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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jack7" data-source="post: 4677997" data-attributes="member: 54707">I won't be finishing the <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/247021-great-conjunction-rpg-design-contest.html" target="_blank">Conjunction</a> Contest in time.I can't see any way at all I can possibly finish. And to be honest I wasn't going to compete directly anyway because of the fact that what I was putting together was far too large for the competition.On a positive note I have ended up creating a completely different game, not simply a revision of D&D, it is an entirely different work. Though in many ways it is a kind of homage to AD&D.Another advantage is that it has allowed me to completely revise my long running D&D campaign milieu/setting, so that when my game is finished it can encompass my old setting as well.I thought long and hard about a sort of off-hand comment Reynard made about Gygaxian prose. I realized by looking at what I had written, after reading that comment and studying the way in which I had been writing Transformations, that I was basically, if unintentionally, merely emulating already existing versions of the game. That is I was basically writing in a style that seemed "standardized" to more modern versions of gaming manuals. I think I was doing that sub-consciously to obtain a certain cache of "relatability for the sake of relatability" to modern RPG players. To give them "what they expect in the way they expect it."I realized after reflecting upon Reynard's observation about how Gygax had written his game in his own language (and I suspect that as far as popular culture goes it made a far greater impact than any following version of the game), and by doing an analysis of the <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/250798-wordclouds-d-d-4th-edition-d-d-3rd-edition-phs.html" target="_blank">Word Cloud</a> thread, that my previous approach had been an idea devolved from a lack of "Visionary Emphasis" shared by most later versions of the D&D game (and indeed many other fantasy based RPGs). That is later versions of the game were developed merely with the intent of improving play at the margins and improving the mechanical aspects of play, but no newer and certainly no superior vision for the game ever developed. Not at least that could compete with Gygax's vision of the game.<img src="http://www.masternewmedia.org/images/innovation_id73328_size450.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />I suspect this later state of affairs was very much the product of both corporate intent and the fact that later versions of the game developed basically by committee instead of being the product of individual genius and personal innovation. (Not that I'm saying Gygax was correct in all of his developments or his designs, several aspects of the systems he developed were weak or even illogical in function. Nor am I saying he did not absorb influences from various sources. But he did have a "personal vision" that far exceeded later versions of the game and this strength alone completely excelled later and basically cosmetic and mechanical improvements as far as how important his game was to the wider world, rather than just to the core RPG audience.)In any case what I had been writing was basically crap. Just another rehashed, anemic version of the same corporate and design by committee weltanschauung that makes later versions of the game so boring, and for the most part unimaginative by comparison. (Though I do like some of the things in 4E, like the fact that the character classes for the first time strike me as truly alien, and humanoid, rather than human, and so for my game I decided to develop entirely different class professions for non-humans and humans. Class professions which function in entirely different ways. I would have bought the 4E game just to study the implications of that design theory alone.)So I've decided to go back and rewrite the thing as I would write it, with my personal visions of magic, and God, and miracles, and Clergy, and Wizards, and Warriors (not just brawling fighters, but professional killers), and magical items, and heroism, and character types, and combat methods, and player-character identity interaction, and transferable skill capabilities, and so forth and so on. And perhaps just as, if not more importantly, to do it in my own way, and in my own style, using my own voice and mannerisms of speech and script, and not to make it merely some generic realignment of the same old corporate (by this I mean group effort) and basically visionless view of game design that has been so common recently.I'm viewing this effort now as a real Opus, and not just "a game," as if I were developing a vision for a piece of literature (and really that was what the original game was, game-literature, literature that could be enacted and role-played) whose aim is not to design by committee in order to merely satisfy the game-mechanics, but rather to promote a "Vision of Role Play."I am shooting for genius and innovation rather than compliance and standardization. And regardless of how ingenius my actual and finished effort is I know that I can at the very least achieve a state of true innovation rather than just incremental improvement. Then again if this is to be a product of my genius then it must be a product of my genius, I can use previous fantasy gaming ideas as inspiration and thought models, but not as blueprints or design sketches. I must build as I would build, not build as I think others expect me to build.And I'm no longer content to build just another car. I'm out to build a different mode and method of transport.If the game is to be about Transformations, then I should start with the nature of the game itself.</blockquote>

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