Quote from: S'mon;721604Ayup. IMO it's impossible to overstate how crap RPGs (inc TSR) got in the '90s.

That said, when I played a Storygame, although I was certainly creating-the-story-in-play, in the end it felt almost as empty as when I played a railroaded Paizo AP, where all I got to create was a bit of colour around my PC. And I stuck with the AP for several months. Neither really 'get' what's best about RPGs, IMO.

That`s exactly the thing about storygames. They do a vastly better job of doing something that is not the best thing about RPGs. If you really really want the sort of story that Adventure Paths and whatnot dangle out and then almost always fail to deliver they`re a breath of fresh air.

Kind of like a football team with the best damn cheering squad in the league is going to be popular with people who aren`t focused on all that silly stuff with the ball.

Empty is exactly the world I`d choose as well. What made it feel that way wasn`t so much the mechanics as the sort of GMing style the mechanics are supporting: that the PC is the center of whatever is happening and that the universe organizes itself around him/her. Made thw gaming world feel a bit like a cardboard sound stage that seems empty no matter how many actors are walking about on it.

Quote from: robiswrong;721632FWIW, Fred Hicks has said that he considers Fate to be his argument *against* GNS theory.

I'm finding I like Fred the more I find out about him.  While I know he didn't write --or solely write-- the current wave of FATE books, they are written well.

QuoteI'm guessing that they cater to people with a very specific set of needs - specifically, needs around tightly-designed mechanical systems so that the game can become an avenue of competition.  I'm sure for those people, his games are AMAZING.

Lots of people don't play board games as a competition.  They play them as a fun way to spend some time with my friends, and to have an activity that promotes social interaction.  Cute pictures on the cards and getting your friends to say crazy things has far more value to those people than super-tight math.

You can really only evaluate how "good" something is by comparing it to the needs of the user.  Is a Ferrari better than a minivan?  Not to a soccer mom (apart from the obvious 'sell it and buy five minivans' angle).

There's also a lot of elitism involved with those games as well.  To use Puerto Rico as an example, a popular "gamer's game" that's not designed by Reiner, it suffers from a lot of people hollering "YOU'RE PLAYING IT WRONG!!" when you're not following the optimal path to victory.

Sound familiar?

Quote from: One Horse Town;721542There are few forge evangelists left, so most often it's not worth the fight.

The only way to win is not to play.


How about a nice game of chess?

Quote from: Gizmoduck5000;721476If that's your criteria, then you have failed to cite the contributions of Skip Williams, Jonathon Tweet and Ryan Dancey.

... none of whom played key roles in popularizing RPG ebooks. You should try reading full sentences. It will really help your comprehension.

Quote from: Spinachcat;721490Here's how you win:

1. Get the Forgist in a room with a stranger who may have heard of RPGs, but never played.

2. Have the Forgist explain his favorite Forge RPG to the stranger.

3. Somehow keep from peeing yourself in hysterics as the stranger says "Oh, so its like D&D?"

To which the typical Forgist will reply, "Yes."

You appear to have confused Forgists with RPGPundit and Benoist.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;721668... none of whom played key roles in popularizing RPG ebooks. You should try reading full sentences. It will really help your comprehension.

Ahh - so you're going to be a cunt. Okay.

Amazon didn't popularize e-commerce - they merely filled a vaccuum that was created by the advance of technology.

Likewise, Monte Cook didn't popularize e-books - technology did. Maybe you should pull your tongue out of his asshole for second and actually look at what's been going on with the print medium over the last ten years.

Do you just not like admitting when you're wrong, or is this purely a hero worship thing?

RPGNow's early days were mostly driven by d20 PDFs, and DTRPG was a later comer that took over the scene more through deeper pockets and better business plan. Sure Lulu had some early adoption from the indie set, so maybe they get some credit for drawing attention there, but the great Indie Press Revolution mostly turned out to be a dud. OneBookShelf basically rules the market, and it was built mostly on selling '101 Magical Washbins' for d20.

