Quote from: -E.Ultimately, as the web evolved, discussion moved from Usenet to forums like this one and The Forge.

NOTE: Almost *all* the good ideas in RPG Theory came from r.g.f.a. If you're talking to a theorist and he's making sense, it's a good bet he's leveraging r.g.f.a. ideas.

I didn't realize this when I started getting familiar with the theory. It was an eye-opener.

3) Ron Edwards created The Forge to develop & advance his own ideas -- he was one of several voices in r.g.f.a -- at The Forge, thanks to his moderation style, he was / is the only one that matters.

As others have pointed out, Ron didn't actually participate on r.g.f.a. (which was rec.games.frp.advocacy).  He heard about rgfa ideas and read some of the FAQs and such, but didn't participate.  He did participate on the Gaming Outpost, which was where many of the other ideas came up -- notably Scarlet Jester's ideas on exploration.  You can read some of Jester's GENder model on the threefold model page here:

http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/theory/threefold/

The most striking change is that the rgfa concept of Simulationism is extremely different than Ron's GNS.  Genre emulators -- like those who wants to make four-color comic-book stories, say -- are considered Dramatist in the Threefold, but are considered Simulationists in Ron's GNS.  Threefold Simulationism is about simulating things -- i.e. a virtual situation where you're concerned about what would really happen given the premises.  

Quote from: -E.Even before the BRAIN DAMAGE things were falling apart. The theory never made a lot of sense, and The Forge shut down the forums for discussing them.

After the whole damage thing a lot of people who used to follow the theory moved even further away.

Now you get a lot of blogs and far less... ahem... coherent discourse.

There are, periodically, good ideas out there -- but fundamentally the theory (and the spin-off theories) are pretty flawed.

Eh?  Yes, the blogs have disagreement between them, which I guess makes them incoherent with each other.  I would consider this a step up from certain tendencies on the Forge theory boards, which were moderated by Ron and had a number of people who would try to spin whatever was said as being consistent with the "core theory".  

Quote from: -E.Forge Theory works well as *advocacy* -- if you want to call your game cool, you can say it's "Narrativist." If you're part of the community, you can be part of the "Indie Revolution" (this is like being an indie film maker or musician! Pretty cool, huh? The big-boys have sold out to their corporate overlords!)

While I disagree with most of what it advocates, I think that a good creative theory should say something -- rather than a namby-pamby "all games are good, and all styles are good" which ends up saying nothing at all.  While they will often have flaws, I think manifestoes have an important place in any creative theory.  Within any creative field, it's almost never the case that you have a theory which is objectively right.  For example, there are lots of theories over drama, literature, film, and so forth -- and some are definitely more popular than others, but they are never really proven or disproven.

E's summary pretty much nails it, but here's the points I wanted to add.

Quote from: -E.2) R.g.f.a came up with some basic concepts that underpin a lot of RPG theory including "forge theory"

A sample would be the concept of "stances" and the idea of a "social contract" defining what's acceptabled / expected in a game, and so-on.

The "stance" thing, incidentally, is something I wish was explored more, in that it's at least vaguely observable - you can observe someone's play style and say "OK, that person gets excited about actor stance, this one is very keen on director stance" and so forth. You can't quite do the same thing about the narrative agendas as posited in GNS theory as they are about what people desire, and ultimately people's desires live inside their heads and are only imperfectly communicated through their behaviour and comments.

Quoter.g.f.a also came up with the idea that "different people like different things" in gaming and even defined a taxonomy of how different GM's might make decisions based on their priorities.

The "decision" thing should be stressed. GDS (the rgfa equivalent of GNS) was originally all about analysing individual decisions rather than categorising people or games. "This decision was made in a gamist way because it was all about keeping things balanced... this decision was dramatist because it was made for the story's sake... this decision was simulationist because it was all about what would 'really happen' in the gameworld."

QuoteNOTE: Almost *all* the good ideas in RPG Theory came from r.g.f.a. If you're talking to a theorist and he's making sense, it's a good bet he's leveraging r.g.f.a. ideas.

I didn't realize this when I started getting familiar with the theory. It was an eye-opener.

I think there's another way to distinguish people: folk who've read the discussions that created the theories, and people who have just read the theories.

