TheRPGSite

In this thread (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?350376-Why-the-claim-of-combat-and-class-balance-between-the-classes-is-mainly-a-forum-issue-%28In-my-opinion%29/page31&p=6241166#post6241166), Pemerton is a Forgist and trying to argue that The Forge was a success and a cultural movement and "the preeminent influence on contemporary RPG design."

I didn't want to get into it with him and just disagreed, but he decided to go ahead with it anyway (repeatedly) singing the praises of The Forge.

So, now I want to make a genuine and comprehensive reply to him.  And, I could use some advice.

Any thoughts on how best to approach this topic?

(http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/duty_calls.png)

Welp, the Forge didn't impact anyone I know in gaming.  I didn't quit playing AD&D, I didn't lose players to forge games, the AD&D reprints and module re-releases weren't modified to reflect storygame ideals, and ultimately that's all that matters.

If you're worried about what they've done to the hobby, find out if your group(s) of choice have shrunk because your players rather than D&D-whatever or Traveler or Ghostbusters or whatever it is you play would rather play Dogs in the Vineyard or Nicotine Girls or Poison'd etc.  If the answer is no, then, no, they haven't had a significant impact.

And no this isn't "confirmation bias"; this is examining the very real world impact of what they've done.  It's all well and good for them if they say "We now control the tone of the hobby" (they don't), if you look around and don't see that then their words are hollow and meaningless.  "Aha!" so they say, "We've gotten our ideas into mainstream RPGs!  Therefore: victory!"...no, they haven't.  Them writing and publishing stuff doesn't mean their ideas have "gotten" into mainstream RPGs, it means they've written and published stuff and said "We're part of the hobby, too!"

I, as a fan of AD&D would like to believe that the re-releases of the AD&D rulebooks by WotC took the world by storm and now AD&D is the preeminent RPG; likewise the other old-school games.  But I know that's not the case.  People by and large still prefer Pathfinder and 3.5.  And I'm OK with that.  Some OS stuff has gotten traction, the AD&D re-releases were noteworthy, people do buy the module PDFs, the re-releases did sell, and some design aesthetics have gotten into new stuff.  Dungeon Crawl Classics is a shining example of OS production values and design ideas framed with new rules.  WotC keeps (successfully) revisiting the well for module ideas dating back to Gygax's classics.  That is far more significant than someone having a "confrontation" stat in their rules.  Look at 5e.  5e isn't a storygame nor does it have storygame elements.  It's a move away from modern ideas (whether you think that's a good thing or not I leave to your own consideration).  You can argue that Pathfinder is itself a "bigger" RPG than D&D is now but, and remember this, Pathfinder is ultimately still D&D.  Which means that D&D is still the big dog on the yard.  And since the big dog isn't playing with story-game rules, their notions are false.

Just ask them to show you where the market leader uses storygame rules.  In either PF or D&D.  I mean uses them in a big, significant, paradigm-shaping way.  'cause it's not there.

Quote from: Mistwell;721243In this thread (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?350376-Why-the-claim-of-combat-and-class-balance-between-the-classes-is-mainly-a-forum-issue-%28In-my-opinion%29/page31&p=6241166#post6241166), Pemerton is a Forgist and trying to argue that The Forge was a success and a cultural movement and "the preeminent influence on contemporary RPG design."

I didn't want to get into it with him and just disagreed, but he decided to go ahead with it anyway (repeatedly) singing the praises of The Forge.

So, now I want to make a genuine and comprehensive reply to him.  And, I could use some advice.

Any thoughts on how best to approach this topic?

Use lubricant and wash your hands afterward.

Quote from: Mistwell;721243In this thread (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?350376-Why-the-claim-of-combat-and-class-balance-between-the-classes-is-mainly-a-forum-issue-%28In-my-opinion%29/page31&p=6241166#post6241166), Pemerton is a Forgist and trying to argue that The Forge was a success and a cultural movement and "the preeminent influence on contemporary RPG design."

I didn't want to get into it with him and just disagreed, but he decided to go ahead with it anyway (repeatedly) singing the praises of The Forge.

So, now I want to make a genuine and comprehensive reply to him.  And, I could use some advice.

Any thoughts on how best to approach this topic?

I think in a lot of ways the Forge did meet a lot of the goals it set out to do. Don't agree with all of it's goals but I'd still rather have "story" mean "Forge stuff" than "failed novelist GM sets up a railroad."

Just hop over to RPGNow and look at the number of OSR products versus the number of Forge Products. You can't get more opposed than that?

Or look on Hoard and Hordes (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ar9Wm_5gI_1TdGlyZHpwRHFoU2pEMng0NkhqTlJEYmc) for products targeting classic editions only up to the mid 2012s.

Quote from: Daztur;721255I think in a lot of ways the Forge did meet a lot of the goals it set out to do. Don't agree with all of it's goals but I'd still rather have "story" mean "Forge stuff" than "failed novelist GM sets up a railroad."

Perhaps Forge stuff are not railroads but they really work at making narrowly focused one-note wonders. Stuff that would be a supplement or adventure for a traditional RPG.

I read some wiki page about them once, that is how I know they even existed.

Quote from: Mistwell;721243. . . Pemerton is a Forgist . . .

Y'know, pemerton is one of the few FoR (Friends of Ron) with whom I actually enjoyed conversing, when I was still active on EN World.

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

The edition of the hobby's all-time most influential and pervasive roleplaying game which most embodied the principles of the Forge was also it's least successful edition and the most soundly rejected by its own company.

The Forge was very good at producing games written by game designers who write for an audience of other game designers and a small circle of sycophants who salivate at their hairy genitals.  As far as market penetration and changing how people play roleplaying games, it's success is a mixed bag at best.

Quote from: PemertonThe most prominent Forge designer would be Vincent Baker (Dogs in the Vineyard), who appears in the acknowledgements for games ranging from Burning Wheel to Marvel Heroic Roleplaying.

Vincent Baker is acknowledged in a range of games which, in their entire runs, sold less than pretty much any single Paizo adventure path ever.

And by the way, I'm not suggesting that market share determines weather a game is successful and influential - I think RuneQuest was one of the most influential roleplaying games ever written, but it certainly never sold or was played at anything like D&D numbers.

Quote from: J Arcane;721247(http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/duty_calls.png)

J Arcane has given the best answer.

Quote from: Mistwell;721243In this thread (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?350376-Why-the-claim-of-combat-and-class-balance-between-the-classes-is-mainly-a-forum-issue-%28In-my-opinion%29/page31&p=6241166#post6241166), Pemerton is a Forgist and trying to argue that The Forge was a success and a cultural movement and "the preeminent influence on contemporary RPG design."

I didn't want to get into it with him and just disagreed, but he decided to go ahead with it anyway (repeatedly) singing the praises of The Forge.

So, now I want to make a genuine and comprehensive reply to him.  And, I could use some advice.

Any thoughts on how best to approach this topic?

Well....in a lot of ways he is correct. So many newer games ARE full of forgist crap and they are somewhat popular.

What he doesn't seem to get is that there just as many (if not more) active gamers who don't give two fucks about what is hot in "contemporary" game design.

So for a portion of the hipster gaming community he is correct. For gamers as a collective whole, not so much.

Ignore him.

Okay.  BESIDES sheer crabyness (always fun) the reason you need to ignore him is this:

You can't disprove anything.

See, when I read Ron's first three essays, what I mostly got out of them (other than "Crom's hairy nutsack, this syntax is tortured") was "Know what you like, and play that."

Now, that's hardly Earthshattering, but, on the other hand, if a Forger points to ANY game that says "play what you like," and screams "AH HA, PROOF!" there's no way you can convince him/her/it/them/xu/splerg otherwise.

It's a mug's game, so don't even ante up, is what I'm saying.

I've met all kinds of gamers, but I've never met a Forgy in real life. I think they actually live inside the Internet somehow, perhaps something similar to the "Digital Wildlife" of Peter Watt's cyberpunk novels.  

I used to think the same thing about Furries until I actually did meet two of those (Both of whom turned out to be fine people).

The Forge was successful.  There is a thriving indie-rpg scene out there, where people design and release very specifically built RPG games.  In addition, if I were going to self-publish today, the first place I'd stop to find out how to do it is The Forge's archives or a storygames website.  That doesn't matter if I were looking to publish a Dungeon World character pack or a supplement for Pathfinder or the OGL -- there's a lot of support by the creators there for how to get stuff done and release it independently.  Did Forge GNS theory really survive?  I don't think so, but I suspect it's take on indie publishing has had a truly measurable impact on the hobby.

Now, that said, it's not something that every gamer deals with or will have heard of.  But then again, neither is the OSR or any of the other shit that gets talked about online.  The vast majority of gamers play D&D or some offshoot, White Wolf, Star Wars of some stripe or another, or some 40K RPG.  All the stuff that everybody gets up to in this super-sekret clubhouse or another is nonsense to the majority of gamers I talk to.

Quote from: Old Geezer;721314See, when I read Ron's first three essays, what I mostly got out of them (other than "Crom's hairy nutsack, this syntax is tortured") was "Know what you like, and play that."

I think it was Clinton R Nixon who summed up the real lesson of Forge game analysis as, "A game encourages what it rewards."  When people talked about this game being dysfunctional or that game doing something wrong, I was able to understand what they were saying -- a little -- by thinking about it in those terms.  Obviously, I disagree with a lot of where that criticism headed -- I think a good critical theory will tell you why Vampire: The Masquerade worked, and not that it was broken, but I was able to figure out a lot of that latter stuff on my own.

The most mainstream games that featured Forge philosophy were D&D4 and WFRP3, both of which were failures compared to previous editions.

There are a lot of new-school games that feature narrative mechanics, however, the "Father of Narrative RPGs" isn't Ron Edwards, but Greg Stafford and Robin Laws. The most current successful narrative game, Numenera, is much more Laws then Edwards.

The Forge was a radical factionalized section of gaming theory based on a misunderstanding of the Threefold Model that was as much a Cult of Personality as it was a design movement.

Did it have an impact? Yes, but that impact was a failure.  Even Baker designed his Xworld system to get away from the mechanics and designs that came out of the Forge.

However, Narrative gaming, or I should say, "Roleplaying Games" that feature a large amount of OOC mechanics whether for narrative or tactical reasons is very much a hallmark of the new school and it is troubling I think that there are no successful new games that are not new school, Next being an exception if it sells well, but still relying on the D&D name.

There is no traditional Numenera, for example.

The Forge was successful in getting people to think about RPG design more consciously, but I don't think the GNS model accomplished much other than help reinforce the idea that you can't please all gamers at once and need to tailor games. Which is actually what it was supposed to do, I think, but like every new idea*, people embraced it and tried to use it for _everything._

*It wasn't actually a new idea, but an old idea worded differently. It's similar to 13th Age's One Unique Thing, which is an ancient concept that I've used in most campaigns I've run since I was a kid, but got a lot of attention because it was given a special name in a popular RPG. Which is good, but also a little silly to those of us who have been using those ideas for a long time.

Quote from: CRKrueger;721331However, Narrative gaming, or I should say, "Roleplaying Games" that feature a large amount of OOC mechanics whether for narrative or tactical reasons.

That is a very ...unique definition for narrative gaming.

Have you ever seen anyone other than you use this definition?

I've usually heard it used to mean games that value "creating a story" over "simulating physics" (regardless of Ron's original definition).

But I had never heard it used to mean "lots of OOC mechanics" before.

One of the most striking things to me about the children of the ron is the paucity of deep, fully realised settings.

I mean when it comes to RPG design, creating a system which enables a wide array of actions and allows characters to interact with a wide spectrum of elements in a believable way is much, much more difficult than designing the one purpose minigames beloved of the offshoot school. And all while keeping the system playable and engaging.

However even this pales in comparison to the challenge of creating a rich and compelling setting. Plus it's a crapton of work, much harder than sitting around making up jargon and defining terms. I hesitate to use the term "new school" with regard to these endeavours since they aren't really any kind of school, they're just... an offshoot...

What's a good analogy, writing is pretty close. Writers write, some dare I say most of the greatest writers in history never took a literature class. Conversely the overwhelming majority of lit/arts students don't produce anything creatively noteworthy. The offshoot school are the lit/arts students, RPG designers are the writers.

However in terms of fighting forgers I usually just throw babies at them until they go away. You'd be surprised how tenacious those little bastards can be.

What difference does this nerd religion-bs politics mean? Absolutely none. Forgites have plenty of new games that they can have fun with. OSR folks and sim junkies have their hexcrawls. Everyone is having a great time. It's not zero sum, no one "wins" - the more games and adventures published, the better. Both sides seed each other and create hybrid products. The more fun, the better. Gamers can be forgites one game and OSR-sim heads the next. There is no gaming pope, and the success of one style does not impede the success of the other. If you object to other people's material, create your own, don't sit on your ass and whine. Don't hate, create.

Worry about your damned table, and what stuff enables you and your group to have fun. You're not gaming with these people. Arguing with anyone is just tribalist masturbation.

Also, see my sig. If you feel the need to argue, say to yourself, "Why am I being stupid?" and read it again, and get back to planning your next campaign or writing your next project.

Quote from: Just Another Snake Cult;721316I've met all kinds of gamers, but I've never met a Forgy in real life. I think they actually live inside the Internet somehow, perhaps something similar to the "Digital Wildlife" of Peter Watt's cyberpunk novels.  

I used to think the same thing about Furries until I actually did meet two of those (Both of whom turned out to be fine people).

You're probably right.  Sadly(??) the only internet "no-shit-there-I-was" phenomenons I've met outside of the internet are catpissmen/stinkers and creepers.

People I've met IRL who absolutely adore 3e or think Pathfinder or 4e is the bee's knees generally are at the worst dismissive about older D&Ds.   Veeeeery little to-your-face edition warring is to be had, I think, beyond the metal bawkses of the computer world.

I game with some hard core story gamers, big 3E heads (my local group) and a few OSR types online. Gamers are mostly the same, I've found. They simply want to have a good time.

Remember, when you fight a Forgist, you're not having fun gaming. Go game.

I'm just glad to be able, through a few seconds searching around the internet, to meet up with real gamers again after years away. People around here (in anglo circles at least) seem to be playing a lot of 3e/Pathfinder, some Castles and Crusades, some 40K, a little Cthulhu (Call/Trail), and a touch of Fate sprinkled in. But fairly diverse, and most games proposed seem to fill up their slots pretty rapidly.

That said, I've noticed that in Paris, if you put "therpgsite" into google, the first thing that's suggested to you is "thepigsite".

Swine conspiracy?

Quote from: Old Geezer;721314Ignore him.

Okay.  BESIDES sheer crabyness (always fun) the reason you need to ignore him is this:

You can't disprove anything.

See, when I read Ron's first three essays, what I mostly got out of them (other than "Crom's hairy nutsack, this syntax is tortured") was "Know what you like, and play that."

Now, that's hardly Earthshattering, but, on the other hand, if a Forger points to ANY game that says "play what you like," and screams "AH HA, PROOF!" there's no way you can convince him/her/it/them/xu/splerg otherwise.

It's a mug's game, so don't even ante up, is what I'm saying.

That...is a damn good point.

I never got the whole deal with storygaming and Forge theory and all that.  It wasn't interesting to me, didn't impact my gaming group, so why bother?

To each their own.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;721404I never got the whole deal with storygaming and Forge theory and all that.  It wasn't interesting to me, didn't impact my gaming group, so why bother?

To each their own.

When I first heard of these guys I got caught up in a zeitgeist of OH MY GOD THEY'RE GOING TO WRECK THE HOBBY then I realized the Forge was no more going to turn RPGs into Storygames than my self-written and published AD&D modules were going to convince WotC to republish AD&...


WAIIIIIT A MINUTE HERE...!


I kid, I kid.

Anyway point being they're (storygamers) just another niche of a niche of a niche.  They're the Atari ST users of the RPG world.  Yes they have apps, yes they've published them.  No, people aren't gonna use them outside of their tiny little circle.  The end.

Quote from: Enlightened;721358That is a very ...unique definition for narrative gaming.

Have you ever seen anyone other than you use this definition?

I've usually heard it used to mean games that value "creating a story" over "simulating physics" (regardless of Ron's original definition).

But I had never heard it used to mean "lots of OOC mechanics" before.

It's a pretty common definition around these parts.

Quote from: Mistwell;721243In this thread (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?350376-Why-the-claim-of-combat-and-class-balance-between-the-classes-is-mainly-a-forum-issue-%28In-my-opinion%29/page31&p=6241166#post6241166), Pemerton is a Forgist and trying to argue that The Forge was a success and a cultural movement and "the preeminent influence on contemporary RPG design."

...so: if you like the fact that new games seem to appeal even more forcefully to the 40-year-old-virgin demographic than they used to, then the Forge is your kinda place.

Seriously: who wants to die on that hill? Let him have it.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;721408Anyway point being they're (storygamers) just another niche of a niche of a niche.  They're the Atari ST users of the RPG world.  Yes they have apps, yes they've published them.  No, people aren't gonna use them outside of their tiny little circle.  The end.

I miss my STe.

Anyway, forge theory, as with every theory, gets stupid if you dig too deeply into it. Poke about, have a look, grab the bits that seem to work for you, and leave the rest behind.

Grr.  I miss my Atari ST too.

But that being said ...

Like any other gaming forum -- and probably every forum since ARPANET was going great guns -- there's a bunch of people who declare themselves unique and influential, and they often attract a small ragtag band of groupies.  We're particularly prone to it in gaming, I admit ... I vividly recall a thread on TBP a dozen years ago when I was getting back into GMing where someone told me something was true Because Ryan Dancey Says So!  My response ("Who the hell is Ryan Dancey?") provoked derision from the poster: what kind of gamer could I possibly be if I Hadn't Heard Of Ryan Dancey???

Well, a gamer who'd taken a break from the hobby starting around 1995, before anyone had ever heard of the guy, for one.  Somewhat ironically, as far as I can tell, he hasn't done anything since.

I've heard similar stuff from and about the Forgeites: about how potent and influential they were, and how they were changing the face of gaming.

Sorry, I call bullshit.  Indeed, they do have their indie games out, and those indie games have their percentage point or two worth of market share.  In any line of business, that level of impact would be considered failure so abject as to be beneath any notice beyond derisive jeering.  I see no reason to consider them important on their say-so alone.

So here's my advice for the OP.  Go the Wikipedia route.  In assessing the notability of a subject, there's a rule called WP:GNG, the General Notability Guideline: that in order to be considered notable, a subject needs to be discussed in "significant detail" in multiple, reliable, third-party, independent publications with a reputation for fact checking.

And that's what you throw at them: without reference to the indie gaming press, to forums or to blogs, what mainstream publications credit the Forge with a widespread impact on RPGs?

Quote from: Enlightened;721358That is a very ...unique definition for narrative gaming.

Have you ever seen anyone other than you use this definition?

I've usually heard it used to mean games that value "creating a story" over "simulating physics" (regardless of Ron's original definition).

But I had never heard it used to mean "lots of OOC mechanics" before.

OOC mechanics are the method by which you put story first or influence story.  By definition, any story mechanic is OOC as the PC has no knowledge of being in a story or influencing a story, or acting for the purposes of drama, etc.

Quote from: Mistwell;721243In this thread (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?350376-Why-the-claim-of-combat-and-class-balance-between-the-classes-is-mainly-a-forum-issue-%28In-my-opinion%29/page31&p=6241166#post6241166), Pemerton is a Forgist and trying to argue that The Forge was a success and a cultural movement and "the preeminent influence on contemporary RPG design."

At least two of those three things are true. All three might be true depending on how you're defining "success" and/or "preeminent".

Those dismissing the influence of the Forge in this thread need to understand that it heavily influenced D&D 4th Edition, FFG's RPGs, and Dragon Age. (I just listed a significant chunk of the bestselling RPGs from the past several years.)

The case can certainly be made that the Forge's success has not translated to success for the industry. But the Forge got what it wanted, it's definitely a cultural movement, and outside of the always lingering influence of Gygax/Arneson I can't think of another influence that's having as much impact on game design right now. Monte Cook, maybe?

Quote from: Justin Alexander;721465The case can certainly be made that the Forge's success has not translated to success for the industry. But the Forge got what it wanted, it's definitely a cultural movement, and outside of the always lingering influence of Gygax/Arneson I can't think of another influence that's having as much impact on game design right now. Monte Cook, maybe?

No - Monte Cook didn't really innovate anything - he merely popularized the bureaucracy of rules-heavy 90's games by bringing it into D&D with 3rd edition. That was a movement that started much earlier with ultra-crunch games that placed a premium on "realism".

Likewise, the Forge isn't the birthplace of metagame mechanics. You had Fate points in WHFRP and drama points in WEG Star Wars well before Ron Edwards and Vincent Baker were on the scene.

Quote from: Gizmoduck5000;721468No - Monte Cook didn't really innovate anything

Influence doesn't require innovation.

Cook co-designed the bestselling game of the past 13 years and he played a significant role in popularizing RPG ebooks. As a result of the OGL, the former has directly influenced dozens of games (and continues to do so). The latter continues to have significant repercussions on the business side of the equation.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;721465Those dismissing the influence of the Forge in this thread need to understand that it heavily influenced D&D 4th Edition, FFG's RPGs, and Dragon Age. (I just listed a significant chunk of the bestselling RPGs from the past several years.)

Not to mention second-tier games like 13th Age, Dungeon World, The One Ring, Mouse Guard, and Fiasco.

Thing is, as much as the market has largely rejected most of its principles, game designers have lapped up Forge theory. Even designers who work on commercial games. I've come across interviews and blogs where successful designers more or less admit that they work on D&D and Pathfinder to pay the bills, but at their own table they run story games. Whether it's because they're jaded from playing conventional games to death, or they just want to hang with the cool kids, forge theory has a lot influence in the small RPG design community.

Quote from: Haffrung;721473I've come across interviews and blogs where successful designers more or less admit that they work on D&D and Pathfinder to pay the bills, but at their own table they run story games.

Really, where?

Quote from: Justin Alexander;721469Influence doesn't require innovation.

Cook co-designed the bestselling game of the past 13 years and he played a significant role in popularizing RPG ebooks. As a result of the OGL, the former has directly influenced dozens of games (and continues to do so). The latter continues to have significant repercussions on the business side of the equation.

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

Quote from: Haffrung;721473Thing is, as much as the market has largely rejected most of its principles, game designers have lapped up Forge theory.

This fails to surprise me.

Much like most of the well-known theorists in the MMO space have their ideas.  And those ideas, and adherence to them, is an incredibly *terrible* predictor of popularity or viability of the games once they hit the public.

I think it's a combination of a couple of things - people in the industry just being overexposed (like how movie critics like films about gay cowboys eating pudding, just because *it's different*), combined with what people *want* to work (as opposed to what experientially *does* work), topped off with a heaping helping of "confusing my preferences for an objective standard of goodness".

Popularity of Forge approaches among designers is also probably because Forge theory appeals to designers' egos. In reality, the effect a designer can have on the success of a game, either commercially or in play, is limited. But the Forge approach not only amplifies the role of the designer but implies that successful design is a product of convergent analysis, focusing on well-defined mechanics. It offers a promise of being able to communicate your vision perfectly.

Here'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?"

That's the great and mighty joke. The OSR grogtard and the Forge hipster think they are worlds apart, but to anyone outside the hobby, they are just two people who play WoW without a computer.

To fight a Forgist:

1: For the first 20 seconds, he'll throw alternating left and right jabs. Dodge those and counter-punch twice after each.

2: At 22 seconds, he'll blink twice. Punch him in the face for a star.

3: When he draws back for a power punch, stun him with a bodyblow, then press start to use the star and floor him with an uppercut.

4: When he gets up, counterpunch him as he throws his first jab and he'll stay down for the 10 count. You'll continue on to the fight with King Hippo after that.

5: King Hippo really likes FATE, and insists on spelling it with all capital letters.

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?"

That's the great and mighty joke. The OSR grogtard and the Forge hipster think they are worlds apart, but to anyone outside the hobby, they are just two people who play WoW without a computer.

Troof!

Quote from: Haffrung;721473Thing is, as much as the market has largely rejected most of its principles, game designers have lapped up Forge theory. Even designers who work on commercial games.

And there's a secondary effect too, games like Mouse Guard, 13th Age and Dungeon World have an influence on people who design games even if they've never read a single thing directly from the Forge.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;721273Y'know, pemerton is one of the few FoR (Friends of Ron) with whom I actually enjoyed conversing, when I was still active on EN World.

Pemerton is a good guy.

I'd say the Forge was one of the factors in the end of the '90s Railroading Era, aka the Dark Age of RPGs. I don't know if it was a major factor. Obviously Ron Edwards is a jerk, and many Forge games are morally contemptible. But it does influence modern game design - I bunch of stuff (that I don't play) - Leverage, Apocalypse World/Dungeon World, Fiasco, Marvel Heroic Roleplay, Spirit of the Century and other FATE stuff, etc. It even had some incoherent influence on 4e D&D. Despite Ron's personal horribleness, and his total failure to understand Simulation as an agenda, I'd say he broadly achieved what he set out to do.

In terms of real-world influence, well the London Indie Games Meetup seems quite popular, it was well attended the one time I went there (got hazed, played a Storygame, it was ok). But they meet once a month; my London D&D Meetup meets four times a week. :D

Knuckledusters

Quote from: S'mon;721520Pemerton is a good guy.

I'd say the Forge was one of the factors in the end of the '90s Railroading Era, aka the Dark Age of RPGs. I don't know if it was a major factor. Obviously Ron Edwards is a jerk, and many Forge games are morally contemptible. But it does influence modern game design - I bunch of stuff (that I don't play) - Leverage, Apocalypse World/Dungeon World, Fiasco, Marvel Heroic Roleplay, Spirit of the Century and other FATE stuff, etc. It even had some incoherent influence on 4e D&D. Despite Ron's personal horribleness, and his total failure to understand Simulation as an agenda, I'd say he broadly achieved what he set out to do.

Yup, 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 Forge kind of reminds me of 4ed in a lot of ways. The design of both seems to have gone like this:

"That other game keeps on trying to do X and fails and it's annoying!"
"How about just not trying to do X then?"
"No! We must come up with increasing convoluted ways to doing X! And make all of the mechanics support X! Stupid people in the old days not realizing how important X is!"

Quote from: Ravenswing;721427
So here's my advice for the OP.  Go the Wikipedia route.  In assessing the notability of a subject, there's a rule called WP:GNG, the General Notability Guideline: that in order to be considered notable, a subject needs to be discussed in "significant detail" in multiple, reliable, third-party, independent publications with a reputation for fact checking.

And that's what you throw at them: without reference to the indie gaming press, to forums or to blogs, what mainstream publications credit the Forge with a widespread impact on RPGs?

That's a rather ridiculous standard to hold to for RPGs. Honestly, what mainstream publications have written anything about RPGs other than D&D in the last ten years?

There are few forge evangelists left, so most often it's not worth the fight.

In the olden days circa 2004, when the missionaries where thick on the ground i just used to refuse to use their jargon as the framing point of the discussion. For some reason, that really pissed them off.

Quote from: Grymbok;721541That's a rather ridiculous standard to hold to for RPGs. Honestly, what mainstream publications have written anything about RPGs other than D&D in the last ten years?

Go figure, eh?  Throw in some WoD and a bit of Pathfinder and Warhammer there, and there you have it.  So the world hasn't noticed anyone except the major players?  So stipulated ... but it's tough to argue from there that the little guys have had any influence.

Seriously, the market share element is a huge, huge deal.  D&D has been the overwhelming market leader for the entire history of the hobby, and the posters who've pointed out the painfully obvious fact that it's the only RPG with any name recognition outside the hobby have been dead on.  WoD's been a distant second place over the last couple decades.  A couple other games have had 5%, at best.

As far as the Mouse Guards and Dogs In The Vineyards of the hobby go?  I doubt more than one gamer in ten has ever heard of them, let alone played them.

So what is this vast influence The Forge is supposed to have had on the hobby?  On the large number of people still playing 3.0 and 3.5?  They were published before The Forge had any significant name recognition even amongst the online geeks.  On WoD?  Nope.  On Warhammer?  Nope.  On Pathfinder?  3.5 throwback there.  On GURPS?  Nope.  On 4.0?  Some of you are arguing that -- absent, mind you, any real evidence -- but how much has the D&D crowd rejected 4.0 in favor of 3.5 or earlier?

Is it because there are "indie" games now?  Haven't there always been "indie" games in the hobby ... ones which have had small publishing runs, ones without outside corporate control?  What was Palladium, beyond Kevin Siembieda's vision?  What was GURPS, beyond Steve Jackson's vision?  Feng Shui, Amber, Castle Falkenstein, all much the same.

Press Down, Forward, Down, Back, Down, Forward, A.

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?"

That's the great and mighty joke. The OSR grogtard and the Forge hipster think they are worlds apart, but to anyone outside the hobby, they are just two people who play WoW without a computer.

QFT.

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.

Remember that scene from the Matrix where Morpheus offers Neo the pills?  And then that scene towards the end where Cypher says, "if he had told us the truth..."  Well this could be like that.  Consider what happens if you win this argument.  You're seriously raining on some dude's worldview parade, and for what?  Those glory days are gone.  Might be best to let him cling to the good times.

Smile and nod.  Smile and nod.

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.

Ayup. 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.

Quote from: S'mon;721520Spirit of the Century and other FATE stuff, etc.

FWIW, Fred Hicks has said that he considers Fate to be his argument *against* GNS theory.

Quote from: flyerfan1991;721596This 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.

I'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).

Quote from: S'mon;721604That 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.

I'd actually say that they don't satisfy the needs that *you* expect an RPG to fulfill.  Clearly lots of people like APs, and lots of people like storygames.

Just to be clear, I pretty much *agree* with you about the most hardcore storygames (Fiasco, etc.), and certainly about APs.  I'm just saying that neither your nor my needs are universal.

That assumption is *generally* the mistake that "big theorists" make - their theory is really a thinly veiled attempt to argue that their preferences are actually objective fact, and that everyone else's preferences are BAD AND WRONG.

In my mind, a *good* theory has to account for the popularity of things that are actually popular, without resorting to such crap as "marketing" or "people are dumb".

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

GNS theory is wildly wrong in all kinds of ways (I can think of three off the top of my head, and I know there are more), so that's not hard. :D

Quote from: robiswrong;721632I'd actually say that they don't satisfy the needs that *you* expect an RPG to fulfill.  Clearly lots of people like APs, and lots of people like storygames.

Just to be clear, I pretty much *agree* with you about the most hardcore storygames (Fiasco, etc.), and certainly about APs.  I'm just saying that neither your nor my needs are universal.

That assumption is *generally* the mistake that "big theorists" make - their theory is really a thinly veiled attempt to argue that their preferences are actually objective fact, and that everyone else's preferences are BAD AND WRONG.

In my mind, a *good* theory has to account for the popularity of things that are actually popular, without resorting to such crap as "marketing" or "people are dumb".

Yes, I agree. The storygame (Quest, I played with the designer) wasn't trying to be a roleplaying game, it was a story-creation exercise. It was quite good fun, but without any competitive/Gamist element there wasn't much satisfaction in it. There was a bit of roleplaying, but no role immersion, something I value. But it worked by its own lights.

The linear rail Adventure Path to me had a more serious failing in that it stripped me of meaningful choice. Not only was there little real challenge - failing at an encounter just meant doing it over - but there was very little choice, either. Where the storygame gave me lots of choice in how I contributed to creating the story, the AP required me to follow the rails of the prewritten story. I do have trouble understanding how anyone can enjoy that. I'm hopefully about to start GMing a different AP though, I'm (nervously) determined to open it out and let player actions determine how things go, voiding chunks and adding stuff as necessary.

Quote from: S'mon;721636Yes, I agree. The storygame (Quest, I played with the designer) wasn't trying to be a roleplaying game, it was a story-creation exercise. It was quite good fun, but without any competitive/Gamist element there wasn't much satisfaction in it. There was a bit of roleplaying, but no role immersion, something I value. But it worked by its own lights.

Yeah.  As an example, I consider Fiasco to be more related to party games than D&D, in that it generally satisfies the types of needs I'd expect from a party game.

Quote from: S'mon;721636The linear rail Adventure Path to me had a more serious failing in that it stripped me of meaningful choice. Not only was there little real challenge - failing at an encounter just meant doing it over - but there was very little choice, either. Where the storygame gave me lots of choice in how I contributed to creating the story, the AP required me to follow the rails of the prewritten story. I do have trouble understanding how anyone can enjoy that. I'm hopefully about to start GMing a different AP though, I'm (nervously) determined to open it out and let player actions determine how things go, voiding chunks and adding stuff as necessary.

And you've expressed a very strong need for the world to respond to your actions, and for your actions to shape the direction the game goes.  Not surprising, that's one of the biggest things I get from roleplaying.

I think Adventure Paths are pretty good at the following:

* Reducing GM prep (though I'd somewhat disagree with this, as there's low prep ways to GM)
* Offering interesting set-piece encounters and tactical challenges
* Allowing for a focus on character advancement
* Providing a strong 'levels 'n' loot' gameplay element

None of those things are particularly appealing to me, so Adventure Paths don't really work for me.  I'd play in one, but only because I wanted to hang with people that were playing that already.

But I can see that for someone who *did* care about such things, it would be a good style of play.

Quote from: S'mon;721636Where the storygame gave me lots of choice in how I contributed to creating the story, the AP required me to follow the rails of the prewritten story. I do have trouble understanding how anyone can enjoy that.

My impression is a lot of D&D players regard the 'story' in adventures as the cut scene backdrop to the real game, which is rolling dice and killing stuff. They'd rather passively watch a scripted story than actively take part in one which requires work and may not yield a satisfying climax and conclusion. Hopefully, open-ended CRPGs like Skyrim are changing expectations.

Also, half of the people who buy APs only use them as reading material, so to them the linear story involving backstory, betrayal, redemption, and every cheesy geek culture cliche is perfect.

Go straight to the temple in the swamps near Blackmoor. Bring plenty of fat flies in jars, and spiked shields - good against leap attacks and getting swallowed whole. Use maces to kill the first set of cultists you meet so you can wear their robes around no questions asked.

And for Pete's sake, learn how to spell "Frogist"!

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.

Quote from: Benoist;721814I'm neither a simulationist nor a narrativist nor a gamist. .

Fundamentally, I believe this is where I find myself getting frustrated when the forge comes up. If people find those categories useful for themselves, I have no issue whatsoever, but when they suggest that have to accept those categories, or tell me D&D is "gamist" or "narrativist" I just feel like I am being offered a false choice between distinctions I don't really buy into. Same when I hear people mention coherence. My sense is a lot of folks react negatively to this stuff because it is sometimes presented as gospel truth and it comes with an expectation that you also accept the jargon.

You know, to give Forge and GDS it's due (hear me out, I swear, they didn't get my brain), I feel like the main problem it was that it tried to classify gamers, rather than games. Because with all it's flaws and ideology, I think that sometimes criticising/describing a game on the basis of how well it simulates the desired world, how well it simulates the desired genre, and how abstract the mechanics is, would be useful mental shortcuts.

Quote from: Haffrung;721832Yep. 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.

  D&D Next might have massive, massive sales and still be a failure.  I mean, 4e did and is widely regarded as a failure.  My understanding is that back in the day, sales of most roleplaying games put current sales to shame.  D&D made in a year back in the '70s and '80s more than the whole market probably does today over a couple of years.  D&D 4e is probably a failure relative to any edition that preceded it, and 5e will be, too, not because of S&W or 13th Age, but because D&D doesn't have the horsepower it used to because the hobby's simply not that big.  

The fact that WotC mismanaged 4e by splitting the audience with Essentials and that 5e is a big question mark isn't going to help, sure, but basically, the kind of success games had all the way through the early '90s just isn't possible anymore.    

That's why indie games work, though -- they aren't built on an assumption that the hobby can support a three-tier system or that they need to satisfy X sales to be successful.  D&D has to make money to be worth it to Hasbro, but My Greatest Indie Adventure can sell a hundred copies and the author might be happy.  D&D Next has to make a certain number of sales or Hasbro's going to try another Hail Mary like they did with Essentials to boost sales, and who knows what will happen?  But indie producers can basically set whatever metrics they want.  Shit, the metrics I used to set for my own books aren't even relevant anymore -- I used to think if I saw one of the books I co-wrote on a Borders shelf I was happy with that level of exposure, but Borders doesn't even exist.  So in a changing world, I strongly suspect that raw sales are not the metric anybody uses but the big boys.  As the industry becomes a hobby again, I suspect people will just be happy to have their game out there and played.

Quote from: Rincewind1;721849You know, to give Forge and GDS it's due (hear me out, I swear, they didn't get my brain), I feel like the main problem it was that it tried to classify gamers, rather than games. Because with all it's flaws and ideology, I think that sometimes criticising/describing a game on the basis of how well it simulates the desired world, how well it simulates the desired genre, and how abstract the mechanics is, would be useful mental shortcuts.

Did it ever try to classify gamers? That's not my reading though it's certainly a popular one. I thought it tried to classify what it called "agendas" which would be motivations or expectations, and such things could vary from moment to moment for any person. I thought the idea was, having classified agendas, to see if you could build games that more coherently target them and more effectively communicate expectations before starting play.

By using terminology that ends in "-ist", however, they generated an unnecessary but highly visible tempest. Nothing makes enemies faster than picking teams.

Quote from: Brad J. Murray;721852Did it ever try to classify gamers? That's not my reading though it's certainly a popular one. I thought it tried to classify what it called "agendas" which would be motivations or expectations, and such things could vary from moment to moment for any person. I thought the idea was, having classified agendas, to see if you could build games that more coherently target them and more effectively communicate expectations before starting play.

By using terminology that ends in "-ist", however, they generated an unnecessary but highly visible tempest. Nothing makes enemies faster than picking teams.

To be perhaps even more precise, I'd say that the problem was that what they really wanted to classify was fun - because ultimately, those agendas, as you noted, can change in a heartbeat, and a lot of times, the main agenda is "I want to hang out with people I like and do thing I like, and I can do it in many ways" - I'm a hardcore strategy guy, but it doesn't mean I won't play Jenga during a party. Trying to produce some criteria for games' classification, based on the concept of GNS minus the idealogical bent, would've probably made the whole movement less intelligently bankrupt. The classification'd by no means be perfect, many (probably including me) would reject it, but at least it'd be something much more neutral to discuss.

Quote from: Brad J. Murray;721852Did it ever try to classify gamers? That's not my reading though it's certainly a popular one.

Agreed. 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. The closest I've seen them coming to the original (and flawed, even the originator admitted as much) theory was expressing a preference for one particular type of game.

It's a wacky bundle of batshit and no mistake.

Quote from: Rincewind1;721849You know, to give Forge and GDS it's due (hear me out, I swear, they didn't get my brain), I feel like the main problem it was that it tried to classify gamers, rather than games. Because with all it's flaws and ideology, I think that sometimes criticising/describing a game on the basis of how well it simulates the desired world, how well it simulates the desired genre, and how abstract the mechanics is, would be useful mental shortcuts.

I reject Forge terminology and theory as qualifying both of gamers AND games. The real problem to me is that these terms and the concepts behind them have become popular enough in some quarters of the industry and community that people refer to them as ubiquitous - they are not. The concepts they are trying to pin down are artificial and grossly stereotyped, in the absolute best case scenario.

Well to an extent there ARE types of gamers.

On one extreme: char op freaks.
On another: people who want stuff that resembles freeform theatre with minimal if any rules.

Less extreme versions:

People who want to play fantasy superheroes vs people who want fantasy survival Horror.

People who enjoy tight storylines vs people who prefer hexcrawls.

And much more.

The GNS model classified agendas which players might prioritise at a moment of play. They always used to shout you down if you said it classified gamers or games, despite the fact that what the Forge used GNS for was producing games which were designed to support exclusively one agenda.

I 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.

Quote from: Future Villain Band;721851That's why indie games work, though -- they aren't built on an assumption that the hobby can support a three-tier system or that they need to satisfy X sales to be successful.  D&D has to make money to be worth it to Hasbro, but My Greatest Indie Adventure can sell a hundred copies and the author might be happy.  D&D Next has to make a certain number of sales or Hasbro's going to try another Hail Mary like they did with Essentials to boost sales, and who knows what will happen?  But indie producers can basically set whatever metrics they want.  Shit, the metrics I used to set for my own books aren't even relevant anymore -- I used to think if I saw one of the books I co-wrote on a Borders shelf I was happy with that level of exposure, but Borders doesn't even exist.  So in a changing world, I strongly suspect that raw sales are not the metric anybody uses but the big boys.  As the industry becomes a hobby again, I suspect people will just be happy to have their game out there and played.

