Quote from: joewolz;399012Theory on internet forums only shows up when people aren't playing.

There's a lot of truth in this. It was smart of Ron to close the theory forums at the Forge, and it seemed to drive the contingent who weren't playing RPGs into the harsh light of day.

The people I know who are thinking deeply about the theory and practice of roleplaying are very active, omnivorous players. It's all predicated on the experience of play, which only makes sense.

Quote from: D-503;398835Speculation and opinion

In the last post I stuck to what I saw and what I remember.  Here I'm going into realms of pure speculation and opinion.  All the following is IMO.

Ron Edwards was right to shut the theory fora, as I said.  Where things went wrong with the Forge was the moderation.  The strict moderation kept things focused, but it turned it into an echo chamber and Ron became increasingly hostile to differing opinions.

The result was he slipped into irrelevance.  All he heard was what he wanted to.  His ideas weren't seriously tested so they became flabby.  Today, he's simply no longer important and frankly I don't think he's produced any interesting games for a fair while now.

Quote from: Jason Morningstar;399080There's a lot of truth in this. It was smart of Ron to close the theory forums at the Forge, and it seemed to drive the contingent who weren't playing RPGs into the harsh light of day.

The people I know who are thinking deeply about the theory and practice of roleplaying are very active, omnivorous players. It's all predicated on the experience of play, which only makes sense.

The people who were driven away included myself as well as the whole early Story Games group like Andy Kitkowski, Ben Lehman, Levi Kornelson, and others.  Frankly, I think the accusation that we or any large contingent of Theory forum posters didn't play was bullshit.  I knew many of the regular posters there, and they all played regularly.  

In my opinion, closing the Theory forum had more to do with what D-503 observed: Ron's hostility to differing opinions.  While the Forge continues to exist and Ron has continued to produce games, the Indie scene was expanding such that he was no longer at the center.  For example, his games have never done well in the Indie RPG Awards since they were founded in 2002.  In similar way, he had introduced his "Big Model" as a successor to GNS in 2004, but it was still contentious and people (such as myself) continued to disagree with it.  Then, at the end of 2005 he closed the Theory forum.  Story Games was founded a month later, and over the next year various other fora were founded.  

Now, that doesn't mean that the Forge Theory forum didn't have plenty of bullshit in it.  It was an Internet forum, after all.  There were snits and muddy thinking and so forth, but there were also interesting contributions within the usual 90% crap.

Well, one should mention that the OPs left out the really ugly parts.

Evolutionary Psychology, Mormons, Pills, Sex Communes, internal hatery vs. Crane because his book was too pretty, snuff porn, Nazi-misery games, slave-misery games and the biggest thing:

Most Forgers did not play any real RPG in their whole lifes.

Also, the Clinton R. Nixon rubber spine; Ron excising people/friends because they were uncool, Ron running for office, Money making via Baker Wife mind control (Ashcan episode), Lawncrappery, Crane asking for money & special treatment form convention organizers because he's "Special" etc. etc. etc.

There is no neutrality there. If you leave out all these despicable things, you are doing propaganda.

The Forgers are NOT nice people. They are brats, psychopaths, real life charlatans, real life pseudoscientists, shills etc. etc.

They are assholes.

These days, I think there theory and games are the lesser evil. As people, they are evil, they are Swine.

Settembri, that's just stupid - of course some Forgers are nice people - I've met/gamed/talked with some of these people, and they don't have any of the silly flaws you attribute to them. I'm sure there a douchbags amongst forgers, but saying they are all bratty psychos is lame. And I'm not an indie/forge player at all.

And jhkim just said that a large share of the posters on Forge played regularly, so apparently they game - this goes for the Forgers I've met as well.

And this was a pretty civil and bileless thread up untill now and really not concered with all the evils you just ascribed to everyone Forge-related, but about invasions of other internet board... not moneymaking nazi mormon sex communes at all.

I said they did not play a real RPG. They do play a lot of stuff. Jungle Speed, frex.

ADD: And I grant it to you that the authors are the assholes. There are bound to be some non-asshole followers. Curiously, this whole thread and the OP point to the fact that even the followers that are VOCAL would qualify as non-gaming assholes. Think about that.

Quote from: Settembrini;399121Well, one should mention that the OPs left out the really ugly parts.

Evolutionary Psychology, Mormons, Pills, Sex Communes, internal hatery vs. Crane because his book was too pretty, snuff porn, Nazi-misery games, slave-misery games and the biggest thing:

Most Forgers did not play any real RPG in their whole lifes.

Also, the Clinton R. Nixon rubber spine; Ron excising people/friends because they were uncool, Ron running for office, Money making via Baker Wife mind control (Ashcan episode), Lawncrappery, Crane asking for money & special treatment form convention organizers because he's "Special" etc. etc. etc.

There is no neutrality there. If you leave out all these despicable things, you are doing propaganda.

The Forgers are NOT nice people. They are brats, psychopaths, real life charlatans, real life pseudoscientists, shills etc. etc.

They are assholes.

These days, I think there theory and games are the lesser evil. As people, they are evil, they are Swine.

Story Games has some really nice people on it.  I usually lurk, but find some nice bits there now and then.

I didn't know there was any sort of internal hate-on for Luke Crane.  Why? Because Burning Wheel didn't conform to some ideal or something?

He's one of the most enthusiastic, enjoyable GMs I've ever had, by the way.

As far the misery tourism, yeah, totally not my thing.

