Quote from: Iosue;722350I've come to conclusion that where the Forge dropped the ball was not looking at the role of the rules on a more fundamental level.  That is, what are the rules for? Are they tools for GM-adjudication?  Or are they the primary medium through which the players interact with the game?  Because that has important design implications orthogonal to GNS or GDS.  But the Forge essentially accepted the later as a given,

Lots to ponder...

Very interesting observation.

Quote from: Ravenswing;722333I doubt it.  Supposing they actually came up with a list of games that were "Simulationist" or "Gamist."  Terrific.  Now you've found out that your favorite game (or conversely, the game you hate the most) is "Simulationist."  Now what?  Where do you go from there?

The idea is that if you find that you generally like Simulationist games and dislike Gamist ones, then this can help you find more games you like/avoid ones you don't. I'm sure I'm not the only person who's ever bought a new RPG that looked interesting only to discover on further inspection that it's designed around a mode of play that I have no interest in.

In practise though I think that game classification is a quixotic quest along the lines of trying to produce a perfect system of genre classification for rock bands. Much as both would help my buying decisions I've given up on the ideas.

Quote from: Grymbok;722383The idea is that if you find that you generally like Simulationist games and dislike Gamist ones, then this can help you find more games you like/avoid ones you don't. I'm sure I'm not the only person who's ever bought a new RPG that looked interesting only to discover on further inspection that it's designed around a mode of play that I have no interest in.

In practise though I think that game classification is a quixotic quest along the lines of trying to produce a perfect system of genre classification for rock bands. Much as both would help my buying decisions I've given up on the ideas.

The fuzzy categorization of music into, say, punk rock or new wave is a useful distinction I would say.  Does not need to be perfect, fuzzy edges are fine.

GNS, however, is not appearing to be the useful fuzzzy categorization.  If it was, then someone would surely have categorized the main rpgs by now.

Quote from: Old One Eye;722389The fuzzy categorization of music into, say, punk rock or new wave is a useful distinction I would say.  Does not need to be perfect, fuzzy edges are fine.

GNS, however, is not appearing to be the useful fuzzzy categorization.  If it was, then someone would surely have categorized the main rpgs by now.

I think RPG categories would look lots like metal subgenre categories.

Wich is to say that they'd work but they'd look more than a little silly.

You know "progressive symphonic speed metal" vs "progressive symphonic power metal" silly. Or "deathdoom" vs "funeral doom" vs "drone doom" silly (the latter three subgenres of a subgenre actually do sound very different mind).

So you get stuff like "post-apocalyptic low-power dungeon fantasy" vs "post-apocalyptic low-power simulationist fantasy" or whatevs.

Not sure how useful it'd be!

Quote from: Iosue;722350I've come to conclusion that where the Forge dropped the ball was not looking at the role of the rules on a more fundamental level.

Forge theory was at its best advocacy for thematically-narrow games with alternative GMing models.

At its worst (and most popular) it was a way to say people who didn't share their preferences sucked, that hugely popular, successful games were really, in fact, failures because , and to claim game rules were somehow responsible for people's traumatic adolescent dysfunction with their RPG-ing friends.

At its most incoherent (and most broadly known) people walked away thinking they'd read GDS (totally different theory), or that it was just a wordy re-in-statement of the idea that different folks require different strokes, or whatever.

Given the forum's operating goals, the idea that it might have come up with insightful conclusions about much of anything seems unlikely.

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: Ravenswing;722333I doubt it.  Supposing they actually came up with a list of games that were "Simulationist" or "Gamist."  Terrific.  Now you've found out that your favorite game (or conversely, the game you hate the most) is "Simulationist."  Now what?  Where do you go from there?

This is the nutshell of why I find the mania for labeling amongst gamers to be silly.  We spend so much time, effort and angst coming up with labels, arguing about labels, yelling at people who place labels we consider pejorative on games we like.  In the end, nothing's improved, nothing's decided, nothing's created.

