Quote from: WerekoalaMy .02Cr:

I'm frustrated as hell by my inability to follow through on ideas, because I keep thinking "this has been done before". Really, it is/was one of the big excuses that would cause me to lose interest in something half-way into a project - "Someone's done this before!"

If you are that into original ideas you should be an inventor. It's pretty tough to come up with totally brand new concepts. Keeping track of such things, I average about two innovative ideas a year that no one else has done before.

That said, whatever has been done before, hasn't been done by you. When you add the derivatives to a basic framework (i.e. the rules), the details based on your previous experiences, your prior education, the desires of what you want to see accomplished, and when you add color to that with a framework of your own unique GMing style and play preference, you are creating a unique gaming session that can't be replicated. This is especially true if you have a few creative players in the mix as well.  

Cheer up mate, It's speak like a pirate day!

Quote from: Serious PaulI always thought age was a state of mind thing. My snark aside I feel for you Sett. We've all been there.

Nah! Age is a falling apart slowly over time. It's not a state of mind thing, as mentally I'm about six. It's totally physical, Paul.

-clash

As usual I am right on the cusp between totally and utterly grasping what Sett is trying to say and being completely and utterly baffled by him.  I swear I haven't read a post of his in the last several months were I could definitively say I either understood, or didn't.

Frankly, it'd be damn confusing if I payed more attention to him, or any other poster that much.

So, in answer to the OP:  Sett, write your shit then, dude. But don't be embarrassed to share.


Also: Jenny's posts remain amusing only in their utter predictability.  Keep up the good work, darling.  Though I could point out that quoting yourself is the height of narcissism... again, however, totally in keeping with your usual style.

I'm surprise you so utterly fail to grasp what he's saying, considering it's exactly the same insulting crap you posted a week ago, just in different words, but with a pinch of Sett's brand of infantile, misplaced moralizing.

If people are going to go about reposting the same crap, then I fail to see why I should bother with any greater courtesy.

What's hilarious to me is that Settembretti is mirroring the same sort of controversy I recently saw in a Story Games thread -- including the crack that it was more "grown up" to make your own stuff (by jrients in this thread).  Here was my original comment:

QuoteI get annoyed at do-it-yourself elitism -- though to be fair it shows up in a lot of hobbies. i.e. You're not a real model railroader if you just buy prepackaged terrains instead of crafting them yourself.

Sure, I can compose my own character sheets, craft my own setting and adventures and everything else. However, I certainly don't think it makes me any less adult to want to have that done for me.

For those who enjoy the creative process of writing up their own settings and other material as an adjunct to play, I think that's fine.  However, there are also people who prefer the equally creative social process of play, and if they want to get right to that, I think it makes a lot of sense.  

I don't see any issue with maturity.  When I was a kid and had lots of time on my hands, I'd spend an awful lot of time creating my own worlds and material.  It was often juvenile material since I was a juvenile, but that's part of the package.

John, this is all only important if you value creativity.
When I´m a player, I do not.
When I DM, I do.

It´s a thread about beer-drinking. If you don´t like beer, fine. But this thread is about beer.

You can have fun without ever being creative in the OPs sense. That´s cool.

There is one thing you anglophone-amorphjous-mass-of -internet-guys  must learn:

RPG =! whole life.

People can be creative in many, many endeavours. People have longings and many DIFFERENT hobbys & interests. When I say: "I´m using RPGs for this & that longing", then it doesn´t say anything about the rest of my life. So, the basic American Idiot argument goes like this:

1 "Poe-Em  lets me  explore the  depths of iambic pentameters via it´s    
    MetricMechanism!"

2 "I don´t like that in my RPGs"

1 "Are you a savage full of discontent?
    You must accept the rule of poetry."

Now, the missing line in your collective brains is:  2 "No, thanks. If I want iambic pentameteres, I go to the theatre. I don´t want any in my RPGins"

I always wonder, why there´s so much:

preferences in RPGs == preferences in whole life

going on. It´s stupid, get over it. Sadly, your whole background of talking to people online about ridicolous theories has trained you in making that equation.

So I value creativity in my DMing, and you don´t? Cool, that says nothing about you as a person. And the other way round.

Quote from: walkerpYou have too much free time, Sett.  When you start losing that, your ego diminishes in the face of need.  If it'll save you an hour's work to use someone else's ideas, and you really don't have that hour anyways, other people's ideas start looking pretty usable.

Yeah, but this isn't an on/off switch, there's a sliding scale.  Ripping off an old Manimal episode or whatever makes the homework easier than starting with nothing and can still yield satisfactory results.  Just like my Star Wars game riffs off the official Lucas version but doesn't ape it.  Also, I feel like winging it (perhaps with a lighter rules system and/or some random charts) trumps running someone elses idea of an adventure.