I thought Ron closing the theory forum had more to do with him deciding his model was gospel, and less about cutting down navel-gazing.  It seems there are quite a few indie designers (whose work I seem to enjoy more than Prof. Edwards') who didn't see it a closed topic, and wanted to keep exploring things in other directions.  He effectively shut them out, if they didn't want to conform to the dictates and confines of what he presented.

Quote from: D-503;398832The theory fora became essentially valuable content free.

This is not surprising, since the original theory was valuable content-free, too.

QuoteThe discussions increasingly weren't based on actual play

Nor was the original theory.

QuoteRon closed the theory fora, saying that in future any theory discussion should be in the actual play forum and should derive from actual play experiences.

Actually, what he said was that since the theory was established and so obviously true, there was nothing more to discuss.

QuoteThe result was a lot of people suddenly without a forum home to go to.  [...] They went to rpg.net.

No. They went to rpg.net long before Edwards closed his theory subforum.

Quote from: BellmanI just pray that he is no kind of teacher, carer, psych, doctor, or vaguely similar thing when not kitted out in superhero garb.  That would be genuinely disturbing.

He's a professor of bat penises.

No, we're not joking. As reported by RPGPundit,

   Ph.D. in Zoology, University of Florida, 1997. Dissertation: "A phylogenetic approach to the evolution of mammalian genital form, with emphasis on the megachiropteran bats."

(Current) Assistant Professor, one-year position, Department of Biology, DePaul University, Chicago, Illinois: Intro Biology, journal club (organizer), teaching discussion group (organizer). Upcoming courses include Principles of Biology, Rat's Eye View Chicago, Vertebrate Diversity and Evolution.
That was his "current" employment as of whenever Pundit found his resume. Now, who knows.

I found this amusing,

   My interests
Evolutionary morphology: how animal genital anatomy has changed over time
Evolutionary psychology: how the human mind expresses fitness conflicts through story-telling (movies)
Culture and economics of science: how grant money defines and limits scientific research and teaching
So he's interested in bat cocks, watching movies, and whinging about not getting enough grant money.

Quote from: joewolztheory on internet forums only shows up when people aren't playing.

As well as theory, certain obscure rules questions. S John Ross commented more than once that years back on the GURPS mailing list, he could always tell the questions people had come up with just from reading the books, and those coming up from play.

Some things which seem important when you're just thinking about the game actually turn out not to matter much in play, and vice versa. That's just how the cheetos roll.

John, I meant no disrespect to you, Andy et al (guys who don't fit in the group I was talking about). But in one fell swoop the people who were not playing but were talking completely vanished from my radar at least. That was my perception. I can't speculate on Ron's motives, but the result was very good as far as I'm concerned. It focused the conversation at the Forge on play, it created a productive diaspora of other sites, all to the good.

Quote from: Settembrini;399121Sex Communes

Tell me more about these Sex Communes!

Quote from: Jason Morningstar;399153John, I meant no disrespect to you, Andy et al (guys who don't fit in the group I was talking about). But in one fell swoop the people who were not playing but were talking completely vanished from my radar at least. That was my perception. I can't speculate on Ron's motives, but the result was very good as far as I'm concerned. It focused the conversation at the Forge on play, it created a productive diaspora of other sites, all to the good.

As I said, I think your radar is faulty in that I don't know of any significant group who didn't play.  

But leaving that aside, can you explain how driving us off (regardless of whether we played or not) made the Forge better for you?  I can see that getting rid of some fora and people like me made the site more "focused" - but can you unpack how that was better?   If us discussing theory on the Forge was bad, how was us discussing it at Story Games (presumably the "productive diaspora") better?

John, you seem really angry and it wasn't my intention to insult you. I'm speaking about my perceptions, and I'm totally cool with admitting that they may provide an inaccurate picture.

Again, from my POV, anyone who wants to talk about theory exclusively holds no interest for me. When everybody with that frame of reference went elsewhere, conversations got better (for me).

Theory discussion doesn't really take place at Story Games, by design. When it does crop up Andy discourages it.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;399149So he's interested in bat cocks, watching movies, and whinging about not getting enough grant money.

Now I can only imagine him listing his interests as "strangling animals, golf, and masturbating."

Quote from: Jason Morningstar;399186John, you seem really angry and it wasn't my intention to insult you. I'm speaking about my perceptions, and I'm totally cool with admitting that they may provide an inaccurate picture.

Again, from my POV, anyone who wants to talk about theory exclusively holds no interest for me. When everybody with that frame of reference went elsewhere, conversations got better (for me).

Theory discussion doesn't really take place at Story Games, by design. When it does crop up Andy discourages it.

Jason, you're saying that the group that I regularly had conversations in was full of people who didn't actually play, and that it was an improvement to get rid of them all.  Even if you make an exception for me personally, it is still a very insulting claim.  

I often disagreed with other people on the theory forums, but I didn't insult them personally - I criticized what they were saying.  

Now, if you're not interested in theory discussions, that's absolutely fine.  Don't take part in them.  However, it seems like you've got something against those of us who were discussing theory - such that you felt that it was important to get rid of the conversations we were having, rather than just not taking part in them.

Forgies are collectively the antiGygax: everyone is completely fucked up, and as long as nobody is having any fun, you're doing it right.

Yes, and everyone who posts here is a bitter grognard that hates anything new that isn't a remake or an homage to a classic game.  :rolleyes: