I don't get why there is so much hatred for the Forge here.  I mean, RPG Pundit acts like Ron Edwards took a personal crap in his cheerios.

I'm not a Forge insider, and in fact think some of the people in that group (Vince Baker, Andy K, some others) are utter shitheads on a personal level, but I like almost all of the games I've found via The Forge, and I found Ron's essays on game theory really thought provoking and exciting.    It's what motivated me to finally sit down and write my own game.

Sure, some fo the games that come out of the Forge seem a bit naff.  Like Steal Away Jordan seems like something one of my more obnoxiously liberal professors would have assigned us to play as some sort of lame "consciousness raising" exercise (it sure doesn't sound like fun at all), and Polaris is one of the most mind-numbingly pretentious games I've ever read, but some of the authors over there are freaking awesome (as authors).  Lacuna Part 1 is so awesome I want to have sex with it.  Dogs in the Vineyard blew me away and was a huge inspiration for my own game (though my game is far more geared towards simulationist play than narrativist play, which I find dull as hell).  Don't Rest Your Head has one of the coolest settings I've read in long time.   Even some of the stranger ducks in that pond, like Breaking the Ice have a lot of potential for awesomeness (an rpg you can play with a normal, non-gamer chick that has high potential to get you laid in the process?  That's fucking cool.)  Even some of the games that have come out of there that I don't really care for, like In A Wicked Age (which really needs more crunch, or at least crunch that makes some sort of damn sense), are at least thought-provoking and different.

Can someone explain to me why all the anti-Forge sentiment?

And will this end badly?  Is this a taboo question?

Quote from: Jackalope, and I found Ron's essays on game theory really thought provoking and exciting.

"really thought provoking and exciting." Are you for real? RE is as exciting as watching paint dry on a wet weekend in Doncaster.
You might want to try something genuinely stimulating, like jumping out of a plane without a parachute or smoking PCP with a rabid gorilla.

Quote from: Anthrobot"really thought provoking and exciting." Are you for real? RE is as exciting as watching paint dry on a wet weekend in Doncaster.

Yeah, I'm entirely for real.  Ron's essays really helped me put my finger on a lot of things that had always bothered me about gaming.  Like the Impossible Thing Before Breakfast was a problem I had been slamming my head against for years, and having someone put a label on it and identify what the problem was really got me excited about gaming again.  I had fallen into a rut where I was restarting my game every few months out of frustration, and reading about the ITBB made me painfully aware of what was causing all the frustration, and gave me some solid ideas about how to handle it.  

And the GNS theory and Big Model enabled me to begin having a real conversation with my players about what we actually wanted from the game, and made it painfully clear that one of the guys in our group was an asshole player.  Because we realized that I and one of my players are simulationists first and gamists second, another is a gamist only (and suddenly I was able to understand why he and I were always fighting about his unworkable character concepts -- he doesn't care if the character makes sense in terms of my campaign world, and only really cares about system exploration), and the third's enjoyment of the game was actually coming from breaking the social contract.  So now I refuse to play with him.  I'm much happier for it, and zilchplay occurs with far less frequency.

I'm not saying Ron's writing is exciting, I'm saying I was excited by the ideas presented in his writing.  It got me thinking, and got me thinking in new ways.  It also helped me shed a lot of negative feelings I had about my own play, and I realized that I wasn't playing the game wrong despite the fact that I don't really care much for ROLE-playing or immersion, and prefer story-simulation (but NOT narrativism) and ROLL-playing.  It made me realize that, despite what Vampire and the storyteller system had taught me, I was not a bad role-player simply because I would rather settle social interactions with dice rolls than amateur theater.   I'd been apologizing for my lack of acting chops for years, but NO MORE!  Now I can freeely say "That's not my idea of fun, and that's okay.  I don't need to work on improving that."

Ron's writing is, in truth, pretty stiff and awfully dry.  And I realize the ideas are not entirely original to him, but it is the first place I was exposed to a lot of them.  So he gets a thumbs up in my book.

Could we move this to off-topic? It´s definitely a meta-discussion about the site or opinions on people and not about RPGs.

Ok, first of all, this thread really does have to make me wonder about you, dude.

I mean, you just get finished having perhaps the most monumental permaban in the history of RPG.net, the sort of thing where people are talking about reporting you to the FBI, because you managed to push all their buttons.

Now you come on here, and one of the first things you do is post a thread defending the Forge?

Like, what is that? Did you actually sit down, read a bit of the site, read my blog, and then ask yourself "ok, what's the most controversial position I can possibly take here to intentionally piss people off"?

