. Finishing a big project right as you cast off on a big journey is a really good feeling.

Today I was walking with Kaleigh and the family dog, through a trail in the woods. It used to be a railroad track, long ago, but it’s been converted to a lovely walking trail.

So, we’re walking through the forest, almost back at home already. And the dog, Moxie, she disappears for a minute. And comes back with some big, ugly looking bone. There’s meat clinging to it, and it’s disgusting. We’re like two minutes away from home too, and Moxie doesn’t seem to want to let it go. She’s got this big, hulking animal bone with rotting meat stuck to it.

And we’re throwing sticks for her, hoping she’ll abandon the bone and chase them. Of course, she doesn’t. We tell her to drop it, and of course, she doesn’t. We’re worried she’s going to try to bring it back to the house, and we don’t want to try to pry it out of her mouth or anything.

So, it’s not a crisis by any means, but there’s this looming feeling of dread for those last few minutes as she trumps towards the house with a hefty bit of carcass in her mouth. And then, just at the last minute, before we break free of the forest into the quiet cul-de-sac where we live, she trots off the path and begins burying it. It takes her a good couple minutes to dig and bury it, but she comes trotting back with a big stupid dog grin on her face.

I don’t think Moxie planned that burial all along, because I’m positive that she’s one of the dumbest dogs ever. I think it just occurred to her at the last minute, that she should save it – that she had better food at home, but maybe, some day, this bone would be useful out in these woods.

It reminded me of a certain feeling. When I’m writing a poem, or designing a game, or working on any of a thousand ill-thought-out projects, there’s this feeling of joyful vigor. If asked to explain why I was pouring so much energy into such a project, I’d be hard pressed to come up with a good explanation; most of my projects are flights of fancy, or things that only reveal their importance much later.

Later, I’ll likely abandon the project, but that doesn’t feel like a bad thing. It feels like I’m burying another bone at the edge of the forest, that it’s not gone, that it’s set aside for when I want it again. And if that’s never, that’s fine. Moxie doesn’t really think she’s going to need that bone some day. I don’t really think I’m going to need that half-finished project some day. It’s just… nice. It’s nice to feel invigorated by work, and not feel the need to justify that vigor. It’s nice to have the luxury to bury your work, without ceremony, and only ever return if you feel energized to do so. It’s nice to feel accountable only to your own spirit.

And those bones that litter the edge of your forest, they’re not waste. Because it doesn’t take completeness to feel accomplishment. For Moxie, the very act of carrying that bone around was an accomplishment. Burying it was an accomplishment. Moving on was an easy and joyful task.

It’s nice to not know. It’s nice to feel okay about not knowing. The bones will still be where you buried them, should you ever need them.

Ah! So, before I begin this post proper: I’ve moved to Nelson, a small artsy city built up the side of a heavily-wooded mountain. It overlooks a pristine lake, is populated by lots of amazing coffee shops & restaurants & galleries (a selfish amount for its size, really), and is wonderful. I feel so at peace, re-collected, grounded.

And, thus, it’s time to start blogging again. With a fresh perspective & vitality. And to kick that off, I’m going to start a little series called Design Diary. Expect one every Friday. I’m going to move through all of my design & publishing efforts, and explore some lessons learned and successes achieved. I’m going to try to focus on the social elements of play & design, but might drift the conversation elsewhere if it feels right.

Although I designed some other stuff (and released some PDFs of it) prior to it, I still think of Perfect as my first game. I started working on Perfect shortly after I started participating at The Forge, in early 2006. The Forge was really lively back then – an active design community and lots of people sharing thoughtful reports of actual play. The theory forums had recently shut down, forcing people out of their heads and back to the drawing boards.  There were lots of designers, and I could feel the energy in the “room”. There was an excitement about the fact that anyone could be a designer, that it didn’t have to cost a million dollars, that indie design was growing and thriving.

