49 thoughts on “Anyone care to trade Solace?”

  1. Also looking for the Solace. In return, I’ll write you a custom mini-playbook for whatever existing playbook you like, similar to what I’ve previously done (Bookwurm, Broodmother, Fallen, Catalyst, etc.)

  5. Jonathan Walton That is the coolest trade offer I’ve ever seen. I’ll GLADLY give you the Solace to get you to create a new mini-playbook. Awesome!

    Give me your email and I’ll give you the Solace!

  6. Dylan Boates I’m doing two mini-playbooks already but I’ll be happy to do one for you if you have something else to trade. Do you have The Juggernaut? Or something you created yourself?

  10. I’m writing a playbook for AW and calling it, the Instigator, but I will only give it to people who can give me a good reason for why exclusively trading playbooks is good for the whole gaming community.

  11. It forces people to build personal relationships? I don’t know, dude. If you don’t like it, there’s no reason to participate in it. To each their own! I find it fun to make stuff for individual people, because then I know it stands a better chance of being actually used in play. Making stuff to trade is a fun excuse for little creative projects that wouldn’t otherwise happen, like a design contest except simpler and with the sole purpose of making someone else happy. Honestly, I don’t think Vincent ever meant people to horde and trade just the “approved” playbooks, but for people to make all sorts of fun supplemental material and trade it with each other.

  12. Because exclusively trading playbooks can be used as a tool to get explanations from people as to why exclusively trading playbooks is a good idea!

  13. It also encourages and rewards involvement in the community. (Maybe this is the same thing Jonathan already said).

    Lots of early playbooks were made available for unusual trades like “post a story about your game” or “post a picture of yourself in a mask” that helped build a community around the game and get people who were dedicated to the game talking to each other and interacting with each other.

    Hell, I traded Ben the Quarantine in exchange for running a game where I could play the Quarantine! You can’t say THAT trade was bad for the community.

    Now, I don’t believe in hoarding/exclusivity entirely (assuming Jonathan Walton is okay with it, I’d like to make this new playbook freely available to people), but I do think rarity or limited exclusivity can have some value.

  14. Also, I’ve always seen exclusive trading as a tool to encourage creating more playbooks.

    Once people started trading them, they quickly ran into a situation where a few people had all the playbooks and others had nothing to trade for the new stuff. I remember a lot of those playbooks being created so that the creator would have something to trade.

    The only way to break into the economy was to create something new to share.

  15. Dylan Boates What if a person doesn’t have time to sit down and make something? What if a person doesn’t feel the creative spark to make something because their life is filled with other things, like a stressful job, or raising multiple children? Or maybe they just aren’t inspired because they haven’t seen good examples of what can be done? My best ideas started to occur after I stated receiving playbooks after I set up my page with all of the playbooks.

    Encouraging people to be active in the community and encouraging creativity are not mutually exclusive.

    And yeah Jonathan Walton to each his own, but every time I see somebody continuing this idea of exclusively trading playbooks instead of sharing them I’m going to point out how self-defeating I think that is. Dylan basically stated exactly what happens, and what happened before, when people only trade playbooks: “Once people started trading them, they quickly ran into a situation where a few people had all the playbooks and others had nothing to trade for the new stuff.” If you think that’s fun then great, but I can still point out how dumb that is for the rest of us who don’t have time or energy to participate.

  16. I think that’s only a problem if ALL playbooks are exclusive (and permanently exclusive).

    Besides, it’s not then end of the world if someone can’t get their hands on a specific playbook. I mean, it would be great if they could, but they don’t need it and they’re not entitled to it.

    It might also be worth pointing out that once people had all the playbooks, they stated giving them away to new players so that they would have stuff to trade. Is not like it’s as selfish and insular add you make it out to be.

    But, yeah, there are downsides to exclusivity. There are upsides to it too. Just like there are upsides and downsides to making everything freely available.

    I think that’s why people like periods of limited exclusivity. It’d an attempt to have the best of both worlds. People who are involved in the community and interested in trading and collecting will benefit from that, but once the excitement has worn off people who didn’t want to put in the effort still get the benefit.

    Also, for what it’s worth, I think I appreciate the playbooks I traded for mor because I had to work to acquire them. There’s a perceived increase in value because of that investment, and I enjoy that.

    (That investment isn’t lessened if the playbook becomes freely available later, but it doesn’t exist if I acquire it easily.)

    So I think there’s lots of reasons to appreciate the trading community. I’m sorry that not everyone appreciates it, but I don’t think it has to please everyone. (Although I think we do try.)

