anyway: The Fruitful Void in Game Design
A game design must demand that its human audience reach into it to put it right. A game design must be already tumbling down a hill. How can I make these metaphors into practical design advice?
Let me talk about Forge Lingo for a second. One of the main, most-often-referenced reasons it’s support with the fervor that it is on the Forge and related sites is simply because all those talky talkers had to have a common language so they could spend time talking about what they were trying to do with thier games without arguing about what to call “that thing where we play for a little bit, then roll, then play through the conclusion” (“Fortune in the Middle: all agreed say Aye? Right, moving on.”)
That’s a good reason. I agree with it.
There are certain indie game guys I like a little more than others. Vincent is one of em, and at least in part because he doesn’t use the jargon. Yes, maybe when he’s talking directly to a Forge-grognard and he knows that that’s going to be the best language to help them understand what he’s saying, but when he’s writing to anyone? When he’s writing to anyone, he writes to EVERYONE. To whit:
Everybody who’s talking about the “SIS” needs to say what you really mean instead, please. I’ve hated the term “SIS” since its inception and I don’t think you’re all using it consistently.
There will be no arguments here about the term or its definition. Just stop using it; construct your posts without it.
Construct your posts without it = say what you really mean, and do so clearly.
So if you have an aversion to Forge-speak: this discussion about the Fruitful Void in Games on his site is cool, and it’s not too jargony, and it’s interesting. (It’s also over: having taken place almost a year ago, but it’s damned interesting.)