Games for Games Sake

OR: "How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Game"

Following up on a series of posts that basically have been asking, "Why aren't Games Better".

This morning I read this from Amber Benson's blog, Art for Art's Sake.
Amber is a multi-talented actor, writer, director, singer, dancer and even RPG author (she did write the adventure "Almasti" in the Ghosts of Albion Core book) and she is reflecting on the lack of good opportunities for many actors in today's world and how she has decided not to let that get to her and she will instead only take the jobs that please her as an artist.

I think that is great advice and one that can be extended to the whole RPG biz and the OSR in particular.

I am very fortunate. I don't have to write games to pay my bills.  I can write what I want or take the odd for hire writing gig or more often than not, reject others that while would be nice to get paid for, I don't have the love for them.

So I have decided to take all games on face value.  The questions I'll ask begin and end with "is it fun for me?", everything else is only details.

When writing something now, unless it is a for pay gig, then I am working from the point of view of "is it fun for me?"  IF other find it fun then great! If not, then that's ok too.  I am not trying to be elitist here, actually just the opposite, since I believe that if I find it fun to write and play so will others and hopefully that means a better product.

There are plenty of people out there that need to write to put food on the table, or keep the bills paid off for at least one more month.  For them, since I can't say my laid back attitude would help them or not, I just promise to stay out of the way.  If you are doing something I like and find fun then be assured I'll tell people.  If I don't like it, well then I might not know enough to tell anyone anything about good or bad.  But if I do, then be assured I'll give you a good, intelligent reason why I don't like it.  Your job then is to listen to me or ignore me as it benefits your enjoyment of your game.

The truth is there is just too much good stuff out there to worry about the games that don't work for me.