Brain Dump

This is a place to discuss the ongoing interview with Christian Griffen as it unfolds. Toss out insights or countrary experiences or whatever strikes your fancy. I don’t know that Christian or I will address them directly (we do, after all, have an interview going on), but we might. Even if we don’t get to them, hopefully it’ll spark some valuable discussion.

Of course this doesn’t mean that you can’t have discussions elsewhere. Please feel free! I just figured it was at least worth seeing what happened if a place of discussion were provided here.

Some of you may remember the interviews I did way back when (the ones with Sarah Kahn and Moyra Turkington). Well, that second one, the one with Mo, never got finished. What with her going of to India and all (and, I hope, having a wonderful time). Hopefully we’ll pick it up after she gets back and settles in, but we don’t know yet.

But the interviews are some of my favorite things to do around here, so I’m going to start up a new one. This time it’s Christian Griffen, one of Berengad Games, with the very interesting-looking Beast Hunters which I’m hoping to see by the end of next month.

Our nominal topic of discussion is online chat-based play. This is a very broad thing to talk about because there are dozens of ways that this sort of play is handled, and they all have something interesting to teach us.

The rules on this interview are much like they have been in the past. I ask the questions, Christian answers them, everyone else refrains from commenting. As soon as we’re done I’ll throw up a thread where the floor is open and everyone can ask Christian questions. I strongly encourage anyone who has questions during the interview that they want to see answered there to email them to me. This isn’t a case of me thinking that I’m the only one smart enough to come up with good questions. It just keeps things tidy and easy to follow.

I will be trying something new this time though. We’ll see how it goes. I’m going to start up a thread for the peanut gallery. This is a place for anyone and everyone to comment on what Christian and I are talking about. We might get involved over there in discussions, but I don’t know if we will yet. There is something to be said about letting you guys talk on your own.

Without further preamble, let’s get this party started!

1. Tell us a bit about yourself, in general. Who are you, what do you do, what’s your shoe size? You know, the important stuff.

I figured I might as well kick off a month of discussions on immersion by pulling out the big guns. In this case, the big guns means interviewing someone really smart, which explains Mo’s presence.

‘Mo’ Turkington blogs over at Sin Aesthetics and is an all around smart cookie. She’s probably best known for kicking off the discussions of push and pull which were so much the rage earlier this year. Of course she’s said that those discussions were really preliminary to some other stuff that she was thinking about, and I’m pretty eager to see where all that ends up going.

Mo is also the designer of the super-hot Crime and Punishment. A single-session roleplaying game (designed for the Iron Game Chef 2006 competition) about police procedurals.

Nominally we’re here to talk about immersion, and Mo’s thoughts on it, but in all honesty I’ll be just as happy if we end up talking about something else. This is a chance to pick through Mo’s fertile gray matter and see what we can see.

I’ll end up doing the same thing here that I did in my interview with Sarah Kahn: this thread’s for me and Mo. If you’ve got questions I’m not asking please email me. I don’t think I’m the only one worthy to ask the questions, it just keeps things less cluttered. Then, when we’re done here, I’ll start up a new thread where everyone can talk about it.

I think that’s enough preamble for now. Let’s get to the questions. Well, first: Mo, thanks a bunch for being willing to do this. It’s totally awesome that you’re willing to give up your time and brainsweat. I’ll try not to let it go to waste… So, questions! We’ll start with the easy stuff.

1. Tell me a bit about yourself, in general. Who are you, what do you do, that sort of thing.

I’ve had a lot of fun grilling Sarah Kahn over in the interview. Now it’s your turn!

So, if you’ve got questions for Sarah, or comments or anything really. If you’ve been involved in the online freeform scene and you’re experiences are the same or different from hers, this is your chance to speak up.

I’m hoping that this will be a pretty open discussion, free-ranging and all that. So, if there is something you wanted to ask Sarah to expand on, or a comment you wanted to make, here’s your chance!