One day, Fulgencio, Elequemedo, Anier, and Oswardo found themselves in the rainforest, surrounded on all sides by intractable flora. Each of the men in turn (starting with Fulgencio, who was the leader), took up his machete, chose a position along the perimeter, and delivered a powerful slash to the encircling brush. And upon doing so, each announced the discovery of "a path".
Mysteriously, with each slash, a quantity of pesetas was dislodged from the brush to settle at the foot of the man wielding the machete. Elequemedo's "path" was met with approving grunts from the others, though it produced the least pesetas. And more than one of the men thought they heard voices speaking a strange language beyond the mist that shrouded Elequemedo's "path".
Each man collected the pesetas that had fallen at his own feet.
The "path" created by Oswardo's blow was wider than that of the others, twice as wide as Anier's path, and arrayed with orchids in bloom, and so, was quite pleasing to the eye and senses. And the quantity of pesetas that settled at Oswardo's feet was substantial.
"That was a gross endeavor of peseta harvesting," said Fulgencio.
"That is not the path we want to take," said Anier.
"Why do you fear my path, Anier?" asked Oswardo.
"It is very pretty, and it is greater than my path in every dimension."
"That's bullshit," said Oswardo.
And then, Oswardo stepped out into his path to deliver another slash to the foliage. Vines parted to reveal the man JaJuan standing among the flora. He handed an additional quantity of loose pesetas to Oswardo.
The other men frowned a bit at each other, but there was no need for actual conversation. They each knew they could create such a path as Oswardo if they chose, but they also knew that none of them would choose to do so.
In the context of a creative community, each individual's creative product asserts that it represents a significant creative direction, and aims to influence the community with its values. For RPG designers, creating structures for co-creation is the creative medium; and it's an exciting and engaging new medium that many of us wish we could spend more time with, if only we didn't have full time jobs and other obligations. Fulgencio, Elequemedo, and Anier don't fear Oswardo's path for its aesthetics and values. They fear there's a connection between its aesthetics and values and enough pesetas to afford spending more time with the creative medium.
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"The "path" created by Oswardo's blow was wider than that of the others, twice as wide as Anier's path, and arrayed with orchids in bloom, and so, was quite pleasing to the eye and senses."
But you don't say "Oswardo toiled night and day, neglecting the cooking of his own food, neglecting correspondence with his friends and family, neglecting the need for a noontime siesta in order to make his path twice as wide and to plant the beautiful orchids."
The orchids weren't just there. Oswardo put them there. In our community, we've talked about how game playing fits into a certain social context. It was one of the defining five threads. As designers, we know that we need to be aware of how the playing of our games will fit into the social context of our players' lives. Is our game built to run in a single evening? Does it require a dozen sessions to really shine? Does everyone need to read certain parts of the book beforehand?
However, it is also important to keep in mind that game design & publishing exists within a social context, as well. Is your game design & publishing the most important priority in your life? Is it the second most important? Is it something you do only AFTER you've fulfilled your obligations as a family member, as an employee, as a friend, as a citizen, and walked the dog, too?
One of the great things that the community has engineered are paths that allow people in that last group (like me) to make their creative products available to others, and possibly make a profit. Those paths are well-trod and more new people flock to them every day.
It's odd to consider Oswardo's path threatening when no one is following it! Really, I'm not seeing people striving to plant orchids all over the place. Oswardo's path is difficult and life-consuming and here we are--a year and half after the biggest part of the path was cut--and we see no one following. I see lots of people following Elequemedo's path. The closest I see to those following Oswardo's path are a couple folks who already have long histories in traditional game publishing, and want the best of both worlds--the production values of the traditional model with the creative control of the indie model.
I think that the community that Fulgencio started has had a number of different goals. As with any artistic movement, individual members are going to prioritize the goals differently. My perception of some of the goals:
• System Does Matter--Thoughtful, consciously-designed rules and procedures can and should replicate the social play experience that the designer intended.
• Self-Publishing--Individual creators do not need to enter potentially exploitative relationships with publishing companies to have their game available to a wide audience. A appropriate blog post is here
• Pushing Boundaries--The assumptions of game design and publishing should all be questioned and put to the test. There was a good livejournal post about it last month here
• Reaching the Mainstream--The appeal of games does not need to be limited to the subculture it has been been in the past. Normal people with everyday lives can enjoy playing games. A blog post is here
There are, no doubt, others. My point is that each independent creator who self-identifies with the community will embrace these various goals with different enthusiasm. They will hold them at different priorities.
Any given path through the jungle will bring people closer to some of those priorities, and farther from others--that's why we're cutting paths in the first place. But just because Oswardo's path leads Oswardo farther from Elequemedo's or Anier's goals, doesn't mean what he's doing is bad for the community. Folks in the community who share more of Oswardo's goals will follow his path. If they had only had Elequemedo's path to follow, they would not have been happy anyway, since it took them away from their own goals.
I don't understand why Burning Empires gets criticism for its production values. I would expect gamers to discuss how the game actually plays. Isn't that what matters? If the game is fun or not? I listened to the podcast with Luke and Vincent, and it seemed pretty clear that the consensus was that in the RPG community, what matters is playing games and talking about game play.
Luke seems to have surprised a lot of people by producing a game that looked very slick and well produced. He was using fantastic art from Christopher Moeller. Who wouldn't want Moeller's work to look as good as possible? And it does look good.
That doesn't mean that suddenly all games must look that good or else they're not playable. I have never heard Luke criticize a game for having poor production values. What matters is the vision of the artist, and in Burning Empires, Luke's vision was of an RPG set in a rich and vivid universe created by a talented painter.
It's frustrating to me to see people who care about gaming try to run down the work of a fellow gamer simply because he's very good at design and production.
Full disclosure: I wrote fiction for Burning Empires, Blossoms, and Burning Wheel, and I made a documentary on Christopher Moeller.
I'm clearly an interested party. But I feel strongly that when a man works hard to make his work look good, that alone doesn't merit criticism. Now whether or not you think it accomplishes its goal, which is to give the player a great experience, is a whole other matter. Personally, I think Luke succeeds on that point as well, but that's ultimately a matter of taste.
And this is how you know that the views expressed by Fulgencio and Anier are not personal. They are cultural. Fulgencio, Elequemedo, and Anier are aware of how mightily Oswardo toiled, and have great respect for it. They aren't running Oswardo down by expressing their views. Were Fulgencio and Anier to voice their personal views, they would be great compliments about Oswardo and his powers.
But cultures are normative. If they aren't, they cease to be cultures. And the normative spine within a culture is the expressed views of those with adherents.
So what we see happen in the parable is Oswardo instantiate his aesthetics and values in his work, thereby asserting to the community that they represent a significant creative direction; and then we see the community reject those values (rightly or wrongly, perhaps irrationally, or perhaps not, and despite substantial outside validation of those values) while also trying to individually maintain their very mutual and personal affections for Oswardo. (To get this you have to hear the jokey tone in Fulgencio's voice when he says "gross" and the humble and submissive tone in Anier's voice when he says "greater than my path in every dimension".)
The disjunction between cultural/impersonal normative roles and personal affection and respect is the essence of pain for all concerned.
I fail to see why the distinction must be made in a negative tone. "*We* don't take that path." You're right that the pain originates from the contradiction of the sentiments "Oswardo's path is the wrong path for the community" and "Oswards is a valued member of the community and we think he's great."
I just don't understand why there needs to be emphasis on Oswardo's being a "wrong" or "threatening" path, when all it is is a different path.