thread: 2005-06-22 : Courage
On 2005-06-22, Ed H wrote:
Aw, Vincent, I did *not* mean to get down on you in the least. Hope it didn't sound that way.I think that rankings like that are fine as long as we're clear that they're the judgments of particular people in particular contexts with particular values.
On issues of confidence and all that stuff—praise and criticism can both be deadly. They take your eyes off what you're doing and put them on what other people think of what you're doing.
Feedback is great when it's a matter of "finding out how people heard you" instead of "finding out whether people approve of you."
I've found in art that the thing that is most valuable to artists is a kind of Rogerian feedback, saying back to people what their work said to you. Not whether you liked it or not or whether you think it's "good" or not. What it said to you. Cause then they can learn how their work affects other people and judge for *themselves* whether it's saying what they want it to say.
So "this game is the best thing EVER!" and "This game sucks ROCKS!" are both about equally worthless and dangerous.
"This game gave my players a lot of say in how the story turned out. This game made it easy for me to cause conflicts which escalated dangerously. This game made me think hard about right and wrong. That's why I hated this game, and it sucks—I think the GM should control the story, I don't game to think about right and wrong, but for some fun release, and I would rather not have people feeling worried about how a conflict is going to turn out. Stupid game!"
You see how the first few paragraphs are pure feedback, and after that comes judgment—and the feedback is immensely useful and the judgment is totally irrelevant because the person doing the judging doesn't share your values about what "good" is?
So—opening oneself up to *feedback* but not making oneself a slave to other's *judgments* because your locus of judgment is internal—that's the ticket, eh?
Babbling again. I don't know how to talk about this stuff without babbling and tangenting. I apologize.
