Quote from: Mistwell;721243Any thoughts on how best to approach this topic?

In general, the Forge ceased to be either a force or a problem, and is best ignored.

If you want to argue theory, you're walking into a swamp.

If you want take piss, the best thing to do when the forge is brought up, is say, "Hey -- was that the theory that says RPGs cause brain damage?"

And then, "No -- I'm pretty sure it was -- here," and link to the big Brain Damage thread on the Forge.

In truth, the forge's biggest contribution to RPGs was to give people a way to say "I role play, you roll-play! Hah! Burn!" in a pseudo-tenable way.

When the brain damage came out in plain English, it ruined the claims that the theory wasn't saying bad things about traditional games, and the theory was quickly abandoned by people looking for a way to advocate their approach to gaming as objectively superior.

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: Arminius;721873I don't agree with GNS but several recent posts are mistaken. The original core creators of the theory have said that it can be used to classify gamers. Also that it can classify designs. Also that it can classify "modes of fun" or "CAs". (They and their followers didn't necessarily say all of the above at the same, which may be a mark of evolution or confusion.)

Actually it all flows from the latter; the idea was if you preferred one CA, you were an -ist. If a game tended to facilitate a CA, it was an -ist design. The most influential part of GNS theory, and the most controversial, was that if a design facilitated more than one CA (was "incoherent") it would inevitably lead to power struggle and misery. Therefore games should not encourage fun outside the main CA.

I'm not going to get into all the other consequences of this line of reasoning or all the ways it can be critiqued. It's been proved wrong empirically (while power struggle is an issue, it's not inevitable, likely, or even wholly destructive, as borne out by millions of hours of play).

Also, GNS and GDS are different, particularly in the coherence and facilitation angle. I don't see eye to eye with John Kim on many things these days, but you could do far worse than to look at his site on RPG theory if you want to know the history of it all.

GNS Cop!

Arminius is correct.


-E.

From what I saw, the Forge people put the cart before the horse.

The secret of great game design is making up something fun. How do I know it's fun? Because I actually play it with people, and we have fun. Human nature being what it is, odds are these are not the only people who will ever find it fun.

If I'm just pulling stuff out of my head and nobody at all has actually enjoyed playing it, the odds that many (or any) people ever will are rather more slender.

Now, I can make up some jargon to classify what my friends and I happen to like. If we happen to have very narrow tastes, that does NOT mean that everybody else in the world has tastes so narrow, never mind the same ones!

The historical fact appears to be that the smash best sellers have been the very RPGs that get most slammed as 'incoherent!'

Quote from: flyerfan1991;721806Five digit sales, while impressive, are probably miniscule next to Pathfinder and D&D's total sales.

Yep.  No doubt there's a lot of arm-wrestling to see who gets to claim to be King of the Indie Hill, but as far as the teeming horde of d20 gamers out there are concerned, it's the moral equivalent of a "Coke vs. Pepsi?" debate in which there's one loudmouth on one side shouting "Jones!" and another on the other side shouting "Moxie!"  90% of the crowd have no idea what they're talking about, and 90% of those who do don't care.

Quote from: Gizmoduck5000;721747Do you really think anyone actually buys this?

Buys what? Your incoherent and self-contradictory rhetoric?

No. I don't think anyone buys your incoherent and self-contradictory rhetoric.

Quote from: The Traveller;721854Agreed. The original GNS/threefold thing was meant to classify gamers, and somehow metamorphed into a game system classification method which was very much a round peg in a square hole.

To clarify this: The original Threefold Model (GDS) from rec.games.frp.advocacy was used to classify the criteria a GM would use to make a particular decision/ruling. It only classified gamers insofar as it described their preference for one or more of these types of criteria.

Edwards took this theory, mashed it together with some GMing advice from Everway, and tried to expand the theory so that it applied to game mechanics and a complex gestalt of social agendas instead of just player decisions. This was massively problematic even before the next seven mistakes he made.

Post discussing this at greater length.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;721972To clarify this: The original Threefold Model (GDS) from rec.games.frp.advocacy was used to classify the criteria a GM would use to make a particular decision/ruling. It only classified gamers insofar as it described their preference for one or more of these types of criteria.

Edwards took this theory, mashed it together with some GMing advice from Everway, and tried to expand the theory so that it applied to game mechanics and a complex gestalt of social agendas instead of just player decisions. This was massively problematic even before the next seven mistakes he made.

Post discussing this at greater length.

Do you have a link to the original comment? I know someone posted it up here before.

Quote from: Omega;721947ooooh Kinza... The hands down master of pasting themes onto the damndest of games. Really. Im surprised there isnt a "REINER KINZA'S MOBY DICK" which is tic-tac-toe.

