Frank Sinatra did not write his own music. He usually performed the great standards written by very talented songwriters. Can you imagine Frank Sinatra hosting a TV show or radio show, or writing a newspaper column where he interviewed on a regular basis the songwriters of the songs he sang?
These things would bomb. Why? Because people are interested in his interpretations of the songs not the songwriters.
I believe the same is true in our field of gaming. I get so tired of seeing these gaming podcasts drag on these game designers and treat them like Gods. I have said many times that the shows with game designers are the most boring. I get tired of internet forums that discuss designers rather than the games themselves.
The real stars in our medium are the gamers. They interpret the game like a singer interprets a song. They add life to the game and they are the one's I want to hear from, not from the designer who drones on about his clever mechanism.
1) A lot of people feel that singers like Frank Sinatra "interpreting" the material of a writer and claiming most or all of the credit is unfair, and that whatever his skills as a vocalist Sinatra (and others like him) is a lesser artist than many people who write and perform their own songs.
2) Writing a song is difficult. But I suspect designing a game is harder.
3) Whatever you believe about who ought to get the credit for Frank Sinatra's performances, it is indisputable that he had an enormous talent as a singer. To be a good singer is pretty rare - to be an outstanding one is incredibly so. Virtually any bozo can play a game, and being more skilled at playing a game does not equal being any better at "interpreting" it in the manner you describe.
I can buy a copy of Mozart as sung by Sinatra. I can't buy a copy of Talisman with extra La Terra. This difference means that the designer in games is a much more important factor than the composer of a song. As gamers, we aren't the singers, we are the listeners.
Fantasy Flight can improve a good game just like Sinatra could make a good song sound great. Example: compare FF's Cosmic to the Hasborgalon Hill version.
Honestly Weeks, your post comes across like sour grapes because you are jealous of Kevin Peterson getting all the chicks.
In addition, a lot of composers of standards (particularly jazz standards) are famous in their own right: Cole Porter, Duke Ellington, George and Ira Gershwin... And Sinatra never claimed writing credit; his albums all list the songwriters.
I suspect people talk about designers the way they talk about composers more than they do singers; but in general, it's a strained metaphor. People who are "superfans" of anything often strive to understand the underlying mechanisms of that thing and to gain insight into what it's 'top practitioners' thought processes are.
"Kevin Petersen"...I think it's kind of like Voltron?
Exactly- had you guys not heard that Fantasy Flight combined kevin wilson and christian peterson into one person to save on salary costs? Franken-designer!
Honestly Weeks, your post comes across like sour grapes because you are jealous of Kevin Peterson getting all the chicks.
Nah, Kevin Peterson is the one with "sour grapes", he is pissed that "Magdar" didn't go over bigger, but hey that is what you get when you rip off the Balrog from "Lord of the Rings"
I've always viewed the designers as the interpreters. For examples in the realm of wargames i'm always interested in how certain designers model certain things such as command and control.
I like how designers can take a specific topic, WW2 Tactical Combat for example, and then create a game from it - with different games sometimes being radically different from each other in their approach. Oh sure a lot of things are similar across similar titles, but each good game has its own unique sort of approach.
More importantly with wargames I just like that multiple designers can take the same topic and can create games that are essentially depicting the exact same action(s) but are all fun and unique in their own right. Thats pretty cool and a testament to interpretation.
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