What Is Crowdfunding?

This might be too basic, you might know what crowdfunding is already, but let’s talk about it quick. Crowdfunding is basically getting other people to buy into or invest in your product or idea before it even exists. This can be anything, really that they want and there are a few different platforms, for board games it’s generally Kickstarter and Gamefound.

The big thing with this is that technically you are backing, supporting your money, only if the project funds. So when you select to back a project, only once that project funds do you get charged. Then the money raised is used to produce that product.

Is It A Scam?

While there certainly have been scams run via Kickstarter, it is generally not. Especially in the board gaming side of things. Even the other side of things where projects might fail to deliver. Most of the time when something fails to deliver, it’s because the product didn’t work as expected. Board games, that’s less of an issue, though games with apps, especially for a person new to the industry, might come out buggy or take a long time to come out.

Is It A Store?

Now, some companies do use crowdfunding like a store. They have their products ready to go and can get them out to you in a few months or less. This is not common. Most often you are helping fund the development and design of the game, and then also the manufacturing.

Making a board game is not the most expensive thing, if you don’t have minis, but it is certainly not cheap to make a lot of them. So even established companies often need the money up front to be able to produce a game in a large enough quantity to put into retail.

What To Look For In A Good Crowdfunding Campaign?

Well, let’s first talk about the two different types of people using crowdfunding. The more established companies use it as a pre-order system, almost. Game design and development might be going on, but they have a solid idea of what the game is going to be.

The other type is the passion project. This is going to be from a small designer or a single person. It is an idea that they have put a lot of their own spare time and effort into. This is not going to be as polished when it comes to Kickstarter or Gamefound. They need to get their art, and graphic design, often, done with the money raised from crowdfunding.

Created and Backed Count

Every person has to start somewhere with crowdfunding. But generally I am a bit more hesitant on a first time creator. That’s now always fair, but it means that they need to make up for it in other ways. I’m not sure if Gamefound shows how many created there, but I hope that they do.

One of the ways a new creator can make up for it is by having backed projects previously, and board game projects. That can help you know that they know the hobby well, and what type of game they are apt to make. If they mainly have helped support light party games, expect that type of game to be made.

Polish Look Of Page

This again varies from a passion project to a big company. For a big company, they have a graphic design team. Or they know people and have people to work with. I want the page to look polished. I want to see renders of what the board and components are going to look like. And ideally I want shipping numbers and some prototype previews or playthroughs.

For a smaller publisher or a passion project, I want it to look like you know what you are talking about. Don’t sell me something grandiose that seems too good to be true. If you say stuff like “the next thing like [game]” or “the first” or “most innovative”. Those are red flags to me. Those things tell me that you probably have designed this for your group or only gotten feedback from your friends. And that you might not know board games as well as you think.

Consistent Updates Throughout Project

Now, this one again there is some leeway for more established companies. But throughout the project, I do expect consistent updates, whether you’re a large content creator or a small one. Be engaged with the project while it is going on. An update every couple of days at least. Let people know that you appreciate them. Give them updates or more details on your plan for your game. If you’re doing stretch goals, talk about those stretch goals.

Game Rules/Game Play

And the biggest thing, I need to know how your game plays. And this is for big companies and small companies. I want to know how your game plays so that I know if it’s a game for me. If you say that it has innovative mechanics, you better tell me about them in detail.

For bigger companies, yes you have minis in the game. I don’t care. I want to know how your game plays. Looking at cool minis is great, but if the game isn’t, then I want to know before I put $100+ into the game.

And for passion projects, don’t take your idea to crowdfunding, take your game. You won’t get paid for an idea, and yes, that means work before you have the money to pay yourself to do the work. But I want a good idea of what your game is going to be and how it is going to play.

For both groups, design and development can and will happen. For me, that is expected. What I want is a good idea of what the game is going to be. And if you need to massively change the game, I want the opportunity to back out at that point. Which I realize isn’t possible for all designers, especially on passion projects. So come to the table with a plan.

Benefit of Backing

What are you getting as a benefit for backing it now versus waiting for retail. Sometimes the answer might be that it isn’t coming to retail so don’t expect to get it then. Other times, it might come to retail, but there is an exclusive expansion, miniature, deck of bonus cards, character, freebie, whatever it might be. And is that worth it to you. Know that a crowdfunding game that goes to retail often ends up being cheaper there.

