Artistic vein or "follow the flow" of marketing

I posted some questions on DF boards just to have the opinion of some educated fellows of that community: the questions where not about contents, it was all about form and layout.

Useless to say, we have fallen in the trap and I found an interesting view on contents by a fellow who left some brilliant thoughts here: Post on Dragonsfoot .

The first point is interesting and not too far from reality: experienced players and GMs looks for games where there are several degree of freedom... those "light-rules games". Maybe that it is not always true (I can imagine that a group of engineers would prefer a very complex rules framework, no offense intended at all!), but what this guy writes makes a lot of sense. After all, it ends up to the logic of the VI·VIII·X game: a set of rules to be born by the GM mainly, leaving more room for role-playing and for tasting the situation rather than worrying about the correct modifier to be applied.

The second and more interesting point is to create an offer for a precise demand: this is a strong marketing concept. With the so called "built in audience", someone has to find an idea who fills the need of the audience. This statement is shocking! Please forgive my words, I do not want to be seen as Picasso but I want to say that to my eyes this is deeply incorrect: it is like Picasso painted according to the topics/subjects requested by his followers (again, this is not my case, I am light-years away from the size of Picasso but I used this example to give the correct sense to my thought). And should this have occurred, then Picasso ha to be considered the real "follower" not the other way round!

Let's assume a new TV series has a world-wide success: then someone should find correct to be called to write a book, an RPG or whatsoever other merchandise on that brand... this is not following an idea, a good artistic vein... this is killing the form of expression of a person, it is the death for any kind of art.

I have a message and I am nor a painter neither any other kind of artist, my passion is the RPG hobby and I would really love to express my message through this form (I know it is not art but it is a creative product in any case). I am aware that I am not a talented person and I have no special artistic gifts, however I want to leave to the posterity what I find important. The main message I have is subtle in the VI·VIII·X core rules: these have been designed to play a game in a setting where the real message is... in any case what I have already written in some posts here (in particular about Morality and Paths of PCs) is exactly what underlies my message... It is sure my total denial to the "follow the flow" of marketing approach. I do not write for money, I do not expect huge amounts of money from my game, my last goal is undoubtedly the message I want to leave to the players, be it clear or subliminal. If this is achieved, I will be realized, regardless or not the money earned or lost.

BTW, this last consideration led me to think and share here also the topic of the pricing of the VI·VIII·X books... Next post has a topic then!

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