Excitement is infectious. It’s also really hard to build structures around. The result (I feel) is that 2006 was a year of really exciting but incomplete products. Shock: Social Science Fiction is an amazing game and a novel take on how worldbuilding and roleplaying can interact, but the original text is extremely opaque and spotted with errors. After a couple years and two revisions, its definitely doing itself more justice. But it came out of a year of premature releases and a culture of enthusiasm > follow-through.

I’m not meaning to harsh on Joshua AC Newman. He’s a bombin’ cool designer, and Shock: is a bombin’ cool game. Other games saw premature releases that year too, Perfect being a prime example. Perfect was released without adequate playtesting, without adequate revision and design tweaking, while early fans were cautioning me to develop it further and continue considering it. It lacked polish. It was far from perfect, ironically enough.

There were several lessons that I learned from that experience, that I subsequently forgot about. I’m trying really hard to ingrain them into my design process, to re-learn them and to take them seriously.

Heed the Advice of Those Lending a Hand. This doesn’t mean that you should let your friends design your games. You shouldn’t. But designs florish when they exist within a social process. If you are lucky enough to have interested and thoughtful people that want to support you, as I did when first designing Perfect, you need to hear and engage with what they say. To do less is a disservice to yourself, to them, to your game, and to the community that is rallying around your work. It’s quite simple: when good-natured and thoughtful people support your vision and offer wisdom, take it seriously. This is one of the most meaningful and hard to come by things in the world.

The reason that I take the time to spell that one out is that design is an art form, and there is a notion of artist as monolithic and brilliant and untouchable. When you step into that artist role, especially when you pour lots of your creativity and hard work into it, it’s easy to forget that you aren’t monolithic and brilliant and untouchable. In fact, you’re hard-worked and blind to your own weaknesses and you’re only one person. It can become easy to reject the good support of those who’ve put less sweat into something. The first lesson is: don’t. Don’t reject support, and encouragement, and love. It’s find to consider it and decide it isn’t for you. It’s fine to take it with a grain of salt, or a cup of salt. It’s fine to debate and hesitate. But treat all support and perspective like it’s super important, because it is.

Slow Down. I was very concerned with getting Perfect ready for Gencon. This was a grave mistake. The game and the product suffered as a result, and I burnt out some of my support network by pushing unrealistic deadlines upon them. That damage to my support network was made even worse by the fact that the person editing and doing layout for me (David Artman) was doing it absolutely free.

My design process used to be: Create, Release. That’s a terrible design process. A more sustainable and thoughtful design process might be: Consider, Create, Reconsider, Share, Revise, Invite Critique, Edit, Release. I used to see editing (especially entrusting my work to external editors and critiquers) as unnecessary in my design process. Even worse, I saw it as an affront to my process.
Everything suffered as a result of rushing, of not taking time to let things simmer, of not engaging in a dialogue of improvement. Creating, especially the initial burst of creativity it takes to produce a first draft, is actually a tiny fraction of the process of designing and publishing a game.

It’s Not Done Until You’re Proud Of It. The world has a ton of artists, of art, of games, of bands, of professionals. The amount of stuff we produce and participate in is astounding. And, as a result, the world has no need of things which are good enough. And I reproach myself for going to press with something that I told myself was “good enough.” If it isn’t something that you’re unwaveringly proud of, there’s zero need for it.

The first version of Perfect is the last thing I have ever published before I was totally proud of it.
In conclusion… Heed the Advice of Those Lending a Hand, Slow Down, and It’s Not Done Until You’re Proud Of It.
Those are the lessons learned in publishing the first edition of Perfect. As I get closer and closer to being finished Perfect, Unrevised (my cleverly named second edition), I’m having to remind myself of these lessons constantly.

“I got a hundred years of down home running through my blood.”
-Alabama

Let’s pretend, for a second, that every type/genre of music can be reduced to a question about life, the universe and intentionality. For the moment, we’ll just treat this as a game, an exercise. I think rap music could be paraphrased as “How do we emerge from hardship?” You see a lot of songs about enduring and surviving (Talib Kweli’s Gotta Get By, Eminem’s Lose Yourself), a lot of songs about conflict, and then an explosion of songs about having made it. Maybe it’s more complicated than a single question, but certainly the culture of rap music could be well described in a few short questions: “how do we deal with hardship?”, “how do we overcome hardship?”, “what will we do with our power, once we gain it?” These questions are ultra-prevalent in rap, but to try to ground the body of pop music, or indie rock, in them would be a difficult exercise.