  17. Maybe in just tired and grumpy, but I also think it’s support of greedy to see a community of purple making things and sharing then and when they say “Hey! Come make things and share then with us!” you reply ” That’s dumb. You should just give me all that stuff you made. Why should I have to put in the effort of contributing to the community to benefit from it?”

    Like I’ve said, it’s awesome if people want to share their work freely (I’m sharing mine) but you’re not entitled to it.

  18. “_It might also be worth pointing out that once people had all the playbooks, they stated giving them away to new players so that they would have stuff to trade._” That is not my experience. I only had a handful of playbooks before I set up my page and only one of them came from a trade, and I didn’t trade a playbook. If every new player had to set up a special page on their for playbooks just to find some stuff that fellow gamers made for the new game that interests them, then that game would not last too long.

    “_I think I appreciate the playbooks I traded for mor because I had to work to acquire them. There’s a perceived increase in value because of that investment, and I enjoy that._” That is the only sensible thing I have ever heard somebody say in support of trading playbooks. (see the requirements for acquiring The Grotesque) It still doesn’t really change my mind about trading.

    Exclusivity is only a good thing for a limited period of time. (see the Cabbage Patch Kid craze of 1983, but how many people want Cabbage Patch Kids now?)

  19. I’m not trying to change your mind. At least, not much. I’m not going to say that you should make your playbooks exclusive or anything.

    I just feel like you’re belittling a community of cool people making cool stuff and giving it away mostly for free because they’re not giving you enough free stuff.

    I’m not saying it’s a perfect system. I’m saying that if you really appreciate the results of that system you should maybe show a bit of respect for it.

    I also think your first point is pretty rediculous there. Seriously “the game wouldn’t last long” if people couldn’t get free custom playbooks?

    And no one had to set up a special page. I’ve seen posts looking for a playbook on almost every forum and gaming community I’m a part of and I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone fail to get the playbook they were looking for. The amount of effort we are taking about is “finding people who are taking about the game and then asking them”. That’s a pretty damn low barrier to entry.

  20. Also, never said I was entitled to it. That’s an interesting word that keeps getting brought up, “entitled.” There are other words I’ve used like “share” and “open” and “inspire.” In particular, I’m not inspired by somebody who says “I’ll only show you the rules for this game if you make up some rules of your own.” I don’t feel like sharing with people who hoard their toys as if nobody else is allowed to play with them. And really, if you have members of the community who don’t have time to contribute then you’re deliberately leaving them out of your “community” which begins to look more like a clique of hipster-nerds from the outside, and not very open at all.

    I can tell this is a topic that is going to circulate around this community. Matt Strickling had an interesting idea for trading his Orphan playbook by having a countdown clock and once he received 6 new playbooks he would just share it with the community, but why does this have to be playbooks? Why not do something like what you described in the early days of the community, like taking a picture of yourself with a mask or writing up a session report in exchange for a playbook? If you want to inspire activity and creativity, then maybe the request for your playbook should be inspiring and/or creative?

  22. I think you have a very distorted view of what’s happening here.

    No one is being deliberately left out of the community. I’ve never seen anyone ask for a playbook and not receive it. In my experience, if a person has nothing to trade someone will give them what they are looking for.

    All those weird ideas instead of straight up trades, that’s still happening.

    The only reason you haven’t seen much of it is because the community has been stagnant for a while. (Largely because it’s members are creating things for new games now. Dungeon World is seeing a similar community spring up, but instead of trading it seems to be focused on selling cheap PDFs on Drive Thru.)

    We’re seeing a small burst of activity note because a new, high profile playbook was recently released.

    I don’t think that elitist hoarders are a problem. The only problem I’ve seen is that a trading community makes a shitty archive.

  24. This is a weird conversation and I don’t really know how to engage it.

    I’ve traded playbooks and had fun doing so.  I’ve also participated in kickstarters and charity drives in order to get Vincent’s extra playbooks (along with whatever else).

    But I also created the witch and just made her public.  I like to think that I earned some karma by doing that, but the best thing someone could do to reward me is play the thing and post about it.

    And I’ve also just asked for a playbook and someone sent it to me within an hour of posting on Barf Forth.

    My only personal dissatisfaction with the trading thing is that it sometimes takes up a lot of bandwidth.  I commented on that once before and I guess I was kind of a dick about it so I don’t want to repeat that, but it’s a thing.

    I’m sort of interested in the notion of people “extorting money” for their playbook.  Isn’t that selling?  Or am I missing some nuance of what you’re talking about?

  25. Christopher Weeks charging money for your work is one thing, charging somebody $15 for all of the playbooks written by other people, 1-page documents that are supposedly free? that’s extortion, especially when there is also supposedly a “trading community” and the authors of some of these playbooks don’t approve.

