Game Ideas Un limited: Fish Pond

I have mentioned my brother Roy and my good friend David quite a few times in this series; I have probably at one time or another even told this story about them. It came back to me recently as I was reading posts on a game designers forum, so I'll tell it again now.

Roy and David must have been in high school; I may already have been in college, but I'm only two years ahead of them. The three of us were in the yard at my parents' home talking about something, when suddenly I said to them, "One of you two is the smartest person I know."

David commented that it was very odd I said that at that moment, as he had just been thinking that one of the two of us was the smartest person he knew. Roy indicated that he had been thinking much the same thing of David and me.

Roy commented later that he also decided that David and I must not be quite so smart as he thought, if we really thought he might as smart as we were.

There's a point in Roy's comment that's worth pursuing. It came clear to me recently when someone on a particular game designers' forum made a passing comment about the "distinguished company" present there. I have no idea whether that comment was including me in its reference, and I certainly have a great amount of respect for a number of the participants on that forum. It just struck me as surpassingly odd that there could be something so exalted as distinguished company on a forum of role playing game designers. We're hardly that well known even among role playing game players, and in the world at large we probably don't appear on the radar of the average radio talk show potential guest list. I've been interviewed by a couple of newspaper people, but it was always in relation to my work in time travel, not role playing games, that I was contacted. The idea that a couple of high school or college kids could really be the smartest people a couple of high school or college kids knew is quite silly when you think about it. We probably did know people smarter than that (and I mean intelligence, not education level), we just didn't know them well enough to realize how very smart they really were. It's almost as silly to think that role playing game designers could possibly constitute distinguished company by almost any standard. I'm embarrassed to think that the reference might have included me.

Yet there are awards for role playing game design, and some of us are featured in hobby magazines and made guests at conventions. In our own sphere we have some sort of fame. There are award-winning designers on that forum. Perhaps I should be embarrassed that I even imagined I was included in that comment. I certainly didn't ask.

The point that came to the front of my mind in this was the idea of the big fish in the small pond. I trust it's a familiar aphorism. It suggests that you don't have to be that special to be important in a smaller place, or perhaps that the most important or powerful person in small group would not be all that significant in a larger one. There aren't that many role playing game designers, so it doesn't take much to be one of the best of these. I don't mean to denigrate those who are among the best, as I have tremendous respect for them. I only mean that the competition is not so great.

There are many examples of this concept in our ordinary lives. The brightest high school graduates go to colleges where they are suddenly surrounded not by the dummies against whom they were so outstanding mere months ago but by other kids equally notable in their academic abilities. It happens again when the brighter college graduates find themselves in graduate school. It's not just in intellectual pursuits that this happens. Every high school has its star athletes who think they're pro material. Some of them learn the hard facts in college, where they barely make the team. Some have their hopes dashed when the professional teams pass over them, not interested in them despite their distinguished college careers. The best musician in the high school band finds competition stiff for Region Band, stiffer yet for All State, and incredibly difficult for All Eastern. No matter what it is you pride yourself in doing, the competition to be good at this increases as the size of the group against which you are compared grows.

So lets suppose for the moment that one of your player characters really is one of the best in his world. Let's imagine that he's that one person in ten thousand who is as good as he is. In his home town no one even comes close to being that good. He can beat everyone in the county, if it's a small county. But if there are a hundred thousand people in the county, suddenly there are nine others who are at the same level of ability he is. If you reach a population of a million, he's one of a hundred this good. Then you have to wonder whether merely being this good at this will get him a job doing it. Do these million people need a hundred who can do this so well? How does he compare to the other ninety-nine? One of them is probably that one in a million best, and it's not him. Suddenly this character who was all that and more back in his home town is another of those nationally.

There are two directions this can take us.

The character who is driven to excel will push forward. He knows that he isn't the best, but he could be if he worked at it. As he moves away from his own home, the competition gets tougher, not because others are so much better than he is but because so many more are just as good, and it becomes the more difficult to stand out in the crowd. This character must do more, push the limits of his ability, find ways to sell himself, rely on other skills which can make him more valuable, to keep rising to the top. He might not make it, but at least he'll prove how good he really is.

On the other hand, there will be those who don't want to face that challenge. Rather than move into the great sea, they'll find a nice small pond in which to settle, somewhere where they can be admired, feared, obeyed, or otherwise important, because they are the best at what they do, at least as far as anyone around here has seen. Whether they express this as the local bully or the local hero, the decision to remain local may be based on the recognition that they can remain great as long as they are local. They can be the big fish only so long as they are in the small pond.

In some cases, player characters will have to make that choice. Will they be the big fish in the small pond, or will they take their chances in the greater waterways of the world?

However, player characters are often travelers, people who have already made the decision to move into the greater world. That means sometimes they will come into these small ponds, and sometimes they will upset these big fish. That leads to confrontations. Try not to actually say, This town ain't big enough for the both of us when you play the antagonist trying to drive the player character away; but keep that attitude in mind. The big fish is in the small pond precisely because no one challenges him. The challenger is not welcome here. Even if he puts a good face on it, the local hero does not wish to be overshadowed by the visiting legend. The confrontation may take a different form, such as casting aspersions on a reputation or providing insufficient or incorrect information about local people and customs to create the maximum embarrassment from mistakes. The local big fish is going to be uncomfortable if his superiority is questioned, and he's not going to forgive that if he can't resolve it in his favor.

Being one in a hundred is an impressive level of ability, and as long as there are only a hundred against whom to compare yourself you're probably the best. In ten thousand, there are one hundred people that good. If you're only one in a hundred, you either have to accept that you're not the best, or you have to find a place where you are.

Next week, something different.

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M. Joseph Young is co-author of Multiverser and Vice President for Development at Valdron Inc. His many contributions to online literature are indexed for convenience, and he looks forward to discussing these things by e-mail or on our Gaming Outpost forums.