But the problem is that most indie games aren't supported with setting and adventure material. They're great if you're committed to creating all the content besides the system and maybe the outline of a setting. But if you're trying to manage a D&D game once or twice a month between taking your kids to soccer and building a back deck, or if you simply don't have the inclination to make your own material, then indie games are little more than thought-inspiring curiosities.

My impression is that most indie games are owned by hardcore RPG enthusiasts who have 10-50 different game systems sitting on a shelf. Some people love that variety. But a lot of people just want to play the same system for years, and have it supported by all of the adventure, setting, monster, treasure, map, and sourcebook material that they need to run the game with as little work on their part as possible.

There are only a handful of companies in the RPG industry with the heft to provide a steady flow of professionally-produced support material. If those companies fail, the hobby will shrivel to the hardcore forum crowd. It's not just that FATE only sold 10,000 copies. It's that most of those went onto the shelves of collectors, and most of the rest were played once or twice by a group of existing, long-time RPG players. I doubt the game has brought in more than 100 new players to the hobby. A new edition of D&D brings in tens of thousands. Not as many as the 70s and 80s, but still enough to keep the hobby commercially viable.

Quote from: The Ent;721865Well to an extent there ARE types of gamers.

On one extreme: char op freaks.
On another: people who want stuff that resembles freeform theatre with minimal if any rules.

Less extreme versions:

People who want to play fantasy superheroes vs people who want fantasy survival Horror.

People who enjoy tight storylines vs people who prefer hexcrawls.

And much more.

That analysis is more useful than the sum of everything put forward on the Forge, because it speaks in plain English about things that people see in real play.

Which goes back to the original answer to the question: How do you fight a Forgeist?

Take off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

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.)

The original core idea had one creator as I recall, and it was entirely about gamers. I haven't got a link handy though. Anyone?

Quote from: The Traveller;721880The original core idea had one creator as I recall, and it was entirely about gamers. I haven't got a link handy though. Anyone?

I don't know how original this is since it reeks of heavy revision but it certainly explicitly disavows using it to label people: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/1/

Edit: sort of; and it's clearly commenting on some prior work that I can't find.

Quote from: Brad J. Murray;721882I don't know how original this is since it reeks of heavy revision but it certainly explicitly disavows using it to label people: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/1/

Edit: sort of; and it's clearly commenting on some prior work that I can't find.

Yeah it's the prior work I'm thinking of, from some time in the late 90s. I read it here too.

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/archive/index.php?topic=24.0

QuoteSomewhere, some place along the way, someone got the idea to defend G/N/S against the trolls by saying, "We don't use it to classify actual gamers."

Bullshit. *I* use it to classify gamers. G/N/S is about role-playing DECISIONS and PRIORITIES, and it is expressed in many ways. One of those ways is game design. Another of those ways is via a person's actual role-playing behavior.

This is not to say a person cannot demonstrate more than one of the priorities. However, in my experience, a person WILL tend to emphasize one of them, or have a favorite among the three. At that point, I say, "You are [fill in]."

(Credit to Gleichman for making this easy to find, via http://whitehall-paraindustries.com/Theory/Threefold/GNS.htm )

RE developed the theory and wrote the articles, but people around him including Vincent Baker and Paul Czege were in the core group who contributed to the theory's development.

Quote from: Haffrung;721877That analysis is more useful than the sum of everything put forward on the Forge, because it speaks in plain English about things that people see in real play.

Thank you! :)

Quote from: Arminius;721891http://www.indie-rpgs.com/archive/index.php?topic=24.0

Still not the original piece which was hijacked by ronnie. If I cared I'd hunt it down but I've better things to do with my evening. It wasn't on indie-rpgs though.

Again, if you're confused about the roots of GNS, the place to start is John Kim's site. As a minor participant in the discussions that led to GDS, I can say his account basically matches my memory. The bridge from GDS discussion to GNS is some talk at The Gaming Outpost that's no longer available afaict and which I only stumbled across a few years after The Forge was in full swing.

Gleichman's site is also good although it mixes analysis and opinion with neutral factual accounting.

Quote from: Arminius;721894Again, if you're confused about the roots of GNS, the place to start is John Kim's site. As a minor participant in the discussions that led to GDS, I can say his account basically matches my memory. The bridge from GDS discussion to GNS is some talk at The Gaming Outpost that's no longer available afaict and which I only stumbled across a few years after The Forge was in full swing.

Gleichman's site is also good although it mixes analysis and opinion with neutral factual accounting.

Without getting into my opinions of either kim or gleichman, their grasp on history or lack thereof doesn't really bother me. At this point shared narrative gamers have their own seperate hobby and everyone else has roleplaying games, and that's fine by me.

Got no idea what you're implying now. Gleichman is a traditional gamer. Kim has more eclectic tastes. Both were involved in the discussions that led to GDS, and GDS is the main inspiration for GNS. Well, that and a play-writing book by Egri that Edwards read one time. You keep alluding to Ron Edwards cribbing his ideas from somewhere, and I'm giving you the answer so you can stop guessing and speculating and half-remembering.

Quote from: Arminius;721906You keep alluding to Ron Edwards cribbing his ideas from somewhere, and I'm giving you the answer so you can stop guessing and speculating and half-remembering.

Your ignorance is likewise not my problem.

Oy, going back I can see the likely point of confusion. Blacow's Aspects of Adventure Gaming: http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/theory/models/blacow.html

At most a minor influence. The n-fold nature of RPGing keeps being discovered, but the GDS afaict was spontaneous and largely independent of other theories, while GNS had an acknowledged debt to GDS.

Right, classic case of leading an ass to water.

Quote from: Arminius;721910Oy, going back I can see the likely point of confusion. Blacow's Aspects of Adventure Gaming: http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/theory/models/blacow.html

At most a minor influence. The n-fold nature of RPGing keeps being discovered, but the GDS afaict was spontaneous and largely independent of other theories, while GNS had an acknowledged debt to GDS.

Nope, there were three distinct classifications of gamers. It ended up with something like "yes I know this isn't perfect but come up with your own better model", which The Ent has kindly provided, and didn't require dozens of pages of essays to do so either.

Quote from: Arminius;721911Right, classic case of leading an ass to water.

At least I know not to drink from a urinal.

Quote from: Haffrung;721875But the problem is that most indie games aren't supported with setting and adventure material. They're great if you're committed to creating all the content besides the system and maybe the outline of a setting. But if you're trying to manage a D&D game once or twice a month between taking your kids to soccer and building a back deck, or if you simply don't have the inclination to make your own material, then indie games are little more than thought-inspiring curiosities.

I think at one point that was true, but for a lot of them, the whole notion is that setting arises through play as a joint creation of players and GM.  The *World games basically are about leaping into play right away.  Blood & Honor has you build your key conflicts as you go.  Other games are specifically designed to tell /a/ story, but you define a lot of the variables out of the box.  

QuoteMy impression is that most indie games are owned by hardcore RPG enthusiasts who have 10-50 different game systems sitting on a shelf. Some people love that variety. But a lot of people just want to play the same system for years, and have it supported by all of the adventure, setting, monster, treasure, map, and sourcebook material that they need to run the game with as little work on their part as possible.

Sure, that's definitely the case.  I think that a lot of indie designs are trying to bridge the gap between party game and standard RPG campaign.  I think that's why Laws' Hillfolk is trying to bridge that new gap, between indie-style length and story focus and conventional RPG time-scheme.

QuoteThere are only a handful of companies in the RPG industry with the heft to provide a steady flow of professionally-produced support material. If those companies fail, the hobby will shrivel to the hardcore forum crowd. It's not just that FATE only sold 10,000 copies. It's that most of those went onto the shelves of collectors, and most of the rest were played once or twice by a group of existing, long-time RPG players. I doubt the game has brought in more than 100 new players to the hobby. A new edition of D&D brings in tens of thousands. Not as many as the 70s and 80s, but still enough to keep the hobby commercially viable.

I don't know that a new edition of D&D brings in new players, though.  I think one of the problems -- and since I don't have access to Wizards' numbers, I don't know what the reality is -- is that D&D is cannibalizing an ever-smaller fanbase.  And I don't know how important regular support is -- I mean, back in the day I played Star Frontiers and support dribbled out, and its sales were probably very impressive by today's standards.  Same with MSH, or Traveler, or CoC, or heck, various stripes of D&D.  

Now, that dribble of support won't support game stores when combined with low sales -- I mean, you can have a dribble when 10 times as many people buy the games, you can support a store that way -- but I know precious few game stores supported by RPGs anymore.  I'd guess boardgames and CCGs and TMGs do the bulk of the heavy lifting.

Quote from: Benoist;721857I reject Forge terminology and theory as qualifying both of gamers AND games. The real problem to me is that these terms and the concepts behind them have become popular enough in some quarters of the industry and community that people refer to them as ubiquitous - they are not. The concepts they are trying to pin down are artificial and grossly stereotyped, in the absolute best case scenario.

As it stands, I reject it as well. Perhaps I should rephrase myself entirely:

While we discuss games, same arguments and judgement scenarios often raise, when we often judge our preferences of games based on complexity of rules, simulation of game world, simulation of genre, ease of play/GMing etc etc. And for me, this is what GDS/GNS could have been about - extrapolate from gaming discussion, to suggest a frame of classification that'd be according to how most people classify and understand certain mechanics in games. A gaming theory that'd not be a gaming ideology.

Quote from: Ravenswing;721560Seriously, the market share element is a huge, huge deal.  D&D has been the overwhelming market leader for the entire history of the hobby, and the posters who've pointed out the painfully obvious fact that it's the only RPG with any name recognition outside the hobby have been dead on.  WoD's been a distant second place over the last couple decades.  A couple other games have had 5%, at best.

As far as the Mouse Guards and Dogs In The Vineyards of the hobby go?  I doubt more than one gamer in ten has ever heard of them, let alone played them.

D&D, WOD and Rifts.

Interestingly Board Gamers mention Mouse Guard ever so often. Not sure why. Ive bumped into several board gamers who quip Forgesque lines about storygaming with board games.

So there is some drift. But no clue how extensive.

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.

ooooh 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.

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. (http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=507977&postcount=7)

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. (http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=507977&postcount=7)

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.

(http://somethingsensitive.com/Smileys/default/stewart.png)

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.

Quote from: Rincewind1;722094You can always return to RPG.net if you don't like it so much here.

Zing!

Quote from: Arminius;722108Much 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.

Sorry, didn't mean to jump down your throat. I was addressing the overall anti-euro tenor of recent posts in this thread.

No problem.

The reaction to box art and other presentation is a personal one although I think it's shared by others. Basically if you look at Abalone you know you're not getting a game about diving for shellfish, no harm done. And even for a game like Acquire, which has some interesting analogues to business investing, but is basically abstract, there have usually been cues that signal a distinct genre. But you can't easily tell, glancing at the box, that many modern Euros are different from wargames and simulations on the same theme. So they are perceived as a kind of a fraud even if that was never the intent.

Simple distinctions drawn between games that feature setting or premise associated mechanics and those that feature mechanics divorced from a setting or premise perspective attacked with hostility by those who seem to be incapable of telling the difference, as well as a tendency of the second group of games to improperly advertise their differences...

Where have I seen this before? :hmm:

I am of the opinion that fantasy-esque boardgames can be a gateway into RPGs, and thus support that side of the industry whole heartidly.  Not only is there less of a stigma to overcome, but it's much easier to get a new player into a game that only had a dozen pages of rules than one that has 300.


I just wish the RPG wouldn't turn into a fantasy boardgame.... ;)  :cool:

I found the GNS/GDS/3-fold model/big model or whatever game theory to be too abstract to hold any practical meaning.  Is there like a big honking list of rpgs out there where the theory has been applied?  Where I can compare the GNSitude of, say, Twilight 2000 to that of Ghosbusters or PsiWorld or Robotech or Dresden?

Quote from: Arminius;722162But you can't easily tell, glancing at the box, that many modern Euros are different from wargames and simulations on the same theme. So they are perceived as a kind of a fraud even if that was never the intent.

Wait, you mean that Stratego isn't really a game about leading Napoleonic armies into battle?  Fraud! Fraud!

Quote from: Old One Eye;722226I found the GNS/GDS/3-fold model/big model or whatever game theory to be too abstract to hold any practical meaning.  Is there like a big honking list of rpgs out there where the theory has been applied?  Where I can compare the GNSitude of, say, Twilight 2000 to that of Ghosbusters or PsiWorld or Robotech or Dresden?

The GNS and the Forge was mainly academic jargon and navel-gazing, so something as concrete as applying the game types to existing games was way too practical for that crowd.

Quote from: Arminius;722162But you can't easily tell, glancing at the box, that many modern Euros are different from wargames and simulations on the same theme. So they are perceived as a kind of a fraud even if that was never the intent.

It's probably a mistake to buy those sorts of games based on the box art. There's a reason Boardgamegeek has a few hundred thousand members - you can find everything you need to know about any boardgame with a couple clicks.

But I would think things like 'ages 8 and up, 60 minutes' would also be a clue that you're not getting a serious simulation of trading empires in the 16th century.

Quote from: The Ent;721865Well to an extent there ARE types of gamers.

On one extreme: char op freaks.
On another: people who want stuff that resembles freeform theatre with minimal if any rules.

Less extreme versions:

People who want to play fantasy superheroes vs people who want fantasy survival Horror.

People who enjoy tight storylines vs people who prefer hexcrawls.

And much more.

I prefer to look at from the viewpoint of what players get from games.

Some gamers just want an excuse to hang out with their friends.
Some gamers want to charop like hell.
Some gamers care about being in an imaginary world.
Some gamers care about their character being part of a story.
Some gamers want to be *told* a story.
Some gamers want to do tactical combat.
Some gamers want rules that they can still deal with when drunk.

Etc., etc., etc.

In general, these things aren't mutually exclusive.  And some gamers even like different things at different times!

Some of these needs clump together.  It might be (dunno, speculation and hypothetical example alert) that gamers that want to be in a story and have an effect on its outcome tend to not be gamers that care about charop, while the charop and tactical combat guys have a high overlap.  Great.  Awesome.  And you can make some general categories based on that, but they've got to be fuzzy and imprecise, because for any given category, you'll find some gamer that best fits in one category, but absolutely despises some things in that category, while really wanting things from another category.

I also like looking at things this way, because it helps me with a few things:

1) I can look at games and understand why people like them, even when I don't.
2) I'm more likely to enjoy a new game if I can figure out the needs it's trying to cater to, rather than judging it against the needs that I presume it will cater to.

Quote from: Haffrung;722239The GNS and the Forge was mainly academic jargon and navel-gazing, so something as concrete as applying the game types to existing games was way too practical for that crowd.

That's disappointing.  Might be something useful if it was actually used.  O well.

Quote from: Haffrung;722241It's probably a mistake to buy those sorts of games based on the box art. There's a reason Boardgamegeek has a few hundred thousand members - you can find everything you need to know about any boardgame with a couple clicks.

But I would think things like 'ages 8 and up, 60 minutes' would also be a clue that you're not getting a serious simulation of trading empires in the 16th century.

Well 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.

Quote from: Old One Eye;722264That's disappointing.  Might be something useful if it was actually used.  O well.

The big problem was that the underlying premise of Edward's GNS theory was that games should focus on appealing to one specific playstyle (else they were "incoherent"), which is self-evidently faulty to the point of being a detriment to any game's success.

Also, it was very clear Ron and Co did not understand the playstyle(s) they categorized as "Simulationist" to the point thier essay on Simulationism is really just about as useful as an essay on what its like to live in Prague by an American whod never left the states nor ever talked to a Czech in person. This led to them eventually deciding Simulationism doesnt actually exist and all those gamers they didnt understand were just lying about how or why they played.

It was all a clusterf*** of magnificent proportions.

Quote from: Old One Eye;722264That's disappointing.  Might be something useful if it was actually used.  O well.

I 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.

That's time we could be spending improving our games.  Writing a scenario.  Creating a vivid NPC.  Tightening up a house rule. Or, heck, actually playing the damn things.  

I like discussions as well as the next guy, but arguing how many games will fit on the head of a pin doesn't seem to me to be at all productive, and it's why I've never had any interest in diving into the GNS morass.

I'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, thus rendering their theories incomplete at best, and irrelevant at the worst.  In fairness, that was the zeitgeist, with even D&D ending up moving from GM-tools to play-mediators.  But to me the fundamental role of the rules, and interactions thereof, are the most salient issues for me, and the greatest difference I feel between myself, coming into the game in the 80s, and many of those who have come into it in the late 90s and beyond.

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! :D

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.

Is it true that FIASCO sold more than 10,000 copies? That seems...unlikely to me.

As BGG has become more widely known it's gotten a lot more 'democratized' in terms of interests, especially since RPGGeek came along and got a lot of cross over use from people coming to do the RPG thing and adding their BGG thoughts as well.

Back when I was first introduced though, the split was very much like what Norton described, and that split is still present on the forums and some of the old-handers who rate/comment on game entries.  For a time it was practically accepted belief that even the use of a die was suspect, and it was very Euro-supremacist there.

Lately though, I've noticed a far more open-minded trend in the ratings and comments for game entries, and games that previously would've lived at the bottom of the ratings are more likely to at least have a more mixed reception. It used to be that anything from a mainline American publisher was doomed to the low 3s except for certain nostalgic obscurities, but things have gotten better and more of the new users are willing to admit to actually liking something other than Knizia games about shuffling wooden blocks.

Quote from: Mistwell;722470Is it true that FIASCO sold more than 10,000 copies? That seems...unlikely to me.

I was going to ask that myself.

Quote from: Mistwell;722470Is it true that FIASCO sold more than 10,000 copies? That seems...unlikely to me.

I don't know, but i suspect it has a lot of appeal among people outside the rpg community, so it is certainly possible (and it did appear on wil wheaton's show which probably gave it a big boost). I see it referenced enough online that 10,000 doesn't feel like an unlikely number.

Quote from: Mistwell;722470Is it true that FIASCO sold more than 10,000 copies? That seems...unlikely to me.

Does anyone have a link to this sales number, Fiasco is a general enough word that google is bringing up all kinds of things when I try to search for the sales info.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;722479I don't know, but i suspect it has a lot of appeal among people outside the rpg community, so it is certainly possible (and it did appear on wil wheaton's show which probably gave it a big boost). I see it referenced enough online that 10,000 doesn't feel like an unlikely number.

Board Games will at times sell out when they appear on Tabletop. The power of Wheaton isn't something to underestimate :P.

(I'm having a similar issue with a couple of games that showed up on the Dice Tower top 10 lists as best games of 2013... they just keep going out of stock over at coolstuff before I can purchase them :/)

Quote from: Mistwell;722470Is it true that FIASCO sold more than 10,000 copies? That seems...unlikely to me.

Here is a link from bully pulpit: http://www.bullypulpitgames.com/page/3/

Quote from: Arminius;722467Haffrung, 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.

Yep. CSW had a forum for euro games for a while, but once BGG got off the ground all that discussion moved there. As for BGG, it was 90 per cent euros off the hop, then grew its own small community of wargamers, and now has become  dominated by thematic 'Ameritrash' gamers. I'd characterize BGG today as roughly 50 per cent thematic, 40 per cent euro, 10 per cent wargame. Though as was pointed out upthread, those distinctions matter less and less all the time as hybrid designs have proliferated.

To turn things back to RPGs and the Forge, my takeaway from following both boardgame forums and RPG forums is the RPG community is far more contentious, resentful, and just plain pissy than the boardgame community. At least judging by the respective forums. 90 per cent of the members of BGG have no interest whatsoever in wargames, but they have no problem sharing a forum with them. For the most part, people who enjoy different styles of boardgames get along just fine.

I suspect one of the reasons is that boardgamers are more likely to be actively gaming than RPGers. So a fair amount of the online toxicity around RPGs likely comes from Bitter Non-Gamers. The over-educated under-employed cohort also seems better represented in the RPG hobby than in the boardgame hobby. You rarely come across people on boardgame forums complaining they don't have enough money, or aiming vitriol at the companies who publish the games.

Yeah, in the board game scene, you see the occasional snark, but usually its lighthearted poking. Very rarely is it actually elitist bullshit... unless a popular reviewer didn't like a game then you see a lot of Elitist bullshit. (Man the reaction to Tom Vasel calling Terra Mystica "A well designed game, but not for me" was absurd).

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, thus rendering their theories incomplete at best, and irrelevant at the worst.  In fairness, that was the zeitgeist, with even D&D ending up moving from GM-tools to play-mediators.  But to me the fundamental role of the rules, and interactions thereof, are the most salient issues for me, and the greatest difference I feel between myself, coming into the game in the 80s, and many of those who have come into it in the late 90s and beyond.

That's a good point, which I've not seen made before. Judging by rpgnet and a couple guys on ENW, some players seem to have been more 'brain damaged' by the attempt by designers to turn RPG rules from 'tools for GM-adjudication' to 'the primary medium through which the players interact with the game', than they ever were by Vampire railroading. If there's one phrase sure to raise my blood pressure it's "Mother May I". :banghead:

Quote from: Haffrung;722487I suspect one of the reasons is that boardgamers are more likely to be actively gaming than RPGers.

Not only that, but since board games are one-shots they play many many different games, regularly (and supposedly with a greater pool of people, too).

As a warm-up they pull out 6 nimmt! (or Bohnanza, or Skip-Bo)
As their main course they play Lords of Waterdeep (or Ticket to Ride, or Puerto Rico)
For chilling down they play Carcassonne (or Jenga, or Anno Domini)

Over the course of an evening they play Fiasco, a D&D hexcrawl, and My Life with Master, enjoying the different qualities of each.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;722479I don't know, but i suspect it has a lot of appeal among people outside the rpg community

That's my guess, too, since I often see it in game stores *not* in the RPG section.

Like Fiasco or not, in my opinion it's probably closer to what would work as an 'entry' RPG that has appeal to a general audience than Pathfinder.  A general audience is gonna be more interested in laughing over crazy shit with their friends than poring over numbers and item lists.

Quote from: S'mon;722491That's a good point, which I've not seen made before. Judging by rpgnet and a couple guys on ENW, some players seem to have been more 'brain damaged' by the attempt by designers to turn RPG rules from 'tools for GM-adjudication' to 'the primary medium through which the players interact with the game', than they ever were by Vampire railroading. If there's one phrase sure to raise my blood pressure it's "Mother May I". :banghead:

Dear God, yes.  The whole shift from the interaction being through the GM to the interaction being through the rules is a HUUUUUGE change, and not one (IMO) for the better.  At that point, you're almost better off doing something like Descent: Journeys in the Dark.

The entire *strength* of RPGs is that you've got a human in the mix that can help provide resolution to things outside the formal rules.

Quote from: MistwellIs it true that FIASCO sold more than 10,000 copies? That seems...unlikely to me.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;722483Here is a link from bully pulpit: http://www.bullypulpitgames.com/page/3/

As additional data, you can look at Amazon Best Seller rank,

Fiasco currently has
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,660 in Toys & Games (http://www.amazon.com/Bully-Pulpit-Games-BPG-005/dp/1934859397)

By comparison, the top Pathfinder product in Toys & Games is the Beginner Box, which currently has  
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #11,965 in Toys & Games (http://www.amazon.com/Paizo-Publishing-PZO-1119-Pathfinder-Beginner/dp/1601253729/ref=sr_1_1)

Or alternately, Wrath of Ashardalon: A D&D Boardgame currently has
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,716 in Toys & Games (http://www.amazon.com/Wizards-Coast-5511558-Wrath-Ashardalon/dp/0786955708/ref=sr_1_7)

That suggests that sales are pretty good for an indie product.

Quote from: Haffrung;722487Yep. CSW had a forum for euro games for a while, but once BGG got off the ground all that discussion moved there. As for BGG, it was 90 per cent euros off the hop, then grew its own small community of wargamers, and now has become  dominated by thematic 'Ameritrash' gamers. I'd characterize BGG today as roughly 50 per cent thematic, 40 per cent euro, 10 per cent wargame. Though as was pointed out upthread, those distinctions matter less and less all the time as hybrid designs have proliferated.

Is it dominated by AT folks now?  I don't read the forums on BGG very much these days, but I remember in the big fight which ended up resulting in Mike Barnes' banning, I'd have said that AT gamers were about 30% (at most) of the makeup of BGG.

Quote from: robiswrong;722509Dear God, yes.  The whole shift from the interaction being through the GM to the interaction being through the rules is a HUUUUUGE change, and not one (IMO) for the better.  At that point, you're almost better off doing something like Descent: Journeys in the Dark.

The entire *strength* of RPGs is that you've got a human in the mix that can help provide resolution to things outside the formal rules.

But that requires trust. And the Forge hewed tightly to an ideology where you cannot trust one person at the table to have more authority than another, or that authority will be abused.

Quote from: flyerfan1991;722519Is it dominated by AT folks now?  I don't read the forums on BGG very much these days, but I remember in the big fight which ended up resulting in Mike Barnes' banning, I'd have said that AT gamers were about 30% (at most) of the makeup of BGG.

Take a loot at the Hotness on BGG (http://boardgamegeek.com/) these days. It's mostly Lord of the Rings, Zombies, Sci-Fi, Superheroes, and Cthulhu. True euros might account for 15 of the 50 hottest games.

Quote from: Haffrung;722536But that requires trust. And the Forge hewed tightly to an ideology where you cannot trust one person at the table to have more authority than another, or that authority will be abused.

Yeah, thats the crux of it. Theres this assumption that the GM is an opponent who must be at all times confined by the rules lest they go out of thier way to ruin the game every chance they get. Sometimes it feels like a giant section of the hobby has turned into a replica of Knights of the Dinner Table, and GM Fiat is the worste possible thing that can happen to a game.

I tell myself thats just online, and forums dont represent the average gamer these days, and I really want to believe that because the alternative is that the hobby has become a giant parody of itself.

Quote from: Haffrung;722536Take a loot at the Hotness on BGG (http://boardgamegeek.com/) these days. It's mostly Lord of the Rings, Zombies, Sci-Fi, Superheroes, and Cthulhu. True euros might account for 15 of the 50 hottest games.

I think its more of an even split, with most people playing a bit of both. I mean, Eurogames still dominate the top 100 games.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;722000I 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.

I do not dislike his games. He has put out some appallingly elegant designs that are very easy to pick up and play. Really he grinds a system down to a polished gem usually.

It is the fact that he slaps themes onto these rulesets willy nilly that boggles some. There was some game essentially a horizontal connect four and he slaps Cthulhu on it. The Moby Dick joke isnt too far off the mark. The themes oft seem totally irrelevant to the actual gameplay.

On the other hand this makes his games absurdly re-themeable.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;722483Here is a link from bully pulpit: http://www.bullypulpitgames.com/page/3/

That is very cool, that they report all that data publicly.  Thanks.

I gotta say I've never really looked into FIASCO.  It sounds like it could be a fun one-off party game.

Quote from: TristramEvans;722541Yeah, thats the crux of it. Theres this assumption that the GM is an opponent who must be at all times confined by the rules lest they go out of thier way to ruin the game every chance they get. Sometimes it feels like a giant section of the hobby has turned into a replica of Knights of the Dinner Table, and GM Fiat is the worste possible thing that can happen to a game.

I don't think that's true. I think this speaks to the point that S'mon made earlier about the role of the rules shifting from a tool for the GM to use or not at his discretion, to becoming a framework for the whole group. I suspect this is a creative agenda thing (sorry).

If you want to focus almost entirely on experiencing the game world through the eyes of your character, then putting a huge amount of power into the GM's hands and having fudgeable/black box rules makes a lot of sense. That's a very powerful tool for achieving immersion.

But if you also want a lot of tactical challenge-based play in there, or you want to put more emphasis on the group story-building side of things, then one way to do that is to make the rules more transparent and more reliable (in the sense that everyone agrees to stick to them). So rather than being a necessary evil or a useful fallback, rules become a positive tool for achieving the effects you want. 'System matters'. For most groups this isn't about reducing the GM's power because he's a big meanie. It's about sharing some more of that power out among the rest of the group so that players' tactical decisions or ideas about the story become more important.

Think about who writes these games, who buys these games, and who runs these games. It's GMs. Do people really think that those GMs who run FATE or whatever are being held hostage by their groups? No, they are choosing to run it because it creates a game style they enjoy. They want to give more power to their players. I can totally see why people who value immersion over other considerations wouldn't enjoy it but that doesn't mean that everyone who does enjoy it is motivated by bad experiences.

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.

Exactly.  The idea -- by way of example -- that you'd take a list I wrote of those values hinges on certain principles:

a)  That you understand what I mean by this label or that.  (The use of metal subgenres is an interesting one, because I've long since believed that they've gotten uselessly absurd, and I'm wholly convinced that you could play ten random metal tracks for ten metal fans, ask them to categorize them on the doom metal/death metal/grunge metal/black metal/thrash metal/deathgrind/deathcore/extreme metal/death growl/power metal/sludge metal/etc etc etc spectrum, and you wouldn't get any three of them to agree on a single category.  I feel much the same way about "old school" vs "new school" or about GNS.)

b) That you think I have any idea what I'm talking about;

c) That I'm experienced enough in all those games to have an informed opinion; and

d) That I don't have partisan axes to grind.

That's rather a tall order.

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.

Unfortunately that is never going to happen.

Somewhere along the line online gamers realized that you couldnt be bigoted against colour of faceless words on a screen. The net evened the playing field.

So.

They started fractionallizing, or tribalizing" as you put it. Thus there was your group who were the one true way. and then there are the "others" who are heretics and ruining your beloved fetish doll by touching it and thinking wrong thoughts about it. "Those filthy hexcrawlers know nothing of real role playing."

Others just fractionalized because they are eletists fucks with a need to have someone to spit on. "Only the pretty players can join our games."

Some cluster because they honestly believe that their style is the bestest ever. "Everyone else should be rolling dice over the shoulder! Really!"

And the rest are just normal folk who gravitate to a theme within a theme that appeals and they really dont understand all the bickering going around. "I like elves and, uh, why are you guys fighting over drow as PCs?"

Faction wars ensue.

And then you get the other side of the coin with people who apply some faction to a game that doesnt have anything to do with it. "FATE is really a wargame."

etc ad nausium.

Everyone has different playstyles. Some, even some here, seem compelled to degrade them for it. Which is a different subject though.

Forgists though seem to go out of their way to antagonize and degrade.

Hence it feels to me that they come across as nut cases more often than one would like since there are some good ideas buried in the morass of loony.

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.

Full agreement.  The turn of phrase I've used is that the whole RPGer / SF&F fan subculture exhibits a degree of tribalistic viciousness towards one another that's only exceeded by junior high school.  Seriously, folks.  Storygames, MMORPGs, LARPs, online freeform, they're just other ways people roleplay.  They're not evil, they're not out to destroy the hobby, they're not going to force D&D players into internment camps, and they're not firebombing FLGSs.

Quote from: J Arcane;722472As BGG has become more widely known it's gotten a lot more 'democratized' in terms of interests, especially since RPGGeek came along and got a lot of cross over use from people coming to do the RPG thing and adding their BGG thoughts as well.

Back when I was first introduced though, the split was very much like what Norton described, and that split is still present on the forums and some of the old-handers who rate/comment on game entries.  For a time it was practically accepted belief that even the use of a die was suspect, and it was very Euro-supremacist there.

Lately though, I've noticed a far more open-minded trend in the ratings and comments for game entries, and games that previously would've lived at the bottom of the ratings are more likely to at least have a more mixed reception. It used to be that anything from a mainline American publisher was doomed to the low 3s except for certain nostalgic obscurities, but things have gotten better and more of the new users are willing to admit to actually liking something other than Knizia games about shuffling wooden blocks.

Off topic. But yeah. When I got fully back into BGG around 2008 or so there was still a nasty undercurrent of pseudo-bigostry by "eurogamers" and rampant use of the slurr "ameritrash".

Now though terms like that are frowned upon and rarely used. Though you still see regular threads about how to curb leaders in games, the evils of dice, and that Satan from Hell! Theme!!! run. hide.

In a way its like the storygamers and forgists. Theres a vocal negatively unpleasant faction within the ideal that make everyone else look like KKK members. Just as with storygamers, there are more euro game players who are open minded and even enjoy more than pushing cubes around.

Interesting to note the popularity of Lords of Waterdeep too. How many expansions did that thing get? Will Wheaton has a review of it???

Quote from: The Ent;722390I 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! :D

Metal genres have just gone silly.  I think that how crazy they've gone says something about the people that worry about it that much...

One of the problems I see with a lot of this kind of categorization is that it seems to miss a step.  Namely, identifying traits of the things you're identifying.  Once you've got that, you can find the things that share common traits and stick a label on them, knowing that it will be imperfect, without having to create some grand schema in advance, or having to specify each modification.  "Oh, it's like a , but diceless, and highly cinematic" works just fine.  You don't need to create a "Diceless High Cinematic " genre, which contains exactly one game.

That's really one of my biggest problems with Forge-theory.  It *started* with this grand classification, and then crammed everything in to try and fit into the boxes that it came up with.  Which ended up with a lot of misunderstandings, and a lot of bad fits.

I mean, where do you put playing through the DragonLance modules in 2e?  Gamist?  Simulationist?  Narrativist?  I don't think there's any kind of clear fit.

And it's a lot harder to come up with something at the peak of a grand taxonomy like that, there's a lot of inertia once it's built up.  On the other hand, defining a new descriptor is pretty easy, and non-threatening to the status quo.

Quote from: Ravenswing;722561
a)  That you understand what I mean by this label or that.  (The use of metal subgenres is an interesting one, because I've long since believed that they've gotten uselessly absurd, and I'm wholly convinced that you could play ten random metal tracks for ten metal fans, ask them to categorize them on the doom metal/death metal/grunge metal/black metal/thrash metal/deathgrind/deathcore/extreme metal/death growl/power metal/sludge metal/etc etc etc spectrum, and you wouldn't get any three of them to agree on a single category.  I feel much the same way about "old school" vs "new school" or about GNS.)

You do not see the utility of music being categorized as R&B, gospel, classic rock, alternative, heavy metal, rap, or whatnot?  Interesting position.

Quote from: Haffrung;722536Take a loot at the Hotness on BGG (http://boardgamegeek.com/) these days. It's mostly Lord of the Rings, Zombies, Sci-Fi, Superheroes, and Cthulhu. True euros might account for 15 of the 50 hottest games.

Hotness on BGG is irrelevant. It just shows what pages are getting alot of hits all of a sudden. Or have very active threads.

Android: Netrunner for example was straight to the top as Netrunner is a fan favorite amongst CCGs. So finally a reprint of sorts was a lightning bolt when it was learned it was not going to be a CCG. whammo! People were and still are all over it.

Eldrich Horror is getting attention because it is replacing the venerable Arkham Horror and theres a minor split between those who like AH and those who think EH is good.

Freedom in the Galaxy is up because of recent photos being posted.

Same for RPGG. Modules, Birthright, Diaspora, MSH, Gygax Magazine, etc.

Fairly good spread of standard RPGs, Old, new, and some storytelling type games of one degree or another.

Quote from: Haffrung;722536Take a loot at the Hotness on BGG (http://boardgamegeek.com/) these days. It's mostly Lord of the Rings, Zombies, Sci-Fi, Superheroes, and Cthulhu. True euros might account for 15 of the 50 hottest games.

The Hotness only refers to those games that people are checking out, not commenting on or making Geeklists about.  Given that there's a lot more people checking games out than may have accounts on BGG --and that a lot of those games have known properties attached, like Star Wars-- its not a big surprise that AT games are up toward the top.

Now, the top 20 games in the ratings are filled with Euros, with only three true AT titles there:  Mage Knight, Eclipse, and War of the Ring.  There are a few games that are a mix, like Twilight Struggle, but far more Euros than anything else.

Back on topic.

How does one tell a "Forgeist" from the average storygamer as it were?

The general rhetoric and terms used? Or do they cleave to a specific set of games as the one true way?

Quote from: Omega;722597Back on topic.

How does one tell a "Forgeist" from the average storygamer as it were?

The general rhetoric and terms used? Or do they cleave to a specific set of games as the one true way?

Usually they find it hard to talk, with Ron Edwards' dick in their mouth.

Seriously though, it's usually easy to tell.  They use a lot of inane jargon, it sounds like someone VERY proud of their PhD trying to use as many words and acronyms as possible that they know most people wouldn't understand. There is a smug superiority about most of their posts.

Quote from: Mistwell;722598Usually they find it hard to talk, with Ron Edwards' dick in their mouth.

Seriously though, it's usually easy to tell.  They use a lot of inane jargon, it sounds like someone VERY proud of their PhD trying to use as many words and acronyms as possible that they know most people wouldn't understand. There is a smug superiority about most of their posts.

The superiority of "You're doing it wrong" will flush them out a lot of the time.

Quote from: Omega;722597How does one tell a "Forgeist" from the average storygamer as it were?

In this particular instance, pemerton is quite clear about his fondness for Ron Edwards and the Forge; way back when, I jokingly referred to him as a 'F(riend)O(f)R(on)-player,' and he agreed.

That said, they're seldom hard to spot (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?p=527788#post527788).

Quote from: flyerfan1991;722591Now, the top 20 games in the ratings are filled with Euros, with only three true AT titles there:  Mage Knight, Eclipse, and War of the Ring.  There are a few games that are a mix, like Twilight Struggle, but far more Euros than anything else.

Eclipse is a hybrid, though mostly Euro. It has direct conflict, but its core is really just a Euro economics game in space.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;722604In this particular instance, pemerton is quite clear about his fondness for Ron Edwards and the Forge; way back when, I jokingly referred to him as a 'F(riend)O(f)R(on)-player,' and he agreed.

I do wonder whether pemerton would have been disabused of his fondness if he had ever tried posting on The Forge. My experience of doing so, starting an interesting conversation, then having Edwards immediately close the thread on some kind of crazed power trip, cured me of any possible Forge-ism. He does/did that all the time. He has no concept of appropriate netiquette. He's one of the most obnoxious people involved in RPGs today. The whole 'brain damage' thing is entirely typical for him. He is a megalomaniac who set himself up as a cult leader, quite successfully.
Also, most of his theorising is positively harmful to actual play, since he doesn't understand huge swathes of traditional RPG game types, and despises what he doesn't understand. Storygames are all very well, but trying to apply his theory to a D&D campaign tends to trash it (IME).

Quote from: Old One Eye;722572You do not see the utility of music being categorized as R&B, gospel, classic rock, alternative, heavy metal, rap, or whatnot?  Interesting position.

Interesting characterization: happily, no one's come up with thirty-seven different synonyms of "straw man argument."

It shouldn't come as a terrible shock that there's a difference between calling a genre of music "heavy metal" and deciding that there are (a) really several dozen distinctive subgenres of the same, and that (b) there is a widely acknowledged, objective standard setting the definitions forth.  I chalk it up to fringe music "journalists" eager to Invent A New Genre, and fringe metal bands who coin "new styles" out of a horror of appearing to be sui generis.  It's tough to be a Dark, Tormented Rejectionist unless there's something you can be seen to be "rejecting."

Similar syndromes are at work in gaming.  New mechanics -- or, as commonly, new terms masking old mechanics -- are invented not so much because they're rational changes, but to provide something, anything that can be characterized as setting the system apart from others ... or, at the minimum, to Not Be D&D.

Quote from: S'mon;722621The whole 'brain damage' thing is entirely typical for him.

The funny thing about that is I kinda get what he's saying, especially if you look at it from a 80s/90s railroad perspective.

No, I'm not defending Ron, hear me out.

If you've played in nothing but games like that, the idea of your character actually having an agenda of their own, or of any kind of proactivity on the part of the player, is utterly counterintuitive.  Years, and in some cases *decades* of being led around by the nose through a maze of invisible walls teaches you that that's how you play.

One of the things I do when running games is often ask players what they're trying to accomplish when they do things.  And half of the time not only can they not answer me, but they look at me like it's a really novel question.  To them, the *entire* game has become poking around trying to find the plot button to advance to the next fight.  They literally can't conceive of actually having their own goals, or of trying to have their *own* plans.

(Yeah, I know, that's probably less of an issue for the folks on this site, but that's because this site gravitates towards play styles that don't result in that).

So, yeah.  Kind of a valid observation.  And then he goes about saying it in the most inflammatory, unhelpful way possible, in a way that's unclear to anyone that's not up on Forge jargon (when it could have been said in very simple terms).   And then he doubles down on it.  Which all combine to completely destroy any value that the initial observation may have had.