Final Thoughts

The good news is that board games rarely fail to deliver. That doesn’t mean that all the games are winners. There is a reason that the game play and rules section is the longest thing that I talk about. If I don’t know what your game is going to be, then I’m going to be hard pressed to back it.

And as a new person to crowdfunding, all of those the things are a decent metric. I do think that tomorrows topic, tempering FOMO is going to be useful as well when thinking about a board game on crowdfunding. But really look to see what the core of the game is, see what previewers, reviewers, and more are saying. Find a play of the game to watch. Even if the rules are changing, get an idea of what it is going to be.

What game are you thinking about crowdfunding? Or what was the first one that you backed? Let me know in the comments below.

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But what gets to me isn’t when the rules aren’t clear, it’s when as a group you either need the rules to be perfectly clear or can’t come to a decision. Why, because it takes away from the fun of the game. I want to be able to sit down and play a game with some friends and have a good time. If we need to know every rule perfectly or cover every situation just write, it bogs down the game and takes away from the fun.

Here’s A Little Secret

I’ll let you in on something, no matter what you do, you probably won’t play the rules for a game with any complexity perfectly. Someone will forget to do something or do it in the wrong order. You’ll forget a step or pay to little or too much for a card. It’s bound to happen no matter what you do because, knowing a games rules perfectly isn’t easy to do, especially if you know a lot.

Let’s talk about Monopoly, these are often missed rules. Money on community chest, that’s not a thing. Don’t want to buy a property, it goes up for auction and gets sold then, even you can bid on it. Monopoly is not a complex game but it has rules that people forget or just don’t know. And that happens with almost every game. I’m fairly confident that I play all of Ohanami’s rules right, but that’s even simpler than Monopoly, beyond that, probably not many games.

But That’s Not A Problem Because Board Games Are Fun

I know this might be a surprise, but board games are supposed to be fun. I talk about this from time to time, but you play to win but winning is not the point of the game. The point of a gam, in my opinion, is to have fun. If I’m miserable the whole time, I won’t want to play again. So be fine with getting a rule wrong or if you can’t find an answer quickly making a decision quickly.

And that’s the big thing, you can maybe find out a rule by diving deep into a thirty page rule book. But that might take 30 minutes or time or more, and that isn’t fun. So what are strategies you can take to your game nights and your game table to keep on playing the games and stop reading rules?

Set A Time Limit

Set a time limit on how long players can look up rules. This can be for each rule look up or for the whole game. Don’t make it too short, thirty seconds is enough time to get a rule book out, probably not look at it. But don’t make it too long either, if it’s more than a couple of minutes, then it’s time to set down the rule book and go onto another method for deciding what the ruling should be.

Majority Rules

Next try and come to a consensus around the table. It can be done by majority or by getting everyone to agree, ideally. You’re all adults at the table so talk about it. Again, don’t take too long talking about it. This is not a chance for arguments and rebuttals. That’s probably already happened anyways. Just talk about it and decide a plan of action quickly, again to keep the fun going. If not decision is forth coming, you have three options that you can decide upon before the game.

Always The Worst Outcome

This rule comes from Kingdom Death Monster, and it’s not really a rule, it’s more something they say. In a game like Kingdom Death Monster, and a name like that, you can assume that bad stuff are going to happen. And lots of bad things are going to happen, so just assume that something bad is going to happen if you don’t know the answer. Does that monster hit you from all the way over there, can’t find that easily, the answer is then yes, it does. This works really well in games with a darker theme.

Always The Best Outcome

It might be also that you are playing a lighter cooperative game. You could be playing with kids, so pick the nicer outcome. If you don’t know what to do there is no harm is making it work out for you. The rules don’t say who gets points in case of a tie on something, you both get the points. Everyone feels better about it in the end, unless you’re playing with someone very cut throat.

Always The Most Interesting/Entertaining/Thematic Outcome

Finally, you can always just pick the most thematic option. I say interesting or entertaining as well. If the results would be hilarious if you pass or if it failed, do that. This comes up a lot in Dungeons and Dragons, don’t let the dice dictate you away from having a memorable time. And often games will help you with their theme. Especially story driven games, those give you the chance to ask the question what your character would do.

