Quote from: Christmas ApeYa know? I hear RPG.net has like, an ignore function. You don't even have to see posts about GNS more than once, and you're under no obligation to answer them.

It's pretty awesome.

Trouble is, I found it got to a point where I was simply ignoring the entire board.

I really wish the damn mods hadn't been such idiots about having a theory forum.  Would've been better for the whole board in the long run.

Quote from: jrientsRight.  And those Forge guys are dicks.  Does them being dicks really alter the games they play?  Gareth-Michael Skarka and Kevin Siembieda and Richard Tucholka still make RPGs.  Justin Achilli's work still qualifies as an rpg.  Being a full-on son of a bitch doesn't change the fact that I think all these guys make RPGs.

I appreciate you being honest about your position.  I really do.  It's one of the things I really dig about you.  But I think the term 'role-playing game' still has room for expansion.  We didn't kick Call of Cthulhu out of the club when it came out, despite being a radically different kind of game at the time.  RuneQuest wasn't kicked to the curb for the crime of lacking both classes and levels.  Toon and Ghostbusters we're waived past the red velvet rope, even though you can't even friggin' die in those games.  And Amber.  Jesus, do you not see that Amber was considered not-an-rpg by many deluded fools, including myself, when it first came out?  For the love of God, Montresor, Amber does not use dice!  How can it be a role-playing game?!?!?

There are a lot of games, including games I do not like, that are still Roleplaying Games.

Hell, one of my issues with Vampire is that it IS a roleplaying game, despite Rein·Hagen's desperate efforts to paint it as something "different" from an RPG.  In no way shape or form does it deviate from being an RPG.

Real "story games"; however, are NOT RPGs.

RPGPundit

Quote from: SettembriniThat´s your interpretation. I have never ever seen the term adventure roleplaying game being used in any negative way. Show me a link where the term is used to further "the forge/Swine" cause.
When I made my "but" comment, I just was trying to think like you.

Seems I was right:
You are not argueing about reality, but about how much word-power ground can be granted to your chosen enemies. This is another discussion than the one you  started.

This thread was inspired by JH Kim's redefinition of the hobby into "Adventure Games" and "Story Games", trying to weasel Story Games into the hobby by implying that both are RPGs, and what we had previously called RPGs are really just one of two "branches" of RPGs henceforth to be referred to as "Adventure Games".  That's bullshit.

RPGPundit

Quote from: StuartI saw that on your blog... but how would it be any different from Story Games?

Uh.  Because it won't actually be a discussion forum, exactly.  I doubt anyone will ever think of it as their 'main place to go'.

Rule one: You can only talk about your own experiences.  Period.

Rule two: Talk technique.  Talk how it succeeds and fails for you.

Rule three: If you can't describe the thing that you did as an actual, physical or verbal occurence, or series of same, don't bring it up.  No abstractions.

Quote from: ImperatorYour false point here is: you have to choose one side and if you play these games, you can't play the others. Which is bollocks.

That's funny, since that's not my point at all. I guess you missed the part above where I was talking about how I love playing Backgammon and I love playing RPGs, and my love of one doesn't preclude the other.
My point is that I don't claim that Backgammon is an RPG, and "story gamers" shouldn't claim that their games are RPGs either.

QuoteOn the other side, you manage to be the second (paranoid) as long as you claim that the hobby was subverted and controlled by the Swine, ignoring the blatant truth (and even your own affirmations!) about D&D being the most played game ever, in any time frame you wish to elect. I don't know how things were in your cave, but in the rest of the world people didn't stop playing D&D if they liked it. Vampire in its highest day was the second most played game. So, for all your pretended oppression of non-storytelling, non-traditional gamers, we find that the hobby was never controlled by anyone, and more on, that most of the Internet debate about gaming is not a warring battlefield about shit: it's people talking about their games, most commonly their D&D games. As has always been.