Ask me four years ago what I listened to, and I would have answered: punk. I might have then added “ska and indie rock”, but my answer was that I was a firm proponent of punk. Let’s give the unifying-question treatment to punk. “Are you willing to fight back?” “Who is to blame?” “How should we die?” Correct me if I’m wrong.

I’ve recently rejected the importance of those questions. I don’t see fighting a system as the best way to affect a system, and I don’t see confrontation as the best means for deep-rooted change. Thus, “Are you willing to fight back?” is like asking “Are you willing to break the hammer on the screw?” for me. I don’t see blame as a necessary or useful component of problem solving or conflict resolution, so “Who is to blame?” is problematic and unhelpful to me. And finally, I’ve moved away from the hometown I despised, and in doing so abandoned a lot of the fatalism that I carried with me, leaving the “How should we die?” question one that could only be answered prematurely and rashly.

Punk’s burning questions are no longer burning. They sit as nice signposts to remind me of my adolescence, but my mind has turned to new ones: “Where do we find beauty?” “How shall we live?” “Where do we go from here?” “What can we learn from the past as we explore new ground?”

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This post is an attempt to sketch why story games are significant to me.

Before I do that, a quick breakdown of the term: story games are tools we use to have fun, tell stories and roleplay. They use rules (many centered around chance) and structures to guide players to the same creative page, and to shake things up and provide the unexpected. Someone once described them as “instructions for using your imagination” (Nathanael Phillip Cole, though he was being ironic) and someone else once described them as “stories you play” (Matt Snyder). I like both of those descriptions.

Alright, for those of us who are invested in the definition of the term, let’s not get caught up on it right now.

There are a lot of different explanations about what story games do, and about why we care about them. Some people say they create stories, and that stories are really important to us, and that this is the utmost truth of the matter. Well, in truth, story games produce some pretty sub-par stories. We leave critical situations up to chance (we literally hardcode this into most games), we divide authority across the moving parts rather than across lines of movement (which helps keep things concrete, but does not help create meaningful stories). While we are definitely creating stories, this is not the most important thing. Games which generate almost no plot, but have plenty of minutae and dialogue, are often really rewarding. Some people say they inhabit roles, and that roleplaying is really important to us, and that this is the utmost truth of the matter. But, we distance ourselves from these roles almost intentionally. We ask people to stay seated while playing, much of the time. We use numbers and papers and resources to give ourselves a comfortable, protected distance. While we are definitely roleplaying, we have clearly put that second to something.

Here is something that I find a lot more accurate and resonant than either of those suggestions. Roleplaying games create experiences. Experiences that we haven’t had the opportunity to live through. They allow us to recontextualize our paradigms, challenge us to see things in a new light, explore the casaulity of something, regardless of how realistic that something might be.

This was put really well by a man named Malcolm Sheppard. I quote:
Memories are unkind. Even the sweetest ones are tinged by the fact that the experience has fled. A memory is a funeral for experience. Roleplaying games are designed to create those funerals. It’s the way they work.

Awesome. I’ve been using the moniker/label Buried Without Ceremony for various projects for a while. When I read that quote by Malcolm, I was suddenly filled with this sense of “yes!”. This is the very same sentiment I wanted to communicate.

Roleplaying games/story games create experiences. We live them for a moment, they die as we return to our actual selves, and we promptly bury them without ceremony. These are phantoms that have existed for us alone, and the joy of it all is two-fold. We owe them nothing. We can take from them what we want to.

Do we feel the need to draw something poignant out of our sessions of play? No. Could we? Yes. No matter what we choose to do with those experiences, we cannot be accused of being selfish. We created them in order to bury them. Everything else is what we want to make of it.

It’s a pretty heady feeling.