This magazine has been as experimental game group. Some of the readers may have mistakenly viewed it as "the" experimental game group. This is an error. There are others, and more will come in the future. It is like the Sufi's talk about - no tea house lasts forever.
This tea house has run its course. For the others that will follow I think it might be helpful to consider what principles seem to make these groups work. For years now, I've tended to think in terms of the twelve traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous. Below, these principals are adapted to game terms. Read them and think about the implications for what they mean to a group.
TWELVE TRADITIONS FOR EXPERIMENTAL GAME GROUPS
1. Our common welfare should come first; personal development depends upon unity.
2. For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority - a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.
3. The only requirement for membership is a desire to create.
4. Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or gaming as a whole.
5. Each group has but one primary purpose - to carry its message to new gamers.
6. An experimental game group ought never endorse, finance or lend its name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property and prestige divert us from our primary purpose.
7. Every experimental game group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.
8. Experimental game groups should remain nonprofessional, but our magazines may employ special workers.
9. Experimental game groups ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.
10. Experimental game groups have no opinion on outside issues; hence gaming ought never be drawn into public controversy.
11. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal humility at the level of press, radio, film, N and electronic media.
12. Humility is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.
APPLICATIONS
There are many examples of times that I've used the above traditions to make decisions on what to do in EGG. The following are a few of them.
Tradition one, talks about unity. When I started this magazine I had already been a consumer of gaming journals for many years. I noticed that sometimes gamers attacked one another in print in the journals. It always seemed to start off as "critical feedback" on certain game ideas. Soon though, they became personal and mean spirited. This runs counter to unity. Consequently, as editor, I decided to not print personal remarks. Sometimes this meant editing a sentence. Other times it meant rejecting a whole piece. The result has been a very pleasant, friendly magazine.
Tradition two, talks about authority. One thing gamers are vulnerable to is getting big heads. I am as open to this problem as the next guy. Thus is has been important for me to keep in mind that I am a servant of the members of this group. NOT a ruler! I've said many times that I do not own Matrix Games. I say this partly because I want others to pick them up and make their own games. But also I feel like creativity is a gift. The gift was given to me with the specific purpose that I give it away.
The other part of tradition two which seems important is how it tells us to make decisions - group consciousness. On the one hand this means building consensus. Decisions about what gaming will be tend to evolve rather than come down from on high. On the other hand it means that individual leaders must make decisions after consulting with their gaming peers at hand. There are many times where I've talked over gaming plans with other gamers at game cons, or coffee houses. They almost always have ideas that I have never thought of.
Tradition three speaks to membership. Wargaming, especially miniature wargaming has long been open to the charge of being elitist. It is important that experimental game groups not be. I decided to try to reach out to a wide variety of people, both men and women, regardless of game preference. I've not been horribly successful at recruiting a broader audience but I've been open to one.
Tradition four talks about relationships between experimental groups. I've been very pleased to have EGG affiliated with Wargame Development's NUGGET. Yet the two groups are separate. We have cooperated and worked towards the same end. That is good.
Tradition five defines our purpose. Some of the new gamers we reach out to are actually old gamers who have not heard out ideas before. But the purpose also directs our groups to expand the game playing population as a whole. Several children have received EGG over the years. I hope that reading it encourages them to become the game makers of tomorrow.
Tradition six talks about money. EGG has been a journal directed towards expanding the range of experimental games. It is not a place for a lot of advertisement. I struggled with putting any advertising in. I've done so, but not sought it out. It seems to me that this tradition tells us to not put group money into individual publishing projects. EGG does not finance any of my MG projects. I've always kept the two separate, even if they do tend to overlap at times.
Tradition seven also talks about money. This magazine has always been funded by myself (primarily) and by subscriptions from readers. If it couldn't fly on this level of funding it would have died. It seems to me that this is what ensures that our work is an act of love. Money is basically not an issue - there is none! So any who chose to pursue this hobby/way of life do so knowing that they will not strike it rich. Money is not the goal.
Individually the seventh tradition has helped me keep my ego expansive projects in check. I look at my finances. Can I pay my rent and still afford to print one thousand EGGs for free distributions at conventions? No. Consequently I do not do such projects. Even My MG projects are made in very small print runs. My financial responsibility to my wife precluded my getting to grandiose.
Tradition eight tells us to remain non-professional. Non-professional, hummm, its hard to say what this means in game terms. 1 am clearly not a professional game maker. I consistently lose money on my projects, and use a photocopier to print my stuff. What value is there in that. though?
It comes back to money and prestige again. One reader has always told me to be very careful in copyrighting all my MG stuff. "Some one may steal it from you!" This baffles me. It is like in the movie "Gallipoli" when the young men are telling the old desert rat that the Germans may come to the Australian Outback and take it away from him. To which he replies "And they're welcome to it!"
New ideas flourish only when they can be freely developed by anyone who wants to work on them. That is the realm of the amateur. Game companies certainly pull on the reserves of amateur ideas - like the major leagues pull of the minor league base ball teams. Companies also develop their own ideas. But they have to worry about someone stealing their products. They have to protect them. And tell players to play them their way - not the way their competitor says to do it. All in all, not a conducive field to grow new ideas in.
Tradition nine describes organization. Experimental game groups ought never be organized. Why? It seems to me that it is important that we send the message that anyone can start up such a group. If we say "Well, I'm president of THE Experimental Game Group!" Then they may think you would sue them if they made their own EGG. That is way egg should not be capitalized. This magazine is only one of a dozen other e.g.g.'s out there. It won't be the last either.
Tradition ten tell us to not get involved in out side issue. This tradition has been especially helpful to me. EGG is read all over the world. I have had readers in South Africa, Northern Ireland, Israel, Italy, Sweden, Holland, Uruguay, Hong Kong, Japan, Australia, Canada, and of course in the US. There are naturally issues on international import in all of these countries. I decided that EGG had no place in tell people in other countries how their governments should run things. Once a past subscriber, and East coast Democrat, told me that I should chastise Calum Delany for being in the South African Army. I declined to do so. Calum is a gamer, just like the rest of us, and that is what EGG is about. No country, or group of people is free of stain. My family fought at the Battle of Tippicanoe that crushed the Native resistance in Indiana. We materially benefitted from the forced expulsion of the tribes to the west. So none of us are clean.
Tradition eleven suggests that we attract rather than promote. I've viewed this as suggesting that we invite people in rather than drag them in kicking and screaming. This test the real value of our ideas. They grow out of quality and perservirance, not hype.
And lastly humility. Maybe not the most common trait of wargamers. Yet it is a worthy virtue to cultivate. I've tried to develop this quality in my time running EGG. Some interesting things have happened as a result. I find that I am not as frightened now about live in general. Big project are much more doable because of that. Old walls seem weaker, and a few of them I've able to do away with all together. I feel better. And that is good.
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© Copyright 1994 by Chris Engle
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