Quote from: soviet;728169How exactly would Burning Wheel,

Quote from: soviet;728169Dogs in the Vineyard,

The games focuses solely on the players playing God's Watchdogs.

Quote from: soviet;728169and Sorcerer akin

The games revolves around playing a sorcerer.  

Quote from: soviet;728169to campaign books or adventure paths for other RPGs? The rules are hugely important to the entire premise.

Many campaigns books/adventure paths introduce subsystem and/or detailed rules specific to what being covered.

The difference is that for GURPS, AD&D, Fate, etc these extend the core system. While with MANY of the forge game it is the point of the whole game. When you exhausted playing whatever it is focused on the only choice is to move on to a different game. Which is not true of the other systems. This limits the appeal of Forge games because not only you have to learn about the situation it depicts (no different than a sourcebook) you have the overhead of learning the other included systems that come just with being a RPG in the first place.  

You wind up spending the same amount of time learning dogs as you do deadlands but with deadlands much of you knowledge transfers over to other Savage Worlds games. Or in a game like D&D case, your knowledge transfers over to other types of campaigns that are run with D&D.

Quote from: soviet;728169Not really, I think most campaigns or games have one primary agenda. But note also that most indie games tend to be built for shorter campaigns than say D&D is, so it would be less of an issue.

Not surprising that shorter campaigns are the norm for most indie games.  There not much legs in an individual game.

I disagree that most campaigns or games have a primary agenda. The central mechanics that all RPGs possess in common is that they revolve around the players acting as his character. "Acting as his character", I can't stress that enough. The player is free to attempt anything his character do to.

The implication of this that by default RPGs are incredibly expansive. Tired of the dungeon, go to a port and jump on a ship. Tried of grinding the spacelanes for the last credit? Grab a gun, meet aliens, and kill them as a mercenary. And so on. A RPG designer has to do more work to in order limit the focus of his game than the reverse.

Since the focus is on the playing of individual characters and the ability to attempt anything that character can do, games that are designed to limit have limited appeal.

In short I can take Boot Hill and run the situation outlined in Dogs in the Vineyard however I would have to do a lot of work to use Dogs in the Vineyard to run everything I could with Boot Hill.

Quote from: soviet;728169I agree with this. I think this is one good thing about being 'indie' - if you're beholden to no-one it's easier to go your own way and not worry about what 'the market' wants.

I think that is more a function of the drastic drop in capital costs associated with created and distributing published works. What the Forge Indie should be proud of is creating and sustaining a supportive community of liked minded designers. That is never an easy thing.

Quote from: jhkim;728167I don't entirely disagree - but on the other hand, basically everything except D&D and WoD are niches within a niche hobby.

Yes but even by the standards of the games at the tier below the above to they are a really small niche.  

Quote from: jhkim;728167Also, narrow focus, non-long-term games are not necessarily tied to GNS. That is, someone can think GNS is bullshit and still enjoy and/or design narrow-focus games.

I enjoy a lot of narrow-focus games, both before and after contact with The Forge - despite thinking little of Ron's GNS theory essays.

I think for many people the games associated with the forge are very fun to play. There are also consequences resulting their design choices. Not all of them are positive. The same with the OSR. There are negative consequences for choosing classic D&D.

Quote from: soviet;728184No, I don't think so. You can enjoy one thing and then another, it doesn't have to define your whole identity. It's like genres in music or film, or different kinds of food. I like steak and I like pizza. I would not like it if someone covered my steak in melted cheese and tomato puree and served it to me in a box. That doesn't make me a steak-ist or an anti-pizza reactionary.

I guess my issue with the idea is the insistence that a game has to be just one of the three things, and that these three agendas are the only way to cut games up. It is like saying pizza can only have one topping. That is the problem. They are telling people who have used games with "mixed agendas" for years, that it is the equivalent if a steak covered in melted cheese and tomato puree and put in a pizza box. Just like you can blend genres and flavors, you can blend games, they dont have to focus on just one thing. And there are not just three ingredients or just three kinds of food. Now if people prefer games that just focus on one thing, in think few would object. But this is often presented as an essential feature of good game design by people who advance forge theory, so that is where lots of the conflict stems from.