In The End Have Fun

There are more opportunities to ruin fun at a game table than you’d think. And if everyone is there with true intentions the goal is to have more fun. And if rules keep people from having fun, you and I need to adjust how we look at rules. Keep in mind that some people might try and use these things to their advantage. Trying to misinterpret the rules in a way to make them win. Don’t game with those people, they aren’t there to have fun.

How do you handle rules questions mid game at your table?

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Pros

• Theme
• Solo Play
• Art and Aesthetic

Cons

• Simple Game Play
• First time creator

The Page

While I don’t have a ton in pros and cons, I do have more to say about the page. I don’t love this page. The art is great on it because it’s the comic art, but the issue I have with the page, it doesn’t show me what I want to see in a good order. We get the pledge breakdowns at the top of the page and a link to the rules. I can read the pledge breakdown in the side of the page, I don’t need that laid out to me as the first thing. I want a bit of a description of what the theme of the game is and what you’re doing in the game. And some glamour shots of the game, things like that.

Also, a link to the rules doesn’t cut it for me. I want more rules explanation. And we get some of that with a game play explanation, which is what I want and what I really look for, and ideally you’d have that and then at the end of that you’d have a link to your rules for people who want to go more in depth. But a random link higher on the page is not going to be something I’d look at twice, except for the fact that I’m writing up about it.

All of that said, they nail the comic aesthetic throughout the page. So it looks like they’ve tried to get the theme into the game which I like to see, i think that they just miss some of on the overall layout of the page and providing information in a good way. And their add-ons don’t make much sense either, it’s just additional pledges, not really an add-on. If it was a version of the comics or something like that, that’d be an add-on.

Back or Brick

When I heard about this game, I was interested, not excited, but interested. I enjoyed the Netflix show, and the comics have been interesting to read. I feel like both of them have their flaws though. And when looking at this game, I see stuff on the page that I don’t love. Overall this game seems too simple for me, and I’m not sure how you’d make it that much more complex or what you’d do differently, but this looks like something for big fans of the comics, but not really big board gamers. And I’m worried about the shipping as well, it’s vaguely written and I suspect they are going to run into money issues with shipping. Also, this game isn’t up on BGG yet, now that isn’t the most important thing in the world, but for something I’ve seen advertised, it doesn’t seem like it’s being created by a game company or at least one highly in touch with the modern hobby. For me, while I like the aesthetic of the game, there are too many red flags and doesn’t feel like my type of game, so it’s a Brick for me.

How about you, is this game a back or a brick for you?

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First, teach games often. As long as you’re paying attention to what you’re doing and you’re trying to improve upon it, you will get better. The adage practice makes perfect is true, the more you teach games, the better you get at it. You’ll know which things to highlight and which things to skip and bring up in the game.

Second, don’t read from the rule book. If you need it to help you remember, that’s fine, but try to read as little word for word from the rule book. Rule books are not always well written and not always are they meant to teach rules directly from. Fantasy Flight does a good job with a rule book of what you need to know to start playing and then a rules reference that you can dig into for more information, but most rules have all that information in them.

Three, highlight only the important things. I’m going to, after this point, write out how I go try to go through teaching a board game, but this one is pretty easy. There are going to be things that are exceptions to the rule, and unless that exception is important to a strategy, you can gloss over it, for a first game, try and teach the big points and the objectives clearly, smaller details can be filled in as time goes on.

So, what does this look like in practice? When I teach games, I generally try and go about it this way.

1. Theme/story of the game
2. Win condition
3. How a Turn Works
4. Actions You can Do On A Turn
5. Exceptions/Special Rules
6. Any Rules that Depend on Set-up

1 – Why do I start off with theme?

“In Welcome To… you can build your perfect stepford neighborhood.”

That’s basically the pitch that I always use for Welcome To… It works well because it gives people an idea of the white picket fence neighborhood, and even if they don’t know precisely what The Stepford Wives was about, it gives them a vague idea. This line or quick paragraph is how you sell a game and the mood for the game.

2 – Next comes explaining how you win the game, whether it’s cooperative or not and whether I go into every detail or not at this point in time, I explain how you win the game. In Welcome To… I basically as saying that you are trying to build the best most marketable neighborhood to get points by building pools, parks, fencing off neighborhoods and more. Or in Pandemic, the goal is to clear all the diseases before you run out of player cards, disease cubes or have too many outbreaks.

