Game in the Brain

I was supposed to make a follow up on my second to the last post. What i did was breaking down templates into 5pt and 10pt chunks that way its easy to make a character by stringing key concepts and words together. I was using generic and universal terms like chamberlain instead of the myriad of cultural terms so that it would be generic and universal… I realized I should save this for my Open game system instead and come up with the GURPS version after.

My writing is not really slowing down, its as prolific as ever unfortunately I have to be strategic with the use so that I can open up as many doors and opportunities as possible. One interesting realization about making an Open System is that it has to be able to allow people who work on it to get compensated, in some reliable way. The more reliable the method the farther the strategic goals can be set out.

Currently I’ve been making headway with logical order and using what I learned in a self study for an MBA that is very useful in optimizing how I run, develop, and elaborate games. Its nothing you won’t learn trying to get an online or free certified MBA, but its not really being packaged in an easily attainable way. Basically one has to work hard to bring down the learning barriers by unifying the logical order of a system and approach towards setting. Its having a few simple rules that can compress in mnemonics all that data one learns and creates with GMing and World building.

So I’m saving up for my open system. The goal of an open system is that it hacks at the problems of a deeply fragmented and niche market like RPGs. One is that an open system has the tools to make worlds as detailed and mapped as the big players easier; make them cost as much as the $3-$25 books and supplements we find out there. Also allow us to make these $3-25 much more efficiently packing as much data per page by giving the basic tools of unraveling this data in an open and easily available system (yes the open system I mean is going to be free).

Its going to be free and people are free to make money out of it. You can’t have a purely volunteer only project if you want it to grow fast enough that the market is what it appeared when you first realized what it was, there is some mixed strategies of pay for product that’s going to get in there. Also the entry barriers has to be low so that more people can get into this at Part-Time capacity; the work they do for their own games can be easily packaged and sold for other gamers.

A GM spends an inordinate amount of time preparing compared to any other hobby, having all that effort have some monetary compensation can buffer some of the cost but ultimately, i think the satisfaction of a work worth selling and someone is willing to shell money for is what is going to add to utility of the time spent. there is only some much players can offer the GM, sometimes some GMs are taken for-granted, and such keen workmanship should have an easier way of finding its market.  

What I envision is people make tools that can make all the material the big players make but easier. Tools that make better tools that make much better tools. Down the line the technical work shrinks and the creative work gets more work time. So GMs have less technical problems has more time and quality of life to weaving better stories.

It’s basically the cycle of open source; and open source does not mean it has to be free, it means Open Source: free to be modified and made to your own. Basically you get compensated for the service, not the “original” ownership of the work. People innovate and build over your work, if they didn’t add much then critics and the market would reflect that when it begins to compare with your work. Open Source works best in any level of commitment, as a part-time contributor to a full time innovator.