But I agree, that's typical for him.  Some small shred of truth, blown out of proportion, wrapped in obfuscating language, and then presented in the most inflammatory way possible.

On the other hand, he could have just said "playing lots of railroad style games can teach players to assume that there is some unalterable story, to the point where they don't try to, or even know how, to make their own plans".

But that would be useful, and doesn't sound nearly as impressive as claiming that certain types of games cause brain damage.  It's just an interesting, useful observation, not a call to arms for the followers.

Quote from: S'mon;722621He is a megalomaniac who set himself up as a cult leader, quite successfully.
Also, most of his theorising is positively harmful to actual play, since he doesn't understand huge swathes of traditional RPG game types, and despises what he doesn't understand.

It's a common factor in several personality disorders that they literally can't understand that there are things that they don't know, or that their own understanding of something may be incomplete or just wrong.

Literally, if they believe it, it must be true, and everyone else is wrong.

If you simply remember something different (or they've forgotten it), then it's not just a matter of memory, you're an out-and-out liar that's trying to ruin them.  They can't conceive that what they think or their view of something might not match reality, much less anyone else's views.

Those also tend to be disorders that occur in people that attract certain types of followers - the utter surety that they have that they're right is very attractive to certain types of people.

Quote from: soviet;722559I don't think that's true. I think this speaks to the point that S'mon made earlier about the role of the rules shifting from a tool for the GM to use or not at his discretion, to becoming a framework for the whole group. I suspect this is a creative agenda thing (sorry).

It would be nice if thats how things are practically playing out IRL, I was referring to exchanges Ive had on forums, which are sadly less inducing of optimism. But as I said, I repeat to myself as a mantra that these paranoid 4vengers/storygame epostilists are merely online extremists of limited intelligence and unlimited free time.

 The thing is that Ive always been accepting other styles of play. I was a big supporter of the badwrongfun admonishments of the early days of online forum debates. Whats frustrating is when constantly encountering the demographic of forum edition warriors or Forge theorywankers unable or unwilling to extend that same consideration.

Quote from: Ravenswing;722622Interesting characterization: happily, no one's come up with thirty-seven different synonyms of "straw man argument."

It shouldn't come as a terrible shock that there's a difference between calling a genre of music "heavy metal" and deciding that there are (a) really several dozen distinctive subgenres of the same, and that (b) there is a widely acknowledged, objective standard setting the definitions forth.  I chalk it up to fringe music "journalists" eager to Invent A New Genre, and fringe metal bands who coin "new styles" out of a horror of appearing to be sui generis.  It's tough to be a Dark, Tormented Rejectionist unless there's something you can be seen to be "rejecting."

Similar syndromes are at work in gaming.  New mechanics -- or, as commonly, new terms masking old mechanics -- are invented not so much because they're rational changes, but to provide something, anything that can be characterized as setting the system apart from others ... or, at the minimum, to Not Be D&D.

Yes, certainly there is no utility to splitting the rpg-equivalent hairs between speed metal and thrash.

But I do think there would be use in broad categorizations catching on.  Heavy metal is a useful musical categorization that everyone generally agrees what it means and is distinct from gospel even if the edges are fuzzy.  I usually like heavy metal, so if a band is categorized as such I may give them a shot.  I usually do not like gospel, so I know not to dither any time on a gospel group.

Like there is some game out there called Poison D (or something like that).  I like pirates.  I have no idea if I would like the game's mechanics.  Were there a generally acknowledged categorization system for rpg mechanics, it would be significantly more handy than searching around for reviews, quick plays, or whatnot.

Re: Knizia

Quote from: Omega;722551I do not dislike his games. He has put out some appallingly elegant designs that are very easy to pick up and play. Really he grinds a system down to a polished gem usually.

It is the fact that he slaps themes onto these rulesets willy nilly that boggles some. There was some game essentially a horizontal connect four and he slaps Cthulhu on it. The Moby Dick joke isnt too far off the mark. The themes oft seem totally irrelevant to the actual gameplay.

On the other hand this makes his games absurdly re-themeable.

It should be noted that the theme decision is often in the hands of the publisher not the author/designer.

Alan Moon is noted for his train game designs (Ticket to Ride, Union Pacific). Some of his games are variants of the "travelling salesman problem", a mathematical problem with roots in real life problems. Some of those train games got different themes slapped onto them. While the plane theme was still a good fit in Airlines the fantasy theme in Elfenland was more than just a bit off. But it won the Spiel des Jahres award.

In the 90s I belonged to a group of playtesters for publisher FX Schmid (now Alea/Ravensburger). Every year we would get invited to spend a weekend in a hotel room to playtest 10, 15, or 20 games of all stripes - board games, card games, dice games. Some of those prototypes came with a theme, some were just abstract mechanics. And the theme was always part of the analysis. Did the theme fit the mechanics?
In some cases it was the only fitting theme (when the author had designed his mechanics around it, like in that unpublished game where you had to build a research station on the floor of the ocean), and in others it was highly variable (every game where you distribute meeples in spaces to obtain majorities).
Some of those games we would see year after year, with slightly altered mechanisms, and refitted themes. Taj Mahal and Die Fürsten von Florenz comes to mind. (I never learned what became of that Venezia game by Wolfgang Kramer.)

It's interesting that we have the same problem in RPGs. For some people some mechanisms are a better fit for certain genres than others.

• Star Wars d6, d20, Saga, FFG (plus adaptions like FATE, Savage Worlds, Over the Edge...)
• Conan TSR (Zerfs + AD&D), d20, GURPS
• the abundance of Cthulhu games

Quote from: Old One Eye;722626Like there is some game out there called Poison D (or something like that).

You don't want to open that can of worms on this forum...

QuoteWere there a generally acknowledged categorization system for rpg mechanics, it would be significantly more handy than searching around for reviews, quick plays, or whatnot.

The problem seems to be that everyone uses a different set of metrics to gauge what interests them in RPGs (other than in board games where "auction" or "deck building" or "quiz" are easily understood and applied as the topmost qualifier of a game's nature, as soon as you look past the theme that might have been the iniatial reason to pull the box from the shop shelf).

Categorizition along the lines of GNS, Threefold, or Laws doesn't help me a bit.

If I were to play Sorcerer it would be a 100% trad urban sandbox because I would simply ignore Kickers and Flags and the notion of putting the characters, nah, the players in tight moral dilemmas.
I prefer the basic rules mechanism to WoD, Witchcraft Unisystem, or Dresden FATE.

And I heard of AD&D games from my store's customers that were played 100% in what we diagnose today as Storygame mode, long before the Forge was born.

I'd rather hunt down decent reviews in plain English, detailing the mechanisms and settings and problems found, and try to read between the lines if that game could still be drifted to my needs.
Also, abstract categorization can't include that je ne sais quoi of either setting specifics or graphic presentation that made me buy and try games despite rules elements I abhor on an abstract level.

Quote from: Old One Eye;722626Yes, certainly there is no utility to splitting the rpg-equivalent hairs between speed metal and thrash.

But I do think there would be use in broad categorizations catching on.  Heavy metal is a useful musical categorization that everyone generally agrees what it means and is distinct from gospel even if the edges are fuzzy.  I usually like heavy metal, so if a band is categorized as such I may give them a shot.  I usually do not like gospel, so I know not to dither any time on a gospel group.

Like there is some game out there called Poison D (or something like that).  I like pirates.  I have no idea if I would like the game's mechanics.  Were there a generally acknowledged categorization system for rpg mechanics, it would be significantly more handy than searching around for reviews, quick plays, or whatnot.

Agree that can be handy, but as a proud metalhead myself, i found this approach seriously limited my taste and exposure to good music. For a few years these categorizations became part of a self policing effort in my group (and one we imposed on ourselves individually as well). Thankfully i had a guitar teacher who found bridges into other genres for me, and that opened my experience up quite a bit. Now I will listen to all kinds of music and i prefer it that way. My feeling with RPGs, is I don't like feeling limited in the way my musical taste was limited. So it is much better in my opinion to take each game on individually than to say "it's gospel so I wont give it a shot". At the same time, i seriously hate jazz, and no amount of open-minded listening is going to change that, so I find there are some styles of game that just don't appeal to my taste when I do try them or play them. So just like i dont want to have my gaming limited by these categories, i also dont want to feel like i have to force myself to like something because it belongs to a category that is seen as intellectual, artsy or more authentic.

Quote from: robiswrong;722624The funny thing about that is I kinda get what he's saying, especially if you look at it from a 80s/90s railroad perspective.

No, I'm not defending Ron, hear me out.

If you've played in nothing but games like that, the idea of your character actually having an agenda of their own, or of any kind of proactivity on the part of the player, is utterly counterintuitive.  Years, and in some cases *decades* of being led around by the nose through a maze of invisible walls teaches you that that's how you play.

Yeah, I agree, I said this on the ENW thread that Mistwell linked to in the OP, trying to rally supporters from here to fight pemerton over there - I hadn't been on ENW in months until then. :D

If it wasn't for people talking *about* the Forge I would have no idea that it existed. I still have no idea what they were suppose to have 'accomplished'.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;722648Categorizition along the lines of GNS, Threefold, or Laws doesn't help me a bit.

If I were to play Sorcerer it would be a 100% trad urban sandbox because I would simply ignore Kickers and Flags and the notion of putting the characters, nah, the players in tight moral dilemmas.
I prefer the basic rules mechanism to WoD, Witchcraft Unisystem, or Dresden FATE.

And I heard of AD&D games from my store's customers that were played 100% in what we diagnose today as Storygame mode, long before the Forge was born.

I'd rather hunt down decent reviews in plain English, detailing the mechanisms and settings and problems found

It's perfectly possible to have jargon, and yet also give details. I can write a review of a heavy metal band - and use those two words to give it a broad category, but then go on to give more details.

Sometimes, though, you want a shorthand to communicate something quickly.

Just look at what you yourself wrote.  You referred to "trad" , "sandbox" , and "storygame" - which are bits of jargon that help communicate a general idea more quickly. Each of those are only fuzzily defined at best - and even just among the posters on this forum you'll find disagreement over whether some game is or isn't trad. However, they still have their uses.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;722648If I were to play Sorcerer it would be a 100% trad urban sandbox because I would simply ignore Kickers and Flags and the notion of putting the characters, nah, the players in tight moral dilemmas.

So you're saying that if you change the rules of a game then it's a different game that can do different things, suiting different interests? Sounds like a pretty basic observation to me -- I don't see how it supports or contradicts anything. Would someone actually argue otherwise?

Quote from: Tetsubo;722665If it wasn't for people talking *about* the Forge I would have no idea that it existed. I still have no idea what they were suppose to have 'accomplished'.

Welcome to the club. (no pun intended...)

Its like what was going on in the LARP community with weird terms like Jeepform and Thuku (SP?) Manifesto, etc. Only exponentially less long winded than the Forgeists...

Quote from: Omega;722750Welcome to the club. (no pun intended...)

Its like what was going on in the LARP community with weird terms like Jeepform and Thuku (SP?) Manifesto, etc. Only exponentially less long winded than the Forgeists...

Whenever I get a new subscriber on my YT channel I send them a greeting, "Thank you for subscribing. Welcome to the club." Only one person is 3220+ people has gotten the joke.

Quote from: Tetsubo;722766Whenever I get a new subscriber on my YT channel I send them a greeting, "Thank you for subscribing. Welcome to the club." Only one person is 3220+ people has gotten the joke.

Nice, I didn't know you did knife reviews. I'll be checking them out!

Quote from: The Traveller;722775Nice, I didn't know you did knife reviews. I'll be checking them out!

They are pretty good. He covers some interesting topics on the channel.

Quote from: Old One Eye;722626Like there is some game out there called Poison D (or something like that).  I like pirates.  I have no idea if I would like the game's mechanics.  Were there a generally acknowledged categorization system for rpg mechanics, it would be significantly more handy than searching around for reviews, quick plays, or whatnot.

That's a defensible wish.  It's still never going to happen.  There will never be a system in which a broad number of people trust, in which people agree on the definitions, which won't degenerate into partisan squabbling, and where people have faith in the impartiality of the selectors.

And Dirk's dead on right: there is no easy, five-second shortcut that's an improvement on taking a few minutes to read over reviews.

Why wouldn't I want to, after all?  If I'm contemplating plunking my money down for a new RPG, investing the time necessary to learn the rules, convincing my group to play it, and (perhaps) doing so for a long-term campaign, I am sure as hell not going to make that decision based on bulletpoint catchphrases.  I want to make an informed decision, and that means I need to inform myself.

Quote from: The Traveller;722775Nice, I didn't know you did knife reviews. I'll be checking them out!

I still have a stack of them to do... so many video ideas, so little time... an embarrassment of riches I suppose.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;722778They are pretty good. He covers some interesting topics on the channel.

Thank you kindly.

Quote from: Ravenswing;722780And Dirk's dead on right: there is no easy, five-second shortcut that's an improvement on taking a few minutes to read over reviews.

Why wouldn't I want to, after all?  If I'm contemplating plunking my money down for a new RPG, investing the time necessary to learn the rules, convincing my group to play it, and (perhaps) doing so for a long-term campaign, I am sure as hell not going to make that decision based on bulletpoint catchphrases.  I want to make an informed decision, and that means I need to inform myself.

You're implying that any shortcut has to either reduce several minutes of reading to five seconds, or it is completely worthless.

That seems like an unreasonable standard to me.

The main utility of genre catch-phrases like "Old School", "sandbox", and "story game" is in helping people filter down what games to look at. So if there are 60 RPGs released last year, someone might only want to look at detailed reviews for 5 or 6 out of those 60.

Quote from: S'mon;722654Yeah, I agree, I said this on the ENW thread that Mistwell linked to in the OP, trying to rally supporters from here to fight pemerton over there - I hadn't been on ENW in months until then. :D

To be clear, I did not intend to rally support to fight Pemerton over there, I was merely looking for advice from people here.  I didn't want to create inter-board fighting.

I believe I knew Pemerton about twenty years ago. A good Rolemaster GM. I was a dickhead then (or even more so) so the friendship ended on a sour note, but he's a good guy.

I wouldn't bother arguing with him, he's a law professor and a socialist, even if he's wrong he'll still outclass you.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;722984I believe I knew Pemerton about twenty years ago. A good Rolemaster GM. I was a dickhead then (or even more so) so the friendship ended on a sour note, but he's a good guy.

I wouldn't bother arguing with him, he's a law professor and a socialist, even if he's wrong he'll still outclass you.

I'm a law-professor but I'm anti-socialist, maybe that's why no one ever says such nice things about me... :(
Or more likely it's that like most people I can be a dick sometimes, whereas Pemerton is a real gentleman and a genuine nice guy, so acting like a dick when arguing with him just makes you look bad.

Quote from: jhkim;722910You're implying that any shortcut has to either reduce several minutes of reading to five seconds, or it is completely worthless.

That seems like an unreasonable standard to me.

The main utility of genre catch-phrases like "Old School", "sandbox", and "story game" is in helping people filter down what games to look at. So if there are 60 RPGs released last year, someone might only want to look at detailed reviews for 5 or 6 out of those 60.

Except those terms are rather meaningless for telling me what a game is. There are plenty of "old school" games that are far more complex than modern games. Sandbox means what really? Just about any RPG can be played sandbox.

Story Game at least says something. But like sandbox, most any game can be played as a storygame and the term gets applied to board games like Arkham Horror even which are not story games or RPGs.

Tell me what the game is, not some useless catchword no one can agree what it means.

d20 system in a low fantasy setting. no skills or race powers. Several classes.
d100 system in a hard SF setting. No classes. PC defined by study areas and skills selected. Some alien PCs but no psi powers.
d6 system for GM-less game emulation using a yes/no system. Plug into other games for solo play.

etc. Which is more informative in one sentence.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;722984I believe I knew Pemerton about twenty years ago. A good Rolemaster GM. I was a dickhead then (or even more so) so the friendship ended on a sour note, but he's a good guy.

I wouldn't bother arguing with him, he's a law professor and a socialist, even if he's wrong he'll still outclass you.

I have had my share of disagreements with pemerton and he is a very skilled debater. I wouldn't say don't argue with him, but at least go in knowing you will probably lose (even if you end up being right). I have had to concede to him more than once. It can be beneficial to expose your ideas to strong argument. The one thing i have learned, is if he asks a question, be very careful about your answer.

I'm going to reiterate, but when you are confronting someone who gets to define and frame the argument with his own made up terms and assumptions (for instance, Forge theory, as does Pemerton on a thread like this by framing "gamist" and "narrativist" play, making equivalences between what people are telling him and these made up categories), then you've already lost, assuming that person has a grasp of rhetoric to begin with (as Pemerton seems to have).

The very foundations of Forge theory are wrong. If you concede the Forge's premise, you have no choice but to get down the rabbit hole. You are essentially arguing with an idiot, and thereby becoming an idiot yourself.

Solution: don't be an idiot.

Quote from: Benoist;723091I'm going to reiterate, but when you are confronting someone who gets to define and frame the argument with his own made up terms and assumptions (for instance, Forge theory, as does Pemerton on a thread like this by framing "gamist" and "narrativist" play, making equivalences between what people are telling him and these made up categories), then you've already lost, assuming that person has a grasp of rhetoric to begin with (as Pemerton seems to have).

The very foundations of Forge theory are wrong. If you concede the Forge's premise, you have no choice but to get down the rabbit hole. You are essentially arguing with an idiot, and thereby becoming an idiot yourself.

Solution: don't be an idiot.

I have debated with pemerton a lot there, and it is true if you let him gain control of the language useing forge terminology, you've lost, my experience is he does just as well without it though. He is simply very good at it. Doesn't make him right, but but it does mean you have to bring your A game if you want to avoid butthurt (and I will admit to plenty of that myself).

(nods to Omega)

Pretty much.  Heck, I've some jocular definitions of some of the terms involved:

Old School: That which was standard practice (or what I thought to be "standard practice," or how people at my school gaming club played, anyway) when I discovered the hobby.

New School: Any way of doing things I encountered starting about 9-18 months later, most of which is crap.

Ancient History: Anything people did before I discovered the hobby, of which I will only begrudgingly acknowledge the existence if someone flashes me a publication date, most of which is crap.

What I believe the serious advocates think "Old School" vs "New School" is is basic: first they make a decision whether "Old School" or "New School" is the side they want to pick, based either on the "lame geezer antique/modern, hip, cool" or the "first & greatest/all glitz no substance newbie crap" dichotomies. The games and styles they like are slotted into the one side, the garbage they dislike into the other, and a gentlemen's agreement is made to ignore the dozens of games contradicting the premise on the wrong side of the agreed-upon date.

So stipulated, but you can't wring a meaningful definition out of that.

All I know is I bristle whenever someone calls 13th Age a "retroclone"

For me "old school" isnt about the game, its an approach to playing where the GM isnt assumed to be an asshole out to ruin player's lives and players are there to play a role not maximize thier rules knowledge to optimize system performance.

Quote from: Omega;723027Tell me what the game is, not some useless catchword no one can agree what it means.

d20 system in a low fantasy setting. no skills or race powers. Several classes.
d100 system in a hard SF setting. No classes. PC defined by study areas and skills selected. Some alien PCs but no psi powers.
d6 system for GM-less game emulation using a yes/no system. Plug into other games for solo play.

etc. Which is more informative in one sentence.

But you're using a bunch of catch-phrases there. For example, "d20 system". Does this just mean a system that uses a twenty-sided die? Does it imply similarity to D&D? Or is it more specifically related to WotC's "D20 System"?

Suppose I have a variant of Dungeon World that uses 1d20 instead of 2d6. That technically fits the first description: d20 system in a low fantasy setting. no skills or race powers. Several classes.  However, the same might also apply to a retro-clone game. I think there are many important differences between those. Other catch-words you're using include "low fantasy", "classes", "game emulation", "yes/no system" - all of which have lots of disagreement on what they cover.

In some sense, this just reinforces your point that catch-phrases are unclear by themselves. But I think that they can help when combined with other description.

Quote from: TristramEvans;723122All I know is I bristle whenever someone calls 13th Age a "retroclone"

For me "old school" isnt about the game, its an approach to playing where the GM isnt assumed to be an asshole out to ruin player's lives and players are there to play a role not maximize thier rules knowledge to optimize system performance.

In order to not be assholes, GMs need to hold to agreed upon rules, and be ready to hold up their end of the agreed upon social deal made at the beginning of the game. Players have the right to call upon the rules, not say "mother may I?" Rules matter.

Absolutely GM authority, like absolute player authority, leads to shit, shouting yelling unfun bullshit game play.

GM authority and respect must be earned, or GMs will end up roleplaying with themselves in the mirror. Without players, gaming is nothing.

Quote from: Kaiu Keiichi;723198In order to not be assholes, GMs need to hold to agreed upon rules, and be ready to hold up their end of the agreed upon social deal made at the beginning of the game. Players have the right to call upon the rules, not say "mother may I?" Rules matter.

Absolutely GM authority, like absolute player authority, leads to shit, shouting yelling unfun bullshit game play.

GM authority and respect must be earned, or GMs will end up roleplaying with themselves in the mirror. Without players, gaming is nothing.

Yeah, that attitude is exactly what I would call "not old school", or specifically "trust issues".

Quote from: Kaiu Keiichi;723198In order to not be assholes, GMs need to hold to agreed upon rules, and be ready to hold up their end of the agreed upon social deal made at the beginning of the game. Players have the right to call upon the rules, not say "mother may I?" Rules matter.

Absolutely GM authority, like absolute player authority, leads to shit, shouting yelling unfun bullshit game play.

GM authority and respect must be earned, or GMs will end up roleplaying with themselves in the mirror. Without players, gaming is nothing.

I agree a GM's authority can be lost if he is a bad GM. But i dont think good GMing requires rigid adherence to the rules. For some groups it may, but i know lots of players who hate rules lawyers more than they hate GMs who approach the mechanics with flexibility. Know your group and GM in a way that works for the dynamics at your table.

Quote from: Kaiu Keiichi;723198In order to not be assholes, GMs need to hold to agreed upon rules, and be ready to hold up their end of the agreed upon social deal made at the beginning of the game. Players have the right to call upon the rules, not say "mother may I?" Rules matter.

So is this your actual opinion, or are you just throwing out the old-school strawman to counter the new-school strawman?

Quote from: robiswrong;723212So is this your actual opinion, or are you just throwing out the old-school strawman to counter the new-school strawman?

To be fair, even if it's his genuine opinion, it does not make it any less stupid.

Out of the five people I know who are those GMs with very, very, rigid adherence to rules, three are mental. One of them once went into a screaming fit (this isn't a hyperbole) because the players weren't playing according to the rules of the game, and he claimed that reading Monster Manual and using knowledge from it isn't metagaming. Another one insulted almost every dedicated player in this city and is generally an unsavoury fellow. The last one has decided RPGs are for children, and board games are real men's games.

"GMs need to hold to the rules which have been agreed upon" Agree!

"Rules must be agreed upon for the GM to follow, in order for the GM not to be a jerk" False!

This might just be my perpetually adolescent punk rock anti-authoritarian streak speaking - but I find strict adherence to any set of rules as a personal trait to be completely execrable.

Quote from: Rincewind1;723217To be fair, even if it's his genuine opinion, it does not make it any less stupid.

No, but it does impact how I might respond to it.

Quote from: Rincewind1;723217Out of the five people I know who are those GMs with very, very, rigid adherence to rules, three are mental. One of them once went into a screaming fit (this isn't a hyperbole) because the players weren't playing according to the rules of the game, and he claimed that reading Monster Manual and using knowledge from it isn't metagaming. Another one insulted almost every dedicated player in this city and is generally an unsavoury fellow. The last one has decided RPGs are for children, and board games are real men's games.

(Below is all IMHO)

Strict rules can be useful if you're dealing with players/GMs that can't accept when things don't go their way, as it provides an authority that can't be argued with.  Of course, I generally prefer not to play with those people anyway.

Strict rules can be useful if you're dealing with a GM that has a very rigid, inflexible view of what 'should' or 'shouldn't' happen, and so the game devolves into trying to figure out what exactly the GM wants to occur so that you can continue.  Again, I prefer not to play with those people.

Strict rules can also be useful if you're playing in a game where mastery of the rules and systems is more the point than what's happening in "the world" or the imaginations of the people at the table.  I generally find those games dull, personally.

The first two I mostly see as ways of getting the rules to help you deal with personality issues, which I think is not particularly useful, as problem players will find ways to be problems.  So GMs that like super-strict rules are probably either problem players themselves, or are used to them and lack the ability to either ditch said players or to get them to come to some type of agreement - which likely indicates some level of emotional issue on the part of the GM.

So that's probably why you've seen such a high correlation of strict-rules-GMs and being mental.

I suspect the second is where the "Mother May I" crap comes from, as I've been in games like that.  I always thought of it more like playing "guess the verb" in the old text adventure games, but I can understand the sentiment.  I just disagree that the solution is to take away GM power - I'd rather just play with GMs that *don't do that*.

Quote from: Arminius;723220"GMs need to hold to the rules which have been agreed upon" Agree!

"Rules must be agreed upon for the GM to follow, in order for the GM not to be a jerk" False!

Rule Number One is in every one of my games. This is what it says.

QuoteThe first rule of any tabletop roleplaying game is to have fun. If any rule in this
book isn't fun for you and your group, talk it out, and feel free to change it, especially as
a DM. The rules in this book are meant only as tools, to be folded, spindled, and mutilated
to please the whims of the DM and the players. Do not feel bound by the rules as written:
if you don't like something, throw it out! If something is missing, bash something together
and throw it right in! Don't feel the need to cleave to the words of some dusty old de*
signer huddled in front of his computer with a bottle of scotch in one hand and a key*
board in the other. It's your game, do what you must to make it fun for you.
But remember, as the referee and arbiter of the rules, the DM has the final say
on what stays, what goes, and what changes. Feel free to suggest changes to the game if
you feel they're warranted, but try not to do it in game, and whatever he decides, relax,
maybe what you don't think is fun is still fun for him and the other players at the table. Just
pick up your dice and keep rolling. Remember, this is just a game, and a cooperative one
at that, so don't let hurt feelings or disputes at the table ruin the fun.

Rules lawyer THAT bitches.

Quote from: robiswrong;723234No, but it does impact how I might respond to it.



(Below is all IMHO)

Strict rules can be useful if you're dealing with players/GMs that can't accept when things don't go their way, as it provides an authority that can't be argued with.  Of course, I generally prefer not to play with those people anyway.

Strict rules can be useful if you're dealing with a GM that has a very rigid, inflexible view of what 'should' or 'shouldn't' happen, and so the game devolves into trying to figure out what exactly the GM wants to occur so that you can continue.  Again, I prefer not to play with those people.

Strict rules can also be useful if you're playing in a game where mastery of the rules and systems is more the point than what's happening in "the world" or the imaginations of the people at the table.  I generally find those games dull, personally.

The first two I mostly see as ways of getting the rules to help you deal with personality issues, which I think is not particularly useful, as problem players will find ways to be problems.  So GMs that like super-strict rules are probably either problem players themselves, or are used to them and lack the ability to either ditch said players or to get them to come to some type of agreement - which likely indicates some level of emotional issue on the part of the GM.

So that's probably why you've seen such a high correlation of strict-rules-GMs and being mental.

I suspect the second is where the "Mother May I" crap comes from, as I've been in games like that.  I always thought of it more like playing "guess the verb" in the old text adventure games, but I can understand the sentiment.  I just disagree that the solution is to take away GM power - I'd rather just play with GMs that *don't do that*.

I sadly know all those arguments - I've been to Forge discussions before ;).

My own problem with the term "Mother May I" is that nowadays, I've seen it as a one - size fit - all club, used by the hardcore indie crowd to describe any game where players need to ask GMs whether their characters can do something, as if asking the narrator/world engine was somehow deigning, like the table was locked in some sort of a Lord - Peasant relationship.

Quote from: Rincewind1;723239I sadly know all those arguments - I've been to Forge discussions before ;).

You'll notice I'm not agreeing with them ;)

Quote from: Rincewind1;723239My own problem with the term "Mother May I" is that nowadays, I've seen it as a one - size fit - all club, used by the hardcore indie crowd to describe any game where players need to ask GMs whether their characters can do something, as if asking the narrator/world engine was somehow deigning, like the table was locked in some sort of a Lord - Peasant relationship.

Oh, absolutely.  Instead of just describing the worst cases of GMs not allowing anything outside of a narrowly-defined set of preconceived ideas, it's now used as a club to hammer the idea that the GM *shouldn't* even be in the loop of the player's action resolution system at all.  It's arguing against one extreme with the other extreme.

Heck, even the most notable games out of the Forge (I'd argue Apocalypse World and Burning Wheel) both have pretty damn traditional GM roles.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;722984I believe I knew Pemerton about twenty years ago. A good Rolemaster GM. I was a dickhead then (or even more so) so the friendship ended on a sour note, but he's a good guy.

I wouldn't bother arguing with him, he's a law professor and a socialist, even if he's wrong he'll still outclass you.

I have no fear of debating law professors, as I did it for years, and three of my friends are professors.  As for socialist, that makes him naive (and my brother is a socialist professor).  But, all that does explain the didactic, authoritarian, and theory-over-practice based rhetoric he's fond of.  He's always struck me as someone who reads RPG theory a heck of a lot more than he actually plays RPGs, and him being a socialist professor just reinforces that perception.

Never understood the "mother may I?" analogy. Players describe what theyre doing, I apply or invent rules as needed. Theres no discernable difference in application to a game where the GM is strictly following a rules-set, except maybe that players arent limited to options pre-anticipated by a system.

But I guess thats all part of the "every GM is a bad GM but for the constraint of a system keeping them in thier place" mindset.

Quote from: Mistwell;723275I have no fear of debating law professors, as I did it for years, and three of my friends are professors.  As for socialist, that makes him naive (and my brother is a socialist professor).  But, all that does explain the didactic, authoritarian, and theory-over-practice based rhetoric he's fond of.  He's always struck me as someone who reads RPG theory a heck of a lot more than he actually plays RPGs, and him being a socialist professor just reinforces that perception.

That doesn't sound like Pemerton to me - he often talks about his 4e campaign that he is actually running, and how he applies Forgisms to it. I get more from his discussiond than I ever did from Edwards & co.
I hate Socialism, the most evil ideology in world history, both the Nationalist & Internationalist versions (I guess Aztec sun worship was pretty bad, too). I get to sit in staff seminars while socialist fellow law professors declare the need to strip us of whatever vestigial freedoms we still have left. But Pemerton pretty well never brings that stuff into his RPG discussions. Heck, he practically gives Socialism a good name. :D

(Oh, and he's probably reading this thread now - I PM'd him Kyle Aaron's nice comment).

Quote from: TristramEvans;723277Never understood the "mother may I?" analogy. Players describe what theyre doing, I apply or invent rules as needed. Theres no discernable difference in application to a game where the GM is strictly following a rules-set, except maybe that players arent limited to options pre-anticipated by a system.

Because you're a good GM.

Some other GMs will only allow specific things that they think 'make sense', and say 'no' for almost everything that's not their anticipated response to the situation at hand.

That doesn't mean that you need strict rules to deal with crap GMs, though.  It means you don't play with crap GMs.

Quote from: robiswrong;723282Because you're a good GM.

Some other GMs will only allow specific things that they think 'make sense', and say 'no' for almost everything that's not their anticipated response to the situation at hand.

That doesn't mean that you need strict rules to deal with crap GMs, though.  It means you don't play with crap GMs.

You don't fix bad GMs with rules, nor bitching about "social contracts" being broken, for that matter.

Quote from: Benoist;723289You don't fix bad GMs with rules, nor bitching about "social contracts" being broken, for that matter.

Yeah.  A bad GM is going to be a bad GM.  You may be able to stop one type of behavior, but they'll just do something else instead.

Social contracts... eh, meh.  I just see it as a fancy way of saying "are we all sitting down at the table expecting the same thing?"  And if you're not, trouble will ensue.

Quote from: robiswrong;723294Yeah.  A bad GM is going to be a bad GM.  You may be able to stop one type of behavior, but they'll just do something else instead.

Social contracts... eh, meh.  I just see it as a fancy way of saying "are we all sitting down at the table expecting the same thing?"  And if you're not, trouble will ensue.

Yup. That's exactly what I mean. Brandishing the "social contract" as some sort of rule or checklist that's been broken "therefore you are an asshole", or that you start thinking about it in this way when you sit down for the first time at the game table with a new GM and draw a sheet of paper going "SO, let's draft our Social Contract here," then it is a recipe for disaster (and might very well reveal itself to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, point of fact).

If, on the other hand, you take it as simply talking things over together casually to know what everyone expects, and you know, act before, during and after the game like it's a social thing where people talk to each other and behave on the basis of mutual trust and so on, then yeah, that's going to solve 90+ percent of issues around the game table.

Quote from: Kaiu Keiichi;723198Rules matter.

*chortle!* (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?p=695989#post695989)

Quote from: Mistwell;723275He's always struck me as someone who reads RPG theory a heck of a lot more than he actually plays RPGs, and him being a socialist professor just reinforces that perception.

I wouldn't know since I'm not in contact with him, but I doubt it. When I knew him, he loved to play (mostly GM) and thought about things very deeply. Taught me a lot about GMing and many other things.

If you become an academic, then you tend to like to break the world down into categories, that's how you analyse things. He's made it his profession to think about stuff in more detail than anyone else does. Many of us will view our hobbies through the filter of the worldview we've got from our careers.

Quote from: TristramEvans;723122All I know is I bristle whenever someone calls 13th Age a "retroclone"

Yeah. That's a term that had a really specific definition. I'm really annoyed that people seem to be trying to murder it.

Quote from: TristramEvans;723277Never understood the "mother may I?" analogy.

From my observation, it tends to be a confused "movement". Half of the people talking about "mother may I" are advocating narrative control mechanics that equalize or moderate control of the game world. (I can at least comprehend what those people are arguing for.)

The other half, OTOH, are advocating for something that seems utterly incoherent to me: Basically they want the game to dictate a precise resolution method and difficulty number for every possible action. If the GM ever needs to, say, make a judgment call about what the difficulty of a task should be the system has failed. This camp tends to take guidelines and treat them as ironclad legal contracts. (The fact that their "ideal" could never actually be achieved at a gaming table also leads me to suspect that they don't actually play.)

Or Magic Tea Party...

Quote from: Daztur;723311Or Magic Tea Party...

Im at the point now where I think just ignoring anyone who uses that phrase is the best bet. The Denners who periodically stop by here spouting that one inevitably turn out to be trolls.. Arduin, Rooster, Mister GC, etc

I agree that "Mother May I", "Magic Tea Party", and "fantasy heartbreaker" are all dumb terms to use.

It's one thing to insult someone else's way of pretending to be an elf. Come up with an argument of why they suck and make your point. Spreading insulting terms, though, is empty posturing and name-calling.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;723310From my observation, it tends to be a confused "movement". Half of the people talking about "mother may I" are advocating narrative control mechanics that equalize or moderate control of the game world. (I can at least comprehend what those people are arguing for.)

The other half, OTOH, are advocating for something that seems utterly incoherent to me: Basically they want the game to dictate a precise resolution method and difficulty number for every possible action. If the GM ever needs to, say, make a judgment call about what the difficulty of a task should be the system has failed. This camp tends to take guidelines and treat them as ironclad legal contracts. (The fact that their "ideal" could never actually be achieved at a gaming table also leads me to suspect that they don't actually play.)

QFT, nice summary.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;723310From my observation, it tends to be a confused "movement". Half of the people talking about "mother may I" are advocating narrative control mechanics that equalize or moderate control of the game world. (I can at least comprehend what those people are arguing for.)

The other half, OTOH, are advocating for something that seems utterly incoherent to me: Basically they want the game to dictate a precise resolution method and difficulty number for every possible action. If the GM ever needs to, say, make a judgment call about what the difficulty of a task should be the system has failed. This camp tends to take guidelines and treat them as ironclad legal contracts. (The fact that their "ideal" could never actually be achieved at a gaming table also leads me to suspect that they don't actually play.)

My understanding of the term - which seems to fall halfway between your two options - is that the MMI? crowd don't want to have to ask the GM if they can scale a nearby building and then drop behind the enemy to administer a backstab. Rather, they want to have a power on their character sheet which grants them the ability to manoeuvre using relevant encounter geometry to get in to a position to administer a backstab. It's kind on a edge case of the "whatever is not permitted is forbidden" school of thought - the view is that if you don't explicitly have the ability to do something guaranteed by your character sheet, then you are just at the whim of the GM.

I'll admit to liking Burning Wheel's "MMI?" solution on skills - if you made the PC's skill roll, then the PC has succeeded, end of discussion. I've played in way too many D&D sessions in wich my character had to succeed at a ridiculous number of skill rolls in order to succeed...sooner or later the skill roll fails.

Quote from: TristramEvans;723325Im at the point now where I think just ignoring anyone who uses that phrase is the best bet. The Denners who periodically stop by here spouting that one inevitably turn out to be trolls.. Arduin, Rooster, Mister GC, etc

Yup.

The moment you start describing the actual roleplaying using dismissive pejorative, I pretty much stop caring about what you have to say because what you're talking about isn't my hobby anymore.

Quote from: S'mon;723279he's probably reading this thread now - I PM'd him

And thanks for the heads up. I thought I'd make a post, seeing as the thread is at least in part about me.

Quote from: Mistwell;721243In this thread (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?350376-Why-the-claim-of-combat-and-class-balance-between-the-classes-is-mainly-a-forum-issue-%28In-my-opinion%29/page31&p=6241166#post6241166), Pemerton is a Forgist and trying to argue that The Forge was a success and a cultural movement and "the preeminent influence on contemporary RPG design."

For those who haven't actually read the ENworld thread, and who care, here is the summary version:

   Another poster made a post saying that it's bad for RPGs to cater to gamist preferences, clearly using "gamist" in The Forge sense of the word.

I posted in disagreement, saying that gamism is a pretty big part of RPGing, and where D&D began. (I also said some stuff about 4e and gamism that's tangential to Mistwell's concerns.)

There was some confusion from other posters over terminology, which led to some explanations from various posters over its origins at The Forge.

Accompanying this explanation were some posts stating that The Forge was a bad thing for RPGs and RPGing. I posted my disagreement, and explained why I like The Forge as a critical analysis of my hobby. That seems to have made Mistwell very upset.

I think it's slightly ironic that the only two posters in the original thread who were really defending the legitimacy of gamist RPGing as part of the hobby are being tarred with the brush of Forgist elitism!

Quote from: Justin Alexander;721465At least two of those three things are true. All three might be true depending on how you're defining "success" and/or "preeminent".

I'm not sure that we've ever agreed before, but I'm very happy to. And this thread is surreal enough that apparently anything can happen!

Quote from: Iosue;722449I'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.

Thanks! And I'm still waiting for you to finish your Moldvay thread - it didn't really get up to his GMing chapter, which is one of my favourite parts of the book.

If I have time I might try and start a thread on that myself, but I'm probably too slack.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;721273pemerton is one of the few FoR (Friends of Ron) with whom I actually enjoyed conversing, when I was still active on EN World.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;722604In this particular instance, pemerton is quite clear about his fondness for Ron Edwards and the Forge; way back when, I jokingly referred to him as a 'F(riend)O(f)R(on)-player,' and he agreed.

My memory is that it was FORE (Friend of Ron Edwards). I also remember an exchange about bear psychology, and your "coincidence generation" tables for Flashing Blades: and it's nice to cross paths again, even if in a slightly unexpected way.

Quote from: S'mon;721520Pemerton is a good guy.

Quote from: S'mon;723017Pemerton is a real gentleman and a genuine nice guy

Thanks - the feeling is mutual!

Quote from: S'mon;722621I do wonder whether pemerton would have been disabused of his fondness if he had ever tried posting on The Forge.

Although by acronym I am a FORE, I've never met or interacted with Edwards, nor posted on The Forge. Nor am I a particularly adventurous or avant-garde RPGer - the only thing that ever makes me feel even remotely out of the mainstream is some of the responses I see to my posts about how I run 4e D&D, and the similar reponses to others who seem to run the game in the same sort of way that I do.

As I posted on the ENworld thread that Mistwell linked to, my interest in The Forge (both essays and forums) is as a source of critical analysis. Different people probably have different ways of judging which critics, and which analyses, they like - in my case an important part is that it interpret my activity back to me in a way that (i) makes sense but (ii) sheds new light. The Forge, and Edwards's essays, do that for me.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;722984I believe I knew Pemerton about twenty years ago. A good Rolemaster GM. I was a dickhead then (or even more so) so the friendship ended on a sour note, but he's a good guy.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;723301When I knew him, he loved to play (mostly GM) and thought about things very deeply. Taught me a lot about GMing and many other things.