There was, apparently, a brief period in the peak of the 90s story-based gaming, where Vampire may have actually outsold AD&D, but that's not really germaine to the discussion.
What IS relevant is that at that same time AD&D had been turned into just another story-based game, filled with nonsense, crap settings, and almost-as-pretentious bullshit as the worst stuff WW was coming out with.  They never really quite got to the top sales position (not counting that very brief questionable period) but they were in ideological control of the hobby; because TSR had become intellectually bankrupt and a small group of story-based swine had convinced everyone that their style of play was the "superior" style and the "way of the future".  That was the same time that old-school gamers ended up leaving the hobby in droves.

RPGPundit

Quote from: ImperatorFirst: the Internet discussion is irrelevant to the hobby. Irrelevant with a capital I.

That's funny, given that its where we are arguing right now. I'd say that makes it pretty fucking relevant.  

QuoteSo, I could draw as a conclussion from the Spanish hobby that there is no other game than D&D, CoC, Vampire, and the like. Which would be false, as I know of a lot of groups that don't appear on your radar (as they don't use messageboards) that play indie games, trad games, and the like. Variety rules.

Using the "spanish hobby" as a landmark for the state of anything, much less internet discussion about the hobby, is pretty damn nonsensical.  I mean, thirty years ago you guys were still fascists.  The fact that you're years behind the times really doesn't make you good markers for what's going on in the vanguard of anything, much less a hobby that isn't based on your language.
Using ANY non-english gaming scene, other than possibly the German, is going to be pretty damn irrelevant because of how tiny a portion of that scene they consist of. And even the Germans are a world unto themselves, they're big enough to take note of what's going on, but what's happening in Germany will tell you FUCK ALL about what's going on in North America and Great Britain, which is what's relevant to the hobby as a whole.  What the rest of us are talking about is what's going on in the English-speaking gaming world.  You've got the tunnel vision of your local scene, and your local scene is detached from the bigger picture.

RPGPundit

Quote from: StuartTell me where I can find a forum where people are discussing RPG design without it being dominated by Forge / GNS discussions.

There are lots of places to talk about whatever your favourite game might be... but there is *nowhere* that I've seen, that focuses on practical RPG design patterns without the Forge / GNS stuff.

Nowhere.

Sadly, that's true. Even here, you've seen the Forge/Storygames swine swarm into our theory board and try to dominate the discussion. Here you have a fighting chance, because they can't hide behind the moderation, but unless I was prepared to outright Ban forge-centered discussion and terminology, its not going to go away, because they're on an evangelizing mission.  
That said, here you can push for that kind of discussion, and force threads you start to keep on-topic out of the Forge/Story-games Kool-aid.  
I'd like to see you do that!

RPGPundit

Quote from: Levi KornelsenUh.  Because it won't actually be a discussion forum, exactly.  I doubt anyone will ever think of it as their 'main place to go'.

Rule one: You can only talk about your own experiences.  Period.

Rule two: Talk technique.  Talk how it succeeds and fails for you.

Rule three: If you can't describe the thing that you did as an actual, physical or verbal occurence, or series of same, don't bring it up.  No abstractions.

That sounds interesting... rpg-talk-no-bullshit...

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: RPGPunditSadly, that's true. Even here, you've seen the Forge/Storygames swine swarm into our theory board and try to dominate the discussion. Here you have a fighting chance, because they can't hide behind the moderation, but unless I was prepared to outright Ban forge-centered discussion and terminology, its not going to go away, because they're on an evangelizing mission.  
That said, here you can push for that kind of discussion, and force threads you start to keep on-topic out of the Forge/Story-games Kool-aid.  
I'd like to see you do that!

RPGPundit

Absent moderation there's no need to ban anything: ideas that can't survive on their own die a natural death. Useful theory gets stronger... it is the way of the universe

At a certain noise level you get Usenet and every conversation eventually disolves into arguing about Nazi's, but that edge condition is fairly easy to moderate for -- we've already seen that sort of work here.

I can't find much to care about in the Adventure Games / Story Games paradigm, except that neither of them seem to describe what I play.