The win condition is just important to talk about up front because it again helps inform the type of game that you’re getting into. If it’s a big point salad sort of game versus a combat focused game. I think that Scythe is a good example of why you do this, Scythe looks like it should be a big area control, dudes on a map, alternate timelines, but it’s a Euro game. So setting that up through talking about how you win is important for expectation setting.

3 – The turn, I’m talking about the big structure of it here. In Welcome To… that is basically that there are going to be three pairs of card options to choose from and you’ll do what the pair you chose to use tells you to do. In Pandemic it’s trickier, you have your turn, you have the drawing of player cards, the infection step and discard step. Now it lays that out nice and clearly on the player aides, but there are still more steps. And it might not just be the turn proper, it could be the round. Sagrada is an example of where a turn is just taking and placing a die, but you need to explain how the draft works in terms of order. We’re not talking about the fine details yet, we’re just looking at the bigger picture.

4 – The actions step is where we get into the details and the longest part of teaching the game. The theme/pitch of the game, and win conditions should be fast, the turn or round information should pretty fast, but this is where it slows down a little bit. Go through all the different actions that people can take, that means explaining the backside of the cards in Welcome To…, walking through the actions in Pandemic, or how to place the dice and how to use special abilities in Sagrada.

With the actions, however, we’re still just going to teach the basic actions. If there’s going to be an exception to one, call out that there will be and come back to it during the exceptions section of your teach. These are going to be the things that everyone is able to do on every turn across the board. This is made much harder by asymmetrical games, but those are unfortunately always going to be a beast to teach.

5 – In the exceptions step, we’re looking to teach the important exceptions in a situation. For Pandemic, that might how the medic cures versus how everyone else does. How the Dispatcher moves people versus the rest of the game. We’re talking about the exceptions or special rules that are big. This is also the point in time where you have already talked that there are special actions in Sagrada, now you can go over what they do.

There are going to be some exceptions that you aren’t going to teach. These are going to be the positive exceptions, not the negative ones. They are going to be the ones that you teach when they happen in the game. So we’re talking about the ones where you get a bonus or get to do something special because of a situation in the game, and as the teacher you’re looking to teach those in the moment in the game instead of getting it bogged down now. However, if it’s a really bad consequence to an exception or special rule, teach that before the moment so it doesn’t feel like a “gotcha” or trap.

6 – Finally, set-up the game, now, for something like Pandemic, you can do this while you go. For something like Welcome To… or Sagrada, probably wait. This is going to allow you to do a few things, in both of them, now you’re teaching the specific scoring for that game. What extra things do you want to consider when drafting or placing dice in Sagrada. What are the three building permits that you’re working to complete in Welcome To…? Now, all the set-up shouldn’t happen now and for some games, Lords of Hellas, for example, you’ll want to have most of the game set-up before people get there. We’re just talking about finishing off those final touches for getting ready to play in that case, so you can explain the specific things for the start of your game.

Now, I know that sounds like a lot. But besides teaching the actions, the main meat of the game, you aren’t going to be spending a ton of time on the other parts. Exceptions and special rules, especially if the game has a long teach in the action part, should go by quickly. Same with set-up, if it’s a big game, Lords of Hellas or even something like Blood Rage, do set-up while you teach. That’s going to give people a really obvious visual example.

That is one thing that I didn’t talk about much, when you are teaching, we are showing as well. When you talk about a phase in a turn or a round, demonstrate it, if you can. When you explain an action, demonstrate it on the board if you can. These are contrived examples, but seeing while hearing is going to help people’s retention of the information and have less questions further down the line. Also, putting things in people’s hands can be helpful as well. If you’ve explained a deck and it needs to be shuffled and placed, hand it off to someone else to shuffle and place it. This might seem like it distracts, but it mainly gives that player a feeling of ownership of helping getting the game up and running smoothly.

With all of this said, finally, remember, you’ll probably never teach a game perfectly for everyone at the table. We’re just trying to present the information as easily or as usefully as possible for the greatest number of people. There are people who need to muddle their way through two turns before they get a game no matter if you’re the best teacher in the world. There are going to be people who think after hearing how the rounds go that they know how to play the game and will checkout at that point no matter what. As the teacher, it’s not about being able to teach it so that everyone is 100% engaged all the time, but to teach it so that most of the people at the table understand most of the game and then you go from there and play and teach in the game.