    Personally, I’ve never seen trading occur. The only playbook I did something to collect was the Grotesque, and the other playbooks I initially found were downloadable from websites, everything else I’ve gathered was given to me by somebody (usually the creator of the playbook itself) after I set up my page.

  26. Dude. Trading has inspired Jonathan Walton to create what looks like at least THREE new playbook expansions IN THIS VERY THREAD. I’d say it’s working pretty much exactly as its supporters are claiming it should.

  27. You mean, three new playbooks that won’t get traded away until three other playbooks get made by other people, and then only those people will get copies. Right? Because that’s how this trading thing seems to work, and that’s why trading is stupid.

    I could go make three playbooks right now, I’ve got an hour to kill so why not? When I’m done should I only share them with Jonathan in trade for his three playbooks, or should I share them with the community so many people can look at them? Who knows? They might be shit playbooks. But how would I know unless I get them commented upon, examined, and critiqued, dude?

  28. I wrote a playbook while I was waiting for my coffee to brew, and it’s super awesome and detailed. It’s probably the best playbook ever. I suppose if you make a playbook and trade with me for it I’ll let you see it. But ONLY if you have a playbook to trade, otherwise you can’t see it and you can’t use it, I won’t even tell you the name of the playbook, that’s how awesome and exclusive and limited this playbook is.

  29. As far as I can tell, one person collected all of the playbooks and offered them to him for $15. That appears to be the impetus behind setting up the archive page (good reaction) and railing against anybody that asks for a trade for their own work (bad reaction?). I laid out two trifolds and two minisupplements and released them without asking for anything in return, unsurprisingly I got nothing. I asked for something for my new one and got something. Unfortunately, since everything I got was from the same person, I really didn’t have a good choice, so I won’t be doing any layouts anytime soon.

  30. Duuude, Matt, you’re an awesome guy, you want something extra for those layouts you’ve done? Give me a topic for a playbook expansion. It won’t look too pretty but I’ll totally whip you up something. If you don’t have anything in mind I’ll come up with an idea.

  31. How about the other way around, I don’t want anything extra for what I’ve done, but I totally want to do more work. Everything you’ve done has been awesome, so if you have any playbooks that need layout, or you come up with anything else new, let me know and I’ll get on it. I’ll see what idea I can come up with, but a hack idea has most of my mindspace right now.

  32. So… there’s a lot of stuff in my computer and in my head about Apocalypse World (and other games) that other people don’t have access to. That’s natural. There’s stuff I’ve developed for specific campaigns, stuff that is half-finished, and stuff that I just haven’t gotten around to putting together in a form I can share with other people. There’s also stuff that I’ve made as a present for a specific person or group of people and hasn’t reached a wider audience. And then there’s stuff that is out there for public consumption and stuff that I give away to anyone who asks. Nobody is harmed if they don’t have access to all the stuff that I could potentially make available about Apocalypse World. The game is totally great and fine by itself and there’s plenty of supplemental material that people have access to if they want it. I don’t mind if people want to make the things I’ve released generally available (your list of supplemental playbooks is great, BTW), but I also don’t think it’s a big deal if people don’t immediately have access to a few new custom moves.

  33. (Xposted with 7…damn work!)

    Oh man!  I haven’t seen people charging money for other people’s work — yeah, that’s feeling pretty fucked up.  I actually bristle a little when I see people offering the witch for trade when I made it a public Google Doc so everyone could have it.

    There’s been tons of trading at:

    http://story-games.com/forums/discussion/13879/apocalypse-world-le-playbooks/p1

    and in several threads at Barf Forth, instead of being confined to one. 

  34. First of all, I want to apologize if I was grumpy, belligerent and/or incoherent while I was posting at one in the morning…

    Second of all, I feel like we’re all missing the point here.

    Pavel Berlin Did someone trade you the Solace? Let me know if you didn’t get it and I’ll set you up.

    Patrick Henry Downs You said that you asked for playbooks and you couldn’t get them? I never offered because it looked like you had collected most of the ones I know about, but is there one you’re still looking for? If there is, let me know and I’ll do what I can to get it to you. I’ll consider it a fair trade for the work you put in putting together the archive page. 😛

  35. Patrick Henry Downs Fuck it, just tell us who it was that asked for money for playbooks. That’d be a hell of a lot more productive than jumping into every thread where people are having fun and shitting all over it. Is that person even involved with any of these discussions, or are you imagining that we’re all part of some shadowy cabal?

  41. Matt Strickling I haven’t seen them on G+, but their screen name appears on every forum posting I’ve ever seen concerning trading playbooks. He always lists what he has and absolutely refuses to give away playbooks without getting something in return. If you and Dylan Boates are such advocates of trading then I’m sure you’ve dealt with him or seen his posts.