Because that's really what it seems like. If this was entirely unintentional, its still really ill-thought-out, given that there are some people here who are convinced that you're  only a controversy-junkie troll out to cause trouble anywhere he can in order to attention-whore.

In any case, if that's what you're gunning for, it doesn't fly here. No one gives a fuck. I certainly don't.  You'd have to try WAY harder in order to get any kind of moderation response.

If, on the other hand, your thread was an honest question, then I would point out the following:

1. You probably don't know this, but discussions about Forge and Forge Theories, since they aren't Roleplaying Game related, belong in Off Topic. I can understand how that might be confusing if you're a newbie here, because in a lot of other places people mistakenly believe that the Forge games are RPGs, and the theories apply to RPGs.  They are not and do not, they are a theory meant to create an entirely new kind of hobby, that is only associated to RPGs by a parasitic relationship.

2. The above is the reason why there's so much anti-forge sentiment. Ron Edwards' entire theory is based on the premise that RPG gamers are secretly miserable playing RPGs, that the main reason gamers claim they want to play RPGs (to pretend to be their characters) is in fact an "illusion" and possibly some kind of mental illness; that RPG players have become "literally brain damaged" because of their RPG play, and that what RPG designers have done to RPG players is a relationship comparable to a child sexual abuse victim and his/her abuser, that the GM is a role that serves to do nothing more than to abuse power and must be effectively neutered of any authority at all costs, and all of this is coupled onto a highly elitist preaching movement that insists on "spreading the word" by subverting regular RPGs in their design stages in order to convert them into these new "narrativist Storygames" (which nevertheless still try to claim the name of RPGs, out of recognition of the fact that they would never survive as an independent hobby rather than leeching off the more successful RPG hobby) or subverting mainstream RPG forums to turn them into places where any debate must be couched along GNS terms, all in an effort to be recognized as the special squad of natural overlords of the vast "unwashed masses" of regular gamers that don't know what they really want and need to be guided by their wise new masters.
That, and Ron Edwards has been wrong about pretty much everything he's ever stated regarding RPGs; far more wrong more often than any human being has a right to be.


That all said and done, I'm now moving this thread to Off-topic, where it belongs.

RPGPundit

One day I'm going to get a game of My Life with the Poobah going. Upon my mother's grave I swear it!

Quote from: Jackalope... made it painfully clear that one of the guys in our group was an asshole player.

Was he brain damaged ?

Regards,
David R

Hi Jackalope... I don't know why other people hate the Forge, but I can tell you why I don't like it. The reasons are many. The most important one is the impact on the people I like and on the communities I care about. First contact with Forge and its theory was complete disaster... in my opinion, there is something in the Forge movement/theory which activate havoc in people. Some sense some kind of "enlightment" and have intensive feeling, they must enlight the rest even if they are not interested or despite it is in deep contrast with their preferences.

So this is the reason I don't like the Forge or people who has a feeling they must preach about it. I have empirical experience with its impact on the community I really cared about. It was bad. No thanks.

About the essays... I find them, poorly written, covering in many words inability to simplify the thoughts and to offer anything interesting. And the Forge games? I've tried some of them. They are good at first but with usually don't hold this first impression for a long time. They are too repetitive and actually don't stimulte me or people I game with some creativity. I mean... I've been playing D&D and other games for years now and still I have new stories to tell and new adventures to live. With the Forge games it is more like play once and then buy a new game or be bored to death. (Not in all cases though... some so called Forge game are interesting and even playable more than once... but so are other non-Forge games as well).

About the matter of identifiyng problems and communication with your group. That is important thing. It the Forge theory facilitate this for you than good for you. But I have my doubts it is the real reason. I mean, you could probably do it even without it. Talk about the game, think about the problems. That's what players do for years. But I get it. Some guys need some medium, some authority or just something to facilitate this. I just thing there is easier vocabulary around to really dig deep into the problem and solve them than Edward's theory-babble. But hey, that's just me. And I am simple. I like to speak in plain language 'cause I don't like pretending I am doing some hard science when I am just searching fun, games and time spent with my friends.

Jack

Heres going to be a response to your post, not the history you drag from the big purple.

The gist is Pundy doesn't like the Forge, and hates it with the fire of a milloion suns.  He has attracted a small cult of personality here that feeds off that and its grown to encompass pretty much the whole site.  Not all the members, but the way the site operates.