What tips or tricks have you found for teaching games? Are there anythings that have made teaching some games easier than others?

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But, I wanted to go back to this game and write an updated TableTopTakes on it, because the two experiences were very different, but similar. I’ll explain what I mean in a second, but first, let’s talk about the game itself.

Pandemic Legacy Season 1 is based off of the base game Pandemic. In Pandemic you are a group from the CDC based out of Atlanta. You are trying to stop the spread of four diseases, red, blue, yellow, and black, before you run out of time, run out of disease cubes, or have too many outbreaks. At the start of Pandemic Legacy Season 1, this is what you are still doing. However, because it’s a legacy game, the game evolves over time. New rules are added, cards are added or removed from the decks, characters change, and stickers are added to the board. At the end of Pandemic Legacy, you end up with your own copy of the game that is unique from anyone else’s experience based off of a number of different things. But along with changing up rules, etc. there is also a story element that leads you through the game as you find out what is happening around the world and with the diseases. This story is pretty straight forward and you are always going to hit the same beats at the same time.

This story is where I want to start talking about the two experiences that I had. Mainly, because, the story doesn’t change. Even though the boards look radically different between the two games, the story, progressed in a very similar way. You hit the same beats at the same time, and while I got to skip a little part or two along the way because I was more prepared, the story as a whole didn’t change. Now, is that a bad thing about the game? Is it bad because there is a limited number of times you can play through because you remember the story? It was three years, I believe, between plays for me, and I remembered a fair amount of the story. Maybe not when it was going to happen in the game, but I remembered that it happened. It isn’t a great thing about this game, however, playing through the second time, the experience was still very enjoyable. It was different though as I wasn’t always waited with baited breath for the next bit of story.

Pandemic Legacy Season 1 (and Season 2 for that matter) really come down to being so much of an experience. Even when you know the story, you are still wrapped up in what you know is going to be coming. Plus, the tension that you can get even from the base game if the epidemics come up just wrong is still strong in this game, if not stronger. The game builds up to the point where you feel like if something wrong happens, it’s going to get out of control fast. And I don’t think that you lose that experience either playing it a second time or playing it solo. I think had my first play been solo, I might have done better than we did but probably a few more rules would have been missed. I also think that the tension might have been lower the other way around because while I wouldn’t have spoiled anything, I could have lead people in the right direction and had more group input. Or I would have had to have sat back and that might have caused more tension, because I could see wrong choices or poor choices being made.

One big difference between the two games was that the first time through, there were four players. When I played solo, I was the only player and I controlled two characters. Controlling two characters is pretty easy, and it worked well. You’re able to coordinate a bit better than with four characters because you aren’t sending your characters away at random. I also tried not to play on “easy mode” which would be using the Medic and the Dispatcher who are a powerful character combination. Even with that, I would say that coordinating two characters yourself is notably easier than playing with four people each controlling a single character. That’s not a downside to either experience, but the game dynamic changes with the number of players you have, and in a game with tough decisions, both ways can sometimes be an advantage.

With all of that said, do I think I could play it a third time? And I think that I probably could. I’m not sure I could sit down and do it now, it would seem like something I just finished and know too much about, because that’s an accurate statement. But, sometime down the line, I could see coming back to it with the right group, especially if you’re introducing it to new players. To kind of take the role of the rules expert who can run the set-up and keep track of the book keeping aspect while sitting back and enjoying the game or helping as needed in decision making. It would be a good way to introduce a more complicated idea of a game, though the mechanics are pretty straight forward, to a group of people who might not play as many games.

Overall, it was a really enjoyable experience going through the game again. I think I had basically as much fun the second time as I did the first time, and when it’s just me playing it, it’s easier to coordinate it getting done. Pandemic Legacy Season 1 is a game that can benefit from having a tighter timeline, though, since it’s based off of months, you can certainly do what we did the first time and try and play once a month. If you are looking for a campaign style game that is very accessible, I think that Pandemic Legacy is a great option. And while you can’t play the game again when you are done with it, the price point is good and the hours of entertainment and the experience are fairly valued.

Overall Grade: A
Gamer Grade: A-
Casual Grade: A

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Most people who are interested in board games are going to be up for learning a new game from time to time. Though, there will be some people who aren’t interested as well, but that was a different article. So, you get the game to the table, now how do you teach people the game? I might have actually written about this before, but I think it’s worth going back over and giving some more suggestions, because this is one of the bigger barriers to entry for a lot of board games.

The rules to games are often challenging, and unless everyone loves board games, reading from the rule book won’t likely teach people. Even if the people do love board games, and someone starts to read from the rule book, I’m going to zone out, because I can just read the rule book myself if that’s how we’re going to learn. There needs to be a more engaging way to keep people involved in the rules.

Teaching Rules Steps:

1. Start out by knowing the rules yourself. That doesn’t mean that you’ve had to have played the game before, though playing a sample hand wouldn’t be bad or sample turn, just to make sure that you get it. Or you can watch videos from places like Watch It Played that go over the rules to certain games. What you’re looking to come out of is the win or loss conditions, end of game, and what people can do on their turn. You are going to want to know those things well.
2. Start with the theme of the game (if there is one). By starting with the theme, you can get people’s interest since you aren’t starting off with something dry. This is actually a time where you can read from the rule book, because some games, like T.I.M.E. Stories actually have a bit of a story at the start of the rule book. You can use whatever the game gives you to tell the story. Now, for some games there won’t be a theme you can do this with, I’m looking at abstract games or Dominion as examples, so you can skip that step.
3. Then talk about how you win or lose the game. This is going to be the most important information for people in the game. Generally it’s going to be about how you win the game, especially in a competitive game. You want to have the most victory points, you want to control so many territories, you want to empty your hand of cards first, whatever that might be. But if there’s a condition, say, if you run out of cards, that can eliminate someone from the game, tell them that too. Or for something like Pandemic, there are a lot of ways to lose the game, so talk about those while you talk about how you win. Pandemic is also a good example as to how you can combine this with step two, because you can talk in the theme about how you’re all members of the CDC who are trying to cure four diseases. In that case, you can get the information out in one fell swoop, though I would be tempted to repeat it again, just to make sure everyone knows.
4. Spend some time go over turn/round structure. This isn’t what people can do on their turn. But if you start by drawing cards, then playing two cards, then moving the villain ahead two spaces, then optionally getting an event card, explain that. This is meant to teach people who this works at a high level and what the structure is going to be through most of the game. It is also going to give you a chance to show off random decks of cards or things that the players might not immediately interact with in the game.
5. Go over what people can do on their turns. Now, this doesn’t have to be everything. Especially if there is a player aid that is good and clear. But talk about the important things that people can do on their turns. In Pandemic, explain how the moving works and how to treat diseases and how to cure diseases. Then, most of the characters have a special action that they can take. You don’t need to teach something like this which is specific to a single player, but have the players read, at this time, their special powers, if they exist, and in fact hand them out at this time, and then you can answer questions.
6. Show people the important parts of the game. But more than just showing off the important decks, let your players be involved in it. In Pandemic, as an example again, you can talk about the player deck and have someone shuffle it and hand out people’s hands of cards while you continue to teach more. It seems like it might distract from your teaching by having someone do something like that. I personally don’t think it will, in fact it might keep people more engaged. Because people are going to be paying attention so that if you ask them to help with something it won’t be obvious that they weren’t paying attention.
7. Finally, teach in the game as need be. This can be a few different things. Sometimes there are several things that only happen once or twice in the game, you can teach them in the moment when they happen. However, this only works if it isn’t something that is extremely important to the game or to the scoring. If there’s something that can give you an automatic win, teach that earlier even if it’s really rare. Or if it’s something that helps you as the person who is teaching the game and hurts someone else, teach it earlier or refrain from doing it, and give it as an example as something that you could do. Another thing that teaching in the game can be is letting players roll back a turn if need be. If someone has an extremely good move and makes a very bad move, point out the option to them, they might have forgotten or just missed it. But don’t do this all the time, because you’ll basically be taking that person’s turn and make this about teaching the game, so once you’ve taught something once during the game, you don’t teach the same thing again.

