In working on Acts of Evil lately I've found myself thinking a lot about sophomore milestone games. And by "sophomore milestone" I mean the second game a designer produces as a project of the same or larger scale as the effort behind his or her freshman signature game. So Bacchanal, for instance, the second game I put out in print, doesn't satisfy the "same or larger scale" project requirement. And Soul of Man, which received a lot of development and playtesting, was never "produced," because I shelved the project. My sophomore milestone game will be Acts of Evil.

Ben Lehman blogged recently that Bliss Stage is selling slower than Polaris did after release. I can see that it's getting less actual play. I see Nine Worlds not getting much actual play. I see Burning Empires getting less actual play than Burning Wheel. Etc.

We playtested a supers game that Scott Knipe was working on last year. It had some structural similarities to With Great Power, except Scott had pared back on the enrichment scenes in favor of more screen time for the villains. And the result was a less fun game for the players.

My feedback to him was that the best indie RPGs are the ones created to be games the designer wants to play. And it was clear he was creating a game he wanted to run. This motive behind a game design project (game-I-want-to-play vs. game-I-want-to-run), I'm thinking, is fundamental to the game that gets produced, and I think it warrants some reflection on the part of the designer.

I think the key social challenge faced by a game that wants to be played is, and has been as long as I've been a gamer: How do you hook the player? The best, most engaging blogs are the ones where the writer manages to be consistently personal and honest, not a manufactured identity. But write your game-I-want-to-run rules text honestly and who do you hook? Answer: a prospective GM.

And then...he or she tries to create some player enthusiasm.

I've heard the lower incidence of actual play for more recent games attributed to an increasing crowding of games for the attention of indie gamers. Back in the 2001-2003 timeframe, indie game designers were so frustrated about unsatisfying play experiences in the 90s, and excited about new possibilities, that what we designed were games we wanted to play. But...having first written the games we want to play, and high then on the endorphins flooding our creativity, do we go on (without thinking about it) to write the games we want to run? Games that carry a fundamental challenge to actual play?

One day, Fulgencio, Elequemedo, Anier, and Oswardo found themselves in the rainforest, surrounded on all sides by intractable flora. Each of the men in turn (starting with Fulgencio, who was the leader), took up his machete, chose a position along the perimeter, and delivered a powerful slash to the encircling brush. And upon doing so, each announced the discovery of "a path".

Mysteriously, with each slash, a quantity of pesetas was dislodged from the brush to settle at the foot of the man wielding the machete. Elequemedo's "path" was met with approving grunts from the others, though it produced the least pesetas. And more than one of the men thought they heard voices speaking a strange language beyond the mist that shrouded Elequemedo's "path".

Each man collected the pesetas that had fallen at his own feet.

The "path" created by Oswardo's blow was wider than that of the others, twice as wide as Anier's path, and arrayed with orchids in bloom, and so, was quite pleasing to the eye and senses. And the quantity of pesetas that settled at Oswardo's feet was substantial.

"That was a gross endeavor of peseta harvesting," said Fulgencio.

"That is not the path we want to take," said Anier.

"Why do you fear my path, Anier?" asked Oswardo.

"It is very pretty, and it is greater than my path in every dimension."

"That's bullshit," said Oswardo.

And then, Oswardo stepped out into his path to deliver another slash to the foliage. Vines parted to reveal the man JaJuan standing among the flora. He handed an additional quantity of loose pesetas to Oswardo.

The other men frowned a bit at each other, but there was no need for actual conversation. They each knew they could create such a path as Oswardo if they chose, but they also knew that none of them would choose to do so.

In the context of a creative community, each individual's creative product asserts that it represents a significant creative direction, and aims to influence the community with its values. For RPG designers, creating structures for co-creation is the creative medium; and it's an exciting and engaging new medium that many of us wish we could spend more time with, if only we didn't have full time jobs and other obligations. Fulgencio, Elequemedo, and Anier don't fear Oswardo's path for its aesthetics and values. They fear there's a connection between its aesthetics and values and enough pesetas to afford spending more time with the creative medium.

On Tuesday, Patrick Dugan posted a review of My Life with Master to Greg Costikyan's Play This Thing blog. The review was picked up by Cory Doctorow's Boing Boing blog (within an hour if I'm guessing the time zones correctly). Boing Boing was at one time the world's most popular blog, according to Technorati, which rates such things. (It's currently ranked no. 5.) The title of the Boing Boing post was "My Life With Master: 'As seminal to RPGs as Frankenstein was for literature,'" a quote from Patrick's review.

And then people started buying it. A lot. Mostly the pdf at first, and then increasingly the book. It's only now, 72 hours or so later that things are pretty calm.

So, I can guess your question. How much is "a lot"?

Check out this year-over-year chart of My Life with Master sales I posted to halfmeme.com about this time last year:



Note how sales have tapered off year-over-year since I first started selling the game in 2003. 237 units from July to the end of 2003. 364 units in 2004. 295 units in 2005. 223 units in 2006. And I haven't done my 2007 Half Meme Press taxes yet, but I roughly estimate 2007 sales of My Life with Master at around 183 units (maybe 46 of which were the pdf version).

In the 72 hours since My Life with Master appeared on Boing Boing I've sold 71 units (39 of which are the pdf), plus two copies of the Acts of Evil ashcan, and one copy of Bacchanal.

Pretty damn cool, to be sure, but actually not the coolest part.

Huh? Well, back in 2003 when I first put the print version of the game up for sale the best rate for shipping it internationally via the U.S. Postal Service was "Air Letter Post". But there was significant cost variation across the various destination "zones," which I didn't understand well, and I wasn't particularly wise in the ways of PayPal buttons anyway, so my order page asked international buyers to email for a shipping and handling quote (which, knowing the weight of a packed copy of the game from past experience I could easily calculate via the USPS website, no knowledge of zones required). More recently the most economical rate is First Class International, and it has less cost variation across destinations. But having come to enjoy emailing with prospective international buyers about shipping and handling and how they heard about the game, I haven't bothered implementing a button for international orders. So when My Life with Master appeared on Boing Boing on Tuesday I started inquiring of international buyers requesting shipping/handling quotes whether they were "active (or lapsed) RPGers," or just curious from hearing about the game online.

And yeah, I only had the conversation with five or six buyers, but they were board gamers, and graphic designers, and WoW players, and only one was an active RPGer. Think again about that year-over-year tapering off in the chart; getting attention beyond the self-identifying RPG community...now that's cool.