Make It Yourself (MIY)
Sept 27, 2016 14:56:04 GMT -5
Crimhthan The Great, hengest, and 2 more like this
Post by Admin Pete on Sept 27, 2016 14:56:04 GMT -5
To get this party started I would kick this off with a few of my rambling thoughts regarding Make It Yourself (MIY).
Bitd I went to class and studied all week and then on Friday night for 8-10 hours and Saturday for 12-16 hours I would ref for 12-16 and sometimes as many as 30 people and fly by the seat of the pants the whole time making it all up as I went and my only goal was that every player was involved and every player had fun. I did not ref in the same style as the guy who taught me - we each had our own style - he really liked to play so I did most of the reffing. I never worried about what someone else was doing and bitd how it was played by Dave or Gary never crossed my mind. They were authors of something I enjoyed and that is about all I knew at the time. The admonitions in the text about making the game your own I took to heart. I enjoy hearing about other campaigns and stories from bitd, but I have no desire to try to imitate - unlike (not a criticism play what you enjoy) many I have no Greyhawk or Blackmoor or Kalibruhn or _____________ in my world, nor will I ever. I happen to really love these campaigns, but I have no desire to spend my time trying to recreate them. IMO the way to honor those early campaigns and the pioneers/creators of the hobby is to make something of my own that is truly unique and different and can not be found anywhere else.
Let me be clear here, IMO there is NO ONE TRUE WAY to play the Original D&D and NO ONE TRUE WAY to Design a world or campaign or setting. There are Bottom up Designs, Top Down Designs and/or a mixture of the two and there may be other ways that I don't know about. None of them are sacred, these labels are just design tools, they are not design. Shared wisdom is a good thing, locking all designers into a specific methodology is not a good thing.
IMO you make it, you assess it and then you try it out. What kind of a response did those ideas get? Did what you designed work? Did people have fun, were they interested, were they bought in with this thing you did? Then make decisions based on the data. If you are reffing your own campaign this is a constant ongoing process. If you are writing to publish, this is your play-testing process to find out if what you did, works.
That is the hope that I have, that what one of us does that is new and fresh and living will inspire others to create something new and fresh and different.
As MIY designers we get the unique privilege found in no other game that ever existed prior to OD&D to sculpt something completely new. We can make it all up and follow our muse where ever it takes us. We don't have to worry about Rules & Procedures, we can make our own procedures and our own rulings. OD&D is like Silly Putty in the hands of the Designer. It is amazing what you can do with Silly Putty and likewise for OD&D.
So what I hope to explore in this forum are the tools that both allow and encourage thinking that is both free and creative and wild - very wild. Blackmoor was a bit of everything and so was Arduin, in Greyhawk one could travel to Barsoom. Where can they go in your world?
Bitd I went to class and studied all week and then on Friday night for 8-10 hours and Saturday for 12-16 hours I would ref for 12-16 and sometimes as many as 30 people and fly by the seat of the pants the whole time making it all up as I went and my only goal was that every player was involved and every player had fun. I did not ref in the same style as the guy who taught me - we each had our own style - he really liked to play so I did most of the reffing. I never worried about what someone else was doing and bitd how it was played by Dave or Gary never crossed my mind. They were authors of something I enjoyed and that is about all I knew at the time. The admonitions in the text about making the game your own I took to heart. I enjoy hearing about other campaigns and stories from bitd, but I have no desire to try to imitate - unlike (not a criticism play what you enjoy) many I have no Greyhawk or Blackmoor or Kalibruhn or _____________ in my world, nor will I ever. I happen to really love these campaigns, but I have no desire to spend my time trying to recreate them. IMO the way to honor those early campaigns and the pioneers/creators of the hobby is to make something of my own that is truly unique and different and can not be found anywhere else.
Let me be clear here, IMO there is NO ONE TRUE WAY to play the Original D&D and NO ONE TRUE WAY to Design a world or campaign or setting. There are Bottom up Designs, Top Down Designs and/or a mixture of the two and there may be other ways that I don't know about. None of them are sacred, these labels are just design tools, they are not design. Shared wisdom is a good thing, locking all designers into a specific methodology is not a good thing.
IMO you make it, you assess it and then you try it out. What kind of a response did those ideas get? Did what you designed work? Did people have fun, were they interested, were they bought in with this thing you did? Then make decisions based on the data. If you are reffing your own campaign this is a constant ongoing process. If you are writing to publish, this is your play-testing process to find out if what you did, works.
That is the hope that I have, that what one of us does that is new and fresh and living will inspire others to create something new and fresh and different.
As MIY designers we get the unique privilege found in no other game that ever existed prior to OD&D to sculpt something completely new. We can make it all up and follow our muse where ever it takes us. We don't have to worry about Rules & Procedures, we can make our own procedures and our own rulings. OD&D is like Silly Putty in the hands of the Designer. It is amazing what you can do with Silly Putty and likewise for OD&D.
So what I hope to explore in this forum are the tools that both allow and encourage thinking that is both free and creative and wild - very wild. Blackmoor was a bit of everything and so was Arduin, in Greyhawk one could travel to Barsoom. Where can they go in your world?