Now, there are probably more things that you can do. But being patient and teaching a game from theme first, and from a position where you know the rules is going to make it more likely that people will enjoy the game. And when people don’t enjoy the game, don’t assume that it was how you taught it, if you were trying to be considerate and engaging about it, not every game is for everyone.

Have you found any ways that make teaching a game easier? Or are there things that you’ve found help keep people engaged in learning the rules?

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The idea of this is that as a fan or a consumer, we are demanding, creating petitions, threatening, and generally behaving like five year old’s that things are done the way that we want. And it isn’t just with the examples I gave, but those are a few that have been thinking about. It raises a few questions, what do we as fans of something “deserve” and what should be changed for us?

Let’s start by talking about Game of Thrones. There are a lot of complaints about Season 8 of Game of Thrones. I stopped watching much earlier than that, but I know people who watched through it and who didn’t like the end, because it felt rushed and because it didn’t go like they expected. Now, I think that there are valid complaints about how the last season went, and the show runners being given as much time as they wanted, but then deciding to rush the ending is a bad look. And it’s going to taint the fact that they are doing the next Star Wars trilogy after this one wraps up. Not like Star Wars fans have generally been that forgiving anyways.

I think what we need to unpack more is the complaints where fans are complaining because they didn’t want something to happen. Game of Thrones has built it’s brand on having slow seasons and then shocking and expected moments happen. With the last season, from what I can tell, again getting this information from people who are watching the show, the biggest complaint is people knew how they wanted the show to end, and when the last season, not even the last episode, the last season, went in different directions, they disliked that. I have issues with this complaint though, for several reasons. The first, it goes against the nature of the show. Game of Thrones isn’t supposed to be predictable, and when the complaints are that the popular fan series aren’t accurate, that should be fairly obvious. But more so, why is there this idea that we deserve a show go the way we want it. While it might be a minority, there are going to be people who liked Season 8 of Game of Thrones. So if it had gone a different way, they would have the issue. The job of the show runners and creators of a book, movie, tv show, play, comic book, etc. isn’t to please everyone. It’s to create the best thing that they can, now you could argue with Game of Thrones, maybe they didn’t do that by rushing the end, but this isn’t just a Game of Thrones problem.

This even shows up in the biggest movie franchise of all time, Marvel. When it was announced that we were getting a female super hero stand alone movie, I thought it was awesome. Captain Marvel was an interesting character that brought in more cosmic stuff to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, there was a large backlash over not getting the Black Widow movie that the “fans” had wanted. Now, I don’t want to belittle the idea that these people are fans, but threatening to boycott something or complaining loudly on Twitter and other social media because you don’t get what you wanted, I do question the fanhood some. Unfortunately, this backlash has hurt Captain Marvel in the long run. That wasn’t the only thing that Marvel has caught flack for and had people get mad about and demand changes from. I want to get into Kickstarter though, but you can go back and read about character arcs in the first three Phases of Marvel that I did when Endgame came out.

In Kickstarter, it’s interesting. There are two types of demands that you see on Kickstarter and the threat is pretty obvious, someone will demand a refund or threaten to pull funding on an active project. But the two types of demands are game play changes or extra things changes. And these go throughout the campaign, but also after the campaign and probably worse after the campaign. Both of these are extremely headscratching to me for one reason. Kickstarter is a platform for people to raise funds to do a project with the hope that it gets completed, not a pre-order system. So, as someone who pledges money on Kickstarter, I’m an investor, because I have faith in your project, if I get something back, that’s an added bonus.

Let’s assume that isn’t the case, even though that’s what Kickstarter is, and talk about the other things. Game play changes for me is the bigger of the two things. As someone who loves board games and who has dabbled in working on my own game, I don’t think I know enough about a game after having read through a vague idea of the game to tell you that you need to add in something to the game. Sometimes the people who are making a game have something obvious that needs to be fixed, maybe remove rolling to move, but don’t put money into a project because you like 80% of a project and then demand that the last 20% change for you specifically. If you need that change or don’t think that they are playtesting it fully to not make that change, you should assume that means larger issues with the project and pass on it. Or assume that if and when they do playtest it, that it will be caught or fixed if it needs to be. If I or you were a great game designer, we’d have games of our own on kickstarter.