I occasionally wonder if he is the reason for the little anti-theme faction amongst board gamers.

I really don't get the Knizia hate. Board games have themes attached to abstract rules since the dawn of gaming (Chess, Shogi, Snakes & Ladders, the various reconstructions of Ur, Halatafl and the whole family of fox games, etc.).
Themes are simply color that helps to remember rules, a mnemonic shorthand.

Sometimes Knizia's themes work (Res Publica is similar to the ressource trading and buying of cultural developments in Civilization, a game hardly lambasted for being a Eurogame; Modern Art is one of the best auction games I know), sometimes they don't (Keltis, Ra), and sometimes they are a mess (Through the Desert - leading a caravan over dunes creates a winding snake of camels? I liked that game but it would have worked better as a kind of Railway Rivals or Ticket to Ride).

Some of his games I like, some I dislike (The Lord of the Rings bored the hell out of me), most I am indifferent about (meaning I won't play them because there are so many better games out there).

But this theming of abstract board games is different from a too high abstraction in RPGs. With board games I know and accept that I play an abstract mechanism.
I never played any RPG for the bare interaction of rules elements, modifiers, or die rolls.

Dirk, I don't know about Knizia specifically, but the general reason that Eurogames or "German Games" annoy me is that I've been exposed to games that aren't just abstractions. SJG's Ogre, or Avalon Hill classics like Wooden Ships & Iron Men, have mechanics that represent actual phenomena and let you make decisions as if you were in command of real military forces. They aren't perfect simulations of course but they can be meaningfully analyzed, critiqued, and improved as such.

When I find a Euro irritating (which isn't always) it's typically because:

I don't care for the mechanics (separate from theme, many Euros have a mechanical kinship just as many wargames and simulation games do)

The box art, photos of the game, and description all make the game look like a simulation, when it isn't. ("You must lead your troops to victory!" No, I must win a game of tic-tac-toe. "You will use cunning, guile, and diplomacy." No, I will draw a "Guile" card and collect points for it.")

The fans of the game don't see there's a difference and clutter up conversations and fora.

And last, only really related to the first point, many Euros are based on repeatedly solving narrow optimization problems, and invite the sort of personalities that obsess over such things, take little interest in strategy, and complain loudly about elements of risk and diplomacy.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;721972Buys what? Your incoherent and self-contradictory rhetoric?

No. I don't think anyone buys your incoherent and self-contradictory rhetoric.

From 40 to grade school in three posts. Impressive.

You stay classy.

I play Euro games all the time. They are very different from thematic or simulation games. But great fun nonetheless. Just different. So what if they have pictures of medieval merchants on the box? Would it annoy you if Go had samurai on the box?

Euro games are undoubtedly responsible for the biggest upsurge in tabletop hobby gaming since D&D's fad years. Go to a euro game event and you'll see loads of 20-somethings. Men and women. Couples. Families. It's a thriving scene. Our local convention has from 200 to 500 attendees in the last six years. Resenting it and denouncing it as badwrongfun will only make RPGs look even more like a hobby for grouchy old fanatics.

Wow, it's veered off into why people are bad for liking certain board games now, because they don't fit a sim political gaming agenda?

Stay classy indeed, therpgsite. Where the fun is not in gaming, but in criticising games and gamers.

Quote from: Kaiu Keiichi;722092Wow, it's veered off into why people are bad for liking certain board games now, because they don't fit a sim political gaming agenda?

Stay classy indeed, therpgsite. Where the fun is not in gaming, but in criticising games and gamers.

You can always return to RPG.net if you don't like it so much here.

Crap, someone quoted an idiot.

Please don't do that, Rincewind1.

(Same to you, Halfjack.)

No, I'll just continue to be correct, here. When this place decides to talk about actual gaming instead of gaming politics and WAHHHH, it's pretty damned good.

Stay classy!

Quote from: Haffrung;722091I play Euro games all the time. They are very different from thematic or simulation games. But great fun nonetheless. Just different. So what if they have pictures of medieval merchants on the box? Would it annoy you if Go had samurai on the box?

Euro games are undoubtedly responsible for the biggest upsurge in hobby gaming since D&D's fad years. Go to a euro game event and you'll see loads of 20-somethings. Men and women. Couples. Families. It's a thriving scene. Our local convention has from 200 to 500 attendees in the last six years. Resenting it and denouncing it as badwrongfun will only make RPGs look even more like a hobby for grouchy old fanatics.

Much of what you write is fair enough even though it smacks somewhat of special pleading, but wrt the last sentence frankly I expect better of you. Dirk wanted to know why anyone would have a problem with Knizia; I offered my subjective view as an example of why.