May

31

Rejuvenation

Moments and Experiences
compass

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?

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Jan

03

Perfecting It

Design Diary / Promotion

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.

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Dec

20

Departure

Moments and Experiences

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.

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Nov

23

New Project

Moments and Experiences

Because I am proud of it, I want to show you all my new stationary set. I made it!

[SlideDeck id='424' width='100%' height='100%']

I chose out that paper colour and envelope colour myself. I cut the letter pages down to size. I chose out, cut out and glued on those little nautical adornments. I hand-cut those envelopes and sealed their edges myself. I went out and bought a brown pen that writes really nicely and echoes the brown of the envelopes.

It feels really good to mail letters. There’s something triumphantly social about dropping an envelope in a mailbox, of besting the hundreds of miles separating you and your correspondent, that email just doesn’t seem to have.

The act of writing by hand is a very clarifying experience, as well – one that I feel like we might be losing, as a culture.

And so, this stationary set! It feels triumphant and real to me.

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Aug

02

Not Knowing, and Not Needing To

Moments and Experiences

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.

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Jun

27

What are story games? And why?

Telling Stories Together

Let this post act as a primer, for anyone who’s interested in story games. Too few people know what story games are. There is a huge wealth of amazing, creative, social people in the world. People I’d love to play games and tell stories with.

This post is an attempt to paint a picture for those people. If you’re one of them, welcome. Here’s this thing I do:

Stories are vital. They’re the reasons our hearts beat. They’re how we make sense of emotions, and fortunes, and the days of our lives. When we don’t take time to honor and cherish stories, we fall back upon only the necessary ones. The ones that help us cope, that reinforce our pre-made choices. We fall back upon the belabored and uncontested stories.

When we step outside of ourselves, and seek stories out on purpose, we hit a great diversity. There are things we hate, and love, and things that change us. We change some things in return. Exploring a story can fill us with awe. It can also be tiring.

Games are vital. They are playful, and engaging. They give us a chance to succeed, but also the freedom not to fret over our success. If you don’t win at a game, your life is still OK afterwards. When something takes the form of a game, it becomes instantly lighter and more playful.

So, marrying these two things, that’s a pretty obvious first step, right?

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