Kyle, by my reckoning it is 23 years (almost to the day?) and it's very kind of you to say such nice things after so long.

To update you a little bit, that Rolemaster campaign continued on through 1997, though by then nearly all the roster (both players and PCs) had changed (although one of the Matts would make a guest appearance from time to time when he came back from the States). A new player took up Imeji, but she died tragically at 10th level after being caught in a fight with half-a-dozen guards whom she couldn't beat. She was laid to rest in a tomb in Greyhawk next to the body of her deceased lover, the montebank Derf (who had been played for a while by someone else you might remember from around that time, and had also come to a sad end.)

Another RM campaign ran from 1998 through 2008, reaching a very satisfying conclusion at around 27th level. I'm now GMing a 4e D&D campaign (commenced Jan 2009). We don't play as often as used to be possible (work, family, etc) - every two to three weeks for sessions of around 4 hours. The game is currently at 24th level and remains plenty of fun.

From your sig it looks like you've been doing some publishing - good stuff! My efforts there have been confined to a few amateur pieces for HARP in The Guild Companion webzine.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;723301If you become an academic, then you tend to like to break the world down into categories, that's how you analyse things. He's made it his profession to think about stuff in more detail than anyone else does. Many of us will view our hobbies through the filter of the worldview we've got from our careers.

I think this is all plausible and fair. I said something similar on the ENworld thread, pointing also to this Robin Laws blog (http://robin-d-laws.livejournal.com/68544.html) that someone else had linked to.

(Kyle, if I've got your identity wrong I apologise, but I'm pretty sure I know who you are.)

Quote from: pemerton;723348Thanks - the feeling is mutual!

Thanks P, but I assure you, I'm not as nice as you. :D

Welcome to the board Pemerton

Quote from: TristramEvans;723369Welcome to the board Pemerton

Thanks.

Welcome aboard Pemerton.

Glad you made it over Pemerton. I think you'll like this board.

Welcome indeed!

Welcome, you seem like a pretty reasonable guy!

Quote from: Just Another Snake Cult;721316I've met all kinds of gamers, but I've never met a Forgy in real life.

I did. Last year when I was in north america I went incognito into Warp 1 games in Edmonton, which was never a very good gaming store: they shrinkwrap most of their product, charge extra above canadian cover price (which is already a ripoff), and really only stay in business because they're on a big street and its where people go who either don't shop on the internet or do an impulse-buy.  

Well apparently, since the last time I was there, it turns out that the new RPG-section staff are a pair of hardcore storygamers.  I was very amused to see a number of Forge titles actually on the racks, including really obscure stuff.  This is particularly funny when you know the Edmonton gaming scene, which is very meat and potatoes.  The other stuff they had there was lots of D&D (4e and reprints), tons of Pathfinder, superhero RPGs, and lots and lots of Palladium books; all of which sell like hotcakes in Alberta.

Some of the forge books had clearly been there for a very long time (some were literally gathering dust), a few others were obviously more recent as I knew they were more recent books.

So I couldn't help but start up a little chat with these guys; I asked them if they had Dungeon Crawl Classics; the guy responded "No, we sold out". I noted that there was practically no OSR stuff at all there; he responded, sneering "no, the OSR isn't really important, its just a few guys talking on the internet".  So I asked him about the forge games he had, and he started telling me about how awesome they are. I pointed out all his palladium books and he admitted they sell like crazy, and (he sounded so frustrated) he couldn't understand why when they were so awful.  I casually asked him how the AD&D reprints did and he admitted they sold well too.

So finally I asked him if he was going to reorder DCC; he said he could special-order it, and I said that I was just passing through, but if he was sold out of all the DCC books he brought in, and hadn't actually sold the forge books he brought in, wouldn't it in fact make the OSR stuff more relevant to his market where people like AD&D reprints and buy Palladium books and they sell out of DCC books but no one seems to buy the forge books they bring in?  He spouted off a non-answer about how "being commercial wasn't the point".

Which again, is hilarious, because I know Warp 1's owner, and "being commercial" is and always has been his ONLY point (not that there's anything wrong with that, its why his business still exists after more than two decades while I saw comic & game stores come and go like mayflies in that city over the last 20 years).  If it weren't that I don't particularly care for Warp's owner, I would have been very tempted to give him a heads-up about what his employees were up to.

Anyways, those were some real-life storygamers. And not having had a pipe in my mouth, they never even knew how dangerously close they stood to the Pundit himself.

RPGPundit

Quote from: S'mon;721520Pemerton is a good guy.

I'd say the Forge was one of the factors in the end of the '90s Railroading Era, aka the Dark Age of RPGs. .

It wasn't.  The major factor in the end of the White-Wolf's era was the release of 3e D&D, which was an instant smash success.  If you look at the 3e DMG, they literally repudiate the WW 'storytelling' railroad-style of play, advocating instead a "Kick in the Door" style of old-school gaming.

Which in a way shows you how far things have come since then; at the time, 3e felt like an unbelievable breath of fresh air and a return to old-school roots.  Which sounds really strange to anyone who played late-era 3.5 and rejected that in favor of the OSR.

RPGPundit

Quote from: One Horse Town;721542In the olden days circa 2004, when the missionaries where thick on the ground i just used to refuse to use their jargon as the framing point of the discussion. For some reason, that really pissed them off.

It pissed them off because that was their one and only rhetorical tactic; borrowed from critical-theory/deconstructionist academia: control the terminology, the semantics.  If you get to define what terms are used and how they are used, you front-load a bunch of assumptions into the conversation and you win the argument before it starts.
Refuse to accept their jargon, and they haven't got a leg to stand on.

RPGPundit

Quote from: pemerton;723348My memory is that it was FORE (Friend of Ron Edwards). I also remember an exchange about bear psychology, and your "coincidence generation" tables for Flashing Blades: and it's nice to cross paths again, even if in a slightly unexpected way.

:)

Welcome to the adult swim.

Quote from: RPGPundit;723495It pissed them off because that was their one and only rhetorical tactic; borrowed from critical-theory/deconstructionist academia: control the terminology, the semantics.  If you get to define what terms are used and how they are used, you front-load a bunch of assumptions into the conversation and you win the argument before it starts.
Refuse to accept their jargon, and they haven't got a leg to stand on.

RPGPundit

"Know Your Values And Frame the Debate" was one of* the most useful books I've ever read. By a leftist, it clearly lays out leftist Framing tactics, in order to teach them to others. Presumably the author didn't realise that some non-leftists can also read. :D

*The other was The Gift of Fear, about how not to die.

Quote from: Arminius;721873Actually 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.

Precisely.  The problem with GNS is not that it suggested different gamers like different things from their games, that's more or less true. The problem was that it suggested that each gamer liked only ONE thing from their games and that therefore the "perfect" game was one that only appealed to one type of 'creative agenda'.  

THAT was the actual theory, the rest was the postulates that lead up to the theory.  And as such, the entire theory is invalid.  Subsequent evidence has proven that games created with only one "creative agenda" are miserable commercial failures compared to games that have multiple utility.  Of course, the theory was utterly absurd right from the start, since it suggested that D&D, the most popular RPG in history, was a "bad" game.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;724063Precisely.  The problem with GNS is not that it suggested different gamers like different things from their games, that's more or less true. The problem was that it suggested that each gamer liked only ONE thing from their games and that therefore the "perfect" game was one that only appealed to one type of 'creative agenda'.

I'd also suggest there's an even more fundamental issue in that only three things that players might want from their games were considered to be 'primary', and that the main categorization was done along those lines.

Exploration of theme does *not* preclude system-level challenges or immersion/"simulation", and all three are utterly orthogonal to many other aspects of game design.

Quote from: RPGPundit;724063Precisely.  The problem with GNS is not that it suggested different gamers like different things from their games, that's more or less true. The problem was that it suggested that each gamer liked only ONE thing from their games and that therefore the "perfect" game was one that only appealed to one type of 'creative agenda'.

Not quite. GNS classifies games not gamers. It said that games should focus on only one agenda, true, but not that individual gamers liked only one type. I think the expected ideal is that games are specialised but groups pick and choose depending on what kind of campaign they feel like running at the time.

Quote from: RPGPundit;724063THAT was the actual theory, the rest was the postulates that lead up to the theory.  And as such, the entire theory is invalid.  Subsequent evidence has proven that games created with only one "creative agenda" are miserable commercial failures compared to games that have multiple utility.

I don't think that GNS is really interested in commercial success or makes any claims about it. By definition focusing on one specific playstyle reduces your potential share of the market even if it turns out to be an amazing game  for the subset of people who do like it.

Quote from: RPGPundit;724063Of course, the theory was utterly absurd right from the start, since it suggested that D&D, the most popular RPG in history, was a "bad" game.

? I don't recall that, have you got a link?

Quote from: soviet;724085Not quite. GNS classifies games not gamers. It said that games should focus on only one agenda, true, but not that individual gamers liked only one type. I think the expected ideal is that games are specialised but groups pick and choose depending on what kind of campaign they feel like running at the time.

That's based on two premises:

1) That Gamism, Narrativism, and Simulationism are the primary drivers of what players want, and the best way to categorize games

2) That they are mutually exclusive

I disagree with both premises.

Actually, I think there's a bit of truth to the game/simulation split, which is even referenced as far back as the AD&D DMG and has its roots in wargaming - when writing your game, is the primary goal to get 'realistic' results, or to make a game that's entertaining to play?  Of course, that's the part that Ron didn't invent.

Quote from: soviet;724085I don't think that GNS is really interested in commercial success or makes any claims about it. By definition focusing on one specific playstyle reduces your potential share of the market even if it turns out to be an amazing game  for the subset of people who do like it.

Models aren't ever true, just useful.  And the quality of a theory is based on its predictive capability.  So is GNS a model aimed at designers, or is it a model aimed at players?  Either way, we should be able to compare its predictions with reality, and get an idea of whether it's actually a useful theory/model or not.

If it's aimed at players, then it would stand to be true that the GNS split would be a useful tool to determine if a given player will like a game or not.  Is it?  Not in my experience.

If it's aimed at designers, then games conforming to its theories should be relatively successful.  If we ignore the elephants in the room, do GNS games actually have any measurable level of success, even in comparison to other, smaller games?  I think it's reasonable to say that the indie hit of the last year or so is Fate Core... which is not based on GNS theory at all.  Hell, it doesn't even fit well in any particular GNS category.

Lastly, if it's aimed at designers, and an accurate theory at all, then it should be able to explain the success of large games, even if they don't completely match up or weren't designed with GNS in mind - so does GNS explain how people are enjoying Pathfinder, D&D, or the other 'top' games?

Quote from: robiswrong;724089If it's aimed at designers, then games conforming to its theories should be relatively successful.  If we ignore the elephants in the room, do GNS games actually have any measurable level of success, even in comparison to other, smaller games?

There's another way in which a model can be valuable to designers other than elevating success. A model defines a map, in a way, of the solution space of its context (games in this case), and part of what's useful in a new map is all the unexplored regions that are revealed by it. These are potentially games that haven't been tried before (perhaps with good reason) and that's pretty interesting.

Whether or not Forge theory does or did this is an open question. Generally, though, I don't think it revealed nearly enough unexplored territory to be all that valuable in this regard.

Something to consider is that it is not just the worth of GNS and Forge Theory, it was the methodology which was used to present it. Being constantly barraged by proslytizing flunkies made me convinced that it was crap, regardless of it worth, because worthwhile approaches to gaming would not need such a hard sell to get people to try it out.

Quote from: soviet;724085Not quite. GNS classifies games not gamers.

This is like that Marshall McLuhan scene in Annie Hall.

How many times in one thread does the same tired meme need to be refuted?

Quote from: jeff37923;724094Something to consider is that it is not just the worth of GNS and Forge Theory, it was the methodology which was used to present it. Being constantly barraged by proslytizing flunkies made me convinced that it was crap, regardless of it worth, because worthwhile approaches to gaming would not need such a hard sell to get people to try it out.

A thousand times this.

Quote from: soviet;724085Not quite. GNS classifies games not gamers. It said that games should focus on only one agenda, true, but not that individual gamers liked only one type. I think the expected ideal is that games are specialised but groups pick and choose depending on what kind of campaign they feel like running at the time.

GNS Cop!

Ron Edwards is on the record (http://indie-rpgs.com/archive/index.php?topic=16134.0) as saying he uses GNS to classify people!

Quote from: Ron Edwards2. I am on record as stating that I use the Creative Agenda terms to classify people. But that is not the same as saying the terms are defined for such a purpose. Nor is it the same as saying that any person can be matched to any one of the CAs.

Carry on,
-E.

Quote from: soviet;724085Not quite. GNS classifies games not gamers. It said that games should focus on only one agenda, true, but not that individual gamers liked only one type. I think the expected ideal is that games are specialised but groups pick and choose depending on what kind of campaign they feel like running at the time.

That is just not true, as pointed out previously on this thread. As soon as you categorize Creative Agendas, you are categorizing gamers themselves and what they primarily seek in their game sessions, hence, games catering specifically to those needs, since "incoherence" from a Forgist point of view is bad and unacceptable.

That's the kind of post of yours that makes me think you either lie, or don't know what the hell you are talking about.

Quote from: jeff37923;724094Something to consider is that it is not just the worth of GNS and Forge Theory, it was the methodology which was used to present it. Being constantly barraged by proslytizing flunkies made me convinced that it was crap, regardless of it worth, because worthwhile approaches to gaming would not need such a hard sell to get people to try it out.

This is true in most any area. Also from glancing over older Forgeist type posts they come across as sneering at and reviling standard RPG play.

This is another severe mistake as the more you degrade the "enemy" the more likely you are to come across as an elitists dick or just a nut case which makes your viewpoint look WORSE than the one you are trying to draw people away from.

Quote from: Arminius;724095This is like that Marshall McLuhan scene in Annie Hall.

How many times in one thread does the same tired meme need to be refuted?

It's all this brain damage from playing D&D and WoD, you see.

Quote from: -E.;724099GNS Cop!

Ron Edwards is on the record (http://indie-rpgs.com/archive/index.php?topic=16134.0) as saying he uses GNS to classify people!

Heh. I was the first responder on that thread - though I was just answering the question and not expressing a view. From my memory, Forge posters would often slip into classifying people by GNS categories - but most would, if pressed, admit that there are gamers who enjoy different types of games. More fully, Edwards' answer from that thread was:

Quote from: Ron Edwards1. No, no personality test. There will never be a GNS personality test that I will endorse; such tests are good for discussing preferences about techniques of play only.

2. I am on record as stating that I use the Creative Agenda terms to classify people. But that is not the same as saying the terms are defined for such a purpose. Nor is it the same as saying that any person can be matched to any one of the CAs.

a) It is non-controversial to state, based on extensive observations by me and others, that many role-players are "stuck" in trying to fulfill a given Creative Agenda. So it's fair, if not particularly nice, to say of a person, "He is a Gamist" or whatever, especially given the connotation that so far he's not been very successful at it, and that he is going to force any role-playing situation he encounters to conform to it if he possibly can.

The same thing, however, might be said of someone who's so confused about CA in general that he or she brings the same obsessive and transformational approach in favor of Incoherent play, especially a particular brand of it. My "bitterest gamer in the world" and "Ouija Board Narrativist" terms apply to such persons.

However, someone who is not "stuck" in this way will not be classifiable by CA.

That this is more of a "no" than a "yes" as far as GNS classifying gamers - so what Soviet said is technically true. GNS was not designed to classify gamers, and Ron and most others admitted that there are plenty of gamers who play different kinds of games.

However, it is also dripping with condescension, which supports Pundit's implied critique of elitism.

Orwell would be so proud of Ron...

Quote from: jhkim;724104Heh. I was the first responder on that thread - though I was just answering the question and not expressing a view. From my memory, Forge posters would often slip into classifying people by GNS categories - but most would, if pressed, admit that there are gamers who enjoy different types of games. More fully, Edwards' answer from that thread was:

That this is more of a "no" than a "yes" as far as GNS classifying gamers - so what Soviet said is technically true. GNS was not designed to classify gamers, and Ron and most others admitted that there are plenty of gamers who play different kinds of games.

However, it is also dripping with condescension, which supports Pundit's implied critique of elitism.

As GNS Cop, I'm sworn to uphold the sanctity and integrity of the model and correct any assertions that are against canon.

Anyone who says you can't use the model to classify gamers gets a citation.

Further, while the Pundit's statement wasn't technically correct, Ron makes it clear that "stuck" gamers can, in fact be classified and that "many" role-players are stuck.

If you can classify "many" role-players, then the Pundit's criticism is an adequate summary, if not technically correct in all instances.

Go About Your Business, Citizen.
-E.

Quote from: Omega;724109Orwell would be so proud of Ron...

Because?

Is there any evidence that the critical aesthetic theories coming out of The Forge had political goals? Or have had any political effect?

I've noticed more than one "This Machine Kills Fascists" tag on posters on this thread - I assume that they're not really Woody Guthrie fans, but is anyone seriously comparing The Forge to Fascism? Where is the street violence and the takeover of (formerly) democratic polities?

Quote from: pemerton;724179I've noticed more than one "This Machine Kills Fascists" tag on posters on this thread - I assume that they're not really Woody Guthrie fans, but is anyone seriously comparing The Forge to Fascism? Where is the street violence and the takeover of (formerly) democratic polities?

It's a tag all of the moderators have and yes, it's because Pundit is a Woody Guthrie fan.

Our sole purpose for existing isn't taking pot-shots at the Forge. :rotfl:

Quote from: pemerton;724179I've noticed more than one "This Machine Kills Fascists" tag on posters on this thread - I assume that they're not really Woody Guthrie fans, but is anyone seriously comparing The Forge to Fascism? Where is the street violence and the takeover of (formerly) democratic polities?

As OHT said, the machine kills fascists is the moderator tag. If it has any meaning beyond Pundit's love of Woody Guthrie, I don't know. but i see it more as reminder to not be fascists ourselves as mods and in reference to our mod policies (which are pretty light).

I think you will find many of the posters here are not enamored with the forge. But there are varying degrees of hostility toward it and there are also a few defenders of it. My sense is much of the hostility stems from the predominant styles of play here being on the immersionist end of the spectrum. Personally, I don't have any gripes with Ron or with people who find the forge helpful, i just find the jargon and models not helpful to me in my gaming (and when i have encountered strong proponents of forge theory who try to get me to agree with them, i will admit it annoys me a bit). I do not see the forge as fascist. I think there is a bit of elitism in some of it though.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;724186(...) I think there is a bit of elitism in some of it though.

While I've no experience interacting on any of the Forge-related boards, the handful of Forge/Edwards cultists on a local game forum I used to moderate were more than just "a bit" elitist about their faith, hehe. The pseudo-intellectual smugness is actually what I found the most off-putting about the whole thing.

Quote from: 3rik;724205While I've no experience interacting on any of the Forge-related boards, the handful of Forge/Edwards cultists on a local game forum I used to moderate were more than just "a bit" elitist about their faith, hehe. The pseudo-intellectual smugness is actually what I found the most off-putting about the whole thing.

I haven't met anyone in my regular gaming who was into the forge so I have no real sense of that one way or the other. But the forge strikes me as very academic in its styling (like critical theory or something) and I find that can encourage elitism because it seperates itself with a language and to participate you need to learn the language.

Pundit is a Guthrie fan?

I like Guthrie myself, I just found it a bit surprising but, well, very cool.
(I've come to consider Pundit the kinda guy that definitely grows on you.)

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;724207I haven't met anyone in my regular gaming who was into the forge so I have no real sense of that one way or the other. But the forge strikes me as very academic in its styling (like critical theory or something) and I find that can encourage elitism because it seperates itself with a language and to participate you need to learn the language.

None of my regular gaming group are active online. It was just three or four Forge converts on an otherwise fairly traditional board posting seemingly civilized pseudo-intellectual monologues claiming that we were all doing it wrong, resulting in gaming that was "uninteresting"; doing it wrong was perfectly fine if that was what we enjoyed, of course, but it was still wrong and they were the ones who, guided by the genius of Ron Edwards et al, had seen the Light of True Gaming. And that was even before they started to throw their lingo around.

Gamers who don't go to gaming boards are not even aware that this thing ever existed, let alone influenced by it. I certainly never felt any need to inform my players about any of it.

Quote from: pemerton;724179I've noticed more than one "This Machine Kills Fascists" tag on posters on this thread - I assume that they're not really Woody Guthrie fans, but is anyone seriously comparing The Forge to Fascism? Where is the street violence and the takeover of (formerly) democratic polities?

Sorry. That's not what fascism is, i.e. it isn't defined by instances of its effects, but by its actual philosophy.

Fascism is based on the fascio (the bundle, the sheaf), the idea that there is one leader (or ruling body, party, etc) that embodies everything that is right about the Nation, organization or society, and that opposition to this leading entity is treason towards the State, organization or society concerned. Everyone must rally around the leader and fit within the fascio, or become alienated from it.

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/ce/Fascist_symbol.svg/200px-Fascist_symbol.svg.png)

Political red herrings aside, the comparison with the Forge can be explained in the way the believers apply its theory to all gamers and games, and that if they are not fitting that particular way to conceptualize games and gamers, then they must be brain-damaged (as White Wolf gamers apparently were), deluded (as Simulationists who have not come to terms with the fact they must have a creative agenda and therefore are either proto Gamists or Narrativists must be), and their games naturally incoherent (as D&D certainly is).

Quote from: The Ent;724209(I've come to consider Pundit the kinda guy that definitely grows on you.)

Like genital warts?

Er, um, not that I'd know or anything...

Quote from: 3rik;724205While I've no experience interacting on any of the Forge-related boards, the handful of Forge/Edwards cultists on a local game forum I used to moderate were more than just "a bit" elitist about their faith, hehe. The pseudo-intellectual smugness is actually what I found the most off-putting about the whole thing.

I agree wholeheartedly.  It's the smug elitist pseudo-intellectualism that, more than anything else, convinces me the Forge is just a heaping mound of bullshit.  I've seen that tactic used far too many times by my acedemia friends.  They always use it when they doubt the truth of their theory, as a defensive crutch to try and ward off genuine criticism.

Quote from: Mistwell;724251I agree wholeheartedly.  It's the smug elitist pseudo-intellectualism that, more than anything else, convinces me the Forge is just a heaping mound of bullshit.  I've seen that tactic used far too many times by my acedemia friends.  They always use it when they doubt the truth of their theory, as a defensive crutch to try and ward off genuine criticism.

eh...as someone who hasn't followed them closely, they just remind me of the RPG version of hipsters.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;724260eh...as someone who hasn't followed them closely, they just remind me of the RPG version of hipsters.

I have at times referred to Forge-y-ish games as "hipster games" to avoid having to decide if they're a storygame or not. Unfortunately, at the time, at least where I am, the whole hipster label wasn't all that common yet. Would have been practical.

The Forge is what happens when academics try bottling lightning while wearing eel gloves.

Quote from: One Horse Town;724267The Forge is what happens when academics try bottling lightning while wearing eel gloves.

I thought it was what happens when dumbasses try to use academic-sounding terms to justify thier dumbassery under a smokescreen of pseudo-intellectualism ;)

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;724186As OHT said, the machine kills fascists is the moderator tag. If it has any meaning beyond Pundit's love of Woody Guthrie, I don't know. but i see it more as reminder to not be fascists ourselves as mods and in reference to our mod policies (which are pretty light).

I think you will find many of the posters here are not enamored with the forge.

I also got the impression that at least some of the posters here - including the OP of this thread - are not enamoured of Guthries very left politics.

Quote from: pemerton;724369I also got the impression that at least some of the posters here - including the OP of this thread - are not enamoured of Guthries very left politics.

If you're wondering whether this is a haven for right wing reactionaries, never fear, there's a healthy mix of posters here and we have the occasional energetic discussion on the matter. Myself I find both points of view ignorant, and likewise have had energetic discussions with the Pundit on the matter.

The thing I admire and respect most about theRPGSite and am coming to appreciate more and more is the willingness to let people speak their minds and not get kicked out for having an opinion. This is the only ironclad rule around here that I've observed.

That doesn't mean that discussions don't get energetic, in case you missed it.

Quote from: pemerton;724369I also got the impression that at least some of the posters here - including the OP of this thread - are not enamoured of Guthries very left politics.

OT: We had a staff seminar at my work a year or so back which described the very socially progressive social policies of 1960s Spain under Franco. It made the Fascists seem quite cuddly. :D And actual Italian Fascism gets a rather unfairly bad rap through being tainted by association with demonic Nazism. Nazism was one of the most evil systems in world history, and the (also very evil) Soviet regime called the invading Nazis "Fascists", because they didn't want to say the 'Socialist' in National Socialist. But Italian Fascism didn't act anything much like Nazism, Communism, or even Iberian & Latin American militarism. If Mussolini hadn't invaded Ethiopia its death toll would have been tiny. The invasion of Ethiopia was an appalling crime, but not discernably different to my mind than similar crimes perpetuated by the Liberal Democracies, certainly including Britain.

So, when I see "This Machine Kills Fascists", I feel a bit sorry for the Fascists.   :D

Quote from: pemerton;724369I also got the impression that at least some of the posters here - including the OP of this thread - are not enamoured of Guthries very left politics.

I think we are actually fairly split but probably not as left leaning as say rpg.net, so by comparison people often assume we are a conservative group. Myself, I grew up in Guthrie and Phil Ochs, and left, but not that far left. Generally speaking though we try not to get too deep into politics in the main forum. Stuff like that , when it appears, is usually in pundit's subforum. On the whole there is a good mix of conservatives, liberals and libertarians here.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;724382On the whole there is a good mix of conservatives, liberals and libertarians here.

I also think more of the people here who discuss such things actually debate on the level of *ideas*, rather than toeing the party line lock-step and simply demonizing people they don't agree with.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;724382I think we are actually fairly split but probably not as left leaning as say rpg.net, so by comparison people often assume we are a conservative group.

Yeah. I was on RPGnet where I heard that TheRPGSite was a"right-wing hive of scum and villainy", or words to that effect, so I went over to have a look.

I was very disappointed to discover that only part of this statement was true. :(

Quote from: robiswrong;724384I also think more of the people here who discuss such things actually debate on the level of *ideas*, rather than toeing the party line lock-step and simply demonizing people they don't agree with.

There's plenty of name-calling here. The big thing about TheRPGsite is that people are free to debate without the moderators squelching anyone who deviates from The Approved Party Line.

You'll never know how many non-SJWs are on RPGnet, because if they don't keep their heads down the mods will boot them. TheRPGsite looks pretty left-wing to me (possibly because by now most of the 'right wing' posters are on my Ignore List) :D - but people of all stripes are free to debate.

Quote from: pemerton;724179Because?

Is there any evidence that the critical aesthetic theories coming out of The Forge had political goals? Or have had any political effect?

I've noticed more than one "This Machine Kills Fascists" tag on posters on this thread - I assume that they're not really Woody Guthrie fans, but is anyone seriously comparing The Forge to Fascism? Where is the street violence and the takeover of (formerly) democratic polities?

hah-hah. No. Was referring to the borderline doublespeak going on in the quoted text.

Quote from: The Traveller;724374That doesn't mean that discussions don't get energetic, in case you missed it.

Quote from: robiswrong;724384I also think more of the people here who discuss such things actually debate on the level of *ideas*, rather than toeing the party line lock-step and simply demonizing people they don't agree with.

I guess from my point of view, I wouldn't be reading or posting on this site except that someone started a thread here to get advice on how to argue with me on another site, simply because I expressed sympathy for an analysis of RPGs that they don't agree with, and then he went on to call me naive, authoritarian and (by implication) a cocksucker. All without doing me the courtesy of PMing me on the site that we both post on.

So (i) I wouldn't really call that debating, and (ii) I would see that as a fairly high degree of hostility against someone for having a different opinion.

Probably unfairly, that has somewhat coloured my perception of the site.

Quote from: pemerton;724494I guess from my point of view, I wouldn't be reading or posting on this site except that someone started a thread here to get advice on how to argue with me on another site, simply because I expressed sympathy for an analysis of RPGs that they don't agree with, and then he went on to call me naive, authoritarian and (by implication) a cocksucker. All without doing me the courtesy of PMing me on the site that we both post on.

So (i) I wouldn't really call that debating, and (ii) I would see that as a fairly high degree of hostility against someone for having a different opinion.

Probably unfairly, that has somewhat coloured my perception of the site.

Thats fair. This site has its share of trolls, smegheads, and crusaders, but thats the cost of free speech. Take heart though in that the overwhelming initial response to that poster was to tell him to not argue about it.

Youre not going to find many GNS fans here, but you will at least find a lot of people who wont hold your opinions afainst you, no matter what thunder and lightning they make about the subject.

Quote from: Omega;724481hah-hah. No. Was referring to the borderline doublespeak going on in the quoted text.

The weird language and carefully equivocal statements were a major selling point for TBM / GNS:

One of its major draws was that it let you call popular games (e.g. Vampire) crap with a certain degree of deniability -- because the language was convoluted, and academic, theorists could claim they were making a dispassionate assessment of the game, rather than just expressing their preferences and opinions.

The inadvertent, honest, and clear Brain Damage (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/archive/index.php?topic=18707.0) discussion really damaged the theory -- it expressed the hilarious, indefensible foundations of the work in a way that wasn't obscured, and you can sort of see how people who were looking for a way to defensibly criticize games they didn't like more or less abandoned GNS afterward.

But I think Brain Damage only really hastened the end of the theory, anyway -- GNS was never very robust and the attempts to formalize it (the Narrativism essay) ultimately ended up making that clear and creating an easily accessible body of work that left people scratching their heads going, "huh... this doesn't make a whole lot of sense."

It would have fallen apart anyway, but the Damage let it burn out in a fantastic, public display rather than simply fading away.

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: robiswrong;724384I also think more of the people here who discuss such things actually debate on the level of *ideas*, rather than toeing the party line lock-step and simply demonizing people they don't agree with.

I would agree with that on politics although the site has a rightist bias simply because most posters are from the us and the us version of a socialist is more like a centre right christian democrat that a socialist worker.

As for rpg ideology i think that will be held against you. Gns advocates, story gamers and 4vengers get short shrift here and whilst you won't get banned your posts will get dogpiled and prepare for plenty of ad hominem attacks.

Over the last few years this has become an osr board, that is the prevailing game choice. If you make a post that states what a great time you had yesterday playing od&d and loosing 3pcs in30 minutes you might get called a rookie but there will be overall support for your old school chops. Come on here posting about your marvel superheroic roleplaying game and how you love the narative mechanics will get you villified or ignored... But not banned.

Quote from: -E.;724508The weird language and carefully equivocal statements were a major selling point for TBM / GNS:

One of its major draws was that it let you call popular games (e.g. Vampire) crap with a certain degree of deniability -- because the language was convoluted, and academic, theorists could claim they were making a dispassionate assessment of the game, rather than just expressing their preferences and opinions.

Like dissociated mechanics you mean? :-)

Maybe some people liked GNS for that, I don't know. But I liked it as a tool for game design.

Quote from: -E.;724508The inadvertent, honest, and clear Brain Damage (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/archive/index.php?topic=18707.0) discussion really damaged the theory -- it expressed the hilarious, indefensible foundations of the work in a way that wasn't obscured, and you can sort of see how people who were looking for a way to defensibly criticize games they didn't like more or less abandoned GNS afterward.

GNS isn't 'everything Ron Edwards says or does'. GNS is a bunch of published essays. The only people who consider brain damage to be in any way the foundation of GNS are the people like you who dislike GNS and saw something they could use as a weapon against it. A lot of 'GNS people' repudiated the brain damage comments when they heard them. Do Mel Gibson's latter day anti-semitic rants retrospectively make Lethal Weapon and Mad Max racist films? There is a dividing line between the creator and the things he has created.

Quote from: soviet;724516GNS isn't 'everything Ron Edwards says or does'. GNS is a bunch of published essays. The only people who consider brain damage to be in any way the foundation of GNS are the people like you who dislike GNS and saw something they could use as a weapon against it. A lot of 'GNS people' repudiated the brain damage comments when they heard them. Do Mel Gibson's latter day anti-semitic rants retrospectively make Lethal Weapon and Mad Max racist films? There is a dividing line between the creator and the things he has created.

I hear what you are saying, seperate the artist from the art. And to an extent i do agree. Like i said before, i have no problem with edwards personally, and i don't want to judge someone for one thing (or a few things) they said on the internet years ago. In the few interactions i had with him, he seemed like a nice guy to me. I also realize it isn't just Ron, that others were involved int he devleopment of the forge and many of them are nice people. My criticiism of this stuff is more about the concepts and how they are presented, rather than the individual personalities.

With the whole brain damage thing, you are talking about a foundational essay here. We are not judging lethal weapon, we are judging passion of the christ. I do think, having read that essay, and seeing how it appears to be pretty important to GNS theory, that it is entirely valid to criticize the brain damage remark (and really the spirit the remark embodied), and to wonder if the tone of that essay contributed to some of the problems down the road. He makes some pretty strong claims in that piece about playing the game a particular way leaving permanent effects on a person's ability to be creative. To me, that just takes playstyle debates too far. And I feel like there are echoes of it in some of the other forge stuff i have read. I do realize there was a whole forum there and it wasn't monolithic. However you have to understand, anyone who encounters the forge for the first time, the first thing they do is read essays like that and read over the GNS glossary. Those are the things you find when you look up GNS and the forge.

All that said, i do not have a problem with people finding GNS helpful. I will admit it annoys me though when folks advocate for its use too aggressively (which i have encountered). When I run into such discussions, i can't help but think about this essay.

Quote from: Brad J. Murray;724092There's another way in which a model can be valuable to designers other than elevating success. A model defines a map, in a way, of the solution space of its context (games in this case), and part of what's useful in a new map is all the unexplored regions that are revealed by it. These are potentially games that haven't been tried before (perhaps with good reason) and that's pretty interesting.

Yes, I think that's a pretty good summary of what I get out of the GNS essays.

Quote from: robiswrong;724089That's based on two premises:

1) That Gamism, Narrativism, and Simulationism are the primary drivers of what players want, and the best way to categorize games

2) That they are mutually exclusive

I disagree with both premises.

It doesn't say that they are mutually exclusive in that you can only have one or the other. It says that good play or design comes from focusing on one or the other. There will always be some element of the other agendas present, for instance in a narrativist game there might still be elements of tactics and competition in a duel with your character's enemy, or in a gamist game there might still be some fun parts where your character makes a stand for what he believes in or the like.

Quote from: robiswrong;724089Models aren't ever true, just useful. And the quality of a theory is based on its predictive capability.  So is GNS a model aimed at designers, or is it a model aimed at players?  Either way, we should be able to compare its predictions with reality, and get an idea of whether it's actually a useful theory/model or not.

If it's aimed at players, then it would stand to be true that the GNS split would be a useful tool to determine if a given player will like a game or not.  Is it?  Not in my experience.

If it's aimed at designers, then games conforming to its theories should be relatively successful.  If we ignore the elephants in the room, do GNS games actually have any measurable level of success, even in comparison to other, smaller games?  I think it's reasonable to say that the indie hit of the last year or so is Fate Core... which is not based on GNS theory at all.  Hell, it doesn't even fit well in any particular GNS category.

Lastly, if it's aimed at designers, and an accurate theory at all, then it should be able to explain the success of large games, even if they don't completely match up or weren't designed with GNS in mind - so does GNS explain how people are enjoying Pathfinder, D&D, or the other 'top' games?

I agree with you about models not needing to be true, just useful. Maybe GNS isn't a complete model of the roleplaying universe (for one thing, it only really work if you accept the premise that system matters). But I've found it useful as a tool for my own games design.

I think it's also true to say that GNS isn't a theory of commercial success and that to some extent focusing on one agenda will be detrimental to your bottom line. It's no coincidence that so many GNS-inspired games are indie games with other uncommercial punk/pretentious qualities such as book size, content, distribution method, etc.

The way that GNS explains people enjoying Pathfinder and so on is that people just ignore or change ('drift') the rules that don't fit in with what they want. Houseruling is a big part of the RPG hobby after all. Liking GNS doesn't mean you hate mainstream or non-focused games. I like GNS and my primary game is D&D (of various editions). I know that Ron Edwards said that a lot of gamers aren't having fun but I don't think you need to buy into that to get something out of GNS.

These are the lessons I took from GNS and how I use it in my game design:

• System matters. Rules are a tool you can use positively to create an effect.
• Games work best when the players know how they are supposed to play. Is it primarily about killing the orcs, experiencing Middle-earth, or telling a cool story? Or something else?  
• The text of the game should therefore clearly explain the intended play approach and the rules should support or reinforce it.
• The G, N, and S essays describe three basic styles of play to consider as examples of this (but note that within them there are various divisions and approaches - the agendas are not monolithic).

Quote from: soviet;724516Like dissociated mechanics you mean? :-)

Maybe some people liked GNS for that, I don't know. But I liked it as a tool for game design.

GNS isn't 'everything Ron Edwards says or does'. GNS is a bunch of published essays. The only people who consider brain damage to be in any way the foundation of GNS are the people like you who dislike GNS and saw something they could use as a weapon against it. A lot of 'GNS people' repudiated the brain damage comments when they heard them. Do Mel Gibson's latter day anti-semitic rants retrospectively make Lethal Weapon and Mad Max racist films? There is a dividing line between the creator and the things he has created.

I don't know what disassociated mechanics are, but possibly.

But let's look at the theory that "GNS isn't everything Ron Edwards says or does."

Overwhelmingly -- overwhelmingly, and in this thread -- GNS discussion that is in any way critical of the theory is theorists telling people they're wrong about it.

While it's true that the theory is poorly written, when so much of the discussion hinges on interpretation, I think it's important to go with someone who knows what all those words mean. And -- pretty much -- that's Ron and me (the GNS Cop).

And since no one's going to take my word for it, I'll go with Ron.

So, is Brain Damage part of the theory? Well, Ron says it is, and he's said it from the beginning -- in the very first essay, it's the "something worse" that Narrativists get when everyone else gets "ongoing power struggle."

The Brain Damage essays were in no way a departure from the theory stuff, itself -- it's in line with everything else.

What's different is that it's clear.

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: soviet;724524It doesn't say that they are mutually exclusive in that you can only have one or the other. It says that good play or design comes from focusing on one or the other. There will always be some element of the other agendas present, for instance in a narrativist game there might still be elements of tactics and competition in a duel with your character's enemy, or in a gamist game there might still be some fun parts where your character makes a stand for what he believes in or the like.
[/LIST]

I think this is where most of the disagreement centers though. If someone says, I like games with focused design, I have no objection. If they say the GNS agenda categories are helpful to my game design or play at the table, again no objection. When they say (often quite insistently) good design is focused on one if these agendas, that is where I disagree because it doesn't seem to be supported by anything other than a subjective preference for playstyles oriented around one of these agendas. I get that it is useful for some people, what i dont get is the idea that that somehow leads to GNS based design being better than others.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;724517I hear what you are saying, seperate the artist from the art. And to an extent i do agree. Like i said before, i have no problem with edwards personally, and i don't want to judge someone for one thing (or a few things) they said on the internet years ago. In the few interactions i had with him, he seemed like a nice guy to me. I also realize it isn't just Ron, that others were involved int he devleopment of the forge and many of them are nice people. My criticiism of this stuff is more about the concepts and how they are presented, rather than the individual personalities.

With the whole brain damage thing, you are talking about a foundational essay here. We are not judging lethal weapon, we are judging passion of the christ. I do think, having read that essay, and seeing how it appears to be pretty important to GNS theory, that it is entirely valid to criticize the brain damage remark (and really the spirit the remark embodied), and to wonder if the tone of that essay contributed to some of the problems down the road. He makes some pretty strong claims in that piece about playing the game a particular way leaving permanent effects on a person's ability to be creative. To me, that just takes playstyle debates too far. And I feel like there are echoes of it in some of the other forge stuff i have read. I do realize there was a whole forum there and it wasn't monolithic. However you have to understand, anyone who encounters the forge for the first time, the first thing they do is read essays like that and read over the GNS glossary. Those are the things you find when you look up GNS and the forge.

All that said, i do not have a problem with people finding GNS helpful. I will admit it annoys me though when folks advocate for its use too aggressively (which i have encountered). When I run into such discussions, i can't help but think about this essay.