Or, demanding extras, that’s it’s own ball of wax. This generally comes in later in the process when the project is running a bit behind schedule. I realize that it’s horrible that you won’t be getting that one out of fifteen projects you’ve backed and are waiting on right now, won’t be showing up on time. But does that mean that they have to treat you specially and give you more because it’s running late? For example, I’m in a project for a Shadowrun game, I have my copy of the game, but the fulfillment center screwed up massively and sent out extra copies of the games and games to the wrong address. Both of these are an issue, and while I think that there are probably things that could have been done better in handling the snafu, there are people flying off the handle about it. And they aren’t fine with the fact that the Shadowrun game that they got already has extra stuff as a surprise, they are demanding extra and different fixes to make them happy. Basically, you’re complaining about helping people get the copy of the game that you were complaining about before because it was delayed. Again, not a perfect example, because I think there is another fix that could help, but there would still be people complaining that they’re being asked to do something, even though they got more after complaining, because they couldn’t read information correctly when it was clearly laid out.

So, where does this demanding and threatening culture come from? I think it can be placed on several things. One, there’s this idea that something that is meaningful or interesting for you in some way belongs to you. Even on Kickstarter, I have a copy of the game so yes that belongs to me, but the idea and concept of the game were designed by someone else, and while at some point in time as a designer/creator things aren’t yours anymore, when it’s being created it still if yours. You get to put your stamp on it, but there’s too much of a mindset now that something being put out, because it’s meaningful or important to you, needs to be yours and go like you want it. Next, I think it can come out of jealousy. And I don’t know that is something people really consciously think about. I think, and at times I notice myself doing this, complaining about something that someone else is creating while wishing I had created it myself. Tied into that is the last piece, and that’s the delusion that you can do it better yourself. I am using that word intentionally, it is probably a delusion that you’d handle it better yourself. Now, sure, there are some people in Hollywood who probably hated Season 8 of Game of Thrones that would have done it better, but I’m talking about you and me, average people in the world. It’s a delusion that we could have done it better. I like to think that I would handle the Kickstarter situation that is going on with the Shadowrun game better, but the actual answer is that I’d be panicking and probably be radio silent right now, at least we’re getting regular updates.

Now, there’s a lot to parse through there. And I won’t lie, this article is very judging, and I’m not claiming that I’m above it. There have been plenty of things where I went – “You did what?” – or – “You better not kill of that character.” But, I wanted to write this to end on what we can do as a culture to move on from demanding and threatening and to allow creative things to continue to grow instead of scaring people out of the creative fields who have stories and ideas to share with the world that might be simple popcorn fun, but also might be important to making the world a better place.

There are a few things that we can do to try and make a difference. The first is to understand that the active creative work of someone can be picked apart for what’s bad, but also spend time trying to find what you like in the work as well. It’s easy, as the Twitter and online herd hurdles headlong into complaining to be swept up in it. Instead, take a moment to stop and think about what you liked about something before you join the echo chamber of complaints. You might find that there are good things to be taken from the story, from the moment, from the idea that has more depth than it would look like on a cursory glance. Next, encourage people to take risks and compliment people on taking risks. Again, this doesn’t mean that you have to love everything that is done, and maybe it isn’t your cup of tea, but recognize when people take risks and encourage them to do so. It’s easy to tell someone that a risk was bad and that they shouldn’t have done it, again, probably on social media, but instead appreciate the risk for what it was. Encourage people to take those risks and challenge them to pull off their next risk even better than they did before, realizing that it might never be for you, but it might be so important for someone else. And, finally, spend time encouraging those who are being run down by the herd. This ties into the first two, but there’s a mindset that you need to step in front of the herd and try and stop it, all that happens is that you get trampled and you feel like you wasted time trying to help. Instead, turn around and look at the person who is about to be trampled and engage in them in positivity and encouragement. Again, I don’t mean that you have to love and tell them that what they are doing is perfect, I mean that you let them know what you like and encourage them to continue to reach for the stars. Through a herd of negative, you have a chance to stand out and be a shining like for them to latch onto. And you might be someone who gives them confidence to continue.

What are some things that people have demanded be changed that you really like? Who are some creators that you’ve seen take risks that you think are interesting or important and that you want to encourage. Tweet at them, let them know somehow, but also leave a comment below so that we can learn about these interesting, boundary pushing people as well.

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