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: RPGPunditHey, here's the deal, you make up YOUR mind first. Either:

1. Forge games are the inevitable wave of the future and I'm a quixotic "idiot" for wanting to resist that wave.

or

2. Forge games are insignificant and I'm paranoid for thinking they could ever have any effect that would change our hobby whatsoever.

I'll go with option 3:

3. Forge games are a niche-within-a-niche, catering to a small subset of the roleplaying community (which isn't exactly massive as it is). Considering that there is little-to-no evidence that D&D and other mainstream games are being horribly subverted by the techniques developed by the Forge, it's paranoid to claim that's the case.

At the same time, people have been experimenting with the roleplaying format since day 1, and the Forge are just a particularly visible form of this experimental spirit that's been with the hobby from the start. It is quixotic to think that by jumping up and down and shouting on the internet that you can stop people experimenting with games, just as it is paranoid to believe that just because someone is experimenting over there, you can't have fun in the way you always have over here.

Quote from: RPGPunditI'm not "scared" of Forge games, I'm disgusted by them.

I understand them, and that is why I find them despicable.

For someone with avowedly liberal politics, you sure sound like a reactionary conservative.

I mean, take a look at what you are doing - you're allowing yourself to be so personally offended by games that other people are playing and enjoying that you've embarked on a personal crusade to destroy this menace by SHOUTING VERY LOUDLY until people stop doing things in the privacy of their own home that you don't approve of.

Quote from: StuartTell me where I can find a forum where people are discussing RPG design without it being dominated by Forge / GNS discussions.

There are lots of places to talk about whatever your favourite game might be... but there is *nowhere* that I've seen, that focuses on practical RPG design patterns without the Forge / GNS stuff.

Nowhere.

That's a consequence of the Forge popping up and, erm, doing innovative things with game design (and whether or not you actually think they're any good, you have to admit that the most famous Forge games - Shadow of Yesterday, Dogs In the Vineyard, My Life With Master and the like - are all highly experimental). Any recently-published collection of games with highly experimental designs are going to catch the eye of RPG design forums because, erm, people who like to talk about RPG design like to talk about the latest experiment which has caught their eye.

QuoteThat's a consequence of the Forge popping up and, erm, doing innovative things with game design (and whether or not you actually think they're any good, you have to admit that the most famous Forge games - Shadow of Yesterday, Dogs In the Vineyard, My Life With Master and the like - are all highly experimental). Any recently-published collection of games with highly experimental designs are going to catch the eye of RPG design forums because, erm, people who like to talk about RPG design like to talk about the latest experiment which has caught their eye.

Yes, they're like beat poets, or auteur filmmakers, or revolutionary free thinkers from the 60s.  :rolleyes:

Quote from: StuartYes, they're like beat poets, or auteur filmmakers, or revolutionary free thinkers from the 60s.  :rolleyes:

Tell you what, why don't whenever we have a conversation you just write my replies as well, seeing how you ignore whatever I say and turn it into what you'd prefer I said, hmm?

What the fuck is up with this place when a poster can't make an even vaguely positive comment about the Forge without being vilified as a dirty hippy Forge-loving scumbag? I wasn't making any pretentious claims as to the importance of the Forge, I was just saying that they experiment a lot with game design and that several of them have done genuinely innovative things with the RPG format, and so that it is perfectly natural that many people interested in RPG design at least keep an eye on what the Forge are up to, even if they end up rejecting 90% of what the Forge actually come up with.

I'm pretty sure this was our last conversation.

Quote from: WarthurThe implied challenge in most freeforms I've participated in boils down to diplomacy and talking to people: convincing others that they should support you, and not others, keeping secrets from your enemies, getting information to your friends, that kind of thing.

Quote from: StuartIn this way, those LARPs would be very much like the game Diplomacy. The players engaged in this activity would certainly be playing a game.

I neither ignored what you said, nor changed it.  I agreed with it.  You said your LARP had diplomacy in it.  I said that sounds a lot like the boardgame Diplomacy.