All things to all people

We're currently running a survey to pick new SFB products, and we're running discussions here and on the discus board about new FC products. I'm seeing what I always see in such cases: most people know what the product is but a few people are voting for it or against it because they do not understand the contents/purpose of the product and think it will or will not include a particular thing. This is nothing unusual, and we try to gently advise people of what really is or isn't in a product, or why they really don't want what they think they want or really do want what they think they don't want. And sometimes, somebody thinks we're including something that we never thought of but which we realize would be pretty darn cool.

This isn't an unusual situation. Five years ago, in my reserve unit, my brigade commander offered me the chance of a lifetime, to raise (recruit) an entirely new unit. I did so, and the unit was a spectacular success, the elite shock troops of the entire brigade. We were running on our own missions that other units used to help do and helping other units do missions they had previously done for themselves. Half a dozen missions of other units would have failed if we had not (at our own expense) traveled a hundred miles or more to pull their cookies out of the oven. The tricky bit was that since it was a new unit, everybody who enlisted or transferred in had his own idea of what the unit would be doing, and some of those ideas were just strangely wrong, off base, and not what we were there for. Since I wanted a bigger and bigger unit, I accepted all of these recruits and then had that the real missions were more fun than the imaginary missions they thought they enlisted for. I apparently succeeded, as I had three great years in command and was the brigade's company commander of the year for the last two years. My successor was more blunt and less politic than I was (and had a worse temper if you can believe anyone has a worse temper than I do), and within weeks he had lost several troops who suddenly discovered that the missions they signed up for were never going to happen. Within a year, he had turned my large and successful unit into a tiny group of not particularly happy people, troops who stayed in the Guard in spite of their commander, not because of him. He forgot that as commander he had to promise all things to all people, deliver enough to keep them coming back, and convince them they always wanted what he always knew was what they were going to get.

The same thing happens on a grander scale. I was reading an article this morning about insurgency movements (real world rebels who kill people and blow up things). As the rebellion goes along, the majority are fighting for something (say, freedom for Ireland) and a minority think they are fighting for something else (say, a communist state running all of Ireland including ulster). When peace is declared and the majority of rebels got what they wanted, the minority of extremists are still fighting. The same thing happened in Algeria and a dozen other places.

So, back to the point, when talking about new products, try to keep in mind that not everyone wants what you want, but that the publisher can (if he listens and tries hard enough, and if you point out what YOU want in a friendly way) manage to give everybody enough of what they want to keep them coming back, and eventually give everyone just exactly what they wanted. We don't have to do everything in every product but if people want this or that in their game we eventually find a way to do it. Just work with us, hunt new gaming experiences with a shotgun instead of a laser beam, and we'll all be happy.