[Primetime Adventures] "Last Stand" Great pitch... but then what happened?

[Sebastian K. Hickey]

I predict a lot of coaxing.  At the moment I am a member of two gaming groups.  My legacy group think 'indie' is a dirty word when it comes to gaming.  These are the guys I'm trying to persuade, but it's not easy.  When I burst into the room with a copy of PTA in one hand, bubbling with excitement, they roll their eyes.  'Another fucking Indie game,' they think, and sigh.  Yeah, but, this is fucking sweet.  Just try it!  Just. Try. It.  They do try it.  But they already know it's a waste of time.  I think.  That might be the problem.

When I said 'my job as producer', I meant, my job as agitator.  Are you familiar with this struggle?

[Callan S.]

Not directly, myself. But I am familiar with, at a young age, coming into contact with a new and surprising creative outlet that was deeply interwoven with my, again, early social development (and clearly what's wired into your brain early affects the rest of your life). It makes it hard to seperate what is actually doing the creative outlet and what is maintaining a social unit. Sometimes enjoyably so, but probably more often, frustratingly so (in terms of doing or maintaining either).

I mean, you could seperate it out in your own head over time - but if they don't as well...I dunno, I'm thinking the maintaining of the social group means literally maintaining it - and that means being largely static. And that's good in terms of reliable social interaction. But when interwoven with the creative side, means the creative side never gets any better or self improves because it too becomes static.

That anecdote might not apply or help at all. Heck, maybe it helps me more to write it out! But I thought I'd give it a shot.

[Sebastian K. Hickey]

I'm thinking the maintaining of the social group means literally maintaining it - and that means being largely static. And that's good in terms of reliable social interaction.

Real life Sebastian agrees.  I've had to change some big things recently.  It rocked the boat and friends fell overboard.  The price of change.

However, roleplaying Sebastian doesn't want to agree, yet.  I'm in the phase of 'but don't you see how fun it will be?'  I was a traditional gamer, and now I'm not.  Or maybe it was that I was always an indie gamer, and now I understand.  In any case, I still beleive my friends can be converted.  Just one killer session and it's easy sailing...

[Callan S.]

Perhaps. I'm thinking a simpler and higher probability idea is to make clear the divide - have a traditional gaming night, and an indie gaming night. Whether it's traditional one week and indie the other week, or three of traditional and one of indie, or whatever ratio you can work out. And make it clear that on indie night, they can park that 'fucking indie game' attitude at the door - they can have that attitude on traditional game night (that's partly what it's there for).

The traditional gaming night is preserving that social unit - it's like going to a bar together that you find a bit crappy, but you do it because it gets the group together. And equally the indie gaming night, to them, is preserving the social unit by trying your new fangled bar since presumably they appreciate you enough to want to follow to some degree (if not utterly, which is fair enough if your not their leader).

Or maybe they'll never genuinely try the 'new bar', not even one time to every ten traditional game sessions. Then you've really grown apart from them, if that's the case - or so I'd think.

But equally on your part, this is about you genuinely trying to preserve, to some degree, the traditional night. If you see it as another fucking traditional session, equally they'll keep seeing it as another fucking indie game session. Or that's how I think human interaction goes - take it with a grain of salt and all that. You get the respect and attention that you give, sort of thing.

[Sebastian K. Hickey]

Eloquently put.

Thanks for taking the time to guide me in this time of Change.  I think I'm going to discuss the issue when we meet again, so that we're all clear what we're up to.

Ciao.