Because you can attempt anything as your character the potential for what is dealt with in a campaign using a given ruleset is potentially anything. Trying to use GNS as a design guide is like trying to pigeonhole people activities with a simple scale. It just doesn't work in either case.

Quote from: estar;728210Because you can attempt anything as your character the potential for what is dealt with in a campaign using a given ruleset is potentially anything. Trying to use GNS as a design guide is like trying to pigeonhole people activities with a simple scale. It just doesn't work in either case.

This is an interesting point. In sales I encountered a model of customers based on communication styles that divided people into four categories. It could be useful at times, but the danger was you pingeon holed people and stopped listening to them, instead sending them into one of these categories and acting accordingly (i.e. He's an expressive so i should focus on relationship building rather than telling him about the product's key features). But human beings are much more individual than that. A better approach is to look for different cues from the person as your talking and respond accordingly. Don't put them in a box, take each thing as it develops.

Quote from: estar;728194The difference is that for GURPS, AD&D, Fate, etc these extend the core system. While with MANY of the forge game it is the point of the whole game. When you exhausted playing whatever it is focused on the only choice is to move on to a different game. Which is not true of the other systems. This limits the appeal of Forge games because not only you have to learn about the situation it depicts (no different than a sourcebook) you have the overhead of learning the other included systems that come just with being a RPG in the first place.

The difference in systems is more fundamental than that though. Don't kid yourself that games like AD&D or GURPS don't contain a lot of assumptions about how play will go and how things should be handled. Trying to create Dogs or Sorcerer by starting with GURPS or AD&D would require the removal of so much existing material that it wouldn't be the same game. You can't just add a couple of extra rules to them and expect it to be enough.

Quote from: estar;728194I disagree that most campaigns or games have a primary agenda. The central mechanics that all RPGs possess in common is that they revolve around the players acting as his character. "Acting as his character", I can't stress that enough. The player is free to attempt anything his character do to.

The implication of this that by default RPGs are incredibly expansive. Tired of the dungeon, go to a port and jump on a ship. Tried of grinding the spacelanes for the last credit? Grab a gun, meet aliens, and kill them as a mercenary. And so on. A RPG designer has to do more work to in order limit the focus of his game than the reverse.

Going to a port to jump on a ship is not a creative agenda. Most storygames can accomodate that stuff just as easily as most non-storygames. The point is how that activity is handled by the system and the players.  

Quote from: estar;728194Since the focus is on the playing of individual characters and the ability to attempt anything that character can do, games that are designed to limit have limited appeal.

Which storygames exactly do you think limit what the character can do anymoreso that say D&D does? Dogs, Burning Wheel, and Sorcerer certainly don't.

Quote from: estar;728194In short I can take Boot Hill and run the situation outlined in Dogs in the Vineyard however I would have to do a lot of work to use Dogs in the Vineyard to run everything I could with Boot Hill.

The former is not at all true. The rules in Dogs are the centre of the game. The escalation rules are a huge part of what drives the moral dilemmas the characters must face. Dogs using Boot Hill would be an entirely different experience altogether.

The latter I also don't think is true: I suspect you could run pretty much any Boot Hill situation in Dogs as long as you wanted it to revolve around characters deciding how far they will go to get what they want.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;728200I guess my issue with the idea is the insistence that a game has to be just one of the three things, and that these three agendas are the only way to cut games up. It is like saying pizza can only have one topping. That is the problem. They are telling people who have used games with "mixed agendas" for years, that it is the equivalent if a steak covered in melted cheese and tomato puree and put in a pizza box. Just like you can blend genres and flavors, you can blend games, they dont have to focus on just one thing. And there are not just three ingredients or just three kinds of food. Now if people prefer games that just focus on one thing, in think few would object. But this is often presented as an essential feature of good game design by people who advance forge theory, so that is where lots of the conflict stems from.

But the creative agendas aren't that specific. There are variations within them, it's not like all narrativist games for instance are the same (look at the variety of 'narr' games that the forge produced for example). I don't think it's saying that all pizzas should have the same topping, it's saying that if you like pizza and you like ice cream maybe you should enjoy them separately on different occasions rather than just blending them together into a generic sludge that you eat regularly.