Brendan, you are consistently the most thoughtful and reasonable poster on this site, and I mostly agree with you. Where we differ is the foundational quality of the brain damage stuff.

The brain damage stuff was said more than two years after the GNS essays were written. It was said by the writer of the GNS essays, true, albeit on some other site in a response to a blog post (I think?). It may be true that for Ron Edwards those comments are a big part of why he wrote the GNS stuff and it just took a long time to come out, I don't know. Or maybe he thought it up later as an extrapolation of his earlier work.

But when I read the original GNS essays I don't feel like I am reading some terrible diatribe against certain kinds of playstyles or players, and the game I designed with some inspiration from those essays is not a continuation of that war. For me GNS and Ron Edwards' brain damage comments (or indeed Ron Edwards himself) are separate things. Liking one doesn't mean I agree with the other.

Quote from: -E.;724525So, is Brain Damage part of the theory? Well, Ron says it is

So you think that Mad Max, Lethal Weapon, and Bird on a Wire are anti-semitic films?

I don't think it necessarily matters whether Ron Edwards says it is or not. The GNS essays are the essays that were actually written and published at the time. If he wants to publish some new ones that focus around brain damage or something then I will simply ignore them and continue to use the old ones.

I get that looney angry raving people feel the need to write long convoluted essays expressing their issues to the world at large, but what I don't get is why certain parishes constantly take them on board and try to live their lives by them.

Quote from: Benoist;724100That is just not true, as pointed out previously on this thread. As soon as you categorize Creative Agendas, you are categorizing gamers themselves and what they primarily seek in their game sessions, hence, games catering specifically to those needs, since "incoherence" from a Forgist point of view is bad and unacceptable.

Wait wait wait. The Ron Edwards quote that E posted supports what I said and disproves what Pundit said.

Quote from: Originally Posted by Ron Edwards2. I am on record as stating that I use the Creative Agenda terms to classify people. But that is not the same as saying the terms are defined for such a purpose. Nor is it the same as saying that any person can be matched to any one of the CAs.

Bolding mine.

I see it like film genres. Horror films are a thing. Most horror films are going to involve some elements of comedy, romance, political allegory, or whatever as well. But generally the best films pick one primary genre to focus on and use the others as spices. Most people like a variety of film genres as long as they are done well. Sometimes you're in the mood for Dawn of the Dead, sometimes for Punchdrunk Love. If someone primarily likes horror films we might say there were a horror film fan but we wouldn't mean that they couldn't ever watch other kinds of films or that any element of comedy or science fiction in their horror films would be spat on in disgust.

I like different types of films. I like different types of RPGs. I like different types of food. I think most people are the same.  

Quote from: Benoist;724100That's the kind of post of yours that makes me think you either lie, or don't know what the hell you are talking about.

Well, I think that's the lot of anyone who posts here who doesn't automatically take part in the two minute hate. Disagreeing with the common wisdom here doesn't necessarily make me a liar or a fool.

Quote from: soviet;724530So you think that Mad Max, Lethal Weapon, and Bird on a Wire are anti-semitic films?

I don't think it necessarily matters whether Ron Edwards says it is or not. The GNS essays are the essays that were actually written and published at the time. If he wants to publish some new ones that focus around brain damage or something then I will simply ignore them and continue to use the old ones.

I think GNS says that some games (some incredibly successful ones) create on-going power struggle and "something worse" for Narrativists.

That "something worse" is clarified to be brain damage

That's what the theory says and has always said. People who think that it says something else haven't read it or have ignored the actual words used to write it.

Which is common because there's lots of words and they're not all that well put together.

This isn't a case of tarring the theory because the guy who wrote it was bigoted. It's a case of the theory, itself being hilarious and indefensible.

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: soviet;724529Brendan, you are consistently the most thoughtful and reasonable poster on this site, and I mostly agree with you. Where we differ is the foundational quality of the brain damage stuff.

The brain damage stuff was said more than two years after the GNS essays were written. It was said by the writer of the GNS essays, true, albeit on some other site in a response to a blog post (I think?). It may be true that for Ron Edwards those comments are a big part of why he wrote the GNS stuff and it just took a long time to come out, I don't know. Or maybe he thought it up later as an extrapolation of his earlier work.

But when I read the original GNS essays I don't feel like I am reading some terrible diatribe against certain kinds of playstyles or players, and the game I designed with some inspiration from those essays is not a continuation of that war. For me GNS and Ron Edwards' brain damage comments (or indeed Ron Edwards himself) are separate things. Liking one doesn't mean I agree with the other.

My unerstanding of the chronology is likely innacurate, since i only became aware of GNS after it had been around for years. If this is all correct, it certainly changes the foundational claim, but i would still make a couple of few observations here.

The brain damage comment is still by the same person who did write many of the foundational essays, so seperating the two is going to be difficult for people. It would be like a director commenting on one of his own movies years later, and revealing it was about something a lot of people find disagreeable. Some people can seperate those things, others can't. And others may not judge the director himself, but judge the work by the new comments.

Another thing to keep in mind, most people who encounter the forge, do so after it gets brought up in debates online. The chronology you point to isn't clear to people coming in after the fact. to me coming in at a later date, the impression I got was this was the genesis (simply because of how online postings and links tend to look).

A lot of us, have encountered enough proponents of GNS who seem to take the brain damage comment to heart, that it colors our understanding of the model itself and the forge. When I have bumped into it online, it is often as part of a forceful argument, declaring this approach the path to good design and others somehow out of date or non-reflective. And the jargon is dizzying and exlusionary if you are not familiar with it, so even just by speaking in forge-speak, it can come off as elitist to those of us who prefer to speak in everyday language.

Again, if people find that stuff useful, i have no objection. It is when I feel like someone is evangalizing to me or deriding design appraoches and playstyles i enjoy that i start to have a problem.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;724526I think this is where most of the disagreement centers though. If someone says, I like games with focused design, I have no objection. If they say the GNS agenda categories are helpful to my game design or play at the table, again no objection. When they say (often quite insistently) good design is focused on one if these agendas, that is where I disagree because it doesn't seem to be supported by anything other than a subjective preference for playstyles oriented around one of these agendas. I get that it is useful for some people, what i dont get is the idea that that somehow leads to GNS based design being better than others.

I'm not sure I have an answer for that really. I think that GNS based design (or at least, playstyle-focused design - I don't think it necessarily has to map to the actual essays) is better than other types of design. But you're right that's subjective, I don't mean to claim that GNS/focused games are scientifically superior in some way. Just that, for what I want out of a set of rules, focused games are more likely to achieve that.

For instance if you asked me to name the best band ever I would say New Order, but what I really mean is that they're my favourite band and that the qualities they exemplify are what i think are the best qualities for a band to have. It's not an objective assessment though.

Quote from: soviet;724530So you think that Mad Max, Lethal Weapon, and Bird on a Wire are anti-semitic films?

 ones.

I don't want to get sidetracked by politics here, but this is a relevant point. I grew up in a very jewish area and consider myself half-Jewish (though I know there are problems with that designation). While i still enjoy Mel Gibson movies like braveheart and lethal weapon, and mad max, i have to admit, I am uneasy about viewing them and feel a bit guilty when i do. i have Jewish friends who simply won't watch his films, regardless of the year they were made. I don't think his later statements make the earlier movies anti-semitic, but i can see how people have trouble seperating him from his work (just like some people have trouble seperating woody allen and his work). I think it kind of applies here, especially since ron was commenting on his earlier statements on the subject.

Quote from: -E.;724533I think GNS says that some games (some incredibly successful ones) create on-going power struggle and "something worse" for Narrativists.

That "something worse" is clarified to be brain damage

That's what the theory says and has always said. People who think that it says something else haven't read it or have ignored the actual words used to write it..

No that's wrong, you're adding later context to try to change the original work.

If Mel Gibson turned up and said 'hey remember that bit where I shot that guy in Mad Max? He represented all jews and I hate jews', would that magically mean that Mad Max has all this time been an anti-semitic film and that anyone who likes it is an anti-semite?

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;724536I don't want to get sidetracked by politics here, but this is a relevant point. I grew up in a very jewish area and consider myself half-Jewish (though I know there are problems with that designation). While i still enjoy Mel Gibson movies like braveheart and lethal weapon, and mad max, i have to admit, I am uneasy about viewing them and feel a bit guilty when i do. i have Jewish friends who simply won't watch his films, regardless of the year they were made. I don't think his later statements make the earlier movies anti-semitic, but i can see how people have trouble seperating him from his work (just like some people have trouble seperating woody allen and his work).

I think that's fair, and if people want to dismiss GNS because of Ron Edwards' later comments, then I respect that, and the same with dismissing Mel Gibson films because of his later comments. I'm just saying that it's possible to still enjoy those earlier works without buying into other agendas later expressed by their creators.

Quote from: soviet;724535I'm not sure I have an answer for that really. I think that GNS based design (or at least, playstyle-focused design - I don't think it necessarily has to map to the actual essays) is better than other types of design. But you're right that's subjective, I don't mean to claim that GNS/focused games are scientifically superior in some way. Just that, for what I want out of a set of rules, focused games are more likely to achieve that.

And this is an attitude i have zero objection to (i also understand that when people say something is good design, they often just mean "it is the kind of design i like"). In the past few years though, i have encountered so many people online pushing for specific metrics or models as good design that i get frustrated with it and one of those metrics i see held up is GNS. And in these instances, it is people saying not what you say here, but that their prefered approach is superior and mine is broken somehow. That can't lead anywhere but to hostility. So that is where the criticism comes in from me.

Quote from: soviet;724537No that's wrong, you're adding later context to try to change the original work.

If Mel Gibson turned up and said 'hey remember that bit where I shot that guy in Mad Max? He represented all jews and I hate jews', would that magically mean that Mad Max has all this time been an anti-semitic film and that anyone who likes it is an anti-semite?

It would certainly mean that Mel Gibson has always been a cunt.

Quote from: soviet;724537If Mel Gibson turned up and said 'hey remember that bit where I shot that guy in Mad Max? He represented all jews and I hate jews', would that magically mean that Mad Max has all this time been an anti-semitic film and that anyone who likes it is an anti-semite?

He didn't direct or write mad max, so as an actor his control of the subtext would be limited. So in that example you give, it would be him really just saying what he was thinking as an actor during the scene. But we are talking about an essay someone wrote and later commentary by the writer. So if mel Gibson came out and said, "Remember when I made braveheart? That was all about my hatred of Jews". You kind of have to factor it in, if the guy who made it, says that's what the film was supposed to be about.

This Mel Gibson line of argument is completely ridiculous.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;724540In the past few years though, i have encountered so many people online pushing for specific metrics or models as good design that i get frustrated with it and one of those metrics i see held up is GNS.

From the beginning, GNS was presented as an objective theory based on general observation and with predictive power. If people want to say they like games based on a certain notion of coherent design, I can't argue, but GNS doesn't start with "I would like to see more games that..."

Quote from: Arminius;724545From the beginning, GNS was presented as an objective theory based on general observation and with predictive power. If people want to say they like games based on a certain notion of coherent design, I can't argue, but GNS doesn't start with "I would like to see more games that..."

Again, i am not an expert on GNS. My sense it was a model, and some people would see those as objectively correct representations of gaming, while others would see them as tools that have utility. So if someone says GNS works for them, but they do not believe its objectivley true for everyone, i am happy to take their word for it. With any model or framework, i think there is always the danger people see it as the only way to look at things.

Just read GNS and Other Matters of Role-Playing Theory. It's not as confusing or annoying as the later essays. But even though those add refinements to the definitions, the basic premise is there from the start, Brendan.

It's a short read, and then you don't have to take anyone's word for whether GNS makes generalized, objective, predictive claims.

Quote from: Arminius;724558Just read GNS and Other Matters of Role-Playing Theory. It's not as confusing or annoying as the later essays. But even though those add refinements to the definitions, the basic premise is there from the start, Brendan.

It's a short read, and then you don't have to take anyone's word for whether GNS makes generalized, objective, predictive claims.

I have read it, and honestly have no desire to re-read it again now, as i just found myself in disagreement with so much of what it had to say and there isn't much to be gained by me spending further time on the material (and thus spending less time on other more important things like watching kung fu movies). My point is i can see people looking at it and either seeing it is an objectivley true model or as a model that has utility for them (amd judging from Ron's brain damage commentary I suspect he felt this was more than just a model that happened to work for him). I wasn't really commenting on whether the original essays are framed as such that the former is an embedded assumption. If people are using GNS, and it works for them, but they are not pushing it on me, or being rude about i have no issue. i only have an issue when i feel like someone is evangalizing GNS and acting like it is the only way to design a good game.

You can't fight a Forgist because the premises of their ideas are wrong.  Their ideology is built upon the sand.  A little rain can collapse it, but it won't stop them from believing fervently in it.  If you can't agree that water is wet, there's not much point in discussing something more complex.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;724562My point is i can see people looking at it and either seeing it is an objectivley true model or as a model that has utility for them (amd judging from Ron's brain damage commentary I suspect he felt this was more than just a model that happened to work for him). I wasn't really commenting on whether the original essays are framed as such that the former is an embedded assumption.

Fair enough, I can't really argue with someone's preference for coherent games, either. However if it's being critiqued based on what the foundational texts say, and somebody walks in to say that the theory really means something else "to them", then that's really not a defense of the theory. If I'm to take that person seriously, they must acknowledge that we're now discussing something else, a new branch.

Quote from: soviet;724537No that's wrong, you're adding later context to try to change the original work.

If Mel Gibson turned up and said 'hey remember that bit where I shot that guy in Mad Max? He represented all jews and I hate jews', would that magically mean that Mad Max has all this time been an anti-semitic film and that anyone who likes it is an anti-semite?

Heh. Thanks for reminding me how this works (it's been awhile).

Me: "GNS says game create power-struggle and brain damage."
GNS Theorists: "That's not what it says! You don't understand!"
Me: "Here's a bunch of quotes from the guy who wrote it backing me up."
GNS Theorists: "Ron doesn't understand his own theory!"
Me: "Uh, huh."

This isn't about revisionism. It's about going to the very first essay (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/6/) and reading it and seeing that it says some games (Vampire as the example, but any game the theory finds "incoherent") cause problems for their players -- most likely on-going power struggle, but Narrativist-leaning players (heh... laybling players in the first essay...) are...

"especially screwed"



What does "especially screwed" mean?

Well, the original essay is somewhat coy about it, and it took a few years, but now we know: The Damage.

This kind of thinking is supported throughout the material and the discussion, but if you want to focus on the published articles, you can see the idea that people are hard-wired for stories in the Narrativism essay:

Quote from: Nar GNS EssayI suggest that both Gamist and Narrativist priorities are clear and automatic, with easy-to-see parallels in other activities and apparently founded upon a lot of hardwiring in the human mind (or "psyche" or "spirit" or whatever you want to call it). Whereas I think Simulationist priorities must be trained - it is highly derived play, based mainly on canonical fandom and focus on pastiche, and requires a great deal of contextualized knowledge and stern social reinforcement.

This, of course, is exactly the same theory the Brain Damage explanation lays out: people have this natural ability. To the extent that you can't play Nar, you've been damaged.

It's in the first essay. It's in the Nar essay. It's in the posts. It's agreed on by other key theorists who write (http://lumpley.com/index.php/anyway/thread/162) about the theory:

Quote from: lumply (Vincent Baker)Brain-damaged-as-such or not, some people have a really, really, really hard time understanding. I say, "look, here's a conflict" and they just can't read it.

It's not - I'm pretty sure - it's not because they can read it but they disagree. When that happens, they say "that's not a conflict, because blah blah." And I say "oh, you're right, how about this conflict instead?" And they say "cool, go on." Or else I say "it IS a conflict, because blah blah." And they say "oh, yeah, cool, go on." Or else they say "conflict, getcha, but I really don't care about conflicts" and I say "cool, to each her own."

No, as far as I can tell, it's because they just can't read it. They can read the words, but at a certain level they're functionally illiterate.

I'm not thinking of anyone in particular here. Just reflecting on my experience overall.

Is "functionally illiterate," I wonder, more offensive or less than "brain damaged"?

I can understand not liking what the theory says -- it's pretty insulting and obviously wrong. But arguing it doesn't, in fact, say that, requires the same omission in reading Vincent ascribes to the damaged: you'd have to be "functionally illiterate."

Cheers,
-E.

Don't forget the accusations of child abuse.

Everyone always forgets about the child abuse.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;724550Again, i am not an expert on GNS. My sense it was a model, and some people would see those as objectively correct representations of gaming, while others would see them as tools that have utility. So if someone says GNS works for them, but they do not believe its objectivley true for everyone, i am happy to take their word for it. With any model or framework, i think there is always the danger people see it as the only way to look at things.

People will tell you all kinds of things worked for them -- there are people who believe the astrology thing in the newspaper gives them insight into how to live their day.

When someone says that GNS taught them about gamers having different agendas or it helped them design their game, I recommend skepticism -- they may believe that, but it's probably not true.

GNS's agendas are fluid and weird and do not cover most of what people roleplay for: the experience of playing their character. GNS-Sim used to cover that, but the author (Edwards) deprecated and disavowed the Sim essay and re-described GNS-Sim as being about celebration of a specific fiction. That leaves all kinds of play in the "uncategorized" bucket.

GNS's instructions for game design are even lighter and less relevant. It rarely gives any specific instruction and is so muddled on a fundamental level that it ends up a bit like an inkblot: people see what they want to see, often ignoring large chunks about what it actually says (look at soviet, in this thread).

To the extent that GNS predicts anything it predicts that games which allow for a variety of play styles and/or whose flavor text and GM advice aren't in some (undefined) way compatible with the mechanics will result (most likely) in on-going power-struggle.

In other words, it's psychological model of people is that all those horrible adolescent struggles people had when they were fighting with their friends over, and over in the 90's were the game's fault.

If you go read the actual theory threads, you can see how little return there is for the investment -- endless attempts to understand the theory (which never get anywhere -- the whole thing eventually just closes down), arguments over what made-up words mean, questions asking for guidance in how to use it practically (how can you actually tell if someone's Nar or Sim or whatever?) and on-and on.

So yes: people will tell you it opened their eyes. Having looked at the theory (and the theorists, and the revelations people got from it), I wouldn't just assume that's the case.

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: J Arcane;724648Don't forget the accusations of child abuse.

Everyone always forgets about the child abuse.

?I missed that one. Or are you being sarcastic?

Quote from: TristramEvans;724653?I missed that one. Or are you being sarcastic?

Alas, no.

I'm sure -E. can run up the precise quote, but one of Edwards' other gems in the same vein as the 'brain damage' was to suggest that running Vampire for teenagers was tantamount to child abuse.

Might've even been in the same essay, but it's been a while.

Quote from: TristramEvans;724653?I missed that one. Or are you being sarcastic?

In the hilarious, flailing public attempt to explain the Brain Damage (http://indie-rpgs.com/archive/index.php?topic=18707.0) (the orginal post was meant for insider's only) Ron explains how experiences in a person's formative years can change cognitive function.

Quote from: Brain Damage, explainedNow for the discussion of brain damage. I'll begin with a closer analogy. Consider that there's a reason I and most other people call an adult having sex with a, say, twelve-year-old, to be abusive. Never mind if it's, technically speaking, consensual. It's still abuse. Why? Because the younger person's mind is currently developing - these experiences are going to be formative in ways that experiences ten years later will not be. I'm not sure if you are familiar with the characteristic behaviors of someone with this history, but I am very familiar with them - and they are not constructive or happiness-oriented behaviors at all. The person's mind has been damaged while it was forming, and it takes a hell of a lot of re-orientation even for functional repairs (which is not the same as undoing the damage).

And,

Quote from: The DAMAGE!Broken Narrativism, with all the features of Prima Donna and Typhoid Mary described in my essay, but wrapped up in a subcultural package and reinforcing procedures that impair normal human mental function as consistently as, for instance, inappropriate sexual experiences prior to a certain age.

So, just an analogy. Bad games damage the brain of formative children in just the same way diddling a 12-year-old does -- which is not to say that that they are equal in any way, just to point out that

1) Brains can be damaged by experiences and
2) Fixing the damage is non-trivial

Ron wasn't trying to be inflammatory or anything when laying out his thoughts -- he just reached for the first analogy that came to mind that he felt everyone would understand and agree with.

Cheers,
-E

Quote from: -E.;724655In the hilarious, flailing public attempt to explain the Brain Damage (http://indie-rpgs.com/archive/index.php?topic=18707.0) (the orginal post was meant for insider's only) Ron explains how experiences in a person's formative years can change cognitive function.



And,



So, just an analogy. Bad games damage the brain of formative children in just the same way diddling a 12-year-old does -- which is not to say that that they are equal in any way, just to point out that

1) Brains can be damaged by experiences and
2) Fixing the damage is non-trivial

Ron wasn't trying to be inflammatory or anything when laying out his thoughts -- he just reached for the first analogy that came to mind that he felt everyone would understand and agree with.

Cheers,
-E

Jesus.

those quotes are actually worse than the one I was thinking of, which was IIRC just a throw-off snark line.

Thank you for reminding me again what an unmitigated shithead Ron Edwards is.

Quote from: J Arcane;724656Jesus.

those quotes are actually worse than the one I was thinking of, which was IIRC just a throw-off snark line.

Thank you for reminding me again what an unmitigated shithead Ron Edwards is.

The quotes are pretty horrible.

The whole theory is full of stuff like that. It's view of traditional gamers is condescending and dreadful -- they're hidebound, superstitious, infantile, etc. etc. Mega-popular games like Vampire are obviously only popular because they work their jedi mind tricks on weak gamer minds (because, obviously, they couldn't be fun to play!), etc. etc.

Games patterned after the most successful game of all time are "heart breakers" with little reason to exist.

I could keep going. It's bad advice for gamers, bad advice for game designers. Bad advice, all around.

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: -E.;724659I could keep going. It's bad advice for gamers, bad advice for game designers. Bad advice, all around.

And a lot of people bought into it, hook, line, and sinker.

Quote from: -E.;724649So yes: people will tell you it opened their eyes. Having looked at the theory (and the theorists, and the revelations people got from it), I wouldn't just assume that's the case.

So those of us who did find it useful are lying? Stupid? Brain damaged?

Quote from: -E.;724647It's in the first essay. It's in the Nar essay. It's in the posts. It's agreed on by other key theorists who write (http://lumpley.com/index.php/anyway/thread/162) about the theory:

What Ron Edwards or Vincent Baker or any other 'key theorist' says now is irrelevant to me. The original essays remain unchanged.

It seems to me that there is a very large middle being excluded here. The available options are not limited to 'GNS is shit and I hate Ron Edwards' versus 'Every word in GNS is objectively correct and I love Ron Edwards'. There is also 'I found a lot of useful stuff in GNS and also some offensive or inaccurate stuff which I have ignored. I will take any other writings by Ron Edwards on their own merits'.

I'm not sure why this is so controversial. People can broadly identify with or use something without having to adopt it 100%. In fact this is the way that most people go about things.

Well, Mistwell, looks like you inadvertently got a front-row seat here.

Quote from: soviet;724757So those of us who did find it useful are lying? Stupid? Brain damaged?

Quote from: soviet;724759What Ron Edwards or Vincent Baker or any other 'key theorist' says now is irrelevant to me. The original essays remain unchanged.

Quote from: soviet;724760It seems to me that there is a very large middle being excluded here. The available options are not limited to 'GNS is shit and I hate Ron Edwards' versus 'Every word in GNS is objectively correct and I love Ron Edwards'. There is also 'I found a lot of useful stuff in GNS and also some offensive or inaccurate stuff which I have ignored. I will take any other writings by Ron Edwards on their own merits'.

I'm not sure why this is so controversial. People can broadly identify with or use something without having to adopt it 100%. In fact this is the way that most people go about things.

Saying that "the essays remain unchanged" -- but what the people who wrote them or were entrusted by the author to explain them is irrelevant -- seems strange to me:

The Damage isn't something that was appended at the end. It was part of the theory from the beginning (check out my earlier post). The people you're ignoring are the people who best understand what the theory says. I mean yeah: they didn't want to come out and call people brain-damaged in plain English (doing so in 2006 was a misstep), but the theory you're supporting is shot through with that stuff from day one.

Let's look at what the original essay says -- even ignoring the Brain Damage Reveal that came later:

Creative Agenda
GNS says

• Fun, in RPG-gaming comes from fulfilling a Creative Agenda of which there are three-and-only-three (G, N, S)
• Game designs can facilitate that fulfillment by mechanically supporting an agenda (coherent)
• Game designs that don't focus on a CA are "incoherent" and therefore not-fun (examples from the original essay include Vampire and AD&D 2nd Ed)

So far, this looks reasonable, and if you don't read it carefully, it sounds a bit like 'different people like different things in their gaming,' but it starts to raise some questions: AD&D 2nd Ed and Vampire where popular games. The theory says they shouldn't have been fun: they're incoherent. It attributes their success to "economic" factors which are never really explained.

At this point, anyone reading the theory should have alarm bells going off in their heads: it fails to explain observed reality unless you assume that gamers playing the most popular games were not actually having fun.

That, in fact, is what Edwards is saying. Rather than accept that he might have unusually narrow tastes, he assumes his preferences are universal and most gamers are writing, buying and playing games that don't appeal to them.

It gets worse.

Incoherence
TBM/GNS asserts that when a game fails to support a single agenda are incoherent and result in either a "drift" toward some single CA, thus becoming functional or -- and this is where it gets good (and by "good" I mean "bad"), ongoing power-struggle:

Quote from: GNS essayMost likely, however, the players and GM carry out an ongoing power-struggle over the actions of the characters, with the integrity of "my guy" held as a club on the behalf of the former and the integrity of "the story" held as a club on behalf of the latter.

Most likely. Power-Struggle. Actually ongoing power-struggle.

That's right: because the game wasn't written using GNS theory, the most likely outcome at the table is for everyone to act in an awful, unfun, socially adolescent way, not just once, but on-going.

This is ridiculous on a number of levels, the most basic one being the idea that people are engaging in on-going power-struggle because of game rules, and not because of their own issues.

The theory's model of human behavior and outcomes fails basic psychology, but it's appealing to people who felt victimized and are looking for someone to blame.

That's the core insight -- that gamers are narrow, intolerant creatures who need rigid formal structures or else they not only won't get along, but they're so sheep-like, they'll keep coming back over and over to the weekly beatings when it's nothing but dysfunction and drudgery.

Is that really what you think of gamers? If not, do you really want to be supporting a theory that, out of the gate, presents that reality?

But maybe that CA, GNS stuff wasn't what you liked. The theory had some other parts to it.

Thoughtful Discussion About RPGs: rec.games.frp.advocacy
The things most people say they like about GNS are actually from the Usenet group rec.games.frp.advocacy (http://www.hoboes.com/pub/Role-Playing/Rec.Games.Frp/RGF.Advocacy%20Glossary/). Discussion there created the things most people think GNS says -- Gamism, Simulationism, and Dramatism. If you ask someone who knows GNS to describe what GNS says, 9 times out of 10, they'll give you the r.g.f.a. descriptions.

The Usenet group also came up with other abstractions and taxonomies that GNS appropriates like Social Contract and Stances (Actor Stance, Author Stance, etc).

Those were useful and interesting, and aren't tied to any weird theories about human psychology (like any set of terms on the Internet, they were gleefully used by identity warriors to attack shallow and sad Gamists, but I think we can agree that the Gamists had it coming)

In terms of new thinking, beyond the (horrible) CA stuff, the Forge's Theory discussions came up with generic terms for common aspects of games like Experience Points ("Reward Systems"), core mechanics ("Resolution") and so on which are of questionable value -- yes, they represent a certain degree of abstraction which might be useful to a novice game designer, but what they add in abstraction, I think they lose in being vague and jargony.

At the end of the day, I don't see much in there that most people who had played more than one game wouldn't have intuitively figured out.

So, to answer your questions:
If someone tells me they found it useful, my usual assumption is that they liked the stuff cribbed from r.g.f.a. (which was pretty good), and didn't understand most of the theory.

If they actually believe that CAs are the key to fun for most people and Incoherence and trying to believe The Impossible Thing Before Breakfast cause power struggle, and that most gamers who played D&D 2nd Ed or Vampire weren't having fun, and that those games were successful for "economic" reasons or any of that, then I would suspect that they liked the theory because it supported their agenda.

As for not caring what Edwards or Baker says, you should. They understand the theory you're off in public supporting -- they wrote it. You want to support parts of it, but ignore the rest of it. That doesn't really work: the stuff in the original essay is pretty damning and is fully consistent, if not quite as clearly stated, as the Brain Damage post. I submit that's not intellectually honest.

If you like things like stances and social contract and stuff, you should credit r.g.f.a. GDS, which came up with them. If you like some of the terminology, by all means use it -- it's not central to the Forge theory, anyway. And if you like alternative game structures (e.g. GM-less play), then I recommend advocating for that without the baggage of insults and whacked psychology that GNS/TBM brings to the table.

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: pemerton;724494I guess from my point of view, I wouldn't be reading or posting on this site except that someone started a thread here to get advice on how to argue with me on another site, simply because I expressed sympathy for an analysis of RPGs that they don't agree with, and then he went on to call me naive, authoritarian and (by implication) a cocksucker.

I never said or implied cocksucker.

QuoteAll without doing me the courtesy of PMing me on the site that we both post on.

I linked TO THIS THREAD, in the thread you're talking about.  Maybe you missed it, but others did not.  It came up in the thread.  Maybe you were too busy being authoritarian and naive, and experiencing a martyr complex wherein you imagine people are calling you a cocksucker when they're not, to have noticed me linking to it and the discussion that followed.

Quote from: One Horse Town;724761Well, Mistwell, looks like you inadvertently got a front-row seat here.

So it would seem, though not sure it was inadvertent.

Edit: this is a reply to -E

I already said that there are things in the original essays that I don't agree with, and you have already quote-mined some of them in great detail. But there are still plenty of things in there that I do find useful and no not all of them are from GDS. The idea that one has to either accept all of GNS or reject all of it is ridiculous, especially when you continually try to expand GNS to include anything that Ron or anyone else with a forge account has ever said. I'm not sure what you are trying to achieve here.

Quote from: -E.;724765At this point, anyone reading the theory should have alarm bells going off in their heads: it fails to explain observed reality unless you assume that gamers playing the most popular games were not actually having fun.

As is usually the case, trouble gets started when unbalanced ideologues who set out with preconceived notions of how the world should work seek evidence to support those views, discarding all evidence to the contrary. Then people more fond of flowery assertive rhetoric than independent thought or actually using their brains jump on the bandwagon, and hilarity ensues.

Also I have sigged your comment, Sir or Madam.

Quote from: Mistwell;724776So it would seem, though not sure it was inadvertent.

Tut, tut, old boy.

Quote from: soviet;724085GNS classifies games not gamers. It said that games should focus on only one agenda, true, but not that individual gamers liked only one type. I think the expected ideal is that games are specialised but groups pick and choose depending on what kind of campaign they feel like running at the time.

Lenny Balsera--a FATE system designer--gave me a useful insight in an on-line discussion about GNS a while back. Rather than being about games or gamers per se, GNS "Creative Agenda" apply to groups and sessions: the place where gamers intersect with games. This explains the centrality of "reward cycles" to the Forge approach, since only by looking at what table-level behavior gets reinforced or given incentives over a long enough period of play can you really tell what players are enjoying (or finding problematic) about a particular game as played with a particular group.

I like that way of thinking about it because it highlights the interaction of individuals and their preferences with a game's system as implemented during a given session of play. So much going on!

Anyway, that insight always struck me as a fundamental stipulation that should have been given a lot more emphasis in explanations of the Forge approach and attempts to apply it to design efforts.

Quote from: -E.;724647Heh. Thanks for reminding me how this works (it's been awhile).

Me: "GNS says game create power-struggle and brain damage."
GNS Theorists: "That's not what it says! You don't understand!"
Me: "Here's a bunch of quotes from the guy who wrote it backing me up."
GNS Theorists: "Ron doesn't understand his own theory!"
Me: "Uh, huh."

Wait for it.

Quote from: soviet;724759What Ron Edwards or Vincent Baker or any other 'key theorist' says now is irrelevant to me. The original essays remain unchanged.

:rotfl:

Well done, -E.

Seriously? You've got to be kidding me. E basically went through all the usual deflections about how "that's not really what the essays say" (yes it is), "well you can take a bit of GNS and not the rest" (no you can't, because the basic theory is formulated as an either/or paradigm - either you agree with the notion that incoherent games spawn power struggles and create brain damage, and therefore advocate for the Forge's coherent design, or you don't and embrace incoherent designs, which means you agree that you have been brain-damaged while playing AD&D2, since you agree with the theory) and on, but nooo! Like three posts later, we get the exact same stuff repeated like E's posts just didn't happen. WTF?

Sometimes you just can't win. People will want to see what they want to see and that's it.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;724797Well done, -E.

He successfully predicted something I had already said earlier in the thread? Well done indeed.

Quote from: Benoist;724801Seriously? You've got to be kidding me. E basically went through all the usual deflections about how "that's not really what the essays say" (yes it is),

No it isn't. The very quote that E supplied earlier demolishes his argument about what GNS says about being meant to categorise players.

Quote from: Benoist;724801"well you can take a bit of GNS and not the rest" (no you can't, because the basic theory is formulated as an either/or paradigm - either you agree with the notion that incoherent games spawn power struggles and create brain damage, and therefore advocate for the Forge's coherent design, or you don't and embrace incoherent designs, which means you agree that you have been brain-damaged while playing AD&D2, since you agree with the theory)

That's a false dichotomy. I don't have to agree with brain damage and power struggle etc to like focused/coherent games.  

Quote from: Benoist;724801Sometimes you just can't win. People will want to see what they want to see and that's it.

You got that right.

Quote from: soviet;724805He successfully predicted something I had already said earlier in the thread?

What's funny is that, even after having it pointed out by -E. you continue offering the same bullshit rationalisations.

Quote from: soviet;724779Edit: this is a reply to -E

I already said that there are things in the original essays that I don't agree with, and you have already quote-mined some of them in great detail. But there are still plenty of things in there that I do find useful and no not all of them are from GDS. The idea that one has to either accept all of GNS or reject all of it is ridiculous, especially when you continually try to expand GNS to include anything that Ron or anyone else with a forge account has ever said. I'm not sure what you are trying to achieve here.

Look, firstly I never tried to bring in anything that "anyone with a forge account has ever said," okay?

That's a grotesque exaggeration, and you know it.

I'm using Edwards and Baker because they are authorities on the meaning of the theory. They understand it better than you do.

But my main point -- what I was trying to achieve -- was to bring clarity to people's understanding of the model.

GNS model discussions all go the same way: someone claims it makes insulting claims about games and gamers, and GNS advocates come and tell them they're wrong.

Often they are: the theory is written to empower this. It's very easy to make technical mistakes about what it says and what it only implies. It's designed to be used to insult people while then stepping back and claiming they just "didn't understand -- man... why are you harshing on our fun!? No one ever said GM's were bad guys!"

That's the pattern with GNS over and over.

That's what it's designed for.

So next time someone says, "GNS says bad things about GMs" or "It classifies and pigeon holes gamers" instead of popping up and saying "that's not what it says," why not start out by saying this:

QuoteGNS/TBM says horrible things about games and gamers. It says game rules create power struggle. It implies that many gamers are unhappy with their hobby and yet submissively and inexplicably continue to engage in it. It suggests roleplaying gamers are too dumb to work out simple analogies, and instead get trapped in emotional, adolescent behavior.

So, while your specific criticism of it might be technically inaccurate, it's understandable how someone who hadn't carefully studied it could come to those conclusions.

As someone who has studied it and found parts of it interesting, I repudiate huge portions of it. I disagree with the whole foundational concept of incoherence and the ideas about struggles between GMs and players as being in some way the responsibility of the rules.

You could still advocate and defend the bits of the model (apparently small ones) that you find useful without defending something you know to be insulting and untenable at its core.

Would that work?

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: -E.;724812Look, firstly I never tried to bring in anything that "anyone with a forge account has ever said," okay?

That's a grotesque exaggeration, and you know it.

I'm using Edwards and Baker because they are authorities on the meaning of the theory. They understand it better than you do.

But my main point -- what I was trying to achieve -- was to bring clarity to people's understanding of the model.

GNS model discussions all go the same way: someone claims it makes insulting claims about games and gamers, and GNS advocates come and tell them they're wrong.

Often they are: the theory is written to empower this. It's very easy to make technical mistakes about what it says and what it only implies. It's designed to be used to insult people while then stepping back and claiming they just "didn't understand -- man... why are you harshing on our fun!? No one ever said GM's were bad guys!"

That's the pattern with GNS over and over.

That's what it's designed for.

So next time someone says, "GNS says bad things about GMs" or "It classifies and pigeon holes gamers" instead of popping up and saying "that's not what it says," why not start out by saying this:



You could still advocate and defend the bits of the model (apparently small ones) that you find useful without defending something you know to be insulting and untenable at its core.

Would that work?

Cheers,
-E.

I don't see Baker as any kind of authority on GNS; Ron Edwards wrote all the essays (certainly the creative agenda ones). But in any event this is a death of the author thing. The bits I liked in GNS are all written down in published essays; nothing anyone including the author adds or removes after the fact is relevant to me. 'What Ron thinks now' or 'What Ron wished he had said' doesn't matter.

Obviously I don't agree that the point of GNS is to insult people. I accept that some of it does. But I think that it's possible to reject those elements and still find value in other elements. I don't reject the idea of incoherence BTW, I just think that the vast majority of people get around it by drifting or ignoring the rules they find jarring rather than engaging in a power struggle. I play with reasonable, well-adjusted adults who can talk things through, and I assume that pretty much everyone else does as well. Focused design to me is a way of making an already enjoyable experience even more fun rather than a tool for preventing arguments and keeping people in line. I think perhaps that's an example of how it is possible to use GNS in a positive way without letting the 'all gamers are unhappy' stuff get in the way.

Quote from: soviet;724820I don't see Baker as any kind of authority on GNS; Ron Edwards wrote all the essays (certainly the creative agenda ones). But in any event this is a death of the author thing. The bits I liked in GNS are all written down in published essays; nothing anyone including the author adds or removes after the fact is relevant to me. 'What Ron thinks now' or 'What Ron wished he had said' doesn't matter.

Obviously I don't agree that the point of GNS is to insult people. I accept that some of it does. But I think that it's possible to reject those elements and still find value in other elements. I don't reject the idea of incoherence BTW, I just think that the vast majority of people get around it by drifting or ignoring the rules they find jarring rather than engaging in a power struggle. I play with reasonable, well-adjusted adults who can talk things through, and I assume that pretty much everyone else does as well. Focused design to me is a way of making an already enjoyable experience even more fun rather than a tool for preventing arguments and keeping people in line. I think perhaps that's an example of how it is possible to use GNS in a positive way without letting the 'all gamers are unhappy' stuff get in the way.

Given that you reject core parts of the foundation, don't agree with the current body of work from the guy who wrote it, and aren't all that familiar with it, then maybe stop correcting people on it?

I mean, you've kind of got your own soviet-GNS thing going that gets rid of most of what's in the first essay and ignores just about everything that generated the later ones... you're not really an authority on what it says and doesn't, so why get into it with people?

Why defend something you know is offensive?

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: -E.;724826Given that you reject core parts of the foundation, don't agree with the current body of work from the guy who wrote it, and aren't all that familiar with it, then maybe stop correcting people on it?

I mean, you've kind of got your own soviet-GNS thing going that gets rid of most of what's in the first essay and ignores just about everything that generated the later ones... you're not really an authority on what it says and doesn't, so why get into it with people?

Why defend something you know is offensive?

Cheers,
-E.

Because it is soviet.

Id like to go in and revise GNS to try and make it useful. Do something to try and mitigate the damage. But no time right now for such frivolities and it would take years to standardize, and thats unlikely as it is.

I think the worste effect of GNS is that it caused such a strong reaction that it effectively ended useful rpg theory discussion-meaning stuff like Robin Laws GM Guide. Useful to gaming and game design.

Quote from: -E.;724826Given that you reject core parts of the foundation, don't agree with the current body of work from the guy who wrote it, and aren't all that familiar with it, then maybe stop correcting people on it?

I mean, you've kind of got your own soviet-GNS thing going that gets rid of most of what's in the first essay and ignores just about everything that generated the later ones... you're not really an authority on what it says and doesn't, so why get into it with people?

Why defend something you know is offensive?

Cheers,
-E.