I've had this opinion on the whole RPGs vs Storygames thing for a while. Only on the extremes of the spectrum (Fiasco for instance) does it really mean much. Where as there are people on this board that seem to think playing D20 with hero points added suddenly makes it more like Fiasco than D&D.

Its just silly.

Quote from: Grymbok;722383The idea is that if you find that you generally like Simulationist games and dislike Gamist ones, then this can help you find more games you like/avoid ones you don't. I'm sure I'm not the only person who's ever bought a new RPG that looked interesting only to discover on further inspection that it's designed around a mode of play that I have no interest in.

In practise though I think that game classification is a quixotic quest along the lines of trying to produce a perfect system of genre classification for rock bands. Much as both would help my buying decisions I've given up on the ideas.

If you want to produce the perfect system of genre classification, then I'd agree it is quixotic. And I think it's a fair criticism that Ron Edwards was trying to make his GNS as a be-all-end-all "Big Model".

However, I think that imperfect genre classifications are very useful. Everyone implicitly classifies games, usually identifying themselves with the game(s) they like, and contrasting with the games they don't like. You can see endless variations of "us-vs-them" in things like D&D edition wars, D&D-vs-WoD, GURPS-vs-Hero etc. People who have never heard of any sort of RPG theory constantly have arguments over RPGs.

I think it is possible to do better than this. The original Threefold was an attempt to clarify what existing differences and arguments were really about. The value add is that when I discuss or argue over how RPGs should be run or should be designed - then I can be a little clearer in recognizing what my differences are with others. I think it was a step forward, particularly for its time.

Knee-jerk tribalism has been prominent on the Forge and many other fora, and it is a problem, but it wasn't created by either the original Threefold or even Ron's GNS. The problem with GNS isn't that any classification system or theory is bad - but that GNS was unclear, strongly biased by Ron's tastes, and quixotic in what it claimed to be.

Quote from: jhkim;722437The problem with GNS isn't that any classification system or theory is bad - but that GNS was unclear, strongly biased by Ron's tastes, and quixotic in what it claimed to be.

Quoted and Emphasized for Truth

Quote from: jhkim;722437Knee-jerk tribalism has been prominent on the Forge and many other fora, and it is a problem,

Tribalism is straight up the biggest and most toxic issue in the hobby. I wish that roleplayers could realize that no matter the approach we take, we are all roleplayers and that means more than whether we like the occasional narrative mechanic or are full bore simulationist or whatever other divisive term someone wants to throw on us.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;722445Tribalism is straight up the biggest and most toxic issue in the hobby. I wish that roleplayers could realize that no matter the approach we take, we are all roleplayers and that means more than whether we like the occasional narrative mechanic or are full bore simulationist or whatever other divisive term someone wants to throw on us.

And to bring this back to the OP - my tastes are wholly opposite of permeton's.  Even if we both like 4e, what we want from it and how we play it are completely different.  But I've always been able to have a decent discussion with the guy, and even if he finds B/X D&D outside of his tastes, he's able to appreciate some of its good points, and amicably contribute to threads I've started about it.

Quote from: Arminius;722267Well of course I'd never buy based on the art. It's just gotten a lot harder to use external cues as a filter for looking further. And BGG is also kind of a bitch to use quickly. You really have to look at the descriptions, comments, and who's making the comments, because the audience is so broad, and many of them don't see that there are multiple genres.

I worked for 10 years in a board game stores (5 years as the co-owner of one), and never have I seen any customer thinking of games using the distinction you make.

Yes, they looked for specific games, but the categories were very different. Age group, games they already liked, the recent "Game of the Year" (must be good, it won an award...); party games like Taboo vs. war games like Risk.
And while many of them clearly must have seen that themes were just slapped-on to rather abstract mechanisms no one complained or even just mentioned this.
That would have been stating the obvious: board games (as a broad category) simply are like that. Of course sheep in Settlers don't simulate anything.