Quote from: estar;728210Because you can attempt anything as your character the potential for what is dealt with in a campaign using a given ruleset is potentially anything. Trying to use GNS as a design guide is like trying to pigeonhole people activities with a simple scale. It just doesn't work in either case.

I wrote and published a game. GNS ideas and the discussions on narrativism in particular significantly informed the way I designed it. It is an explicitly narr-supporting game. In my game characters can do anything at all; in fact I would suggest that my game has far more flexibility in this area than, say, GURPS.

Quote from: soviet;728214But the creative agendas aren't that specific. There are variations within them, it's not like all narrativist games for instance are the same (look at the variety of 'narr' games that the forge produced for example). I don't think it's saying that all pizzas should have the same topping, it's saying that if you like pizza and you like ice cream maybe you should enjoy them separately on different occasions rather than just blending them together into a generic sludge that you eat regularly.

I wouldn't agree. It is an analogy, so while i accept that ice cream and pizza dont mix together well, i don't accept that gamism is like pizza and simulation is like ice cream. I dont even accept the fundamental pillars offered by gns, but putting that aside, i think its questionable to say a game should only focus on one of these things.

Quote from: soviet;728218I wrote and published a game. GNS ideas and the discussions on narrativism in particular significantly informed the way I designed it. It is an explicitly narr-supporting game. In my game characters can do anything at all; in fact I would suggest that my game has far more flexibility in this area than, say, GURPS.

And i do not disagree with you using the model if you personally find it useful. Everyone is going to onto design with a philosophy or approach that shapes their work. What i object to is being told that i must accept GNS agendas just because, and that games that fail to focus on one of these agenda are bad design.

Quote from: soviet;728213The difference in systems is more fundamental than that though. Don't kid yourself that games like AD&D or GURPS don't contain a lot of assumptions about how play will go and how things should be handled. Trying to create Dogs or Sorcerer by starting with GURPS or AD&D would require the removal of so much existing material that it wouldn't be the same game. You can't just add a couple of extra rules to them and expect it to be enough.

Of course it will play differently. My point that whatever situation that the players is facing as a Dog in the Vineyard character can be setup in Boot Hill. And despite the difference in mechanics, if in both games the players make the same choices and the referee rules with the same consequences then there will be NO difference in the ensuing stories about what happened.

What dice is used, the interaction between the referee and the players is different, what takes a short amount of time to resolve in Dogs make take a long time in Boot Hill. Dogs may provides mechanics for actions that a Boot Hill referee will has to use his judgement on. And so on. The two games will play as a game very differently.

But since both are RPGs about players playing a character, the "meta-game", point of the whole exercise is the same.  Traveling from town to town acting as God's Watchdog. In Campaign A, Dogs in the Vineyard is used to handle this, in Campaign B, Boot Hill.

Quote from: soviet;728213Going to a port to jump on a ship is not a creative agenda. Most storygames can accomodate that stuff just as easily as most non-storygames. The point is how that activity is handled by the system and the players.

My point is that the number of "creative agendas" in RPGs is as infinite as the number of people playing the game. Because an RPG is about letting the player attempting anything he can do as his character.  

Quote from: soviet;728213Which storygames exactly do you think limit what the character can do anymoreso that say D&D does? Dogs, Burning Wheel, and Sorcerer certainly don't.

Burning Wheel is designed to be a general purpose system. The only two with scope problems are Dogs and Sorceror in your list.

Dogs and Sorceror offer little support for the world outside of the situation they are focused. In contrast to Dogs, Boot Hill  authors talk and offer support all aspects of the Western Genre.

On initial examination Ars Magica and Sorceror have the same scope problem But by having players playing the role of Grogs (servants) Companions (non-mage PCs) as well as mage. And also spreading the focus of the order of Hermes to all of Europe. The line expanded to encompass any type of character possible in mythic europe.

Quote from: soviet;728213The former is not at all true. The rules in Dogs are the centre of the game. The escalation rules are a huge part of what drives the moral dilemmas the characters must face.

Moral dilemmas are Moral dilemmas regardless of the mechanics to use to handle them.

The mechanics are the medium in which the player can play an individual character in an imagined situation. Just like I can read the bible on a scroll, a bound book, a e-ink tablet, my computer screen or other technologies capable of displaying the printed word.