What? I posted to correct something that pundit said about GNS catgorising players. You then posted a quote from Ron Edwards that supported my statement. So my correction... was correct.

Let's go to the tape.

Here, we see you asserting that, and I quote, "GNS classifies games not gamers."

Quote from: soviet;724085Not quite. GNS classifies games not gamers.

Here, I correct you with the appropriate quote from the guy who wrote the theory.

Quote from: -E.;724099GNS Cop!

Ron Edwards is on the record (http://indie-rpgs.com/archive/index.php?topic=16134.0) as saying he uses GNS to classify people!

Carry on,
-E.

Which is here.

Quote from: Ron Edwards2. I am on record as stating that I use the Creative Agenda terms to classify people.

Here, you move the goal posts, with obfuscatory language

Quote from: soviet;724847What? I posted to correct something that pundit said about GNS catgorising players. You then posted a quote from Ron Edwards that supported my statement. So my correction... was correct.

correct "something?"
Ron Edwards supported "my statement?"

Really?

No, not really.

You already quoted the whole thing and bolded the part you felt correct about, carefully avoiding bolding the part I corrected you on, while bolding the rest of it (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=28662&page=7#top).

That kind of precision mouse work isn't an accident. It's the smoking gun of someone who knows they're wrong, but rather than admit it, tries to obfuscate things with terms like correcting "something" and suggesting Edward's post supported "my statement."

You know better.

You also know that the reason you're using Edwards here, to try to support yourself, but repudiating anything he says in his posts when they say things you don't like is because your attraction to GNS isn't anything it taught you about game design.

It's identity politics. Tribal affiliation. It's what GNS used to be good for, but now it's embarrassing.

You're wrong in your own words, plain as day, for anyone to see and that my correction was spot on (I didn't say "Pundit was right" or "You're wrong about everything," now did I? No, of course not. If I had overstepped, you'd be demanding exact semantics).

It's clear you know you're wrong, because you've clicked carefully around the obviously wrong bit, and you've amended your statements into vague generalities.

Why not just shrug and walk away?

Cheers,
-E.

A fillet of legend, sir; a little off the haunch for me, with just a dab of pepper cream.

Quote from: The Traveller;724853A fillet of legend, sir; a little off the haunch for me, with just a dab of pepper cream.

Heh. Thanks.

Although let me be clear: I don't think these kinds of threads bring out the best in anyone, myself first and foremost.

Why is soviet not going, "Yeah, I was wrong?"

Well, in part because of the identify thing and in part because the guy pressing him (me) is being a laser-guided asshole about it.

But hey, GNS, yeah?
-E.

Quote from: -E.;724850Let's go to the tape.

OK.

Quote from: RPGPundit;724063The problem with GNS is not that it suggested different gamers like different things from their games, that's more or less true. The problem was that it suggested that each gamer liked only ONE thing from their games and that therefore the "perfect" game was one that only appealed to one type of 'creative agenda'.

Quote from: soviet;724085Not quite. GNS classifies games not gamers. It said that games should focus on only one agenda, true, but not that individual gamers liked only one type. I think the expected ideal is that games are specialised but groups pick and choose depending on what kind of campaign they feel like running at the time.

Quote from: Ron Edwards as quoted by E2. I am on record as stating that I use the Creative Agenda terms to classify people. But that is not the same as saying the terms are defined for such a purpose. Nor is it the same as saying that any person can be matched to any one of the CAs.

Quote from: -E.;724850Here, I correct you with the appropriate quote from the guy who wrote the theory.

Which supports what I said. Ron himself uses the terms to classify people, but the terms are not designed for that purpose.

So while Ron does it, it is not the intention of the theory. It is not what is written down in the theory. It is not what the theory contains. It is not part of the theory. It is not part of the theory. It is not part of the theory.

Quote from: -E.;724850Here, you move the goal posts, with obfuscatory language

I'm sorry that you find the words 'something' and 'statement' obfuscatory, especially when they are posted shortly after the exact texts they clearly refer to. I'm not sure how much more I can dumb this down for you. Maybe there's a quote somewhere you can find that will help explain it?

Quote from: -E.;724850You already quoted the whole thing and bolded the part you felt correct about, carefully avoiding bolding the part I corrected you on, while bolding the rest of it (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=28662&page=7#top).

Ron is not GNS. Ron is not GNS. Ron is not GNS.

Come on, this isn't as difficult as you're making it.

Quote from: -E.;724850You also know that the reason you're using Edwards here, to try to support yourself, but repudiating anything he says in his posts when they say things you don't like is because your attraction to GNS isn't anything it taught you about game design.

If I had brought in the quote to support my statement you would have a point. But I didn't. You brought in the quote, presumably without reading it, and now you have egg on your face.

At least I hope it is egg.

Quote from: -E.;724850It's identity politics. Tribal affiliation.

Yes. Yours.

>>2014
>>Still taking GNS seriously
>>ISHYGDDT

GNS was always just a bunch of incoherent words and concepts intended to score tribalistic points while sounding like sagely wisdom. This should be obvious to anyone with a brain.

Quote from: jeff37923;724832Because it is soviet.

I'm Joey, I'm disgusting.

Quote from: -E.;724854Heh. Thanks.

Although let me be clear: I don't think these kinds of threads bring out the best in anyone, myself first and foremost.

Why is soviet not going, "Yeah, I was wrong?"

Well, in part because of the identify thing and in part because the guy pressing him (me) is being a laser-guided asshole about it.

But hey, GNS, yeah?
-E.

I had a measured discussion about some of these issues with Brendan before you started up. I've acknowledged that some parts of GNS are wrong or offensive and said that I don't support those parts. I'm not the zealot you're trying to portray me as. If I was wrong I would acknowledge that I was wrong. I don't think I am.

Quote from: Mistwell;724775I never said or implied cocksucker.

Except for the bit where (having in the OP described me as a Forgist) you said that Forgists have trouble talking because of Ron's dick in their mouths?

Soundtrack to every Forge thread ever, outside their home ground:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGNiXGX2nLU

Quote from: soviet;724857OK.

Which supports what I said. Ron himself uses the terms to classify people, but the terms are not designed for that purpose.

So while Ron does it, it is not the intention of the theory. It is not what is written down in the theory. It is not what the theory contains. It is not part of the theory. It is not part of the theory. It is not part of the theory.

I'm sorry that you find the words 'something' and 'statement' obfuscatory, especially when they are posted shortly after the exact texts they clearly refer to. I'm not sure how much more I can dumb this down for you. Maybe there's a quote somewhere you can find that will help explain it?

Ron is not GNS. Ron is not GNS. Ron is not GNS.

Come on, this isn't as difficult as you're making it.

If I had brought in the quote to support my statement you would have a point. But I didn't. You brought in the quote, presumably without reading it, and now you have egg on your face.

At least I hope it is egg.

Yes. Yours.

This is beautiful. I couldn't have asked for a better illustration of how GNS is used in practice.

We're arguing about semantics and canon, and nit-picky details of whether or not the theory formally allows you to talk about people. And you're saying you don't accept Ron as an authority on how the theory is to be used, but you will accept the essays, but of course you're wrong about what the essays say, what the theory (as you accept it) says.

Here's what the essay's you're treating as canon (http://indie-rpgs.com/articles/3/) say:

Quote from: GNS EssaysUsed properly, the terms apply only to decisions, not to whole persons nor to whole games. To be absolutely clear, to say that a person is (for example) Gamist, is only shorthand for saying, "This person tends to make role-playing decisions in line with Gamist goals." Similarly, to say that an RPG is (for example) Gamist, is only shorthand for saying, "This RPG's content facilitates Gamist concerns and decision-making." For better or for worse, both of these forms of shorthand are common.

As you can see, the essay goes on to explain that the terms are commonly used both for people and games.

I mean (as you say), how hard does this have to be? The very first essay explains how they are commonly used to talk about both people and games, and if you have to be super-formal (as you'd like to be), then it's neither.

But anyway, yes: this is what the theory is best used for. This kind of thing.

Cheers,
-E.

One thing Ill say on behalf of GNS, Edwards does preface the entire project with the hypothesis "most people playing rpgs arent having fun" (a point I dont agree with but its useful to understand where he's coming from), and goes on to say "if you are having fun and satisfied with your gaming experience then this [GNS] isnt for you".

Useful, that statement. Let me know right away I was not the target audience.

Quote from: soviet;724529when I read the original GNS essays I don't feel like I am reading some terrible diatribe against certain kinds of playstyles or players

Likewise. I think I read the simulationism essay first, and felt it spoke very fairly about Rolemaster play, including identifying problematic mechanical parts of the game (like initiative - something for which RM probably has more variant systems than any other part of the game), a game which I was GMing at the time and continued to GM for years afterwards.

Quote from: The Traveller;724531what I don't get is why certain parishes constantly take them on board and try to live their lives by them.

At least speaking for myself, I don't "live my life" by the GNS essays. I just draw on what is useful in them for running my game.

Quote from: Arminius;724558Just read GNS and Other Matters of Role-Playing Theory. It's not as confusing or annoying as the later essays.



It's a short read, and then you don't have to take anyone's word for whether GNS makes generalized, objective, predictive claims.

I mostly read the essays as interpretive rather than predictive - I don't know if that's how Edwards intended them (but he is a biologist, so he might favour predictive approaches and have intended to create one).

That said, I have found them to have useful predictive value in a few cases. They are good predictors for the lines of discussion on the ICE forums as soone as issues like balance in point buy come up - for instance, many people want point buy options in a game like HARP to both be balanced for play, and to reflect ingame causation, which then leads to all sorts of convolution around why it is that (say) a prince of the blood (an expensive points buy option) can't also be strong and wealthy (more expensive options).

There is also a set of dot points in the Gamism essay which identifies three or four features common to action resolution in narrativist and gamist play which are basically the main talking points for every 3E vs 4e editions war thread I've ever participated in. (What puzzles me is why WotC doesn't seem to have anticipated the controversy that would be raised by a game based around those techniques.)

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;724536I don't think his later statements make the earlier movies anti-semitic, but i can see how people have trouble seperating him from his work (just like some people have trouble seperating woody allen and his work).

I'd been thinking of Woody Allen in another light in relation to this thread: the measure of someone's success as a cultural influence isn't necessarily the same as the measure of their commercial success. I think Woody Allen would be an example of this (and Ingmar Bergman by whom he was influenced).

Quote from: TristramEvans;724867One thing Ill say on behalf of GNS, Edwards does preface the entire project with the hypothesis "most people playing rpgs arent having fun" (a point I dont agree with but its useful to understand where he's coming from), and goes on to say "if you are having fun and satisfied with your gaming experience then this [GNS] isnt for you".

Useful, that statement. Let me know right away I was not the target audience.

That's inconsistent with his other essay, System Does Matter which posits that even if you're having fun you can have more fun with a narrow system.

I think the theory was clearly most appealing to people who weren't having fun and especially to people who felt left out by mainstream games.

As celebration, it's fine -- clearly some people found a gaming style that really connected with them.

As advocacy, it can be as irritating as any advocacy can.

But it crosses the line into running down traditional games and gamers, and that's where the problems start.

Cheers,
-E.

Ive always been torn on "system matters", because it creates the expectation that one system is objectivelly better than another for a purpose, whereas its rarely that simple and there are factors beyond system design, like familiarity, aesthetics, and player motivations. it would be like judging a film based soley on lighting effects. GNS isnt enough, its a tiny piece of a much larger hole that comes across as myopic in its focus.

"System matters but it doesnt really but it kinda does, but matters differently to different people." is my conclusion.

I think the only impact that GNS has had is to show the level of butthurt on either side of the discussion on gaming forums.  Impact at the table is only what the individual purveyor brings away from the discussion whether it be a new game, a concept, or an idea to bring to the table that works for the group you're playing with.  After that, it's just much noise and personal vendetta.   Personally I've found some value even it's just to reanalyze how me and my own go about our gaming.

Quote from: TristramEvans;724871Ive always been torn on "system matters", because it creates the expectation that one system is objectivelly better than another for a purpose, whereas its rarely that simple and there are factors beyond system design, like familiarity, aesthetics, and player motivations. it would be like judging a film based soley on lighting effects. GNS isnt enough, its a tiny piece of a much larger hole that comes across as myopic in its focus.

"System matters but it doesnt really but it kinda does, but matters differently to different people." is my conclusion.

Completely agree.

Completely.

-E.

Quote from: TristramEvans;724867One thing Ill say on behalf of GNS, Edwards does preface the entire project with the hypothesis "most people playing rpgs arent having fun" (a point I dont agree with but its useful to understand where he's coming from), and goes on to say "if you are having fun and satisfied with your gaming experience then this [GNS] isnt for you".

Useful, that statement. Let me know right away I was not the target audience.

"Most people looking at the sky arent having fun. The sky is red." - If you see a blue sky and are satisfied with your day then this [RGB] isnt for you"

Quote from: TristramEvans;724871Ive always been torn on "system matters", because it creates the expectation that one system is objectivelly better than another for a purpose, whereas its rarely that simple and there are factors beyond system design, like familiarity, aesthetics, and player motivations. it would be like judging a film based soley on lighting effects. GNS isnt enough, its a tiny piece of a much larger hole that comes across as myopic in its focus.

"System matters but it doesnt really but it kinda does, but matters differently to different people." is my conclusion.

Not to mention that some truly fucked up games have been produced by Forge luminaries under the aegis of "system matters".

That is also one of the easiest bludgeons to hit them with, and one that can't easily be defended without either A) Admitting your game is fucked up or B) Admitting that the system matters program is flawed.

Win win.

Wait, system doesn't matter? Does that mean that all editions of D&D are equal and it doesn't matter which version I use?

Rules design decisions directly impact the types of experience players will have with any given game. Monopoly is a different game to scrabble, and they're both different to chess. Games with a narrower design goal will be absolutely terrible at creating experiences outside of it's design, but it should have a higher rate of success at creating experiences within its design than a generic system.

Any kind of design philosophy can be used to make an offensive game. Design philosophy in terms of rules=behaviours doesn't automatically equate to offensive material, and dismissing one game because the designer agreed with someone who designed an offensive game on some topics is more of an ad homniem attack.

Quote from: Adric;724907Wait, system doesn't matter? Does that mean that all editions of D&D are equal and it doesn't matter which version I use?

Rules design decisions directly impact the types of experience players will have with any given game. Monopoly is a different game to scrabble, and they're both different to chess. Games with a narrower design goal will be absolutely terrible at creating experiences outside of it's design, but it should have a higher rate osuccess at creating experiences within its design than a generic system.

Any kind of design philosophy can be used to make an offensive game. Design philo.sophy in terms of rules=behaviours doesn't automatically equate to offensive material, and dismissing one game because the designer agreed with someone who designed an offensive game on some topics is more of an ad homniem attack.

As I said system matters but it doesnt really but it kinda does, but what matters is different to different people.

In other words its a multiple choice answer that too many people, Edwards especially, have interpreted as a True/False.

As for games being offensive, thats really a matter of personal feelings, not game theory.

Quote from: One Horse Town;724881Not to mention that some truly fucked up games have been produced by Forge luminaries under the aegis of "system matters".

That is also one of the easiest bludgeons to hit them with, and one that can't easily be defended without either A) Admitting your game is fucked up or B) Admitting that the system matters program is flawed.

Win win.

I guess you mean fames like Poison'd and the like. Ive actually never seen such games, only know thier reputation online, like Maid. I read the Premise and tried to imagine what group of people would enjoy a game like that, and then swiftly tried not to as hard as I could.

But I dont know that its directly connected to GNS except thru adherents.

Quote from: pemerton;724862Except for the bit where (having in the OP described me as a Forgist) you said that Forgists have trouble talking because of Ron's dick in their mouths?

You mean the joke...the one where the next paragraph started with, "Seriously though...".  The one that doesn't mention you at all, and starts with the word "usually"?

I do think that about some, but I didn't say it or imply it about you, and it was an obvious joke.  You're not the first Forgist around here, nor the first time this topic has come up.  There is a long history you're unaware of, and you're observing a comment out of context that plenty knew the context of when I said it.

I have no problem with you Pemerton, aside from the use of language issue I've highlighted.  I said in the other thread I don't think you're doing it with a negative intent, though I think many Forgists do.  Plenty of people I respect have said you're an OK guy, and I take their word for it.

If I think you're a douchebag (in a serious way) or any other insult, you can be certain I will simply call you one outright.  I'm not known for beating around the bush in my insults.

Here, I will give you an example - this martyr bullshit you're pulling right now, exaggerating what was said to play the victim, and then claiming over at EW that I started this thread to "slander" you? That was all a douche-like move.

The problem with Forge theory has always been the concept of coherence.

Does System Matter? Sure.  You don't use Phoenix Command to play a Fast-paced Street-Fighter like martial arts game.  You don't use Mage: The Ascension to do Robotech.  At least not without so much tinkering, it's not even recognizable anymore.

GDS was an attempt at game theory that had some uses then and still does now, even though it has been corrupted by Edwards who never understood "Simulationism" at all, and really was only about the "Narrative" aspect, as is every single Forge author.

The real problem came when "System Matters" and GNS were combined with coherence, the idea that a game must focus on one of the GNS letters and because "System Matters", mechanics must be created to facilitate this.

As a result we got everything from pure storygames to RPGs with a high degree of OOC metagame to facilitate player narrative control and drama techniques.

All you really have to do to decide if the Forge was ultimately successful or not is ask yourself - Where are the Gamist and Simulationist games from Forge authors?  The Forge, despite all the discussion, was only ever about pushing forward a narrative agenda at the expense of everything else.  The most successful games from Forge authors themselves aren't coherent, they are RPGs combined with narrative elements, and the more narrative the elements, the less successful the game.

Quote from: CRKrueger;724928The problem with Forge theory has always been the concept of coherence.

Does System Matter? Sure.  You don't use Phoenix Command to play a Fast-paced Street-Fighter like martial arts game.  You don't use Mage: The Ascension to do Robotech.  At least not without so much tinkering, it's not even recognizable anymore.

GDS was an attempt at game theory that had some uses then and still does now, even though it has been corrupted by Edwards who never understood "Simulationism" at all, and really was only about the "Narrative" aspect, as is every single Forge author.

The real problem came when "System Matters" and GNS were combined with coherence, the idea that a game must focus on one of the GNS letters and because "System Matters", mechanics must be created to facilitate this.

As a result we got everything from pure storygames to RPGs with a high degree of OOC metagame to facilitate player narrative control and drama techniques.

All you really have to do to decide if the Forge was ultimately successful or not is ask yourself - Where are the Gamist and Simulationist games from Forge authors?  The Forge, despite all the discussion, was only ever about pushing forward a narrative agenda at the expense of everything else.  The most successful games from Forge authors themselves aren't coherent, they are RPGs combined with narrative elements, and the more narrative the elements, the less successful the game.

Best Post in the thread.
There definitely are rules that are gamist, or simulationist or narrative and understanding how a good RPG combines these and understanding where your players are coming from and where they want the balance to be is a key to running a sucessful game.
As you say the Forgists only ever some up with games that move in one of these directions and of course they reject the idea that a game needs all 3 components to work together which is what the rest of us have always known from the get go.

I agree with someone above who posted that the original pre-Forge GDS Gamist-Dramatist-Simulation 'Threefold Model' is useful, a generally good model. BTW what Pemerton does as GM looks to me much more like GDS Dramatism than anything from GNS, so I'm not sure he's really a Forgist whatever he says. :)
If the Forge did something valuable, I think it was in popularising the GDS model, which otherwise would have remained obscure. As also noted previously, when most gamers talk about Forgist GNS, their actual definitions are those of pre-Forge GDS: they use the word Narrativism to mean Dramatism.
So the Forge kinda did something good in spite of itself. :D

Quote from: Adric;724907Wait, system doesn't matter? Does that mean that all editions of D&D are equal and it doesn't matter which version I use?

Rules design decisions directly impact the types of experience players will have with any given game. Monopoly is a different game to scrabble, and they're both different to chess. Games with a narrower design goal will be absolutely terrible at creating experiences outside of it's design, but it should have a higher rate of success at creating experiences within its design than a generic system.

Any kind of design philosophy can be used to make an offensive game. Design philosophy in terms of rules=behaviours doesn't automatically equate to offensive material, and dismissing one game because the designer agreed with someone who designed an offensive game on some topics is more of an ad homniem attack.

I don't think that narrow-design systems are usually any better at creating experiences within their goals.

I don't, for example, think Vampire: The Masquerade was better at giving the Vampire experience than GURPS was. Likewise, I don't think Recon or The Morrow Project were better at playing Viet Nam or Post-Apocalypse than GURPS.

I do think Toon was better at playing cartoons than GURPS was, and while I've never played Nobilis, I suspect that it's probably better at playing whatever you play in Nobilis than GURPS would have been.

But for a vast array of gaming System Doesn't Matter nearly as much as the people at the table. Games like BRP, Champions, and GURPS demonstrated that for me and my group general systems are superior. I don't need special meta-game mechanics to add flavor or drive address of premise: we do that fine at the human level.

My experience with narrow systems has been the opposite: the games I've played in and run are rarely narrow in scope. Even one-shot games that last a couple of days cross genres, tones, themes, and play experiences. PC's try all kinds of things, and while I'm comfortable with playing the role of referee, anyone who thinks games shouldn't have rules for setting things on fire hasn't played with my group.

In short, I think that the claims the System Does Matter essay makes are simply wrong and backwards for my group. The SDM essay posits Herbie, a hypothetical GM who can "run anything." It describes a "good GM" as someone who handles the "laborious" work of throwing out out aspects of the game that people at the table don't like. That kind of balancing act just doesn't come up at my table -- SDM, as the essay presents it might make sense if you're playing with someone with very fragile, narrow preferences, but it doesn't describe my experience at all.

Cheers,
-E.

I'm not sure that the logic of system matters is that GURPS should always be replaced by systems that are more specific to the genre/setting/theme you are exploring. That's going to depend on what the group wants from the experience. No generic game is generic enough to not have its own flavour and its own set of baggage anyway; GURPS Vampire will be different from d20 Vampire which will be different from Savage Worlds Vampire. And don't even get me started on Other Worlds Vampire! They're all different ways of approaching the same source material. The point is to be conscious of the kind of game you want and choose or make a system that does that effectively, or at the very least gets out of the way of it with a minimum of fuss.

Quote from: pemerton;724494So (i) I wouldn't really call that debating, and (ii) I would see that as a fairly high degree of hostility against someone for having a different opinion.

The Forge is definitely the exception to that rule.  Reactions to it here generally rage from dislike to witch hunt.  Hell, even with my general dismissal of Forge theory in this thread, I've been accused of being an agenda-holding Forgist.

Quote from: soviet;724524I agree with you about models not needing to be true, just useful. Maybe GNS isn't a complete model of the roleplaying universe (for one thing, it only really work if you accept the premise that system matters). But I've found it useful as a tool for my own games design.

Anybody can find something 'useful', but that doesn't mean it's actually helping them produce something better.

Most of the 'useful' bits of the Forge - different people play for different reasons, system actually does matter, games shouldn't contradict their own goals, either predate the Forge or are relatively obvious.

Quote from: soviet;724524I think it's also true to say that GNS isn't a theory of commercial success and that to some extent focusing on one agenda will be detrimental to your bottom line. It's no coincidence that so many GNS-inspired games are indie games with other uncommercial punk/pretentious qualities such as book size, content, distribution method, etc.

GNS says that 'focused' games are better.  Where are the 'focused' games that are at least cult hits, or have rabid fanbases?  Again, I'm not looking for mass commercial success, but there should at least be some games that have fairly rabid fanbases, yes?

Quote from: soviet;724524The way that GNS explains people enjoying Pathfinder and so on is that people just ignore or change ('drift') the rules that don't fit in with what they want.

Which doesn't explain Pathfinder Society at all.

Quote from: soviet;724524These are the lessons I took from GNS and how I use it in my game design:

System matters. Rules are a tool you can use positively to create an effect.

This is self-evident.  "System doesn't matter" has only *ever* been used as an argument *not* to switch systems - which itself implies that system does matter, otherwise why would you argue against switching?

Quote from: soviet;724524Games work best when the players know how they are supposed to play. Is it primarily about killing the orcs, experiencing Middle-earth, or telling a cool story? Or something else?  

And yet for years people have used the same game to do all of the above.

Quote from: soviet;724524The text of the game should therefore clearly explain the intended play approach and the rules should support or reinforce it.

"The game should tell you how to play" is hardly a revolutionary idea.

Quote from: soviet;724524The G, N, and S essays describe three basic styles of play to consider as examples of this (but note that within them there are various divisions and approaches - the agendas are not monolithic).

And the problem is that those essays, and further work, assert by omission that those are the *only* three ways to play, and that any 'creative agenda' (and I do hate that term) is a subset of one of those.

This assumption inherently drives game development in those directions - and also serves to create a new category of games (Narrativist) which just so happen to be the games that Ron wants to play.

Quote from: -E.;724659Games patterned after the most successful game of all time are "heart breakers" with little reason to exist.

I see that one as more being Ron's foot-in-mouth disease than anything.  The games he described in the essay had interesting ideas, but all were strongly patterned on D&D - apparently without thought as to whether that was the best overall structure for the game or not.

This may just be my 'looking for the reasonable' drive, but to me there's a reasonable point there - if you're writing a game, analyze what the best structure is for that game.  If it's a D&D-like structure, great, but don't just use any structure without thinking about it.

Quote from: -E.;724649People will tell you all kinds of things worked for them -- there are people who believe the astrology thing in the newspaper gives them insight into how to live their day.

Indeed - if it's 'useful', again, there should be cases of where it has helped people solve specific issues, and there should certainly be games written using GNS principles that, even if not broad commercial successes, should at *least* be well-known and have rabid fanbases amongst people that are into RPGs and would have been likely to encounter them through word-of-mouth.

Quote from: -E.;724649GNS's agendas are fluid and weird and do not cover most of what people roleplay for: the experience of playing their character. GNS-Sim used to cover that, but the author (Edwards) deprecated and disavowed the Sim essay and re-described GNS-Sim as being about celebration of a specific fiction. That leaves all kinds of play in the "uncategorized" bucket.

This gets to one of my main arguments about GNS - that it sees these three specific things as the central pivot that RPG design hinges upon.

Exploration of premise, especially, seems orthogonal to other concerns.

Quote from: -E.;724649To the extent that GNS predicts anything it predicts that games which allow for a variety of play styles and/or whose flavor text and GM advice aren't in some (undefined) way compatible with the mechanics will result (most likely) in on-going power-struggle.

If players come to the table with different expectations, then there is likely to be some disagreement about what should be going on.  I think that's obvious.

But what that idea misses is the fact that people *interpret* text, and so even when a game system is explicit about what it is doing, the *interpretation* of that text will be colored by the reader's experience, expectations, assumptions, and desires.

Quote from: -E.;724649In other words, it's psychological model of people is that all those horrible adolescent struggles people had when they were fighting with their friends over, and over in the 90's were the game's fault.

In many ways, the primary goal of GNS seems to be "why people don't play Vampire the way Ron Edwards wants them to, and how to force them to do so."

Quote from: soviet;724760It seems to me that there is a very large middle being excluded here. The available options are not limited to 'GNS is shit and I hate Ron Edwards' versus 'Every word in GNS is objectively correct and I love Ron Edwards'. There is also 'I found a lot of useful stuff in GNS and also some offensive or inaccurate stuff which I have ignored. I will take any other writings by Ron Edwards on their own merits'.

I don't think that every word that has ever come out of the Forge is inherently tainted.  I find some of Vince Baker's stuff interesting, like his clouds and boxes articles.  And some of the advice that has come out of the Forge really just seems like a rediscovery of advice that old-school GMs have been doing for thirty years (dressed up with flowery language, to be sure).

But the fact that a flawed theory has interesting or even useful bits in it does not stand as a defense of the theory as a whole.

Quote from: -E.;724765Let's look at what the original essay says -- even ignoring the Brain Damage Reveal that came later:
...

Thanks for summing all of that up better than I ever could have.

Quote from: -E.;724765Creative Agenda

I do just say that I find this to be a great example of the obfuscating language to come out of the Forge.  All it really means is the expectations that the group has of what they'll do.  That's it.  But 'Expectations' didn't sound academic enough.

And, of course, the term 'Creative Agenda' has its own agenda built in - to inherently frame RPGs as a creative activity, which lends legitimacy to Ron's preferred playstyle over others which aren't inherently 'creative'.

Quote from: Bill White;724788GNS "Creative Agenda" apply to groups and sessions: the place where gamers intersect with games.

I think that focusing on what I call "games" - people sitting down at a table and playing - as opposed to systems is vitally important.

Quote from: pemerton;724869That said, I have found them to have useful predictive value in a few cases. They are good predictors for the lines of discussion on the ICE forums as soone as issues like balance in point buy come up - for instance, many people want point buy options in a game like HARP to both be balanced for play, and to reflect ingame causation, which then leads to all sorts of convolution around why it is that (say) a prince of the blood (an expensive points buy option) can't also be strong and wealthy (more expensive options).

That distinction well predates GNS theory, and back into GDS theory at a minimum.  Gary Gygax in the AD&D 1e DMG talks about the schism in the wargames community between "realism" and "game", and firmly plants AD&D on the "game" side.

And it's a useful distinction - do the rules in your game primarily exist to have 'realistic' outcomes, or do they primarily exist to make a fun game?

Quote from: TristramEvans;724871Ive always been torn on "system matters", because it creates the expectation that one system is objectivelly better than another for a purpose, whereas its rarely that simple and there are factors beyond system design, like familiarity, aesthetics, and player motivations. it would be like judging a film based soley on lighting effects. GNS isnt enough, its a tiny piece of a much larger hole that comes across as myopic in its focus.

Indeed.  That's one of my main arguments.  I look at game systems as fulfilling player needs, which can be wide, varied, and even trivial.

Quote from: TristramEvans;724871"System matters but it doesnt really but it kinda does, but matters differently to different people." is my conclusion.

Absolutely.  I look at it as simply as "does the game system in question meet the needs of the game in terms of supporting the things they want to do?"

In a lot of cases, that includes things like familiarity, etc., and to meet those needs/desires, a system may actually be better for that particular group even if it's not better 'on paper' for whatever reason.

Quote from: CRKrueger;724928The real problem came when "System Matters" and GNS were combined with coherence, the idea that a game must focus on one of the GNS letters and because "System Matters", mechanics must be created to facilitate this.

Exactly.  It's not rocket science to say that if your game system is focused on characters being big damn action heroes that plow through bad guys, that a mechanic that gives any enemy, no matter how trivial, an arbitrary one in twenty chance to kill a player character is a bad idea, as it undercuts the purpose of the game.

But that has nothing to do with the letters G, N, or S.

Quote from: CRKrueger;724928All you really have to do to decide if the Forge was ultimately successful or not is ask yourself - Where are the Gamist and Simulationist games from Forge authors?  The Forge, despite all the discussion, was only ever about pushing forward a narrative agenda at the expense of everything else.

GNS really seems to be "why people don't play Vampire the way Ron Edwards wants them to, and how to make them."

What's interesting is that the obvious answer to the question is "well, find a group that wants to play the way you do, and set those expectations."  I don't see baking it into the system as actually helpful - people will de-emphasize the things they don't like anyway.  If you can't have an honest discussion with your fellow players about what the hell it is you want out of your game, then you've got bigger problems than what the rules text of the game says - and using the rules as an appeal to authority will *not* help.

There were plenty of things in V:tM that encouraged non-D&D-in-fangs-and-trenchcoats play.  But that didn't stop people from playing it as D&D-in-fangs-and-trenchcoats.

Quote from: -E.;724989I don't think that narrow-design systems are usually any better at creating experiences within their goals.

I don't, for example, think Vampire: The Masquerade was better at giving the Vampire experience than GURPS was. Likewise, I don't think Recon or The Morrow Project were better at playing Viet Nam or Post-Apocalypse than GURPS.

Agreed.  I personally think that a given system can support a goal/need, or it can oppose a goal/need.  There's not much in GURPS to oppose Vampire, for instance, and there's a reasonable amount of support for it, especially if you use the GURPS: Vampire splat.

Quote from: -E.;724989I do think Toon was better at playing cartoons than GURPS was, and while I've never played Nobilis, I suspect that it's probably better at playing whatever you play in Nobilis than GURPS would have been.

Sure, GURPS' focus on realism doesn't support the goals of Toon.

For me, analyzing applicability of a game system for a particular game boils down to a few things:

1) How well does it support what we're trying to do?  (Which includes things like system familiarity, liking particular dice, or whatever else is appropriate)
2) Does it oppose anything we're trying to do, and make it harder for us to do those things?
3) If there's some things that don't really support what we're trying to do, how many changes do I have to make for it to really work?

At a secondary level, a system that has mechanics that oppose the things it's trying to do (like the previously-described 'instakill the big damn hero' rule) make it hard for that system to support anything well.

Quote from: -E.;724989But for a vast array of gaming System Doesn't Matter nearly as much as the people at the table. Games like BRP, Champions, and GURPS demonstrated that for me and my group general systems are superior. I don't need special meta-game mechanics to add flavor or drive address of premise: we do that fine at the human level.

Sure, and I'd also argue that BRP and GURPS are similar enough in overall tone and feel that they're relatively interchangeable, in that just about any game where I'd consider using one of them as the system, the other would work just as well.

Quote from: -E.;724989My experience with narrow systems has been the opposite: the games I've played in and run are rarely narrow in scope.

In some cases that may be a matter of insufficient buy-in to the tone/genre of the game.  

If you're running a Golden Age comics game, it shouldn't need rules to handle the heroes torturing people for information, or for how to do instakill shots.  If you've bought into Golden Age comics as a genre, you're not doing those things.

But, yeah.  A system being designed around a particular genre/gamestyle doesn't necessarily mean that it supports it any better than a generic system does.  It's probably more *likely* to support it well than an arbitrary generic system, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a generic system which does the job just as well or better.

Um, I'm sure this is accidental, but you've quoted me as saying several things that in fact -E or others said. Please can you check your quote tags again?

Quote from: soviet;725087Um, I'm sure this is accidental, but you've quoted me as saying several things that in fact -E or others said. Please can you check your quote tags again?

Oops, sorry, I'll fix that.

EDIT - I think I got all the bad ones.  Let me know if I didn't.

Quote from: robiswrong;725081That distinction well predates GNS theory, and back into GDS theory at a minimum.  Gary Gygax in the AD&D 1e DMG talks about the schism in the wargames community between "realism" and "game", and firmly plants AD&D on the "game" side.

And it's a useful distinction - do the rules in your game primarily exist to have 'realistic' outcomes, or do they primarily exist to make a fun game?
 .

I think though that Gary was talking about a particular style of realism, one you don't really encounter that much these days when people say they find a particular mechanics isn't realistic. Back when I first started, a lot of people were after a real hardcore type of realism, where they were more than happy to roll on multiple charts for results that matched their sense of physics and logical outcomes. I think now, the realism issue is often just about cause and effect in the game, basic plausibility of things, etc. I see people use this quote a lot, but I feel it is somewhat misleading, because I don't think Gary was suggesting that you jettison all believability and all other considerations entirely for gaminess. My sense was he just felt D&D is a game so there are going to be some concessions to reality for playability. He also talked about stuff like the milieu and populating a believable setting. So my sense is, he didn't have the kind of things in mind that often crop up during discussions around 4E or GNS.

Sorted, thanks

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;725090I think though that Gary was talking about a particular style of realism

He was. These remarks were specific in context. Forge theory, or indeed, theory, had nothing to do with it.

Quote from: Benoist;725092He was. These remarks were specific in context. Forge theory, or indeed, theory, had nothing to do with it.

Yeah, because even when I started some of these folks were still around. I knew immediately who he was talking about when I came across that passage. It really wasn't addressed toward people who dislike come and get it or don't want an entire game centered around the G in GNS.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;725093Yeah, because even when I started some of these folks were still around. I knew immediately who he was talking about when I came across that passage. It really wasn't addressed toward people who dislike come and get it or don't want an entire game centered around the G in GNS.

Yes. When the DMG (1979) came out was a time when D&D was challenged by a number of other fantasy game products whose fans where, in some quarters, clamoring for more realism in role playing games. Games like RuneQuest (1977) with skills and hit locations, Chivalry & Sorcery (1978) with its wealth of medievalist detail, even Rolemaster (1980) with critical hit and miss charts, not to mention letters to The Dragon and so on, come to mind as part of that general zeitgeist. D&D was hugely criticized for not being "realistic enough", and it was an attempt to clarify the thought that went into the game, rather than some weird time-travelling reference to completely artificial ideas like "gamism" and "simulationism" in GNS.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;725093Yeah, because even when I started some of these folks were still around. I knew immediately who he was talking about when I came across that passage. It really wasn't addressed toward people who dislike come and get it or don't want an entire game centered around the G in GNS.

I started playing in the early 80s.  I'm pretty familiar with the debate even during that time, and the games that came out of it on the 'realism' side - many of the ones that Benoist mentions were still very 'current' games at that time.

Quote from: Benoist;725096D&D was hugely criticized for not being "realistic enough", and it was an attempt to clarify the thought that went into the game, rather than some weird time-travelling reference to completely artificial ideas like "gamism" and "simulationism" in GNS.

Not claiming it is.  I think RE took the basic argument and reinterpreted it as something else.

If you'll note the actual conversation, I was saying that the idea that some people are more interested in the 'game' side and some more interested in the 'realism' side may have merit, but that that observation well predates anything RE ever wrote, and so attributing that value to GNS theory is incorrect.

IOW, I'm not saying Gygax wrote things that support GNS theory.  I'm saying that some of the things that people find of value in GNS theory actually predate it by decades.

I'd also argue that their original forms were more useful than how they've been reinterpreted.

Quote from: robiswrong;725102If you'll note the actual conversation, I was saying that the idea that some people are more interested in the 'game' side and some more interested in the 'realism' side may have merit, but that that observation well predates anything RE ever wrote, and so attributing that value to GNS theory is incorrect.

IOW, I'm not saying Gygax wrote things that support GNS theory.  I'm saying that some of the things that people find of value in GNS theory actually predate it by decades.

The thing is, actual GNS doesn't say that. It actually promotes the idea of coherence, and from that standpoint, either you approach a specific game from a gamist OR simulationist standpoint, not "and", and not "more interested in this than that", which is incoherent and causes brain damage. It's an either/or proposition, not and.

If you don't embrace the idea of coherence, then you're not actually supporting what GNS championed, and the actual thing (along with its corollary concepts of an overt social contract, creative agendas, system matters, etc) it brought to the game design table, especially compared to the threefold model.

Quote from: Benoist;725105If you don't embrace the idea of coherence, then you're not actually supporting what GNS championed, and the actual thing (along with its corollary concepts of an overt social contract, creative agendas, system matters, etc) it brought to the game design table, especially compared to the threefold model.

Are you missing the parts where robiswrong is commenting that he doesn't agree with GNS or Forge theory? It really sounds like you are accusing him of defending forge theory when he has stated repeatedly that he doesn't agree with it and that the only thing he is saying is that the parts and interpretations that soviet is throwing out that he "likes" actually predate GNS entirely (and actually might be more accurate to how soviet views them than the actual GNS essay versions).

Quote from: Emperor Norton;725108Are you missing the parts where robiswrong is commenting that he doesn't agree with GNS or Forge theory? It really sounds like you are accusing him of defending forge theory when he has stated repeatedly that he doesn't agree with it and that the only thing he is saying is that the parts and interpretations that soviet is throwing out that he "likes" actually predate GNS entirely (and actually might be more accurate to how soviet views them than the actual GNS essay versions).

I might have given this impression, but my intention isn't to judge robiswrong, one way or the other. If what I'm saying is something he agrees with, then cool, I expect he's going to post just that.

Quote from: Benoist;725105If you don't embrace the idea of coherence, then you're not actually supporting what GNS championed, and the actual thing (along with its corollary concepts of an overt social contract, creative agendas, system matters, etc) it brought to the game design table, especially compared to the threefold model.

I don't support what GNS has championed.  The point that you've been responding to was actually me being critical of GNS.

Soviet had said he found value in the idea of gamism/etc. and that it predicts discussions like "it's not realistic that a noble can't be as strong as a non-noble".

I responded by pointing out that this is a realism vs. game balance issue, and that that idea has been around for *decades* prior to RE writing a word about it, and so finding value in that general distinction isn't really a very good defense of GNS.

The Gygax quote wasn't to imply that Gygax supports any GNS ideas - it's to date the 'game'/'realism' division, and show by just how *much* it predates anything on the Forge.

