tl;dr - Incentives guide actions and behaviors more than we believe.

tl;dr - Incentives guide actions and behaviors more than we believe.

I like playing elfgames.

I enjoy writing things down on index cards, and saying sad (or happy!) things with my friends.

I prefer to do this in person. I prefer to have ongoing campaigns. I prefer that the materials be top notch, and that they enforce values I want to see in my games. I prefer the game's design to reinforce empathy.

Sometimes I have to make my own game (Dragon World, under construction) to hit on the exact and weird points that I want. Most of the time, the game I want exists and can be mine for either $10 or completely free. At least one beautiful wonderful game about queering the apocalypse specifically asks me to pay because I'm not queer. Cool, that makes sense. I'm not sure I actually have, but I should.

I can enjoy argument as sport. I do it myself often enough. I try -- and sometimes fail! -- to avoid argument as sport with those who do not wish to engage in it. I do hold that part of the point of friends (as opposed to acquaintances) is to call us on it when we're wrong. I do that, for sure. Maybe more than is virtuous.

There is a thing I loath. The shorthand word is "drama", but that's not quite right. I loath the seemingly intentional and malicious attempts at making other people feel like shit. Of attacking the person, and not the argument, especially when you only know that person as text and maybe an avatar.

I absolutely do not loath standing up to say "No More". Telling bullies to bugger off is, in the least, not a bad thing.

What I don't understand is aligning your economic incentives such that you are rewarded for being a dick. If you want to make money off elfgames, good luck! But, if you want to make money from elf games and do so by publicly harassing and mocking others? Nope, that's bogus.

And its bogus not just because it hurts those you're casting aspersions towards: it sucks for you. Crafting that position and sitting in it will fuck up your empathy circuits. Instead of valuing people and empathy and the ongoing conversation, you start to value people as revenue generators and not as ends in themselves.

And instead of valuing other creators, once you try to suck money out of a hobby, the consumer dollars become limited commodities to be sought after. Other designers become the competition to be destroyed. The gaming conversation becomes how to extract value, not how to add it.

Money is real good at fucking everything up. Even small amounts (and my understanding is the elfgame market is real small). I know this because I am sitting here hungry, as I provided a monetary incentive to myself to lose weight.

Moral of the overly long? Watch your incentives, and make sure they are producing the behaviors and concerns that you desire.