That said, some of Pundy's criticisms of Forge are pretty spot on - there is a veneer of superiority and snobbishness to the Forge (more than a veneer, but still).  Theres a big sense of "this is how role playing games SHOULD be, and everyone else are just the unwashed plebs".  Now, theres a mirror of that HERE, a veneer of anti-intellectualism in Pundys and his cults smashing of the snobbish "elite" at Forge, a flat out stating "forge games are not an RPG", which in reality is no different from what the Forge is doing, just Pundy goes about it different, and with more vitriol and bile and less snobbishness and faux-intellectualism.  

I'm not a big fan of Forge games - they're often too light, too "one-shot" kinda games, not games you can sink your teeth into or make a campaign out of very well.  I like at least a moderate bit of crunch, and I want to get into a game long term, I don't want to play a series of one-shot, short games.  But thats just me, and I recognize others have different styles and if they like it, cool.  Just don't tell me I'm not playing it "right".

That being said, the Forge serves a very good purpose.  It gets people talking, and thinking and examining role playing.  Even if you hate them, responding to the Forgeites gets you thinking and talking, even if its in the negative.  You don't have to be a Forge head to use even one thing they talk about to improve your games or table.  I've found a few things I've been able to take from there, but I mostly get it as run off from others who talk about it on other game sites - I don't visit the Forge, cause I think Edwards is a duchebag.  That doesn't mean some things he said haven't struck me, but I don't like the guy, and I don't like some of the thinks he says and stands for.

But I don't tar the entire Forge community with his brush, and there are some cool people there that aren't as snobbish and eliteist as he is, and play a wide disparity of games that just want to talk about game theory and try to get a common dialogue going, instead of the mish mash of poorly understood and defined phrases and terms the gaming community passes off as vocabulary.

And there are some neat things that have come out of there.  Neat in theory, as I've never played them, but Dogs was the one that looked most interesting to me, but not enough to play it.

Oh and you shouldn't have needed Forge essays to determine the guy in your group was being a jackass.  It should have been painfully obvious, and kicked him out.  WHY shouldn't really matter - he's disrupting every one elses fun and should go.  If it was breaking the social contract, or whatever, you shouldn't need that to deal with a pissheaded player.

Here we go again.

 Anyone want popcorn?


- Ed C.

Quote from: JackalopeYeah, I'm entirely for real.  Ron's essays really helped me put my finger on a lot of things that had always bothered me about gaming.

Me too! I realised that I hated gamers who overanalysed things.

Edit: oh, and Hackmastergeneral, of course Forger games are rpgs. And some of them - the ones least influenced by Forger theory - are good games. Others are not.

Forger theories belong Off Topic not because their games aren't rpgs, but because Forger theory has nothing to do with the way people game, it's this confused abstract nonsense unconnected to anything. If someone started a thread talking about My Life With Master or Sorcerer and their play experiences, then I really don't imagine old Pundit would move it out of the Roleplaying section. And if he did we'd all call him a cocksmock.

But nobody starts threads about their play experiences with those games because let's face it, nobody plays them.

I don't like Forge theory because it is untrue, overly simplistic, and because it gets in the way of rigorous exploration of the subject of RPGs and play. Some Forge games are alright.

Jim-Bob, I've played My Life with Master and I thought it was really good fun.

The thing is, saying Forge games is easy and all but these games have very little in common, one to the other.

MLwM I'm happy to say is a good game, it's not a campaign game but it does what it sets out to do well.  I wouldn't lump it in with Sorceror, a fairly bland generic rpg engine with a severe Pokemon issue and which has required several supplements to be meaningfully playable as intended.  It's ironic how much indie folk hate the supplement train, but say you need Soul and Sword both to really make Sorceror work as it was meant to.

Anyway, easy targets aside, my only point is that games should be judged on their merits as games.  Where they were produced, what company their designers keep, ultimately these things are irrelevant.  If Storygames could accept that as well then I think the indie community would be in better shape than right now I think it is, but if they can't we at least should.

Oh, Andy K a shithead?  I mean, you never know, but my experiences of Andy have been little but positive and as far as I'm concerned he's good people.  Vince Baker I've never really interacted with so I've no strong view either way (but I've seen nothing to suggest shitheadicity), but Andy I have interacted with and he always seemed to me a nice guy.  Not really a thread point, but I don't like to let stuff like that lie unchallenged.

Otherwise, glad to see this moved to off topic.  IMO, Forge theory has fuck all to do with roleplaying practice, accordingly I don't intend to speak to that part of the thread.  I just wanted to post corrections regarding MLwM and Andy.

Quote from: BalbinusOh, Andy K a shithead?  I mean, you never know, but my experiences of Andy have been little but positive and as far as I'm concerned he's good people.

Same here.

Regards,
David R