My definition of creativity has changed over the years. Back in High School I used to make up all my own stuff...of course that was late 70's and there wasn't much out there to buy until I discovered Judges Guild.  In college I made up 90% or more.

Currently, with work and kids and whatnot, I feel creative enough if I use someone else's work and tweak it a little here and there and I'm a huge fan of pre-generated NPC's (particularly since I mainly play Runequest).

Sett -

Isn't it levels of creativity you're talking about?  Or, I dunno, geological strata?  You're still using a ruleset someone else created (I imagine).  You're engaging in an activity that has a certain level of shared assumptions between you and your players, established over time.  You're using spoken and written language, which were created by others for your use.

To put it in a different fashion: even if you do use one of the products/ideas you mentioned in the OP, you won't use it in the way the creators intended, because you're not them. It's impossible for you not to put your own personal spin on the way you incorporate them.

It seems to me that people put a lot of emphasis on the difference between ideas that come from inner vs. outer stimuli, but the ideas that come from your inner stimuli have been shaped by the outside world already, just earlier.

Quote from: GameDaddyIf you are that into original ideas you should be an inventor. It's pretty tough to come up with totally brand new concepts. Keeping track of such things, I average about two innovative ideas a year that no one else has done before.

Well, yeah - that was kinda implied in the next paragraph where I said "But then I learned to embrace the derivitiveness" or words to that effect...

The pragmatic dimension is irrelevant to the conceptual problem.

Quote from: SettembriniThere´s something I don´t understand...(snip)

Is something wrong with me?
Does somebody else relate to that line of thinking?
Is this a phase in development that will go away?
How can I overcome this reluctance of accepting other people´s awesome stuff?
Or am I on a one way road to enlightenment and true RPG-creativity?
In fact, I can ponder & appreciate the way they did it, but I don´t want to use the results of the process.

I absolutely understand your "issue" because I largely feel the same way. I think it has very little to do with ego. I don't necessarily think that anything I have written is any better than material written by others. I think it is better for me and my gaming group.

I think that is a key difference. I am not claiming to have written the best game/setting/adventure/whatever in the universe. However, I do think that the stuff I have written fits me, my group and our gaming styles and preferences amazingly well. So well, in fact, that it is very hard to imagine ever using outside material.

Plus, I think for me, gaming is a place to create stuff for others. When I am at work, I am inclined to create (I like to build more than buy solutions), but creation for creation's sake is not the goal and thus, I am more likely to use others' material because of time/cost constraints. When I GM, I am creating for creating's sake and that is as good a reason to game as any.

Quote from: SettembriniSo I value creativity in my DMing, and you don´t? Cool, that says nothing about you as a person. And the other way round.

Except that this isn't true.  

I don't think that you have to make up original creations from scratch for everything in order to value creativity.  I value creativity in DMing because I think that creativity is exercised by things like bringing NPCs to life, improvising reactions, events, tactics, and dialogue in response to the creative ideas that the players bring.  As long as there is room for creative expression, I don't think the creativity is lessened by constraints.  Rather I would say that the creativity is channeled differently.  

By parallel, I do believe that there is creativity in making up a new musical instrument like the theremin.  However, I don't think that someone who makes up new instruments for each of his compositions is necessarily more creative than someone who just uses traditional instruments.  

Similarly, I don't think that an author who writes novels set in the real world is necessarily less creative than an author who creates a new fantasy world with every book.  They just channel their creativity into different things.

:rolleyes:

So what?

Quote from: jhkimExcept that this isn't true.  

I don't think that you have to make up original creations from scratch for everything in order to value creativity.  I value creativity in DMing because I think that creativity is exercised by things like bringing NPCs to life, improvising reactions, events, tactics, and dialogue in response to the creative ideas that the players bring.  As long as there is room for creative expression, I don't think the creativity is lessened by constraints.  Rather I would say that the creativity is channeled differently.  

By parallel, I do believe that there is creativity in making up a new musical instrument like the theremin.  However, I don't think that someone who makes up new instruments for each of his compositions is necessarily more creative than someone who just uses traditional instruments.  

Similarly, I don't think that an author who writes novels set in the real world is necessarily less creative than an author who creates a new fantasy world with every book.  They just channel their creativity into different things.

Totally off topic:

I both own, and play, a theremin. Actually I have three theremins. My favorite is a Moog Etherwave.

Edit: Four theremins! If you count the Alesis Airsynth! It doesn't use an inductive antenna, though.