Quote from: Gizmoduck5000;721680Amazon didn't popularize e-commerce - they merely filled a vaccuum that was created by the advance of technology. Likewise, Monte Cook didn't popularize e-books - technology did.

So you're basically arguing that Monte Cook is as influential in the RPG industry as Amazon is in the e-commerce industry?

Fair enough, I suppose. I disagree that Monte Cook has been as influential as you claim he is, but obviously you think he's much more important than I do.

QuoteDo you just not like admitting when you're wrong, or is this purely a hero worship thing?

I admit that I'm wrong all the time. But it requires that I actually be wrong. Rather than demonstrating that I was wrong about claiming that Monte Cook was pretty influential in the RPG industry, you've actually ended up arguing that Monte Cook is even more influential than I said he was.

Kind of an epic fail on your part.

Really, I think Ryan Dancey was the most influential person in the industry in recent memory, if he's the one responsible for the OGL and d20 licenses. There was a lot of shovelware at first, but it ended up leading to a wave of retro clones, as well as loads of other open systems.

Whereas I remember before 3e, when Fudge was special because the only requirement was that they wanted a copy of your game to archive, or something like that.

Quote from: flyerfan1991;721596QFT.

This reminds me of boardgamers who absolutely adore Reiner Knizia's designs.  Reiner designs these games with a pasted on theme that remind me of doing math problems for fun; I really don't like them very much.  

But the fans...  They are very much evangelical about Reiner's boardgames, but I've found that if you mention them to non-boardgamers they'll respond with "so it's like Settlers of Catan" or "Is it like Apples to Apples?" or "you play something like Monopoly..."  You can almost hear the grating of teeth when that pops out.

While Knizia's games are just as you say (and I don't like them either), the non-geek comment would hit any boardgame, wouldn't it? And it doesn't stop there. Ask people not into music about, say, Calexico. "You mean Country, as in Shania Twain?"

Quote from: Justin Alexander;721709So you're basically arguing that Monte Cook is as influential in the RPG industry as Amazon is in the e-commerce industry?

Fair enough, I suppose. I disagree that Monte Cook has been as influential as you claim he is, but obviously you think he's much more important than I do.

I admit that I'm wrong all the time. But it requires that I actually be wrong. Rather than demonstrating that I was wrong about claiming that Monte Cook was pretty influential in the RPG industry, you've actually ended up arguing that Monte Cook is even more influential than I said he was.

Kind of an epic fail on your part.

Do you really think anyone actually buys this?

Quote from: Riordan;721745While Knizia's games are just as you say (and I don't like them either), the non-geek comment would hit any boardgame, wouldn't it? And it doesn't stop there. Ask people not into music about, say, Calexico. "You mean Country, as in Shania Twain?"

Except that Shania Twain was an actual harbinger of what seems to be the current standard in Country these days.

This is where that other thread stands at the moment:

Quote from: Neonchameleon;6242140As for Fate being popular in the small pond  of indie-games, 20,000 sales of The Dresden Files isn't small change in  anyone's book.  As I mentioned, Fate is credibly the most popular  current RPG that isn't a flavour of D&D. And that includes Numenera,  13th Age, and Exalted.  (We've actual head to head data from  the Fate Core, 13th Age, and Numenera kickstarters of course - Fate  doubled the sales of the other two).

Fiasco has passed the 10,000 sales mark.  I  don't know what Pathfinder APs are selling these days - but 10,000  sales isn't small change in the RPG market.  (Hell, one WotC product was  pegged back to a few hundred sales according to the 2012 State of the  Mongoose).

Fiasco is  one of the games you can credibly call not an RPG.  Yet, 10,000 sales.   Your case is disproven by counterexample.  Few games are breakouts.   This much is agreed.  But given that Fiasco's going strong your  assertion is plainly false.  (It might be harder to have a breakout game  that is not like D&D - but it's definitely happened).

Ultimately  the issue is that for both the indie RPG market and the OSR market  alike you are only starting with a target sales number in three figures  even if you sell to most of the community.  (Adventurer Conqueror King  made fewer than 250 sales on Kickstarter, Jason Morningstar's Durance  under 650, and Far West - once the Kickstarter star - 720).  You're only  getting anywhere if you break out past the small community - and few  games do that. The obvious market to break out to (as Dungeon World did)  is D&D players.

