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Jim Felli - Mind Flayers and Mental Anchors

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03 Jun 2018 13:06 #274566 by Colorcrayons

Gary Sax wrote: Agree with your post, Jim.

The example of D+D is actually a good one if you think about the Gygax era. That era was a really fucked up, weird, and super creative one for D+D. Look how bizarre some of those scenario books and monsters were! Very original! All of that stuff has been sanded off D+D for the most part---even late era D+D weirdness is gone like Spelljammer or whatever. I've heard wonderful things about D+D 5th edition mechanically, but it is interesting to think how it went from whimsical and a bit subversive to set in stone canon over the past 30 years and what that means about it.


I'm using your quote as a platform, Gary.

D&D was not the only system that had such great creativity. A lot of stuff from that era had just an obscene amount of originality of concept.

Some of the more well known examples would be the realms of chaos books from GW, or Rogue Trader itself. A lot of now unknown publications are also worthy of not if only for expanding on the work of others to create truly unique and interesting adventure modules.

But the mechanics in order to play these wondrous things were pants at the time. D100 mutation tables, etc. Just crap. But we endured them not because we knew any better about mechanical design, but because we wanted to immerse ourselves in those great bits of creativity.

On mental anchors, I think it helps when society lacks cynicism. We've gotten quite cynical in the last 40 years, for good reason. Remove cynicism and you have a gateway to accept new creative ideas.
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03 Jun 2018 13:41 #274569 by hotseatgames

xthexlo wrote:

hotseatgames wrote: It reminds me of the double edged sword of game design. If you don’t play a lot of other games, you might come up with unique concepts that haven’t been done before. But you also might make rookie mistakes that have been solved many times over in prior works.


I agree, Mark. But I do have one question? Are they really “mistakes” or have we just been trained to label them as such? Especially if one believes that real mistakes are rectified in play testing.


Sure, as long as play testing catches them. As you well know, it's extremely difficult to catch it all. Play testing is a nightmare. I know I have seen the following play out many times, in many games.. "oh, this problem? You should have done it like they did it in Game X." and just doing that makes the game so much better.

I remember showing things to Richard Launius, and inside of 2 minutes he would make some observation that had never occurred to me, and suddenly my game was better. :)
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03 Jun 2018 14:09 #274571 by xthexlo
You have a good point, Mark. And a valid one. But I still want to make a distinction: drawing upon the experience of others to improve a game (as you did) is one thing; demanding that a game somehow mimic another to be successful (e.g., band wagoning) is another. I subscribe to the former; I despise the latter.
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04 Jun 2018 09:02 #274628 by Matt Thrower

Colorcrayons wrote: I'm using your quote as a platform, Gary.

D&D was not the only system that had such great creativity. A lot of stuff from that era had just an obscene amount of originality of concept.

Some of the more well known examples would be the realms of chaos books from GW, or Rogue Trader itself. A lot of now unknown publications are also worthy of not if only for expanding on the work of others to create truly unique and interesting adventure modules.

But the mechanics in order to play these wondrous things were pants at the time. D100 mutation tables, etc. Just crap. But we endured them not because we knew any better about mechanical design, but because we wanted to immerse ourselves in those great bits of creativity.

On mental anchors, I think it helps when society lacks cynicism. We've gotten quite cynical in the last 40 years, for good reason. Remove cynicism and you have a gateway to accept new creative ideas.


Thank you is not enough for this post. It needs quoting in full and a comment to say that it feels quite brilliantly insightful.

I wonder if we'll ever manage to meet theme and mechanics in the sweet spot for both.

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04 Jun 2018 09:04 #274629 by Matt Thrower

hotseatgames wrote: Sure, as long as play testing catches them. As you well know, it's extremely difficult to catch it all. Play testing is a nightmare. I know I have seen the following play out many times, in many games.. "oh, this problem? You should have done it like they did it in Game X." and just doing that makes the game so much better.


I was chatting to a designer at the weekend who said just the opposite. He had a bunch of stuff in his game that he felt was a bit unbalanced, but various different playtesters kept telling him to keep it in because it was so much fun, nevertheless.

Sometimes the flaws in a game are just what make it memorable.
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04 Jun 2018 09:36 #274637 by hotseatgames

MattDP wrote: Sometimes the flaws in a game are just what make it memorable.


That's why I always put tons of flaws in my games.
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04 Jun 2018 09:42 #274639 by Jackwraith

hotseatgames wrote:

MattDP wrote: Sometimes the flaws in a game are just what make it memorable.


That's why I always put tons of flaws in my games.


Gemstone Appraisal: The Game.
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04 Jun 2018 13:33 #274657 by Colorcrayons

MattDP wrote: .
I wonder if we'll ever manage to meet theme and mechanics in the sweet spot for both.


I think some games come close, IMO.

Wiz-War lacks the visual flair (magical three stooges) it needs to find this balance perfectly (and almost had it if you look at the art work for the never released chessex stuff) to augment the "tell" that the cards give for each memorable game.
FFG didnt know how to recognize the soul of the magical three stooges game, and in their usual production hubris decided to attempt to make it more serious to be accepted by the BGG euro crowd. Still, even their version came close enough to be about right.

I think survive, in any incarnation, does a good job of coming close too.

Dune, likewise.

But oddly enough, these are also games that came from the era of enormous creativity and risk taking in game design/production.
I don't know if such is related, but worth noting.

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