The discussions are great. The rgfa archives on Google Groups are worth a look. They're all about people talking about what they want from games, and what happens in their games. RPG theories are ultimately brief summaries of what the person who wrote that theory took away from the discussion, and ultimately a lot gets lost or put aside when a 100+ post thread is reduced to a 1-paragraph theory.

QuoteIn practice, theorists who like a game and think it's "deep" call it Narrativist. Some of them will even make idiosyncratic arguments to explain why they believe that...

Witness Ron calling the Riddle of Steel narrativist despite its declared aim and the way it plays out - it's realism, realism, realism all the way, baby, with a smattering of character motivations to spice things up.

QuoteForge Theory works well as *advocacy* -- if you want to call your game cool, you can say it's "Narrativist." If you're part of the community, you can be part of the "Indie Revolution" (this is like being an indie film maker or musician! Pretty cool, huh? The big-boys have sold out to their corporate overlords!)

Although to be fair, "indie" and "narrativist" are different things. A|State is pretty much a hardcore simulationist game as written, and is sold through the Indie Press Revolution.

Quote from: Abyssal MawIn short: The reason forgies have never been able to address simulationism, (and have never been able to explain why narrativism on their terms is so narrowly defined) is because they are the simulationists.

Nearly everything else is marketing blather.

It probably helps to dredge up the old RGFA definition of simulationism here, because really it hasn't been better defined since.

Quote from: RGFA FAQ"simulationist": is the style which values resolving in-game events based solely on game-world considerations, without allowing any meta-game concerns to affect the decision. Thus, a fully simulationist GM will not fudge results to  save PC's or to save her plot, or even change facts unknown to the players.  Such a GM may use meta-game considerations to decide meta-game issues like who is playing which character, whether to play out a conversation word for word, and so forth, but she will resolve actual in-game events based on what would "really" happen.

"Meta-game" in this context means "OOC", something not existing in the gameworld.

If we go by the RGFA definition, then the narrativist crowd aren't simulationists at all - they have a powerful meta-game drive which they want to explore (making something which looks like a story) which is prioritises above other things.

But, note that you have to go back to RGFA to unravel that. I suspect it would be difficult for someone to dispute your point using Forge theory, Abyssal Maw...

Thanks everyone! This thread is better than the Forge.

For what it’s worth, I once wrote a brief summary of what Tony called the “Ron Edwards stuff” for a German RPG board. Of course, this is filtered through my own perception. Here’s a quick translation:

What are the main points of Forge Theory?

Role-playing is a social activity
RPGs are played by people because they want to have fun. Therefore, any sensible analysis of role-playing must start with the players as real persons, and not with the characters as fictional persons. The whole context of social interaction between the players has been called “Social Contract”.

Role-playing is creating fiction together
The participants of an RPG are creating imaginary events through play. To do that, the pictures in everyone’s head of what happens need to match to a good degree. These matching pictures have been called the “Shared Imagined Space”.

The Shared Imagined Space is created through negotiation
The players’ interaction at the gaming table is directed toward including certain situations or events into the Shared Imagined Space. The back and forth thus developing is best understood as a process of negotiation. Only if all players at least tacitly agree to a new piece of fictional content can play continue on that basis. This simile has been called the „Lumpley Principle“.

System does matter
”System” has been used to describe the rules by which the negotiation process is organized. These rules may be written or implicit. In some groups, they deter massively from what is laid down in the game text. Therefore, if someone tells you that system doesn’t matter, she is referring to the rules in the game text, and she is saying so because her group is not playing much by those rules anyway. The actual rules they play by are mainly their own, and they do matter indeed. These actual rules greatly influence two equally important things:

1) The fictional content shaping the Shared Imagined Space.
2) How players act at the table to create said content.

There is role-playing, and then there is role-playing
The way how people role-play (see the above points) may vary widely from group to group. That’s because different people have different priorities in playing RPGs. You get the best chance for a gaming group to be fun on a sustained basis when all players in that group follow the same or similar priorities when playing together. This has been called the Shared Creative Agenda.

Note: Creative Agenda is the full picture! It is recognized when watching a group play for a longer instance, with special attention to moments where specific priorities may conflict with each other. That’s not to say that any action by a player at any time during play needs to fit a scheme or something.

