benlehman | (no subject)

So I haven't written a lot here recently. Here's why:

I hand-delivered a copy of Polaris to a great fellow here in Helsinki who, I guess, is a bit of a fan of mine. Anyway, he reads this journal, and made reference to some stuff that I'd done recently.

And damned if that didn't feel wierd. I mean, not that it was anything really personal, it just felt wierd to talk to this guy I just met about things I'd done in the past. It felt way too intimate for a first meeting.

When I started this journal, I made a point of making every post public, because I want to lead a life that is by and large without secrets and obfuscations. I have violated this rule only a few times, for very personal reasons. Ideally, I would like anyone who cares to know about me to know about me.

But, also, there are a lot more people reading this than just my circle of friends and family now. I have published a book and, like it or not, that makes me sort of a public figure. I don't know if I want everything in my life to be a matter of public record if people are actually going to read about it.

So I'm trying to decide between:
1) change my writing in this journal to mostly sanitized things that I don't mind total strangers reading.
2) move most everything to friends-lock, thus locking out a lot of people who I'd like to be able to read the journal from reading it.

Thoughts?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Easy. Game design, especially design influenced by the Forge, is intensely personal in nature. The vast majority of games grow out of a passion for the subject matter. Further, mechanics are a ritualization of an activity that can be handled without them. For someone to write effective game mechanics they need to either get lucky (happens all the time actually) or have a decent understanding of the activity they want to support.

By knowing about you: your dreams, your loves, your hates, your life I am able to better understand why you think what you think and where you learned what you learned.

Aside from that I think you're a pretty cool guy, and that's the real reason I try to keep up with you (despite having met you precisely once at GenCon this year). But the above is one of the reasons I try to get to know the people who write the games I play.

Thomas