The bible is the bible regardless of where it words appear. People may prefer a scroll, a bound book, or a e-ink tablet to read the Bible. But it doesn't change the fact that it is the Bible that being read.

Dogs in Vineyards depicts a certain situation. Boot Hill can be used to depict the same exact situation. Both can result in the same sequence of events occurring ending in the "same" story. But the medium that the two games are played out on is different. One person will prefer Dogs, another Boot Hill.

Dogs in Vineyard rulebook only focus on that particular situation which happens to take place in the American west. While Boot Hill is designed to run the entire western genre. Once my interest fades in what Dogs describes the book is of not further use to me as well as its supplements. While with Boot Hill I can pick some other aspect of the Old West and focus on that without too much work.

Quote from: soviet;728213Dogs using Boot Hill would be an entirely different experience altogether.

In playing the mechanics yes you are right.

Quote from: soviet;728213The latter I also don't think is true: I suspect you could run pretty much any Boot Hill situation in Dogs as long as you wanted it to revolve around characters deciding how far they will go to get what they want.

Popular games tend to expand beyond their original focus. D&D and Ars Magica are examples of that. In Ars Magica 5th edition there are supplements that allow you to play just about any character in their version of Europe.

Quote from: estar;728233Of course it will play differently. My point that whatever situation that the players is facing as a Dog in the Vineyard character can be setup in Boot Hill. And despite the difference in mechanics, if in both games the players make the same choices and the referee rules with the same consequences then there will be NO difference in the ensuing stories about what happened.

What dice is used, the interaction between the referee and the players is different, what takes a short amount of time to resolve in Dogs make take a long time in Boot Hill. Dogs may provides mechanics for actions that a Boot Hill referee will has to use his judgement on. And so on. The two games will play as a game very differently.

But since both are RPGs about players playing a character, the "meta-game", point of the whole exercise is the same.  Traveling from town to town acting as God's Watchdog. In Campaign A, Dogs in the Vineyard is used to handle this, in Campaign B, Boot Hill.

The first time I heard about the DitV setting, my initial reaction was, 'That would make an interesting Boot Hill campaign.'

It never crossed my mind that such a campaign would require some sort of special rules to play.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;728221I wouldn't agree. It is an analogy, so while i accept that ice cream and pizza dont mix together well, i don't accept that gamism is like pizza and simulation is like ice cream.

Gygaxian D&D has a sturdy (but light and fluffy) Simulationist pizza dough base, supporting a delicious tomato/cheese/pepperoni Gamist topping. Without the base it'd just be a mess!

Quote from: S'mon;728238Gygaxian D&D has a sturdy (but light and fluffy) Simulationist pizza dough base, supporting a delicious tomato/cheese/pepperoni Gamist topping. Without the base it'd just be a mess!

I think with D&D people could sit here and debate all day long what the core, essential features of the game are. But I think most people would agree there is a blend involving things like exploration, getting stuff, inhabiting a setting, growing in power, being challenged, playing a character, development of different campaign elements, social interaction, etc. And how all these things get condensed into groups of "agendas" would vary from one person to the next. If I reduce it to being all about "step-up on up" or something, I feel like I would lose a lot of all the other things that make me happy about playing D&D.

Quote from: soviet;728218in fact I would suggest that my game has far more flexibility in this area than, say, GURPS.

Perhaps I haven't played your game so I can't weigh on the consequences of the mechanics you use to resolve actions. But I do know Fate. Out of the box its mechanics are very simple to handle a wide variety of actions. But the consequence is the lack of detail and having to fit Overcome, Creating an Advantage, Attack and Defend onto the action that being resolved.

GURPS in contrast opts for detailed subsystems layered in some instances on top of a general purpose framework. In general the GURPS authors opt for a one to one correspondence with what they are describing. Definitely not the approach that Fate takes.

And the mechanics of neither game is to everybody tastes.

However what Fate and GURPS do share in common that they are both focused on the player playing a character with the ability to attempt anything that character can do. Both offer support for multiple situations the same as your game, Other Worlds does. So it isn't too much work to use the core rulebook to run fantasy then switch to a western and then to a golden age sci-fic campaign then finally running a transhuman sci-fi campaign.