The following three general categories of Creative Agenda have been identified in the GNS model:

1) Gamism: The players accept the challenges of the Shared Imagined Space, taking risks and showing performance (as players) and reaching or missing a certain goal. Sometimes all players may work together to a goal, sometimes they may compete.

Note: Gamism is not the same as “Powergaming”, which represents a sub-species.

2) Narrativism: The players engage in the moral and human issues of the Shared Imagined Space, taking a position (as players) and thereby making a statement about their characters/the game world/themselves.

Note: This is not what is commonly called „Storytelling“ or „Cinematic“. If functional (= fun), both is usually considered:

3) Simulationism: The players experience the Shared Imagined Space as something worthwhile for it’s own sake, something which they do not fully control because it follows it’s own laws. Experiencing the Shared Imagined Space and contributing to it is part of any role-playing, but in this mode, it’s the top priority.

Note: Complex „realistic“ rules are only one style of Simulationist role-playing. More frequently, you’ll find features like style, atmosphere, acting, or dramaturgy.  


So, that’s what I have gathered. Ask a different person, you’ll get a slightly different account.

What Frank isn´t mentioning, is that it took himself two years of heavy reading and posting at the forge to gain that "model of the model".

Only recently he exclaimed on his blog:

"Finally I´ve understood SIM according to Ron!"
Good for him, but it´s  a telltale for the essays.

So, it´s really not in the essays, which was one of the points made.

Quote from: malleus arianorumThanks everyone! This thread is better than the Forge.

Most things are.

I mean fuck, a thread discussing horrific skin infections is no doubt better than actually having a horrific skin infection, too, but that's hardly high praise.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Frank TWhat are the main points of Forge Theory?

You know, that was an excellent overview and it really helped me clarify some of the other reasons why Forge theory is so wrong for what I want.  I was going to explain why but I'm just kinda tired of talking about it.

Quote from: SettembriniWhat Frank isn´t mentioning, is that it took himself two years of heavy reading and posting at the forge to gain that "model of the model".

Only recently he exclaimed on his blog:

"Finally I´ve understood SIM according to Ron!"
Good for him, but it´s  a telltale for the essays.

So, it´s really not in the essays, which was one of the points made.

The thing is, I understood Ron's essays, particularly the sim essay, straight away. I could go through that essay pointing to various features of my RQ game.

I'm thinking that perhaps most people really don't play sim.

Quote from: droogThe thing is, I understood Ron's essays, particularly the sim essay, straight away. I could go through that essay pointing to various features of my RQ game.

I'm thinking that perhaps most people really don't play sim.

I understood the essay too, but the essay bears little resemblance to how sim is described (including by Ron) in most Forge discussions.

If it was just the essays I don't think there'd be an issue, they're fairly clear, but they're also not terribly representative anymore of where the theory headed.

Quote from: BalbinusI understood the essay too, but the essay bears little resemblance to how sim is described (including by Ron) in most Forge discussions.

If it was just the essays I don't think there'd be an issue, they're fairly clear, but they're also not terribly representative anymore of where the theory headed.

I just don't see it, B. I know some people have, in some discussions, said silly things. I know that at one point there was a notion floating around that sim=trad gaming=dysfunction. One of the reasons I wrote my AP post was to apply a corrective to that, in fact.

Again, I think it's simply that sim is not a majority choice for people. For example, one point I didn't go into in my write-up was that Glenn,  a player who joined the game very late in its life, was often highly frustrated by the way we played. His priorities were different.

How about you link to some of these discussions you're talking about and we'll deconstruct them? Later – I'm off to work now.

Quote from: droogFirst, it's no surprise that a bunch of people uninterested in sim haven't developed much in the way of simminess.

Especially given the open hostility directed at Simulationism at various points at the Forge, is that really surprising?  What were those lines again?

"No, we think that Simulationism is a form of retreat, denial, and defense against the responsibilities of either Gamism or Narrativism."