Quote from: Mistwell;721799This is where that other thread stands at the moment:

Five digit sales, while impressive, are probably miniscule next to Pathfinder and D&D's total sales.  FATE has good sales for the moment, but I doubt it will be able to sustain such momentum long term as it reaches a saturation point with its player base.

There are far more people who are familiar with the basics of D&D and Pathfinder type games --courtesy of video games and MMOs-- than are familiar with Forge type ideals.  Consequently, there's a much greater potential player base for D&D and Pathfinder.

That doesn't mean that MMO players will pick up D&D Next en masse, but it means that an MMO player will find it easier to pick up and play D&D Next than play Dogs in the Vineyard.

Quote from: Daztur;721534Yup, when you really drill down even deeper down than system matters and silly categories and all the rest the real core of the Forge is that "railroads are a terrible way of producing an interesting story and that failed novelist GMs should shut up and let players do more to drive what happens during a session."

Whatever you can say about the rest of Forge stuff, the Forge was mostly a backlash against a kind of gaming that the 90's saw way too much off and that was really annoying. I'd have had a lot more fun as a kid if I hadn't read so many stupid Dragon articles in the 90's and whatnot telling me how to craft a story and that random encounters are pointless deviations from the plot and whatnot.

The problem is that the Forge didn't stop there. It's not like it wanted to JUST get back to a more organic game play where players had a say in how the adventure unfolded. They also redefined role playing games through the GNS theory, actively embraced narrativism and, in wanting to make narrativism itself work as an organic product of game play, basically created a new type of game whose purpose is to create story.

The Forgists didn't say "WW is wrong with its storytelling bullshit and let's just play games to get adventures off the ground and let the players do their thing through their characters", they said "WW is wrong because the type of game they create does not efficiently create story, they're brain-damaged because they can't see that their games don't do what they say they're supposed to do, so we're going to actually create games that support the organic creation of story through the interactions of players and GM, if there is a GM".

The thing with that is that it spawned its own gaming style which can be enjoyed on its own merits - that is all fine and good, because some people actually wanted that out of their games, and now they have it - that is good, not bad. What is bad is that the notions defined by the Forge became ipso facto mantras picked up by others, including game designers of main stream games, and that Forge theory is kind of this "thing" that some people think is ubiquitous, either you are a narrativist or a simulationist or gamist, games are good when they are focused on one style, the creative agenda of the group is "a thing", simulationist is a broken play style because it doesn't embrace the meta-game notion of creative agenda, etc etc.

The only way to actually not fall for that theory is to refute its basis, not use its jargon and actively refuse to use it. I'm neither a simulationist nor a narrativist nor a gamist. Forge theory is shit, and doesn't represent the actual reality of gaming at a table, to me. When you start using these words, you start accepting the artificial constructions they try to define, and the way you conceptualize role playing games suddenly starts to be altered, to the point you think of RPGs in Forge speech and get dismayed by the reality not fitting what you are expecting when you are thinking about it in Forge terms. That's the real trap of Forge theory, IMO.

PS: same goes for the spiritual ancestors and spin-offs of the Forge, like the Threefold Model, Robin Laws, his categorizations and theories, and the like. They are quaint theoretical categorizations and as such they might occasionally be useful, but as the basis of role playing games design, they fail, as far as I'm concerned.

Quote from: flyerfan1991;721806Five digit sales, while impressive, are probably miniscule next to Pathfinder and D&D's total sales.  FATE has good sales for the moment, but I doubt it will be able to sustain such momentum long term as it reaches a saturation point with its player base.

Yep. Or for a graphically representation:

Typical OSR or Forge indie game:

XX

Breakout game like FATE or 13th Age:

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

D&D:

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Which is why I have a good chuckle when forum wonks suggest D&D Next can't possibly succeed because WotC has lost the audience to Swords & Wizardry and 13th Age.