Cabin RPG

[grin]

@eileen

I’m excited to see this, Grin! As you can see from my Gatherer’s guild proposal, I have been thinking about something similar. (Actually, been thinking about this for Cabin since 2022 when I worked on Passport Stamps and Gathered a Build Week).

I did not know you were the mastermind behind stamps. Thank you so much for making them. I love them, they were one of the inspirations for me behind this line of thinking, and I’m planning to lean heavily on them for the game.

@eileen

I have some resistance to the “Neighborhood scores” mechanism.

Rather than simple “points,” I think incorporating place-based tokens and alternative financial systems through community treasuries will make the RPG truly compelling for serious tech-informed community builders.

But also, starting with points on a spreadsheet is probably the simple and effective way to get started

I’m totally with you. Scoring (esp with numbers) is a double-edged sword. On the one hand a score creates clear goals and games for people to play. On the other hand any score will of course be imperfect and I worry about the unintended consequences of deciding what gets rewarded.

I think the right way to start is a very simple and flexible scoring system, coupled with careful attention and feedback with the participants, and then iterate on the design. And I’m very open on where that process might lead us. Alternative financial systems, community treasuries – it’s all on the table. I love incorporating novel ideas in service of solving our concrete problems.

@eileen

I think the Neighborhood Journey aspect is related to my idea of an information library.

Next steps for neighborhood building are highly contextual. Some actions are straightforward but some challenges and opportunities are unique to climate/place. The more in-context stories we have of how it goes to build community, the better!

Through curating side quests and submitting our own stories (for in-game reputation rewards?) we will collectively create a valuable treasure trove of how-to-do-it info.

Yes, love this idea! Another impetus for Cabin RPG was my desire for such a library. When people reach out to me about how they can get involved, I wish I could point them at a “how to run your first community event” doc. In fact I even wrote one, and also this and this, but it’s a meager start. I would love to put into writing the collective knowledge that you and others at Cabin have and offer it as branching paths in the Neighborhood Journey, which I agree will be very contextual and non-linear. All good solutions are context-dependent.

@eileen

I also see this as an opportunity to loop back in rural nodes, like N0, Elkenmist, Montaia, etc.

For sure. We never wanted to alienate these nodes. But we did not know how to fit them into the NAP structure because it needed to start out pretty narrow in focus and it didn’t have much to offer these nodes (we tried, there wasn’t much interest). But @savkruger’s current definition of a neighborhood certainly includes these places. And the great thing about the RPG and the library is that they can be more flexible and more useful to rural nodes.

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When I first read your Gatherer’s Guild proposal, I did not really understand it . Now I see that we’re talking about many of the same things but maybe framing them slightly differently. There’s a lot of overlap in what we want to build. I’m looking forward to working with you on all this if you’re open to it, whatever shape it may ultimately take