"That would give us Gamism and Narrativism as 'real' RPG goals, and Simulationism as a historical, perhaps even regrettable artifact of bad design. "

"Instead, the Simulationist profile (behaviors) represents a retreat from the responsibilities of either Gamism or Narrativism. It's a way to blame any undesirable outcomes on 'the game,' or to put all responsibility for the quality of the story on the GM, and ultimately, on the game designers (metaplot). "

"'S' remains part of G/N/S - it is indeed a set of demonstrable behaviors, and it is indeed a set of specific RPG design principles which reinforce those behaviors. But it fascinates me that, as Paul has described, it is vastly unlike 'G' and 'N' because it is founded on FEAR."

(All of those quotes come from the Forge.  Would you like to guess which people I'm quoting?)

Quote from: droogSecond. that sort of thing emerges during discussions at the Forge (sometimes other places). Mike Holmes, for instance, has said quite a lot over the years about his take on sim.

And how much has it changed the usefulness of the definition?

Quote from: droogThird, if that's what you want, you could always pitch in and help develop it. It's all most definitely a work in progress. If you're no good at theorising or designing you could always do some collating (eg of various insights into sim gaming).

Been there.  Done that.  Was told that the Forge theory was just fine the way it was and didn't need changing.  The same with plenty of other people.  Not just ornery opinionated people like Brian Gleichman and me but also nice people who really didn't deserve the treatment they got.

Quote from: droogI just don't see it, B. I know some people have, in some discussions, said silly things. I know that at one point there was a notion floating around that sim=trad gaming=dysfunction. One of the reasons I wrote my AP post was to apply a corrective to that, in fact.

Again, I think it's simply that sim is not a majority choice for people. For example, one point I didn't go into in my write-up was that Glenn,  a player who joined the game very late in its life, was often highly frustrated by the way we played. His priorities were different.

How about you link to some of these discussions you're talking about and we'll deconstruct them? Later – I'm off to work now.

I think nobody plays sim because it kept getting a narrower and narrower definition, well that and I don't think GNS reflects real world priorities particularly.

Linking to discussions, the thing is the discussions in question piss me off, and I've taken the view of late that it's healthier not to seek out stuff that I already know pisses me off.  Besides, it's years of discussions, not a thread here or there.

If you don't see it, that's cool.  The thing is, for me there is so little useful content in GNS or the Big Model that it's simply not worth the work to try to retrieve it, particularly when it's most fervent proponents clearly have such a hate on for the way I like to game.  Additionally, I think GNS is not really that current a theory anymore, the main guys on the indie scene hardly ever seem to refer to it nowadays, they have I think moved on.

I also genuinely question whether a quasi-academic theory is really a useful tool for addressing intra-group issues about style of play preferences.  I think there are easier, less judgemental and far easier applied tools already in existence to help with those kinds of problems.  Essentially, simple conversation.  Once you chat with someone in ordinary English to point out that people play for different reasons and that sometimes those reasons clash, and ask them to consider if maybe that's what's happening in their group, I think you have done pretty much all the good that GNS originally aimed to but without in the process categorising anyone or creating quite dreadful jargon.

Quote from: BalbinusI think there are easier, less judgemental and far easier applied tools already in existence to help with those kinds of problems.  Essentially, simple conversation.

ZOMFG, u r a cheetoist!

Talk to your group, without labels and jargon? Amazing stuff!

Quote from: John MorrowEspecially given the open hostility directed at Simulationism at various points at the Forge, is that really surprising?  What were those lines again?

"No, we think that Simulationism is a form of retreat, denial, and defense against the responsibilities of either Gamism or Narrativism."

"That would give us Gamism and Narrativism as 'real' RPG goals, and Simulationism as a historical, perhaps even regrettable artifact of bad design. "

"Instead, the Simulationist profile (behaviors) represents a retreat from the responsibilities of either Gamism or Narrativism. It's a way to blame any undesirable outcomes on 'the game,' or to put all responsibility for the quality of the story on the GM, and ultimately, on the game designers (metaplot). "

"'S' remains part of G/N/S - it is indeed a set of demonstrable behaviors, and it is indeed a set of specific RPG design principles which reinforce those behaviors. But it fascinates me that, as Paul has described, it is vastly unlike 'G' and 'N' because it is founded on FEAR."

(All of those quotes come from the Forge.  Would you like to guess which people I'm quoting?)

Not that I don't believe you (god knows I do), I'm just curious if you have links.  I'd love to see the entire discussions (I'm a glutton).