But then, in Germany board gaming is widely known and a family pastime. Some games model their themes better than others.

And of course did I have customers that were the "neckbeard" or "catpissman" equivalent, the "know-it-alls", the snobby "critical collectors", and there were rivalries between types of games.

• Knizia vs. Kramer (that was where my question came from, basically, there are gamers that like abstract Tikal but dislike abstract Rhinegold, and the rift was not even between thematic and abstract, but something else)
• Random elements vs. pure tactical games (there were gamers that changed the die roll from Settlers to a set of cards with the statistical distribution of numbers, to make sure that the 2 and 11 spaces are worth less than a 6)
• Mainstream (Hasbro) vs. author games (self publishers)
• Crazy RPGs vs. proper games
• And they all vs. Trading Card Games! (The jury of the "Game of the Year" completely ignored Magic The Gathering despite that game having been the biggest innovation in gaming since D&D)

But I never frequented board game forums (or usenet back then). Is Abstract vs. Thematic a thing there?
If it is it would make me wonder how little of this Story Game vs. Traditional RPG divide is really visible on the FLGS or convention level.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;722458But I never frequented board game forums (or usenet back then). Is Abstract vs. Thematic a thing there?

When euros really took off in the last 10 years, there was a backlash on BGG from those who liked more thematic games like Fortress America, Talisman, and Twilight Imperium - long games with direct conflict and war/scifi/fantasy themes typically played by young males in North America. There was acrimony, and faction split off to form their own website. Much, much smaller than BGG though. And the conflict wasn't anything approaching the scale of  the Forge controversies or Edition Wars of RPGs.

In recent years, the boom of the boardgaming hobby in North American has brought in a whole new market of geeks who have caught on to boardgaming. Think the guys from the Big Bang Theory. Genre geeks first, gamers second. Now a fantasy, horror, or scifi theme has become the ticket to popularity. However, the games are still pretty abstract compared to the Avalon Hill games of yore.

Dirk, it may be more of an anglophone thing, or a specifically non-German one. AH/SPI style games were very big on rec.games.board when Usenet was mostly academic engineers and computer scientists. There were maybe three big "invasions" that got under some people's skins:

Pirateer, a thinly-themed abstract which was spammed by its author
MtG
Euros

The first met universal hostility and I think the guy was eventually silenced one way or another, if only by ignore lists.
The second got its own newsgroup.
The third basically resolved into an uneasy peace and then the migration of wargame talk to Consim-L and Consimworld. I may be mistaken but it seemed that Euro discussion moved to BGG later for technological reasons (increasing adoption of the web). Still later, wargame talk started to pick up on BGG but got caught up in the Euro vs Ameritrash debates before things settled down.

Anyway the initial upsurge of Euros within r.g.b seemed to coincide with both the democratization of Usenet and the rise Euros in Anglophone culture at large. Possibly there are some causal relationships.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;722458But I never frequented board game forums (or usenet back then). Is Abstract vs. Thematic a thing there?
If it is it would make me wonder how little of this Story Game vs. Traditional RPG divide is really visible on the FLGS or convention level.

Its more Eurogame (more abstract, less direct conflict, low randomization, optimization style games) vs "Ameritrash" (more thematic, more direct conflict, more use of randomization, etc.)

Personally, I like both to a degree (though I don't really have AS much use for Eurogames, I mean I like Terra Mystica alright, but Agricola... ugh). Lots of games are really much more hybridy than the more extreme people on either side would admit.

And then Ameritrashers & Eurogamers vs Mainstreamy Games

Haffrung, are you talking about Fortress Ameritrash as the split off of BGG?

Not to contradict, but note that CSW predates BGG and the move out of Usenet is in a way a precursor of the later BGG split. But my impression is that BGG has always been dominated by Euro-fans, while the wargamers were the newbs.