    And yeah, Dylan, I’m sorry. Like I said, it was late and I was getting upset. But I think trading is inherently silly and self-defeating. I could keep outlining why I think this is so, but you and Jonathan Walton keep missing the point and start arguing around what I say. It gets a little frustrating from my perspective to say “Shouldn’t the community be trying to inspire creativity by sharing knowledge collectively” when you both seem to want to change the subject to “the individual is not entitled to the knowledge of the community.” At least, that’s what your position sounds like to me. (I have yet to hear a solidly good reason for why trading is superior to sharing openly.)

    I don’t really need any playbooks. If you notice that my archive page doesn’t have a link to one then I appreciate either a pdf or a forum page address so I can add it to the archive. But I feel like the page should be shared with other gamers so they have access to the playbooks as well. (Also, I’m thinking about buying a pdf editor just so I can make trifolds for the playbooks that aren’t in that format yet.)

    Pavel Berlin You’re welcome! I made my playbook archive for gamers like you. I only ask that if you create something you think others would enjoy that you share it.

  43. I understand Patrick. I was tired and grouchy myself. (Honestly, I still sort of am… Had to get up early and go to work this morning.)

    I don’t think we’re missing the point though, and I do think you’ve represented what we’re saying accurately. I think the community is trying to inspire creativity and is sharing knowledge collectively, but that no one has a right to that knowledge and inspiration. Sharing that knowledge and inspiration is a generous gift.

    Honestly, I think the idea of trading mostly sprung out of politeness.

    If I’m remembering correctly, the first bonus playbooks were created as pre-order benefits or incentives to support a charity or game being run by a friend of Vincent.

    People started asking “Hey! How do I get the pre-order bonus if I didn’t pre-order?” and Vincent said “Find someone who has it and ask them.”

    I think it was sort of natural to try to offer something in exchange, so that quickly became a culture of trade and barter instead of gifts.

    I know that, personally, I’m always happy to give a playbook away if it looks like someone isn’t able to arrange a trade. I’d prefer a trade, since that usually makes two people happy instead of one, but I’d rather one person be happy than none.

    However, I’m not trying to insist that the system we’ve got is perfect. It’s worked pretty well, but I’m sure some people try to abuse it, or don’t respect the spirit of it, and some people are just legitimately let down by the flaws in the system.

    BUT, I also think that the system has done a lot of good and it’s worth putting up with its flaws.

    Does that make sense?

  44. Oh? You were serious?

    In that case I said: “_I think I appreciate the playbooks I traded for mor because I had to work to acquire them. There’s a perceived increase in value because of that investment, and I enjoy that._”

    And you replied: “That is the only sensible thing I have ever heard somebody say in support of trading playbooks.”

    I believe that means I’ve earned my copy of The Instigator?

    On that note, I was actually thinking of making a “barter themed” playbook that explicitly stipulated that it COULDN’T be given away for free. (Although, my intent for distributing it certainly isn’t as greedy or capitalistic as you might expect…)

  47. I’m not sure what you mean by being insular. It seems to be social by nature.

    Like I’ve said, I’ve always seen asking to be let in as being a successful method of joining.

    How is doing a google search and downloading all the playbooks you want without ever interacting with a human being LESS insular than asking for them, having a discussion and receiving them?

    The majority of this community seems to go out of their way to bring people in and share ideas with them. That’s the OPPOSITE of insular.

    Oh. I mixed up The Instigator with your super extra exclusive secret playbook. Sorry.

    I’d like BOTH really, but I’ve only fulfilled your requirements to receive The Instigator.

    I’m happy to share ideas with you in exchange for your secret playbook, but if you don’t want to share, I’m cool with that.

  48. Yes, it’s social for those who participate. Spectators are given the finger.

    That’s a caveat. Most people are not even going to be inclined to ask. If I had to take a sample from my gaming groups, only 10% of gamers are going to participate. And here I am!

    Because I make a lot of noise and show everybody where they are afterward. Research then report. 😉

    I’ll send you the Instigator as soon as I think it’s finished. What’s your email addy?

  49. I sent you a private message with my email address.

    I agree that requiring community participation will result in less people seeing those playbooks, but I think that a degree of exclusivity encourages community participation. People who otherwise wouldn’t participate WILL participate in order to get the free stuff.

    I’d rather have a community talking with me about this stuff than a bunch of strangers enjoying it alone.

    By making the place to acquire new playbooks a forum instead of a static web site, you encourage conversation, don’t you?

    Personally, I think my ideal method for sharing my own work would be “You can have it in exchange for the promise that you’ll talk to me about it.”

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