Third round - soon
Ron Edwards:
Hi everyone,
I find myself quite torn between two things:
1. Encouraging and providing a personal example of enthusiastic, critical play and feedback for many of the games generated so far. We really ought to be doing this, and bugging our friends to do it, and handing out copies of the games to people who might like them.
I would not mind helping build a better playtesting-discussion standard this year; as Ben has rightly pointed out in Playtesting: Stop, a lot of what goes by that name is heedless, joyless, maundering noise. It didn't use to be. Games like what we've seen in the past two rounds of Ronnies are the right sort of material for recovering the good old days when we'd play games, talk about it, and see them blossom, as well as finding new and better ground for conducting and discussing playtests at all.
2. Running the next round! Fuck yes! Are you kidding me, this is so fun I cannot believe it. I could even see starting this coming Thursday, or, in the interest of sanity, a week from Thursday.
So: convince me that both are possible at once. Please.
Best, Ron
Devon Oratz:
Quote
So: convince me that both are possible at once. Please.
I wish I could, but, man...
The "award" for winning a Ronny, besides $50.00 USD is "whatever commitment, consulting, and playtesting I can provide and that you want." Because you don't limit each round to only one winner, that commitment, consulting, and playtesting can get spread pretty thin if the next round starts a couple weeks after the first round results are in. (Goes without saying that not only the winners are deserving of these things.)
I'm the last person who wants to see you take another break of five years before running the next round of Ronnies, or worse, even longer. I think the Ronnies and the grim harvest they produce are great. But I don't think that a less-than-one-month gap between rounds allows for the kind of playtesting and feedback you're trying to encourage to develop. Of all the games that Round 2 produced, I only saw a playtesting thread for one or two of them appear in Actual Play or Game Development. So I was surprised to see that Round 3 was coming so soon.
I am probably oversimplifying the issues when I recommend a happy medium for a period between Ronnies rounds that lies somewhere between 20-30 days and 1500-2000 days.
And this is, obviously, just my opinion.
Phil K.:
Ron,
Certainly playing the games and exploring the entries further is something that should be done. The biggest thing I drew from Ben's post is that play testing should tell us whether or not a game is fun. Development, refinement, editing, etc. after that is all up to designer. I can't say how difficult the effort on your end for the already posted Ronnies entries is, but if you think you can handle it go ahead.
The Ronnies are your projects, so it's ultimately up to you. The two things I would take into consideration if I were you are:
1) will it be hard enough that the Ronnies/work/life/Forge balance suffer (and if so, is it worth it)?
2) Do you need to maintain inertia?
I have really enjoyed the Ronnies so far and look forward to the coming round when it hits.
David Berg:
Devon makes a lot of sense to me.
Ron, I have no idea what you or anyone can do to facilitate more and better playtesting and playtest discussion, but if you have an idea, I'd sure like to see you try it.
stefoid:
Forget about Uncle Louis, its on the backburner.
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