Thursday, August 16, 2012

GMing and Personal Brand; and other ideas

Ok I'm heavily under the influence of a lecutre. I got to thinking about GMing and a Personal Brand. There is really no point in selling GMing and to Pander to player is simply out of the question when you consider how much work the GM really does as compared to players and who over all gains a benefit.

What a Personal Brand means in the lecture I'm taking is more of having a strong hand in developing one's style and forging ahead without External Benchmarks.

External Benchmarks - I find this such a scary idea. That means going off someplace where people might think your crazy. Might think... It is more accurate to say its most probable that people think the person is crazy until proven otherwise. The lecture is goading me to push ahead and take a risk... when I think about it I've pretty much alienated a large number of gamers by my approach to GMing and Gaming as a Learning Tool. Especially in the Philippines, the chance I can find a player who will run my gauntlet... well all factors being considered I easily get sick (on my 6th sickness this year) which cripples my productivity and delays my plans.

Still I guess its not all that bad if I consider that I'm all doing this to exercise what I am learning from the lecture: Practice, elaboration, and application so that a communicated Idea can transform into a skill.

Going back to cultivating a personal brand... do I as a GM conduct in a way similar to other GMs. Is there something in GMing that can be compared to Cost Leadership, Differentation, and Target Market.

I guess my Open RPG System is an extention of my self as a Gamer. Do I provide cost leadership?... what is cost leadership in RPG Systems? Is it the reasources it cost to play or the Cost of being able to quickly immerse into the Game. Since DnD is the most dominant, I think Cost Leadership is how easily one can enter into RPGs, not by resource, but by mindset. By that abstraction, Traveller, WOD, Exalted, and all other RPGs differ in Differentiation and Focus.

Using the Chapter 9: Finding my Blue Ocean.

  1. What is Taken for granted by the industry?
  2. What should be reduced well below the Industry Standard?
  3. What should be raised well above industry standard?
  4. What was never offered by the industry?
Taken for Granted by the RPG industry - Market demographic growth. I'm thinking its similar to the example of the yellowtail wine and the wine industry. RPGs have a particularly slow growing and aging market. Designing Games to bring in people who would normally be alienated by the material is something the industry has long accepted. Especially now that pickings are small and there is a new DnD version coming out. 

Reduced well below the Industry Standard - Packaging
I think we should embrace E-publishing and explore the advantages of Smart Books (discussed with no. 4). $200 Nexus 7 and the Phablets, I think we should embrace the portability of the medium and the power of the small computer we carry (again part of no. 4). I'm sure people love dead-tree books, but there are things they can't do with dead tree books that Ebooks can handily do, especially when we look at the next 5 years. 

Raised above the industry Standard - Being the medium to connect gamers
Forums have always been the medium of connecting gamers, but as a service never before offered, why not go creating a matching system and medium that allows players and groups to connect regardless of physical limitation.??? (i have many doubts about my answer here) 

What the industry never offered. -  Interactivity and more Prep Aids
Your RPG book on your phone or tablet being your complete GMing or Playing Tool? PDFs with interactive notes, allowing the GM to plug in rules or to quickly roll tables since the program is Built-in to the PDF saving having to roll a die (and produce a receipt for very skeptical players). PDFs that do more computing and more of the GM work; allowing the GM to quickly build little Shops, Castles, Maps, etc... for the Game. If the PDf technology can't do that, why not an accessible Web Based Server as a paid service... You can link it to your PDF as a gateway. 







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