Great White Games #2

I was really surprised by the reaction to my Great White Games post. First and foremost, I was amazed at the outpouring of positive reaction to it, especially amongst the amateur game designer crowd. Perhaps most heartwarming example of this was Eric Finley's reference to it on the Iron Game Chef forum.

(Hey, Eric, I just remembered that I got in a fight with you about Nobilis LARP rules on RPGnet, like, three years ago. Isn't that funny?)

But also there was a contingent, who I'm not going to link to directly, 'cause I'm kind of going to put them down, who said "yeah, and what's your problem if I never finish my game, bub?" My initial reaction was, frankly, pretty negative, but I've been thinking more about it and I think that there's a lot there, and that it is wrong to just disregard it.

When you've been working on a game forever, and it just isn't working right for you, it is tiring and frustrating and it makes you angry at yourself and angry at your game. But, on the other hand, you have poured years of your own creative effort into this game, and it is your creation. Quite literally, it is a part of you, tied up in your self-identity. So when some asshole comes along and says "you know, you're never going to finish it" a "yeah, well, fuck you" or a "what does it matter to you that I never finish my games" reaction is pretty damned understandable.

I want to look at, I think, three things, though maybe that number is going to change as I write this.

The first is the self-identity issue. I do not believe that anyone is "just not the sort of designer that finishes games." I think that's bollocks, and I think it is the excuse of someone who, if I am being kind, has simply has bitten off more that they can chew and refuses to accept that. Any writer is capable of finishing a story, else they aren't really a writer. Any director produces finished movies. Painters finish paintings. Fundamentally, artist get art done.

This can be distinguished from taking a long time to let something develop. As an outsider, I can't tell the difference between a project that is slow going and a project that you will never finish, but you know the difference in your heart. This can also be distinguished from not being able to put all the pieces together. Finishing is a skill, not an intrinsic, and it is a skill that can be learned, usually through practice, which is why I offer finish a game as my foremost advice to designers, and why I proposed the foundation of a "journeyman game" tradition.

But there is no such thing as an artist that never finishes his art. That isn't a type. It isn't a classification. It's an oxymoron.

The second is something which I really didn't touch on in the essay, and I think that the lack of touching on this might have provoked some of those reactions, as well: What is your GWG good for? To have wasted ten, five, or even a single year of your creative life on a project that will never see fruition is, frankly, downright depressing. Fortunately, it is also wrong. The experience of having bitten off more than you can chew, of having worked on a huge, sprawling game that you can never finish, is something that I see as actually being very positive (having done it three or more times myself, of course, I am forced to see it that way.) Here are some of the benefits:

1) Practice. Vincent talks about practice games right here, in his blog. His practice games are tiny and miniscule, pretty much just constituting a single mechanic, but that doesn't mean that all practice games aren't the same way. A larger, bulkier, sprawlinger practice game is just as good for practice. I'm going to take as an example here Ben Morgan, who showed up at the Forge with a massive, sprawling, complicated, intricate, bizarre fantasy game and ended up producing Scarlet Wake, the butt-kickingest butt-kicking game that ever butt-kicked. One doesn't just produce a gem like Scarlet Wake out of thin air. You have to practice a lot to get that good. Fortunately, he did.

2) Reaching high. Almost all Great White Games have amazingly beautiful ambitions behind them. And that's not a bad thing at all, even if they can't all be fulfilled, because it gets you thinking. It gets you thinking about what you want out of gaming. It gets you thinking about what can be done with gaming. It gets you thinking about interesting ways to address problems.

3) Spare parts. Ron has talked about this, in the past, with relation to his pre-Sorcerer designs BSL and The Human Machine. Essentially, all that thought and effort produces, most likely, some really good game design ideas. Maybe not enough really good ideas to make your damn game hold together (or maybe you just don't have enough practice stitching them together -- finishing), but damn good ideas nonetheless. Guess what? Your old game is a source perfectly good material for your new game. No reason to let those good ideas go to waste.

Uhm, there was a third topic, but I can't remember it now at all. Ah yeah, it's short, and it has to do with finishing games.

If you finish a game, it isn't just that you will get new skills out of it, but also a very important internal change takes place. All those doubting voices (internal and external) that told you that you were a wannabe and you weren't a real game designer? Gone. Totally gone. And, in their absence, you can actually get along with the real work of design.

In short, in summary, failing to produce a particular game isn't a sin and it doesn't make you a bad person or a bad designer. I, as a peer designer and a game player, would rather that you produced a good game that you can finish, both for your own development as a designer (finishing is a separate skill) and for my own enjoyment, as your half-finished hip deep pile of notes is not something that I, you, or anyone can play and enjoy.