I've also been pretty clear in the rest of my response that the idea of 'coherence' is overrated, and that focusing it upon the specific G,N,S categories is overly specific, at best.  

I do believe that some systems can support certain things better than others.  I think that's pretty obvious.  But the idea of coherence (by Forge definitions) says that a game should support one of 'gamism', 'simulationism', and 'narrativism'.  I disagree with that on several levels - first, that those are the most interesting or important things that a game should consider in its design, secondly, that they are an all-encompassing division, and third, that they're inherently mutually exclusive.

I think we're just in violent agreement here.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;725108the only thing he is saying is that the parts and interpretations that soviet is throwing out that he "likes" actually predate GNS entirely (and actually might be more accurate to how soviet views them than the actual GNS essay versions).

Bingo.  And that because of their age, what he's finding value in isn't anything from GNS, and that GNS hasn't really added much (if anything) of value on top of them.  Even without GNS, "G" and "S" both exist within GDS, which also predates the Forge.

Quote from: Benoist;725109I might have given this impression, but my intention isn't to judge robiswrong, one way or the other.

Cool.  But just to be clear, I'm not defending GNS in any way.  I'll point out this quote, as well:

Quote from: robiswrongBut the fact that a flawed theory has interesting or even useful bits in it does not stand as a defense of the theory as a whole.

Quote from: soviet;725076I'm not sure that the logic of system matters is that GURPS should always be replaced by systems that are more specific to the genre/setting/theme you are exploring. That's going to depend on what the group wants from the experience. No generic game is generic enough to not have its own flavour and its own set of baggage anyway; GURPS Vampire will be different from d20 Vampire which will be different from Savage Worlds Vampire. And don't even get me started on Other Worlds Vampire! They're all different ways of approaching the same source material. The point is to be conscious of the kind of game you want and choose or make a system that does that effectively, or at the very least gets out of the way of it with a minimum of fuss.

The counterpoint to GNS's System Does Matter Essay isn't "System Doesn't Matter At All" -- no one believes human beings lack personal preferences -- it's "People Matter More" and "The things people I play with care about aren't the things that GNS Essay talks about."

The GNS System Matters essay talks a lot about are GNS modes, which (IME) most people are not too concerned about, at least within broad parameters. It's discussion of resolution systems is better, but really most people are fine with rolling dice and modifiers. Alternative systems (pure drama or karma) are extremely rare for a reason. Most people intuitively understand their preferences.

Or, to say it another way: I'm happy to explain why I prefer GURPS over Hero, but my answers have nothing to do with GNS or Karama-Drama-Fortune. The aspects the essay focuses on are simply miss-aimed.

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: -E.;725113Or, to say it another way: I'm happy to explain why I prefer GURPS over Hero, but my answers have nothing to do with GNS or Karama-Drama-Fortune. The aspects the essay focuses on are simply miss-aimed.

For the general case, absolutely.  But I think the real motivation was "why don't people play Vampire the way Ron Edwards wants them to?"  For him, exploration of premise *was* the entire point, and so why people weren't doing that was the central goal.  From there, the natural next step is to figure out what people are doing besides exploring premise.

The problem is that he assumed that just because that was the most important thing to him, it (or the alternatives to exploration of premise) was the most important thing to everyone else.

Really, GNS makes a lot more sense if you view it from the viewpoint of "why don't people play V:tM the way Ron thinks they should, and how do we get them to do so?"

To be fair, Vampire was a game where the writing talked about "personal horror" and "existential supernatural angst" while the system was all like "check out these lists of kewl powerz!". To that extent, one could say the game was "incoherent" in design (Im using that word as per the dictionary, not the GNS definition). However, the faulty assumption there is that its the system's job to enforce the premise on the game through the system, which is a rather modern conceit. One can certainly play Vampire in the way the text intends with the rules as is, its simply that alot of people played it as "Goth Superheroes", because the system supported that as well. To say that Vampire needed to be focused so that the system forced people to play one way is essentially saying everyone playing the other way were having badwrongfun.

Quote from: TristramEvans;725125To be fair, Vampire was a game where the writing talked about "personal horror" and "existential supernatural angst" while the system was all like "check out these lists of kewl powerz!". To that extent, one could say the game was "incoherent" in design (Im using that word as per the dictionary, not the GNS definition).

I'm not even sure I'd agree with that.  There was plenty of mechanical support for the 'personal horror' - I mean the whole Humanity track was there for that, right?  And it seemed like the general 'flow' was that you'd get yourself in crappy situations, use your kewl powahz to get out of them, which would require you to burn copious amounts of blood, and then you'd do horrible things to get the blood back, which would trigger Humanity checks, if getting out of the situation didn't trigger them inherently.

I think there was definitely mechanical support for exploring that area between "I need to be a monster to survive" and "I don't want to be a monster".

But it seems like people just didn't *want* that.  So they ignored the Humanity checks and screamed that they wanted to play Sabbat.

Quote from: TristramEvans;725125However, the faulty assumption there is that its the system's job to enforce the premise on the game through the system, which is a rather modern conceit. One can certainly play Vampire in the way the text intends with the rules as is, its simply that alot of people played it as "Goth Superheroes", because the system supported that as well. To say that Vampire needed to be focused so that the system forced people to play one way is essentially saying everyone playing the other way were having badwrongfun.

Right.  There was plenty of support for playing V:tM as a game of losing your humanity and spiraling down to becoming a monster.  But a lot of people found the idea of playing a monster more appealing.  That's not because of a system flaw.  It's not because someone's brain damaged.  It's just personal preference.

Quote from: robiswrong;725132But a lot of people found the idea of playing a monster more appealing.  [...] It's not because someone's brain damaged.  It's just personal preference.

Leaving the Forge completely out of it, I could argue that people choosing to play Sabbat as defined in oWoD are damn well brain damaged, just not in the same way.

Quote from: robiswrong;725088If players come to the table with different expectations, then there is likely to be some disagreement about what should be going on. I think that's obvious.

But what that idea misses is the fact that people *interpret* text, and so even when a game system is explicit about what it is doing, the *interpretation* of that text will be colored by the reader's experience, expectations, assumptions, and desires.

I think the Forge has been somewhat successful in this respect, but not really by the means one would suppose if one believed the theory. The first is that awareness of the games and the ideological discussion are largely transmitted in the same channels, so if you see a Forge game and you find other people who want to play it with you, there's a good chance they share your taste and your expectation of how the game should play. Whereas when I've seen posts about people trying to introduce the games into their existing groups, the results are often unsuccessful. The games themselves aren't doing much to get people on the same page. (This could be called cherry-picking, as an analytical flaw when making generalized claims.)

The other means is that the games often contain mechanics that are deal-breakers for gamers who enjoy "immersion" (in RE's own terms, from "GNS and Other Matters", they require a lot of Author Stance and Director Stance). So this further narrows the pool of people who want to play the games.

Quote from: robiswrong;725081GNS really seems to be "why people don't play Vampire the way Ron Edwards wants them to, and how to make them."

Ok, now that's funny...and true.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;725090I think though that Gary was talking about a particular style of realism, one you don't really encounter that much these days when people say they find a particular mechanics isn't realistic. Back when I first started, a lot of people were after a real hardcore type of realism, where they were more than happy to roll on multiple charts for results that matched their sense of physics and logical outcomes. I think now, the realism issue is often just about cause and effect in the game, basic plausibility of things, etc. I see people use this quote a lot, but I feel it is somewhat misleading, because I don't think Gary was suggesting that you jettison all believability and all other considerations entirely for gaminess. My sense was he just felt D&D is a game so there are going to be some concessions to reality for playability. He also talked about stuff like the milieu and populating a believable setting. So my sense is, he didn't have the kind of things in mind that often crop up during discussions around 4E or GNS.

Hard sim vs soft sim gaming. Not sure where heard that term but it follows through with the shift in ideal for what "sim" should be.

From my brief talks with Gygax way back I got the impression that the D&D rules were simulation to a point and then ease of play after that point. or something like that. We were talking about Gamma World, but same end result.

The threshold of how much book keeping a GM and players were willing to sustain. And at what point reality has to take a back seat to playing a game and having fun.

Quote from: robiswrong;725132I think there was definitely mechanical support for exploring that area between "I need to be a monster to survive" and "I don't want to be a monster".

I think the phrase was "A Beast I am, lest a Beast I become."  

I think there's lots of opportunities for personal horror, there's also katanas & trenchcoats.  

Ron was pissed that the Gamists ruined Vampire, so he started a movement to train those ignorant Gamists how to be Narrativists through pavlovian reward systems.

A ways back, Pemerton wrote that he didn't see GNS theory as containing predictive claims. I thought that was interesting, since I've generally taken that for granted and (as far as I could tell), I've seen such claims made on its behalf by its fans. So I went and had a look at two of the earliest essays, "System Does Matter" and "GNS and Other Matters of Role-Playing Theory".

Let me begin by emphasizing and agreeing with a recent line of discussion here: GNS, and Forge theory in general, offered one major innovation relative to the theories and discussion that preceded it, and that is the importance of coherence in game design. If coherence is just a subjective preference, then GNS is a potentially-interesting manifesto in favor of coherent design. But if GNS claims that coherence is an objective and unalloyed good, such that "incoherent" designs are likely to make gaming groups unhappy and frustrated, then a great deal of the intellectual value of GNS hinges on the truth of this claim.

So what do the essays, say? I'll post quotes. Any emphasis is mine, as is text outside the quotes, which is either commentary or summary of portions of the essays.

"System Does Matter"

QuoteHere I suggest that RPG system design cannot meet all three outlooks at once.

This is a prediction, or prescription, with no subjectivity admitted.

QuoteOne of the biggest problems I observe in RPG systems is that they often try to satisfy all three outlooks at once. The result, sadly, is a guarantee that almost any player will be irritated by some aspect of the system during play. GMs' time is then devoted, as in the Herbie example, to throwing out the aspects that don't accord for a particular group. A "good" GM becomes defined as someone who can do this well - but why not eliminate this laborious step and permit a (for example) Gamist GM to use a Gamist game, getting straight to the point? I suggest that building the system specifically to accord with one of these outlooks is the first priority of RPG design.

QuoteNote, therefore, that I might praise a given system because it matches beautifully with one of these outlooks - even if I don't share that outlook and might hate playing that game. This is an important point, because I now have some criteria to judge, instead of just yapping about "what I like."

Note that this is a clear rejection of subjective criteria; coherence is an objective measure of good design.

"GNS and Other Matters of Role-Playing Theory"

Quote...the players are making the horrendous mistake of buying, without consideration of any technical issues presented so far, the most widely advertised, best-illustrated RPG available - that is, strictly on the basis of Color.

Personally, I'm indifferent to Vampire and most of the associated genre, but I know better than to call buying VtM, an extremely popular game, a "horrendous mistake." But to Ron Edwards it is, objectively. Or perhaps we're just talking about the three hypothetical players that are introduced as examples, one a "Narrativist", one a "Simulationist", one a "Gamist". Would it be a mistake for them but not necessarily for someone else? No: if these people can't play Vampire together it's because the three of them are simply too far apart in taste, as shown by the fact that they can even be assigned to the categories. (A later statement by RE, quoted above by John Kim, supports the idea that the -ists are relatively extreme, inflexible personality types.) If so, then buying a Narrativist game is just going to drive the other two players away. The mistake these people made wasn't buying Vampire; it was trying to play a game together in the first place, when they're so incompatible.

In the following chapter, "Role-playing Design and Coherence" (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/6/), RE goes on to compare game design to bridge-building, arguing that adherence to GNS principles, at least intuitively, is as necessary to making a good game as an understanding of Newtonian physics (at least intuitively) is to making a bridge that won't fall down.

Later in the chapter, RE describes what will happen when the example players sit down with Vampire:

QuoteConsider the players who were excited about the vampire concept for role-playing. What happens when they try to play Vampire: the Masquerade? Well, they try to Believe the Impossible Thing, and in application, the results are inevitable.

Well, actually, RE provides three options, two of which are functional, but the third of which, "ongoing power struggle," is deemed most likely and given greatest emphasis. (One might bravely argue that the results of the Greek Euro crisis are inevitable: either Europe will find a solution, or disaster will ensue.)

RE seems on the verge of seeing the benefits of broadness and flexibility in design, when he talks about "general" games. He makes a distinction between these and "universal" games, which he sets up as an ideal that no one would seriously claim exists:

QuoteRPG design that satisfies any participant, with no stress, no adjustment of any part, no potential for interpersonal disagreement, and no unnecessary preparation.

According to RE, the universal ideal is impossible, but "general" designs such as Fudge and GURPS are customizable according to guidelines provided by the system. However, "a coherent general game sits as firmly in its GNS orientation as any other." This gives short shrift to the possibility that the broad nature of game-play (in GNS terms) can be profitably left up to group social dynamics rather than being hardwired.

Discussion of this possibility is vague to the point of being invisible. We turn now to the sixth and final chapter:

QuoteRole-playing is carried out through relying upon the real, interpersonal roles of living humans, yes, even of opponents. If people do not share any degree of either Premise focus (either Gamist or Narravist) or an Exploration focus (Simulationist), then their different assumptions, different expectations, and different goals will come into conflict during play. When that happens, the uber-goal of "Fun" is diminished. Perhaps the people continue to play together solely to interact socially, but the actual role-playing is, effectively, gone.

This might be more positively phrased as, "People inevitably begin games with differing focuses and interests; however, in the course of play and the social interaction surrounding play, successful groups will form a synthesis." However, RE focuses on failure. This is really only justified if one takes as a basic premise that people come to games with their preferences fully-formed and inflexible. The result, if the game doesn't fly apart immediately, is long-term misery:

QuoteDrift is the usual method for dealing with this level of discord. It is a fine solution for resolving within-mode differences, if everyone is willing to give a little. However, drift has a dark side, or degeneration, the disruption or subversion of the social contract such that what is happening is not more fun, at least not at the group level.

In conclusion, RE does make predictive claims in the initial GNS essays, where he says that games which don't steer play toward a specific "GNS mode" (itself a debatable concept) are poorly designed and will likely or inevitably cause groups to degenerate into a mode of play where fun is diminished.

This may or may not be true (I think it's false for reasons both theoretical and observed, and I think the bulk of third-party evidence supports me)--but it certainly isn't just an expression of preference.

Quote from: -E.;724989I don't think that narrow-design systems are usually any better at creating experiences within their goals.

I don't, for example, think Vampire: The Masquerade was better at giving the Vampire experience than GURPS was. Likewise, I don't think Recon or The Morrow Project were better at playing Viet Nam or Post-Apocalypse than GURPS.

I do think Toon was better at playing cartoons than GURPS was, and while I've never played Nobilis, I suspect that it's probably better at playing whatever you play in Nobilis than GURPS would have been.

But for a vast array of gaming System Doesn't Matter nearly as much as the people at the table. Games like BRP, Champions, and GURPS demonstrated that for me and my group general systems are superior. I don't need special meta-game mechanics to add flavor or drive address of premise: we do that fine at the human level.

My experience with narrow systems has been the opposite: the games I've played in and run are rarely narrow in scope. Even one-shot games that last a couple of days cross genres, tones, themes, and play experiences. PC's try all kinds of things, and while I'm comfortable with playing the role of referee, anyone who thinks games shouldn't have rules for setting things on fire hasn't played with my group.

In short, I think that the claims the System Does Matter essay makes are simply wrong and backwards for my group. The SDM essay posits Herbie, a hypothetical GM who can "run anything." It describes a "good GM" as someone who handles the "laborious" work of throwing out out aspects of the game that people at the table don't like. That kind of balancing act just doesn't come up at my table -- SDM, as the essay presents it might make sense if you're playing with someone with very fragile, narrow preferences, but it doesn't describe my experience at all.

Cheers,
-E.

True, a stated goal doesn't guarantee success in that goal. I'll amend my statement to say "I think that a game that is successful at representing a more narrow focus of genre  is going to better emulate it's subject matter than  game that is successful at being a general system.

I think V:TM still tried to be too many things. "All sorts of Vampires!" is actually a pretty broad genre these days and means lots of different things to different people. By specific, I mean picking a more narrow concept, like "Vampires trying to live everyday lives within mortal society" or "Vampires manipulating mortal governments and organizations over centuries" or "Villagers and a Vampire hunter hunt the all-powerful Vampire that plagues the Town" With those 3 different premises, you would create 3 different games that make your players behave in very different ways, because the characters are aiming for different things, and will be using different skillsets.

Having a great group of experienced players that you gel well with and can improvise with is awesome, but not everybody has that, and some people that will be new to a game will be new to the entire hobby. for them a more focused game that concentrates on the kinds of experience they want, and tells them how to achieve it is going to be a lot more useful that a very thick book of generic rules that won't even apply to the kind of game they want to play.

Quote from: robiswrong;725110I don't support what GNS has championed.(...)

I think we're just in violent agreement here.

Koolio!

Quote from: robiswrong;725117Really, GNS makes a lot more sense if you view it from the viewpoint of "why don't people play V:tM the way Ron thinks they should, and how do we get them to do so?"

:D

Quote from: daniel_ream;725161Leaving the Forge completely out of it, I could argue that people choosing to play Sabbat as defined in oWoD are damn well brain damaged, just not in the same way.

(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_FvpvJ3iohoM/S80Ft3yIuTI/AAAAAAAAADY/8Pi8Kaa-4gs/s320/YouSuck.jpg)

Oh, Christ, you're just oh so clever.

Seriously, if someone tells me that for fun they like to pretend to be the sort of person that hangs children upside down by their ankles so they can be slowly exsanguinated into a fountain as a party snack, then I am going to back slowly away from that person, the opinions of BPD-addled social workers be damned.

Quote from: Adric;725192True, a stated goal doesn't guarantee success in that goal. I'll amend my statement to say "I think that a game that is successful at representing a more narrow focus of genre  is going to better emulate it's subject matter than  game that is successful at being a general system.

I think V:TM still tried to be too many things. "All sorts of Vampires!" is actually a pretty broad genre these days and means lots of different things to different people. By specific, I mean picking a more narrow concept, like "Vampires trying to live everyday lives within mortal society" or "Vampires manipulating mortal governments and organizations over centuries" or "Villagers and a Vampire hunter hunt the all-powerful Vampire that plagues the Town" With those 3 different premises, you would create 3 different games that make your players behave in very different ways, because the characters are aiming for different things, and will be using different skillsets.

Having a great group of experienced players that you gel well with and can improvise with is awesome, but not everybody has that, and some people that will be new to a game will be new to the entire hobby. for them a more focused game that concentrates on the kinds of experience they want, and tells them how to achieve it is going to be a lot more useful that a very thick book of generic rules that won't even apply to the kind of game they want to play.

I would go the opposite way.

I would say that Vampire was a good and sucessful game because it was more open and you could use it to play any of the vampire tropes you mentioned. This is a strength not a weakness. Yes for an individual game you might narrow it down and for a table you might focus more on the gamist part than the narative part or whatever.
One of D&D strengths is that it can be used to play any sort of fantasy game. Yes there are rules that don't work well but I think these are inherent issues in the rules that I change for all games rather than for a particular genre of game. The d20 fantasy engine itself can be used to cover almost anything from tolkein to lieber, from dungeondelves to courtly intrigue.
Vampire was similar in that it covered Urban horror and especially tied to the other WoD books it aimed to cover a range of play styles and genres. Now it may be true that the game was 'meant' to be played in a certain gothy depressed 6th form drama student style but the fact the it could infact be used at tables with wargamers, thespies and storytellers all I think indicates a strong game rather than a flawed one.

GNS seems to have an issue in that it asigns a single motivation and style choice to all players which is of course rot. Almost by defintion if you mapped folks on a GNS map no one would actually sit in an apex we would all be a mix of different preferences. So it makes sense for games to reflect that and for GMs to flavour their tables with a mix.
By the way for me this is the same argument as the one that says any table top RPG that uses a narrative control devise like Bennies is a storygame.

Quote from: daniel_ream;725206Oh, Christ, you're just oh so clever.

You're a moron with no imagination. That's all there is to it - the original statement just deserved an answer on the level at which it was given.

Quote from: daniel_ream;725206Oh, Christ, you're just oh so clever.

Seriously, if someone tells me that for fun they like to pretend to be the sort of person that hangs children upside down by their ankles so they can be slowly exsanguinated into a fountain as a party snack, then I am going to back slowly away from that person, the opinions of BPD-addled social workers be damned.

Y'know, with Poison'd and its beheaded child throat rape already mentioned within this topic, and a general meltdown over the author not really meaning what they said about brain damage + child molestation analogies (did he? didn't he?), this might be The Bestest Shitstorm Ever.

Reality TV is almost banal to this. And I'm not even done with the final season of Hoarders!

I'm gonna need more popcorn. Don't do anything too exciting while I'm away.
:nono:

Quote from: TristramEvans;724871Ive always been torn on "system matters", because it creates the expectation that one system is objectivelly better than another for a purpose, whereas its rarely that simple and there are factors beyond system design, like familiarity, aesthetics, and player motivations.

I think this is largely true. "System matters" if a whole lot of other stuff is held constant, but that other stuff might be making the greater causal contribution over all to the RPGing experience.

I have had a very stable group for over 15 years now, so in my case all that other stuff is constant, and I found The Forge essays helped me identify various features of systems I was playing and thinking about and work out how I could use them, or drop them, to improve my game.

I'm not 100% sure what you meant by "aesthetics", but I think that also relates to something @Iosue said upthread: that there are other features of mechanics (what The Forge calls "techniques") which can be very important for the RPGing experience. For instance, just judging from what they post, it seems that there are many RPGers who find technically crunchy and complex mechanics an obstacle to immersion in the fiction. This seems to have been at least one of the factors that influenced the reception of 4e D&D, but it's not really a feature of the system that is a primary concern from a GNS poit of view. (I have read useful comments from Edwards and other Forgists about technique issues, but often in forum posts rather than the GNS essays.)

Quote from: Gunslinger;724875Impact at the table is only what the individual purveyor brings away from the discussion whether it be a new game, a concept, or an idea to bring to the table that works for the group you're playing with.



Personally I've found some value even it's just to reanalyze how me and my own go about our gaming.

I agree with this too.

Quote from: CRKrueger;724928Edwards who never understood "Simulationism" at all

This I don't really agree with, though I seem to be in a minority. I have GMed a lot of Rolemaster (two campaigns both to over 20th level, running in combination for nearly 20 years). I think Edwards' discussion of simulationism, and especially purist-for-system simulationism, fits well with my experience.

I also find his discussion of high concept simulationism insightful, but I recognise that the label "simulationism" here is highly contentious. I don't know that I would say he doesn't understand this mode of play, but it seems fairly clear he doesn't enjoy it in large doses.

Quote from: S'mon;724983BTW what Pemerton does as GM looks to me much more like GDS Dramatism than anything from GNS, so I'm not sure he's really a Forgist whatever he says.

The key issues for me are (i) who gets to decide what counts as the (morally) right or wrong choices within the fiction (eg what should the PCs do; who is the BBEG; etc), and (ii) who gets to decide what the focus of play will be in story terms (eg what sorts of places will the PCs go to, what sort of people will they meet, at least in general terms; etc).

In both cases I prefer that the players rather than the GM have the overall authority here (though when it comes to the details of scene-framing I favour GM authority, so that the players aren't tempted to squib). And I've long disliked mechanical alignment (I dropped it in the mid-80s), and I find Edwards's simulationism essay gives a good explanation for the connection between my play preferences and my dislike of mechanical alignment.

As I understand it, the play I like is narrativist play (Edwards's term) and at least one mode of dramatist play (John Kim's term?). In his "Story Now" essay Edwards suggests that the difference in terminology is, at least in general terms, merely terminological - he wants to use "drama" to describe a resolution mode and so wants something else to describe the "dramatist" orientation of play.

I think Edwards has a clear inconsistency in his essay between his formal definition of narrativism and the examples he gives: he classifies The Dying Earth as supporting narrativist play, although it doesn't satisfy his formal requirement of having players address a moral or heavily thematic question of human existence.

This sort of gap between formal definition and actual use is a common problem in critical and sociological theories. (Eg Durkheim has the same problem in his definition of "social fact" in The Rules of Sociological Method, and Weber has the same problem in his definition of "authority" in Economy and Society.) My general experience is that the use, and the general conception to which it gives rise, tends to be more helpful than the formal definition. I think Edwards is the same here, and that's why I think he takes the view that narrativist play is more common than is sometimes supposed. It's not that people are playing games with heavy moral themes but haven't noticed - it's that people are playing games where the players are expected to inject their own evaluative perspective and content as part of play (be that heavy evaluation if playing some serious game, or light hearted somewhat cynical evaluation if playing The Dying Earth), and that's pretty much what narrativism means as an approach to play. To the extent that that's also what dramatism means as an approach to play, I'm happy to be a dramatist too.

Quote from: -E.;724989I don't need special meta-game mechanics to add flavor or drive address of premise: we do that fine at the human level.

I don't need special meta-game mechanics either - I've GMed narrativist Rolemaster and narrativist 4e. (Both pretty light - I don't think Edwards, Baker or Paul Czege would particularly care for my games.)

More than needing meta-game mechanics, I find that the sort of play I like can be easier when some other mechanical features are absent, which distract the focus of play away from flavour/theme and into the mere minutiae of the ingame fiction. (Rolemaster healing rules are one example of this; encumbrance or overland travel rules are examples from many systems.)

I also think that even vanilla narrativist play can benefit from having points where player choices can be mechanically expressed. I think this is why I prefer Rolemaster to Runequest, even though I think RQ is fairly obviously the more elegant game. In RM, attack and parry come from a common pool and are allocated round-by-round - and in making that allocation the player can thereby give effect to choices (within the confines of resolving a melee combat - I wouldn't say RM, or 4e for that matter, is very versatile in the range of themes/premises it can address). Whereas in RQ these are separate skills which are simply rolled by the player - there is no space there for the player's choices to be injected so as to effect the outcome. I think this makes it harder to use RQ to inject theme/premise within the resolution of melee combat.

Quote from: Arminius;725189A ways back, Pemerton wrote that he didn't see GNS theory as containing predictive claims. I thought that was interesting, since I've generally taken that for granted and (as far as I could tell), I've seen such claims made on its behalf by its fans. So I went and had a look at two of the earliest essays, "System Does Matter" and "GNS and Other Matters of Role-Playing Theory".

Some of your quotes are evaluations (eg "horrendous mistake"). These aren't mere expressions of preference - that's not what I said Edwards is doing, and that's because it's not what I think he is doing - but they aren't predictions either.

The other stuff reads to me like the standard analytical style of criticism or interpretive sociology. You yourself note that it doesn't satisfy natural science standards of provability, because the "inevitable" outcomes cover most of the options (and there is the additional notion of "drift" - which is used to explain how people achieve fun play with incoherent games).

Many people are sceptical of interpretive sociology and similar methods (eg Popper in volume 2 of The Open Society). I personally tend to find it the only sociology worth reading, but not for its predictive power: for its interpretive power. For instance, does the notion that an "incoherent" game will tend to yield fun only if their is "drift", and in the absence of consensus on such "drift" will yield a power struggle, shed new light on the experience of RPGing? For me the answer is yes - for instance, I've been involved in such power struggles resulting from different parts of the game pushing against one another in terms of the authority granted to player and GM.

Others probably have different experiences.

When the stakes of the critical inquiry are, for instance, the nature of the Greek currency crisis or the fate of industrial civilisation, it probably matters to try and reach a well-defended view. Fit with personal experience wouldn't be enough - one would have to do serious historical research, for instance, and perhaps anthropological research too, to see how the candidate interpretations fit with a wide range of human experience.

But when it comes to RPGing the stakes aren't very high. In this respect it seems to me more like the criticism of art or literature: if I find a critic whom I like, and whose reviews and essays speak to me, I'm not going to be especially troubled simply by the fact that there are others who don't like the critic. And it doesn't matter to me that The Forge is not illuminating for others' play experiences - on its own, that doesn't change the fact that I find it useful.

(A non-RPG example: I found Hobbit II to be not as good as Hobbit I, and confirmed and developed this experience in conversation with my partner after we saw the film together. Likewise for the more recent Wolverine film and the first (Origins) one. When I get home and find that Rotten Tomatoes ranks them the other way around, I note that I'm out of step with a lot of critical opinion, and maybe think about the film a bit more, but it doesn't as such make me doubt the validity of my experience and the judgement I've made based on it. If what was at stake was some question of historical explanation, things would be different - and I change my mind all the time in response to reading disagreements about matters from historians or social theorists who adduce a wider variety of relevant experience than I have brought to mind in reaching my initial opinion.)

Quote from: Arminius;725171I think the Forge has been somewhat successful in this respect, but not really by the means one would suppose if one believed the theory. The first is that awareness of the games and the ideological discussion are largely transmitted in the same channels, so if you see a Forge game and you find other people who want to play it with you, there's a good chance they share your taste and your expectation of how the game should play. Whereas when I've seen posts about people trying to introduce the games into their existing groups, the results are often unsuccessful. The games themselves aren't doing much to get people on the same page. (This could be called cherry-picking, as an analytical flaw when making generalized claims.)

I don't know, it worked for me and my group. I got into more indie-themed games and asked my regular D&D group if they'd like to try one, they said yes, and they liked it. Cut to a few years later and we divide our time fairly evenly between D&D and more indie stuff (principally my own game).

Some groups won't like it, true, but our group is pretty standard. No-one else is on forums or has heard of GNS or the like.

I think where these things fail is when people are trying to convert their group by force or trickery rather than just seeing honestly if anyone wants to give it a try. Just like with any other game really.

Quote from: TristramEvans;725125To say that Vampire needed to be focused so that the system forced people to play one way is essentially saying everyone playing the other way were having badwrongfun.

Systems can't force anyone to do anything. The point is that some people felt Vampire offered them a kind of game that mechanically it didn't support (in fact it massively undermined it). Most people probably didn't want that kind of game experience and were perfectly happy with the one that Vampire actually provided. But for those people who did want a narrativist kind of Vampire game, achieving that kind of play would require some changes or a different ruleset altogether.

Quote from: soviet;725343Systems can't force anyone to do anything.

True. But they can influence to one degree or another.

 

QuoteBut for those people who did want a narrativist kind of Vampire game, achieving that kind of play would require some changes or a different ruleset altogether.

I disagree. Its all in how one uses the rules. Sure theres systems that FORCE a "narrative" style of play, but people have been playing that way for years before those systems existed.

Quote from: TristramEvans;725348I disagree. Its all in how one uses the rules. Sure theres systems that FORCE a "narrative" style of play, but people have been playing that way for years before those systems existed.

Sure, but some things can actually get in the way of doing what they want. Witness the problems some people who focus on immersion have had with 4e. They like immersion, they don't necessarily need rules to help their immersion, but some rules can kill it stone dead.

It may be fair to say that in Vampire the main barriers to narrativism are deeply imbedded pieces of GM advice moreso than actual rules, but they are there nonetheless.

Quote from: pemerton;725252The key issues for me are (i) who gets to decide what counts as the (morally) right or wrong choices within the fiction (eg what should the PCs do; who is the BBEG; etc), and (ii) who gets to decide what the focus of play will be in story terms (eg what sorts of places will the PCs go to, what sort of people will they meet, at least in general terms; etc).

In both cases I prefer that the players rather than the GM have the overall authority here (though when it comes to the details of scene-framing I favour GM authority, so that the players aren't tempted to squib). And I've long disliked mechanical alignment (I dropped it in the mid-80s), and I find Edwards's simulationism essay gives a good explanation for the connection between my play preferences and my dislike of mechanical alignment.

As I understand it, the play I like is narrativist play (Edwards's term) and at least one mode of dramatist play (John Kim's term?). In his "Story Now" essay Edwards suggests that the difference in terminology is, at least in general terms, merely terminological - he wants to use "drama" to describe a resolution mode and so wants something else to describe the "dramatist" orientation of play.

I think Edwards has a clear inconsistency in his essay between his formal definition of narrativism and the examples he gives: he classifies The Dying Earth as supporting narrativist play, although it doesn't satisfy his formal requirement of having players address a moral or heavily thematic question of human existence.

This sort of gap between formal definition and actual use is a common problem in critical and sociological theories. (Eg Durkheim has the same problem in his definition of "social fact" in The Rules of Sociological Method, and Weber has the same problem in his definition of "authority" in Economy and Society.) My general experience is that the use, and the general conception to which it gives rise, tends to be more helpful than the formal definition. I think Edwards is the same here, and that's why I think he takes the view that narrativist play is more common than is sometimes supposed. It's not that people are playing games with heavy moral themes but haven't noticed - it's that people are playing games where the players are expected to inject their own evaluative perspective and content as part of play (be that heavy evaluation if playing some serious game, or light hearted somewhat cynical evaluation if playing The Dying Earth), and that's pretty much what narrativism means as an approach to play. To the extent that that's also what dramatism means as an approach to play, I'm happy to be a dramatist too.

Hm, ok then. So even Edwards doesn't use Narrativism to mean actual Narrativism (Exploration-of-Premise)! :D
So by your given standard the shared narrative authority stuff from S John Ross (I think) in 4e DMG2 makes 4e D&D a Narrativist game (I too have used the suggestions there, in moderation). But this Narrativism isn't really distinct from GDS Dramatism. OK. :)

Here's my main disagreements with GNS theory.

1) The idea that the GNS modes are a useful primary categorization of game styles.

In my experience, they're not.  There are players that have a strong preference for premise-focused games, and they will tend to like 'N' games, but I don't believe that the GNS division is actually useful in the general case.  Too many games simply don't fit, and too many games fit in the same 'division' that are too different from each other.  Many players' primary motivations are not the GNS modes anyway, and so that classification isn't particularly useful.

I prefer to look at player needs, instead, rather than perform a high level division.  While recognizing that people play games for different reasons is a good thing, I disagree with the idea that there's a universal three-way split that can be done to all RPGs.  If anything, this kind of split implicitly discourages exploration of game styles that don't fit in one of the GNS modes.

Exploration of premise is a great need.  "Simulation" and "Gamism" seem more like buckets of weakly-related needs.  I disagree that they're a useful primary categorization mechanism.

The idea that GNS modes are a good categorization mechanism has one effect, especially combined with the idea that a game should only follow a single GNS mode.  It tends to produce games that are very strongly based around exploration of premise.  For people who have strong needs of games that do this, that's a great value from the theory.

2) The idea that adherence to a single GNS mode is required.

Disagree, full stop.  While I find some merit to this idea when it comes to the simulation/game divide (at the extremes), I find that premise, specifically, can be explored within either of those structures, and game/simulation techniques can be used to enhance the exploration of (certain types of) premise.

3) Inconsistency (I hate the term "incoherence") of design is primarily based on the GNS modes.

I think of designs as being inconsistent when parts of the design make the goals of other parts of the design difficult - my example earlier being the "big damn hero" game where you have a high random chance of dying to some arbitrary mook.

This is a generally useful concept in my view.  Focusing it solely on GNS modes is unnecessarily limiting, and of very little value unless you accept the GNS modes as a primary categorization, which I explicitly don't.

4) Drift is a result of not following a single GNS mode strongly (incoherence)

Again, see previous comments on GNS modes as a primary categorization mechanism.

Above and beyond that, though, I see "drift" or rules modification (including de-emphasis or ignoring rules) as a result of a particular game system not matching the expectations/needs of a gaming group - regardless of how well designed that system is.  An inconsistent (by my definition) design will make it hard for it to effectively meet *any* needs, and so will more likely "drift" in play, but any time that there's a difference between the needs the players (including GM) of a game expect to meet through play, and the needs that the system meets, you'll likely see an amount of drift.

A game cannot force a particular play style.  It can support or encourage certain types of play, but it cannot force a play style.  If a group wants a certain type of game/experience, they'll get it.

5) Power struggles are a result of "incoherent" design

Power struggles amongst players are a result of players having different expectations.  They only inherently lead to power struggles if you assume that people can't talk as rational adults and compromise.

Can a "coherent" design help this?  Possibly - but even the best design is subject to interpretation of those reading it.  And if you have players that cannot compromise, then that is a social issue that must be resolved - relying upon an appeal to authority in the rules to resolve this seems like a band-aid on the core problem *at best*.

I personally see illusionism as the biggest offender in terms of power struggles, as it explicitly sets the stage for the GM to promise one thing (your choices matter!) while simultaneously ensuring that they don't.  The technique tells both players and GMs that they have control/power over the direction of the game, which just sets up conflict.

But illusionism has *nothing* to do with GNS modes *or* "incoherence".

6) Focused designs are better (especially in terms of GNS modes)

This is only even possibly true if viewed from a pure design standpoint, and not considering the people playing the game.

Most groups have players with a relatively wide set of needs that they want met, even if a subset of those are actually brought into a particular game.  The appropriateness of a game is going to be based upon how well a given game meets the needs of that group (again, the set of needs they expect the game to meet).

A more focused game will be 'better' only if the needs it satisfies match the needs of the group, with little excluded.

A game that satisfies more needs is more likely to satisfy a given group's needs, presuming that any additional mechanical weight/complexity does not outweigh the value it brings.

Also, a lot of needs of people aren't really around the game itself, but around other things - liking particular dice, not liking other dice, wanting a game lightweight enough to play when inebriated, not wanting to learn more systems, etc.  GNS theory completely ignores these types of needs.

It's true that some needs (and some techniques to satisfy those needs) are inherently contradictory, and that the more focused a game is, the less likely it is to have such inconsistencies.  However:

a) While inconsistency is definitely problematic, it has to be viewed in the context of the game as a whole - a game that satisfies every need a group has, but has a minor inconsistency will, on the whole, be better suited for that group than a game which satisfies only a narrow subset of their needs but has no inconsistencies.

b) While catering to a wider variety of needs increases the chance of inconsistency in design, it's not guaranteed in any way.  Minimizing inconsistency is a very valid goal - however, tighter focus is not inherently a positive (nor is it necessarily a negative).

Generic games also have the advantage of serving needs like "I don't want to learn another damn system", as opposed to learning a new system for each different game/genre.  This can be a *very* strong need, and can easily outweigh any genre-specific value from a focused game - depending on the individuals involved and their priorities, of course.

-----------------------------------------------

You'll notice that there's a lot of little things in GNS theory or thought around it that I don't disagree with.  As I've said, there's some interesting thoughts/ideas in there.  However, I disagree with the *primary conclusions* drawn from the theory, which is why I reject it as a *whole*.

[rant]
My 2c on GNS would be that if you abandon the idea of 'incoherency' being bad, the GNS categories no longer serve any useful purpose, but attempts to use the theory directly to build anything are doomed to failure because the three-way model here is a very crude representation of something quite complex. Its ideas occasionally predict something accurately i.e. you can *sometimes* classify a gamer or a system or identify a conflict, but the error rate is sufficiently high that its more or less useless as far as building anything goes, except with a very particular audience or circumstances.

*G vs. S is a very crude amalgamation of the issues of balance vs. accurate representation, and simplicity of play vs. representation of detail, and better discussed in those terms.  Talking about a 'gamist' player agenda is also awkward because you can split players primarily interested in game concerns into highly competitive min-maxers (some of whom don't seem overly interested in balance) and those who want tactics/ strategy.

*S. vs. N. as a dichotomy is about having a flow of events following bottom-up from world details logically vs. having events happen from a top-down approach that are dramatic or form an interesting story (Edwards' too-narrow narrow scheme of thing would also say not just any story but one that 'addresses a premise). While these things are in conflict to an extent, a good story also has internal consistency and believability, so its still not entirely clear-cut.

Simulation in Edwards' essays I think eventually got divided into 'exploration' of about 5 of so different things, any of which could also be sometimes in conflict with each other, and there's also the problems of games designed to 'simulate' in the sense they provide immersion, those that are highly complex physics emulators , and the distinction of whether simulation is meant to be genre-emulation or pure realism: where do you put a game like Toon, and if its in the same category as Phoenix Command how useful are your categories?

*A G vs. N dichotomy is what nowadays (post-2E D&D) would generally be called "rollplaying vs. roleplaying" aka the Stormwind Fallacy.  There's only a very limited conflict here, with regard to an expectation of players 'playing to lose' if this furthers the story, and attempts at "vanilla narrativism" removing gamist elements such as challenge (e.g. possibility of character death) or game incentives (i.e. character advancement, such as in Trollbabe or InSpectres) have generally resulted in nothing more than a net loss to the game. Players getting excessive 'narrative power' is a bad idea in a highly competitive system as well (give a monkey a wish and it'll fill the world with bananas) but distributed GMing is something that doesn't occur in even a majority of storygames, AFAIK.

So while there are conflicts between things which could because of the models' vagueness be described in G/N/S terms, attempting to action them directly in systems design usually means an overreaction that alienates large swathes of the audience and still leaves some players who would be lumped in the same category unsatisfied. Its very much like how leeching is (rightly) rejected by modern day physicians, even though there are cases where sticking a leech onto someone has medical benefits.  
[/rant]

I snarked earlier that GNS was really about why people won't play V:tM the way RE wants.  While that may have been overly snarky, I do believe that V:tM (or possibly a different WW game) was the original impetus behind the theory, and directly points at the issues I have with the theory.

1) GNS as a division.  "Why aren't people playing V:tM as a deep character and theme-based game?  Obviously, because they're trying to do something else with it".  Here we see the genesis of the GNS split, where Ron elevates his desire to play a certain way into a full category of games.  The error here is the presumption that this is a universal division that is of primary interest to most gamers, and that gamism/simulationism are opposed to narrativism, as opposed to people *just not caring about that style of play*.

2) Requirement of a single GNS mode - clearly, if Vampire didn't support the other modes, then people would *have* to play it as a deep story/character/theme-based game.  Of course, the other alternative is that they'd play something else, instead.  Again, this looks like a lack of acceptance that people just like different things.

3) Again, this seems to be the observation that V:tM can be played in multiple ways, and therefore there's disagreements on how it's played.  The differing goals is again blamed on the system.  This seems to be a common pattern - almost an inability to accept that people just like different things, and so any disagreement must come from an error in the system.

4) Probably comes from the softballing/downplaying of Humanity and other 'theme-based' mechanics, as well as the push to play Sabbat/etc.  What's interesting here is that he sees "incoherence" as the cause, not preferences misaligning with the system.  Cynically, I'd speculate that admitting that drift is a result of personal preferences means that no amount of rules jiggering could get people to play the way he wants them to.

5) Again, we see the fact that people play games in different ways, and the presumption that these differences are due to game design, and not just due to differing expectations.

6) Once again, if the game didn't support these other icky playstyles, then people would play the way he wanted them to.  And, again, this only makes sense if you presume that any confusion is due to a flaw in the rules, as opposed to people just wanting different things out of their leisure activity.

I think the categories themselves are horseshit.

Quote from: robiswrong;725398I snarked earlier that GNS was really about why people won't play V:tM the way RE wants.  While that may have been overly snarky, I do believe that V:tM (or possibly a different WW game) was the original impetus behind the theory, and directly points at the issues I have with the theory.

Reading over some of this stuff. I think your comment was fairly on target. You see it in other gaming circles as well. Though not on the GNS scale.

Someone likes a certain style of gameplay. Say Random Blind Buy games (C*Gs) for example. To them the thrill of opening the box and getting totally random stuff is the be-all and end all. Everyone should be into this great thrill and those who want those dirty old stand alone games are too mentally stunted to appreciate the mystique of collectibles. We must urge publishers to make more collectible elements in their games so that there will be more players to collect with. The fact that it is a failing model is irrelevant. MTG is still around and proof that it is not a failing model. All those hundreds of dead CCGs and dozens of dead publishers just didnt do it right.

yadda yadda. Replace CCG with Narrativist, Eurogame, BDSM, whatever.
Remember to downplay or degrade the other styles and their players.

Quote from: Benoist;725408I think the categories themselves are horseshit.

In case it wasn't clear, I agree.

Quote from: Omega;725433Reading over some of this stuff. I think your comment was fairly on target. You see it in other gaming circles as well. Though not on the GNS scale.

Yup.  People aren't comfortable just saying "I like XYZ", they've gotta turn it into some kind of object truth based on principles.  It's kinda weird.

The funny thing is, if it was just put forth as "hey, how do you make games to help teach a particular style of playing", then I'd be a lot less critical of it.

I didnt mind the Stances, which Im relativelly certain were being discussed on Usenet years before GNS. I think they were much more useful for discussing approahes to game design and identifying what players want from a game. Though it needed a lot more expansion, theres many more stances than Edwards identified.

Quote from: S'mon;725361So by your given standard the shared narrative authority stuff from S John Ross (I think) in 4e DMG2 makes 4e D&D a Narrativist game

Mabye. I think 4e D&D lends itself well to a light narrativism covering a fairly narrow range of themes (namely, those that can be dealt with in the context of interpersonal fantasy violence!). But the shared narrative stuff in DMG2 I see as somewhat orthogonal to that, and I personally find it can cause issue with players squibbing - which goes back to my preference for GM authority over scene-framing.

This could be used for high concept sim as much as for narrativism if the players, in deciding (say) who's in the tower over the hill, had more regard to preserving the purity of the prior fiction than to pushing their own thematic/evaluative agenda.

Rather than the DMG2-style shared narration, I think the Burning Wheel sort of stuff - which Mearls also has hints of in his most recent Legends & Lore column - is closer to my mark: the players help put together the "big picture" for the campaign (this is the thematic stuff, and the who/where stuff), but then it's the GM's job to take that and actually feed it into play in a way that puts the players (and their PCs) under pressure (this is the same "no squibbing" thing).

Quote from: robiswrong;725398I do believe that V:tM (or possibly a different WW game) was the original impetus behind the theory

I think that's right.

I personally think that the biggest issue with the theory is its classification of purist-for-sim and high concept sim as both sim modes. While this is technically correct within the theory's definition of "exploration", I don't think it captures the typical motivations or rationales of those two sorts of game. Yet issues around high concept sim, and its relationship to narrativism, and also to mechanical techniques inherited from a D&D that was written to support Gygaxian "skilled play", are in my view at the heart of Edwards' problems with Vampire, and similar problems that others have with 90s 2nd ed AD&D.

And to head off on a related tangent: The most popular contemporary form of high concept sim must be the Paizo adventure path, and I think understanding how that sort of game works, and why some people like it and others don't, doesn't really have much in common with thinking about games like Runequeset, Traveller or Rolemaster. I think it also shows that Edwards' was wrong, or at least not completely correct, when he looked at 3E D&D as primarily a gamist engine. For instance, when people talk about the flexibility of 3E/PF, and of customisability, and of the ability to really develop a particular character concept in detail, I think these are the sorts of desires for a game that - in GNS terms - fall within the ambit of high concept sim. And Paizo seems to be delivering on it with no obvious meltdowns so far - or at least none that are obvious to this outside observer.

Quote from: TristramEvans;725480I didnt mind the



Though it needed a lot more expansion, theres many more stances than Edwards identified.

I don't mind stances, but I do have one issue with them: at least as defined by Edwards they are certain logical or analytical categories, but discussion of them often proceeds as if they are empirical or psychological categories. Hence you see it suggested that a player can't make a choice, in play, that occurs both within actor and director stance - whereas my own play experience actually makes me think this is quite common.

For instance, the player, knowing that his/her PC is in a kitchen arguing with the chef and feeling that his PC is at the stage where violence would ensue, says "I look around for a pan and pick one up so I can clock the chef over the head with it". That piece of action declaration doesn't require departing from the perspective and motivations of the PC - and so takes place in actor stance - but also has a small bit of director stance built into it - namely declaring the existence of a pan in the kitchen.

I therefore think that Edwards - and many others - are wrong to think that immersive play is tightly linked to a pure actor stance approach. "Immersion" clearly is a psychological state, but I don't think there is any tight link between psychological states and the logical categories of action declaration that are defined as stances.

Hi, pemerton, and welcome. (This is a belated reply to your post yesterday. I'll reply to today's later.)

Quote from: pemertonThe key issues for me are (i) who gets to decide what counts as the (morally) right or wrong choices within the fiction (eg what should the PCs do; who is the BBEG; etc), and (ii) who gets to decide what the focus of play will be in story terms (eg what sorts of places will the PCs go to, what sort of people will they meet, at least in general terms; etc).

In both cases I prefer that the players rather than the GM have the overall authority here (though when it comes to the details of scene-framing I favour GM authority, so that the players aren't tempted to squib). And I've long disliked mechanical alignment (I dropped it in the mid-80s), and I find Edwards's simulationism essay gives a good explanation for the connection between my play preferences and my dislike of mechanical alignment.

Thanks, that's interesting. Personally, I've also rarely played with alignment. I would note that it is one of the least-imitated aspects of D&D in other RPGs. Most RPGs don't require that actions be classified as morally right or wrong, which means that players can judge each other on right and wrong.

Regarding (ii) - your wanting focus to be directed by players, I think that is a common preference in RPGs. A key follow-on question is how players should express control over the focus of play.

A) One way for players to express control is through character action. i.e. The players want to meet some farmers, so they have their characters travel out to the countryside. This sort of control is a part of some kinds of sandbox play. The GM sets up the map - but the map allows the PCs to choose where they go and who they meet.

B) Another way for players to express control is through metagame action. So, the players might spend a token and say that they are framing a scene where the PCs talk to some farmers.

One argument I frequently had with others at the Forge was that they consistently refused to acknowledge that in-character action could have any power. My question for you would be - given your interest in player control, do you have any feelings about these different types of player control.

Quote from: pemertonAs I understand it, the play I like is narrativist play (Edwards's term) and at least one mode of dramatist play (John Kim's term?). In his "Story Now" essay Edwards suggests that the difference in terminology is, at least in general terms, merely terminological - he wants to use "drama" to describe a resolution mode and so wants something else to describe the "dramatist" orientation of play.

I think Edwards has a clear inconsistency in his essay between his formal definition of narrativism and the examples he gives: he classifies The Dying Earth as supporting narrativist play, although it doesn't satisfy his formal requirement of having players address a moral or heavily thematic question of human existence.

This is part of the huge problem I have with Ron's definitions - even more so with Simulationism. Basically, Ron wanted to include dramatic play with GM-controlled story into Simulationism, along with other dramatic play that he didn't like. This made the categories highly non-intuitive - such that Ron and others would regularly ignore their own definitions and drop back into the more intuitive definitions that Simulationism is about in-character play and environment (i.e. simulation), while Narrativism is about story.

Quote from: pemerton;725491I don't mind stances, but I do have one issue with them: at least as defined by Edwards they are certain logical or analytical categories, but discussion of them often proceeds as if they are empirical or psychological categories. Hence you see it suggested that a player can't make a choice, in play, that occurs both within actor and director stance - whereas my own play experience actually makes me think this is quite common.

For instance, the player, knowing that his/her PC is in a kitchen arguing with the chef and feeling that his PC is at the stage where violence would ensue, says "I look around for a pan and pick one up so I can clock the chef over the head with it". That piece of action declaration doesn't require departing from the perspective and motivations of the PC - and so takes place in actor stance - but also has a small bit of director stance built into it - namely declaring the existence of a pan in the kitchen.

I therefore think that Edwards - and many others - are wrong to think that immersive play is tightly linked to a pure actor stance approach. "Immersion" clearly is a psychological state, but I don't think there is any tight link between psychological states and the logical categories of action declaration that are defined as stances.

I agree mostly. Im reminded of a story I heard a long time ago about a GM describing an impromptu freeform rpg where it was just him and one player in a sci-fi setting. The player was "Dirk Dashing, Space Captain", or something to that effect, and the premise was retro-Golden Age Science Fiction. Beyond that, everything was just spur of the moment streaming consciousness, the GM and player riffing off one another. At one point the player says " I use my anti-gravity belt to float up above the crowd". I still recall specifically the GM's response when writing about it later: "of course he has an Anti-Grav belt. Why else would he have mentioned it?"

Thats an extreme example of what I would call the "common sense factor" in Immersion. If a player is in a kitchen, and they say "I grab a knife put of the drawer", that doesnt break the immersion because I as GM didnt describe the drawer having a set of cutlery in it. And there's no "mother may I?" necessary on the player's part to wait for that specific bit of info before taking that action. Its just a shared assumption about what it means for that character to be in that place, in that situation. The assumption is actually because of and maintains immersion, rather  than suddenly becoming a storygame moment, or something.

This is actually how I explain the use of "Story Points" to my players when playing Dr. Who. Not "heres a metagame mechanic that you as author of this character's story can use to alter or add to the plot", rather "heres a method of establishing a common sense assumption without having to break the flow of the game by pausing to wait for GM approval".

I dont find this contrary to immersion in any way, rather quite the opposite. Although Im also not certain that its a matter of switching stances from Actor to Author.

I would want to do a full revision of what stances mean before I agreed to thier use as diagnostic tools, obviously, and yes, I dont think they should ever be mistaken for psychology. For me, thier use mainly would come from evaluating mechanics in a system outside of gameplay: "Does this mechanic interact with an Actor stance or does it force the switch to an Author stance when its used?" for example.

Quote from: TristramEvans;725551Thats an extreme example of what I would call the "common sense factor" in Immersion. If a player is in a kitchen, and they say "I grab a knife put of the drawer", that doesnt break the immersion because I as GM didnt describe the drawer having a set of cutlery in it. And there's no "mother may I?" necessary on the player's part to wait for that specific bit of info before taking that action. Its just a shared assumption about what it means for that character to be in that place, in that situation. The assumption is actually because of and maintains immersion, rather  than suddenly becoming a storygame moment, or something.

I look at a lot of the "declaring a detail" use of Story Points/whatever to be similar to that, but I'd like to expand a bit.

There's things like grabbing a knife in a kitchen that are just obvious (though where the knives are stored is a separate question, and may be interesting based on the situation...).  There's also things that just make no sense, like "is there a unicorn in the kitchen?" in a CoC game, or less egregiously, "is there a drill press in the kitchen?"  In both cases, it's easy enough just to say "no, of course not."  It's a ridiculous request (barring the situation being set up that the kitchen was under construction).

But there's a lot of stuff in the middle.  "Is there a wrench in here?"  Well... maybe.  Maybe someone left one there.  It's not *automatic*, but it doesn't strain credulity.  That's the kind of thing that the GM might roll for - and that's where I see use of metagame resources - to shift that "maybe" into a "yes".

Quote from: TristramEvans;725551I dont find this contrary to immersion in any way, rather quite the opposite. Although Im also not certain that its a matter of switching stances from Actor to Author.

There's a lot of things that can break immersion.  A lot of that is based on what people are used to.  I don't find a quick break to Author Stance more immersion-breaking than a much longer period looking up tables, for instance, or counting squares on a map.

Quote from: TristramEvans;725551I would want to do a full revision of what stances mean before I agreed to thier use as diagnostic tools, obviously, and yes, I dont think they should ever be mistaken for psychology. For me, thier use mainly would come from evaluating mechanics in a system outside of gameplay: "Does this mechanic interact with an Actor stance or does it force the switch to an Author stance when its used?" for example.

Yeah.  A number of the observations/ideas from the Forge - the supporting stuff - seem useful.  But the high-level conclusions are what I pretty strongly disagree with.  I find Vincent Baker's articles on clouds and boxes interesting and good food for thought in terms of game structure, for instance.

Quote from: robiswrong;725443In case it wasn't clear, I agree.

*nod*

I think the whole premise of a "creative agenda" is a red herring. Likewise to qualify the ulterior motive going on in any particular decision taken during the game as it is played out, for that matter, because to me part of the point to playing a role playing game is to not have an ulterior motive in such processes, that is, you are in situation and the back-and-forth between players and GM happens completely organically from the world's standpoint, when the game takes a life of its own, without any regard for meta-game rationalizations - whether that's "what would logically happen in this situation," "it makes it better for the story," "it makes for a game that's more fun," or whatever else.

That's what I personally call role playing.

So the notion of cultivating particular "creative agendas" or overt, outside of the game rationalizations of what's going on in the game, with the aim of justifying particular decisions or uses of rules or events in the game or whatever else, or the intent/process of codifying each particular motivation in order to consciously design games that cater to these, for that matter, actually runs contrary to the whole point of the role playing experience itself, from my standpoint.

To make that clear, what I'm talking about here has nothing to do with "sim" or what is "realistic" or any particular intent to "simulate" something through the game, IMO. So the pigeonholing into Simulationism can go hang itself, as far as I'm concerned.

Quote from: Benoist;725558*nod*

I think the whole premise of a "creative agenda" is a red herring. Likewise to qualify the ulterior motive going on in any particular decision taken during the game as it is played out, for that matter, because to me part of the point to playing a role playing game is to not have an ulterior motive in such processes, that is, you are in situation and the back-and-forth between players and GM happen completely organically from the world's standpoint, when the game takes a life of its own, without any regard for meta-game rationalizations - whether that's "what would logically happen in this situation," "it makes it better for the story," "it makes for a game that's more fun," or whatever else.

That's what I personally call role playing.

So the notion of cultivating particular "creative agendas" or overt, outside of the game rationalizations of what's going on in the game, with the aim of justifying particular decisions or uses of rules or events in the game or whatever else, or the intent/process of codifying each particular motivation in order to consciously design games that cater to these, for that matter, actually runs contrary to the whole point of the role playing experience itself, from my standpoint.

To make that clear, what I'm talking about here has nothing to do with "sim" or what is "realistic" or any particular intent to "simulate" something through the game, IMO. So the pigeonholing into Simulationism can go hang itself, as far as I'm concerned.

I think I get what you are saying and if so, this has been in the back of my mind as well. GNS kind of brings these agendas (even ones done in the name of immersion) to the forefront artificially, but most people dont think like that or play like that. You just kind of play naturally. A person observing might sense you are cutting across different agendas or goals useing whatever model they happen to come up with, and then conclude something is wrong, because the focus in their view should be on one of these constructs. But gaming works best in my opinion, when you are not thinking about that stuff...at least for me.

Quote from: pemerton;725491I think that's right.

Cool.  And I think that Forge-theory, *especially* the high-level conclusions makes far more sense when viewed from that angle.

Which isn't surprising - most non-rigorous analysis of things ends up being colored by the context that they were spawned from.  Richard Bartle's classification of MUD players (aces, hearts, clubs, diamonds) makes a *lot* more sense if you've played his game.

Do you have any comments on my other issues with GNS theory?

Quote from: pemerton;725491I personally think that the biggest issue with the theory is its classification of purist-for-sim and high concept sim as both sim modes.

I think it's indicative of the larger problem I have with GNS - namely that the GNS modes are an overeager generalization, and of little use as a primary categorization method.

Quote from: pemerton;725491And to head off on a related tangent: The most popular contemporary form of high concept sim must be the Paizo adventure path, and I think understanding how that sort of game works, and why some people like it and others don't, doesn't really have much in common with thinking about games like Runequeset, Traveller or Rolemaster.

I think it's more interesting to look at the players in AP-style games and what they get out of them.  Apart from the common social needs that are served by almost any RPG, I see (primarily):

1) The ability to have complex set-piece battles
2) Lowered GM prep
3) Character build opportunities
4) Tactical combat
5) A consistent story
6) (For PFS) the ability to maintain a character beyond a particular GM

Most of these center around 'game-like' behavior.

Quote from: pemerton;725491I therefore think that Edwards - and many others - are wrong to think that immersive play is tightly linked to a pure actor stance approach. "Immersion" clearly is a psychological state, but I don't think there is any tight link between psychological states and the logical categories of action declaration that are defined as stances.

As I've said above, I think that immersion is a very *personal* thing, and what breaks immersion will be different for different people.  I think it's relatively clear that spending more time in actor stance is beneficial to immersion.  I also think that spending more time focused on "the fiction" - the stuff that's being imagined - is helpful to immersion.

Apart from that, certain things will be immersion-breaking to some people, and not to others, based upon personal preference and (my opinion) familiarity.

I think there's an interesting stance that's often ignored - that's the stance that you frequently see in heavy conflicts where the player is focused on maximizing their effectiveness in terms of counting specific squares, or hunting for bonuses, or doing other math-related things rather than focusing on "the fiction".  I'd probably call that something like "Player Stance", or "Chessmaster Stance".  I think "Player Stance" is pretty clear in that the player is acting as a game player, and making mechanical system-level decisions, but it's also rather confusing with the fact that a player is, well, a player.

Quote from: Benoist;725558because to me part of the point to playing a role playing game is to not have an ulterior motive in such processes, that is, you are in situation and the back-and-forth between players and GM happen completely organically from the world's standpoint, when the game takes a life of its own, without any regard for meta-game rationalizations - whether that's "what would logically happen in this situation," "it makes it better for the story," "it makes for a game that's more fun," or whatever else.

That's what I personally call role playing.

Yeah, I see what you're saying in terms of "agenda" implying some overt overarching goal.

But at the same time, I think that when presented with a choice in a game, players have some way of evaluating what is the best action to take.  Whether that's based on what is most advantageous to them, what their character would likely do based on that character's personality, what would be interesting to do, what makes the biggest explosion, what's the most depraved thing they can do, etc.

In most players these things are probably mostly unconscious, and it's a blend of several different things, at differing ratios for different players.  "I'll do the most advantageous thing for me, unless it's grossly out of character" vs. "I'll do the most in-character thing, unless it's grossly disadvantageous", for instance.

But for most players, I do think it's a blend, and I think these kind of blended priorities lead to the most interesting play.  "What my character would do" without consideration for "what is advantageous" can quickly lead to one-note characters with no apparent survival instinct.  "What's advantageous" can lead to extremely dry RPG and no sense of character.  "What's an interesting story" can just lead to utter chaos.  And "What's the most depraved thing I can do" or "what makes the biggest explosions"... well, enough said about those.

Quote from: Benoist;725558So the notion of cultivating particular "creative agendas" or overt, outside of the game rationalizations of what's going on in the game, with the aim of justifying particular decisions or uses of rules or events in the game or whatever else, or the intent/process of codifying each particular motivation in order to consciously design games that cater to these, for that matter, actually runs contrary to the whole point of the role playing experience itself, from my standpoint.

If viewed as a conscious, meta-level activity, I entirely agree.  However, I do think it's useful to understand what the different expectations of players are, and what they value, and to at least think about *why* they make the decisions they do.

As far as catering towards one or the other, I think a better way of looking at game design is to design a game that, as much as possible, unifies the three - one where doing "what your character would" is the same as "what makes an interesting game" and is the same as "what is advantageous."

I also dislike the term "creative agenda" for a number of reasons, and the idea of "agenda as an overarcing, conscious, meta-level decision criteria" is certainly one of them.  The other big one is "creative", as it implicitly ranks "gamism" and "simulationism" as lesser.

From a blog post (http://black-vulmea.blogspot.com/2013/01/playstyles-pigeonholes.html) I wrote last year:

QuoteOne of the very real problems of trying to divine players' interests, whether it's Mr Laws' game styles, or the Forge's 'Big Model(s),' or Fred Hicks' "secret language of character sheets", is that playstyle pigeonholes rarely provide even a useful fraction of the whole story. Looking at my quiz results, it's not the Tactician result which tells you most about my gaming style, but rather the bunch sprint between Method Actor, Butt-Kicker, Storyteller, and Power Gamer, all in roughly equal measure. I want action and system mastery and deepening characterisation and the opportunity to weave my character into the history of the game-world.

When I think about campaigns in which I've played, it's these qualities against which I judge how much I enjoyed the experience, not whether my character fought a duel on the deck of a burning galleon or if I adequately demonstrated my pike-and-shot tactical acumen. A referee who looks at my quiz score and tries to engage me with the equivalent of a minis skirmish game won't even be close.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;725559I think I get what you are saying and if so, this has been in the back of my mind as well. GNS kind of brings these agendas (even ones done in the name of immersion) to the forefront artificially, but most people dont think like that or play like that. You just kind of play naturally. A person observing might sense you are cutting across different agendas or goals useing whatever model they happen to come up with, and then conclude something is wrong, because the focus in their view should be on one of these constructs. But gaming works best in my opinion, when you are not thinking about that stuff...at least for me.

Kinda yeah. Way before anything like these theories existed, I used to say, that when I could step out of the game table as GM, have a dump, and come back to the table with the players still in character discussing what they were going to do or role playing this or that, that was a good game. It's basically what I'm talking about here: when the game takes a life of its own and it just unfolds naturally, whether you roll dice or not, whether you are in deep immersion or not (so there's a distinction I'm making here, i.e. I'm not talking about immersion proper).

Quote from: robiswrong;725564If viewed as a conscious, meta-level activity, I entirely agree.  However, I do think it's useful to understand what the different expectations of players are, and what they value, and to at least think about *why* they make the decisions they do.

I think these are rather specific to any particular moment and circumstance in a game, rather than broad categories you can pinpoint and pigeon-hole decisions into. I think that actually creating any type of categories like this is more of an obstacle to good game design than it helps, because you're just adding another layer of theory between your design and its object, when design to me should be practical and directly about its object, rather than any abstract representation thereof.

Quote from: robiswrong;725564As far as catering towards one or the other, I think a better way of looking at game design is to design a game that, as much as possible, unifies the three - one where doing "what your character would" is the same as "what makes an interesting game" and is the same as "what is advantageous."

I'd say that it depends on what you want to accomplish with your design. I'll give you that having an idea of where you want to go with your game, no matter how you call it, is good for your game in the end. But however you structure your thinking and craft distinctions in order to isolate different goals and meet them, these things to me are and should remain specific, rather than be construed as general and all-encompassing. When you make generalities out of such concepts is when you start artificially separating games, gamers or whatever into this or that category, and that way madness lies. That's not to say that labels can't be useful, as when you might say this or that is a "story game" or whatnot, but it should be remembered these are imperfect categorizations at best.

Likewise, "high versus low fantasy" and all that - the last thing a fantasy writer should worry about while writing his stories is whether they fit into high or low fantasy or whatever, I'd say. Just concentrate on what it is you are writing, whatever it ends up being judged as being, from a critic's point of view.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;725567From a blog post (http://black-vulmea.blogspot.com/2013/01/playstyles-pigeonholes.html) I wrote last year:

Yeah.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;725567From a blog post (http://black-vulmea.blogspot.com/2013/01/playstyles-pigeonholes.html) I wrote last year:

Law's Gaming Styles is just a poll.  Unlike professional pollsters who can construct a poll to inform or disinform as the case may be, amateur pollsters who attempt a complex poll almost without exception color the questions with their own biases.

I don't know if Laws even made the poll questions originally.

Robin Laws is not an IC-Immersive roleplayer or "World in Motion" DM by any stretch of the imagination.  Not only thinking RPGs create stories, but actually create a literary work of art, his gaming styles more correctly apply to people who enjoy narrative metagame and to a lesser degree tactical metagame.  Similar to RE's classifications, Law's Styles don't work very well dealing with players who prefer IC-Immersion and don't care or think about meta concerns when playing.

Most of the people who I know care a lot about Immersion say the styles kind of fall down when applying to them, almost all of the people I know who say the styles fit them well aren't concerned much with immersion.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;725567From a blog post (http://black-vulmea.blogspot.com/2013/01/playstyles-pigeonholes.html) I wrote last year:

I totally agree on pigeonholing players.  That's kind of a recurring theme with what I've been saying - instead of categorizing players, I find it more useful to identify the things they look to get out of RPGs.

I find that more useful because there's no mutual exclusion involved, and a player may even have needs that are mutually exclusive - they just meet those needs at different times and with different games.

Quote from: Benoist;725577I think these are rather specific to any particular moment and circumstance in a game, rather than broad categories you can pinpoint and pigeon-hole decisions into.

Agreed, and I think that the factors involved are probably greater and more specific than we give credit for - even metagaming things like "if we do this, I know that Bob is just gonna go nutso again, so I'm going to argue against it."

An awareness of the factors that may go into decision-making is probably useful.  Optimizing around a particular type of factor is less so, I think.  After all, I strongly believe that in most cases there's a number of factors that go into a particular decision, so why optimize around one?

Quote from: Benoist;725577I think that actually creating any type of categories like this is more of an obstacle to good game design than it helps, because you're just adding another layer of theory between your design and its object, when design to me should be practical and directly about its object, rather than any abstract representation thereof.

Yes, a design that is geared towards meeting some abstract representation or arbitrary set of rules is less interesting to me than one that's geared around making a good play experience.

I think that thinking about these things can provide some structure for thinking about *why* things are working they way they do (or don't!) in a game that's being designed, but they're a means, not an end.  And certainly with any theory/structure/model there's the chance of people putting the cart before the horse.

Quote from: Benoist;725577I'd say that it depends on what you want to accomplish with your design. I'll give you that having an idea of where you want to go with your game, no matter how you call it, is good for your game in the end. But however you structure your thinking and craft distinctions in order to isolate different goals and meet them, these things to me are and should remain specific, rather than be construed as general and all-encompassing.

Well, exactly.  That's why I keep focusing on "needs" - they're specific, individual, not categories, and not exclusive within a single gamer, even if the needs are themselves exclusive.

I do think that if you have a game that is supposedly about politics and social encounters, and the only reward mechanism is from killing people, that there's a mismatch in your design.

Quote from: Benoist;725577When you make generalities out of such concepts is when you start artificially separating games, gamers or whatever into this or that category, and that way madness lies.

Absolutely.  That's why I've been pretty much arguing against categorization all along, and more about identifying traits (needs).  Calling a gamer a "tactician" says a lot about not only what they like, but what they don't like.  Saying that a player "likes tactical combat" says absolutely nothing about what else they do or don't like, and allows for them to like games that don't include tactical combat, so long as they include other things that that particular player likes - much in the same way that me liking steak doesn't mean I demand steak is in every meal, because hey, I like chicken, too.

I think that's actually an amusing analogy - separating gamers into "ist" types is about as useful as calling someone a "steakist" because they like steak.

Quote from: Benoist;725577That's not to say that labels can't be useful, as when you might say this or that is a "story game" or whatnot, but it should be remembered these are imperfect categorizations at best.

The map ain't the territory.

Quote from: Benoist;725577Likewise, "high versus low fantasy" and all that - the last thing a fantasy writer should worry about while writing his stories is whether they fit into high or low fantasy or whatever, I'd say. Just concentrate on what it is you are writing, whatever it ends up being judged as being, from a critic's point of view.

Totally agreed.  The measure of the game is if people are having fun with it.  That's all.  Anything else is just a tool to help achieve that goal.

Quote from: CRKrueger;725582Most of the people who I know care a lot about Immersion say the styles kind of fall down when applying to them, almost all of the people I know who say the styles fit them well aren't concerned much with immersion.

I think that the "Method Actor" category is intended to include immersive play.  It's a relatively weak fit given the *description* of the type I've seen.  But given that method acting is about the actor immersing themselves into the character, and relying upon their natural emotions and reactions rather than "faking" them, it seems appropriate.  But I do think there's a split between players that see their characters as an outlet of creative energy, and players that truly are primarily interested in immersing in their characters.  I'd actually argue that the former is more related to the "Storyteller" type using Laws' classification, but again, it just shows the weakness of any kind of broad categorization.

Quote from: CRKrueger;725582Law's Gaming Styles is just a poll.  Unlike professional pollsters who can construct a poll to inform or disinform as the case may be, amateur pollsters who attempt a complex poll almost without exception color the questions with their own biases.

I don't know if Laws even made the poll questions originally.

Robin Laws is not an IC-Immersive roleplayer or "World in Motion" DM by any stretch of the imagination.  Not only thinking RPGs create stories, but actually create a literary work of art, his gaming styles more correctly apply to people who enjoy narrative metagame and to a lesser degree tactical metagame.  Similar to RE's classifications, Law's Styles don't work very well dealing with players who prefer IC-Immersion and don't care or think about meta concerns when playing.

Most of the people who I know care a lot about Immersion say the styles kind of fall down when applying to them, almost all of the people I know who say the styles fit them well aren't concerned much with immersion.

The poll results often reflect that bias. Storytellers and Tacticians are almost always the two most popular results. (See here. (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?318457-Robin-D-Laws-The-7-Gamer-Types))

I scored Tactician/Specialist/Method Actor which I think is broadly accurate, but it lacks any of the nuance of my own personal style; and I do care about immersion.

EDIT: post lost due to some sort of log in error.

Quote from: TristramEvans;725551Thats an extreme example of what I would call the "common sense factor" in Immersion. If a player is in a kitchen, and they say "I grab a knife put of the drawer", that doesnt break the immersion because I as GM didnt describe the drawer having a set of cutlery in it. And there's no "mother may I?" necessary on the player's part to wait for that specific bit of info before taking that action. Its just a shared assumption about what it means for that character to be in that place, in that situation. The assumption is actually because of and maintains immersion, rather  than suddenly becoming a storygame moment, or something.

Quote from: robiswrong;725556there's a lot of stuff in the middle.  "Is there a wrench in here?"  Well... maybe.  Maybe someone left one there.  It's not *automatic*, but it doesn't strain credulity.  That's the kind of thing that the GM might roll for - and that's where I see use of metagame resources - to shift that "maybe" into a "yes".

I agree that "common sense" director stance doesn't have any general tendency to be immersion breaking.

I also agree that there are "middle" cases.

An example from 4e that I have found to be quite controversial, at least on ENworld, is Come and Get It. This hasn't been immersion breaking in my game - it is generally just an expressin of the polearm fighter's ability to dominate the battlefield and to wrongfoot his enemies through deft polearm handling - but a lot of other posters insist that it must be immersion breaking because it requires dictating NPCs' choices.

I see the encounter power aspect of CaGI as analgous to a metagame token for rationing the power. Because the token is so intimately built into the player-side mechanics, though, I actually think it is less of a threat to immersion than a mechanic would be that requires going via the GM. (I see this as relating to the point that some techniques - like looking up tables or rule books - can be immersion breaking even if they don't raise stance issues).

Another way I ration "middle" cases is via checks (a bit like Burning Wheel wises). One common case of this in my 4e game involves the deva Sage of Ages - successful knowledge checks by this character can include both learning stuff that was already established (eg monster knowledge) via retconning in past experience that the PC recalls from his 1000 prior lifetimes, and also, but less often, having the player stipulate, on a successful check, some bit of backstory that fits with what has gone before, and with the overall established situation/concerns of the character. Generally this stuff doesn't seem to break immersion either, at least for my group.

Quote from: jhkim;725539Hi, pemerton, and welcome.

Thanks!

Quote from: jhkim;725539Regarding (ii) - your wanting focus to be directed by players, I think that is a common preference in RPGs. A key follow-on question is how players should express control over the focus of play.

A) One way for players to express control is through character action. i.e. The players want to meet some farmers, so they have their characters travel out to the countryside. This sort of control is a part of some kinds of sandbox play. The GM sets up the map - but the map allows the PCs to choose where they go and who they meet.

B) Another way for players to express control is through metagame action. So, the players might spend a token and say that they are framing a scene where the PCs talk to some farmers.

One argument I frequently had with others at the Forge was that they consistently refused to acknowledge that in-character action could have any power. My question for you would be - given your interest in player control, do you have any feelings about these different types of player control.

I prefer GM authority over scene-framing, so that players aren't tempted to prioritise easy opportunities for their PCs over genuine challenges.

But in exercising that authority, I follow the cues set by the players (via PC build, play and out-of-character comments). That means no predetermined set of events, and a pretty flexible backstory that can be adapted as play evolves. The second of these is somewhat at odds with a traditional sandbox, where content is set (mostly by the GM) at the start, rather than evolved flexibly and on the fly. (I don't play fully no myth, but I think I'm closer to no myth than to a traditional sandbox.)

Coming at the same point from a slightly different angle, for me player choice is more important than PC choice (so eg I don't see anything wrong with framing the PCs into a prison scene, provided this speaks to the known concerns of the player for the game - whereas I know some people regard it as a railroad becaus the PCs have no choice to avoid the prison). Whereas at least the very traditional sandbox emphasises PC choice ("What do you do?") but tends to constrain that within a fictional context determined mostly, if not exclusively, by the GM.

As well as this exercise of GM authority in response to player cues (which I have read Edwards's characterise as the players "hooking" the GM, rather than vice versa), we also have informal contributions to backstory from the players in the course of adjudication - in a technical sense I guess this is an application of "say yes" in context of "common sense" director stance as per the earlier part of this post. And then there are mechanical aspects of player control via "tokens" and skill checks.

One aspect of my game that is closer to the traditional sandbox and is different from the typical adventure path is letting the players, rather than the GM, decide what is worth doing and who should be supported and who should be opposed.

I have been GMing in roughly the above way since 1986 and Oriental Adventures (which for me was a huge break through in my AD&D play), though naturally with some develoment and evolution over close to 30 years. And I don't see my approach as very radical or avant garde (although some of the more avant garde stuff at The Forge has been useful to me in reflecting on and improving my aproach). Nevertheless, on ENworld I frequently find myself on the "radical" rather than "traditional" side of discussions around issues like player entitlement, Schroedinger's X (wounds, backstory, etc), alignment debates, etc.

Quote from: pemerton;725637EDIT: post lost due to some sort of log in error.

Were you on an iPad?

Quote from: pemerton;723348(Kyle, if I've got your identity wrong I apologise, but I'm pretty sure I know who you are.)

Sounds ominous! But you are exactly right.

I'd heard Imeji came to an end when she had an argument with a minotaur, the minotaur felt his axe should be in her head, she disagreed, he won.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;725659Were you on an iPad?

No. But I didn't have the "remember me" box ticked, and I had been auto-logged out by the time I hit "submit" on my post.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;725682I'd heard Imeji came to an end when she had an argument with a minotaur, the minotaur felt his axe should be in her head, she disagreed, he won.

Then you were misinformed!

I don't know if I can remember all the details, but it went something like this:

   * The main PCs at the time were Tab (the mystic), Penn (a firemage), Luv (the elven archer/moon mage), and of course Imeji. (The minotaur by that time had been killed fighting an ice troll - the player had dropped out, but had managed to give his minotaur a bad reputation, and when the combat was on the players were barracking for the minotaur!)

* They had travelled into the Bandit Kingdoms to have some sort of dealings with Ursula the black robe wizard who had a crush on Tab. In the course of that they encountered an NPC bard who led them to a cavern guarded by a dark drake. (The module is an early-90s Greyhawk module called Five Shall Be One - or, at least, the first episode or two in that.)

* They didn't entirely avoid the dark drake, and it breathed on Luv, freezing him solid with its dark breath.

* The group therefore bought a wagon and with Tab using his cold magic to keep Luv on ice they carried him to Rel Astra, where they knew some powerful mages were to be found who owed the group a favour.

* Luv was thawed out and healed, and while resting a new party was built around the core gang to go on some sort of mission for the mages. (This was the start of 1992. The Matt who played Luv was planning on going overseas for a while, and was happy to bring in a new PC - a Noble Warrior - in the meantime, and there were a couple of new players to integrate. The PCs were around level 11.)

* The mission involved raiding an estate in Rel Astra. Imeji got into a fight with the guards which was more than she could handle, so she ran off, and turned left at the first corner, then left, then left, and then left again, bringing her back to where she started and where some of the guards were still waiting. She died, but Tab made sure her body was preserved so it could be taken back to Greyhawk and be buried with Derf. (The affair between Derf and Imeji came about after Derf's original player's timetable changed between semesters, and so he could no longer come along to sessions. So Imeji's new player picked up Derf as well, and Imeji did likewise.)

* Derf had died to an earlier unforced error - the group had raided the Scarlet Brotherhood embassy in Greyhawk, and had an excellent plan for having Imeji infiltrate and perform the required assassination, but they forgot to plan for the extraction, which therefore turned into a free-for-all debacle in which everyone got away but Derf, who was beheaded by the Scarlet Brotherhood guards. His head was never recovered, but Tab was able to use shapechaging to model for a sculptor and painter, and so in his tomb a bust of his head lay above his body, with a portrait hanging on the wall above the sarcophagus.

Imeji - the gameworld was never to see her like again! (The player brought in a yuan-ti sorcerer as his new PC, who - while on an expedition to the Noble Warrior's ancestral estate - unfortunately died to one of the firemage's elementals that went rogue. He then tried a dwarven ranger for a little while, but ultimately brought in another sorcerer whom he played to the game's conclusion.)

Amazing recall, I can't remember half as much. I would have thought Imeji would stand and fight against the ridiculous odds, I remember the party fleeing from a citadel and her and the paladin guarding the retreat, standing side-by-side in a narrow corridor, cutting down every orc that came, the party getting through, "close the gate, go!"
"But we're killing so many... more killing!"
Luckily the rest stopped us, players always like to push their luck :)

The paladin's player, he's another person I wronged back then. Ah well, the young are dickheads, it's part of their nature, just some of us more than others.

I do remember Ursula though. A rival party of adventurers, we smacked them over so often they ended up allying with us (sort of).

You see guys? The Forge's ideas are ill-thought-out, self-contradictory and based on wrong and stupid ideas (most people aren't having any fun? maybe in Uncle Ronny's game sessions they're not), but in the end someone inspired by some of those ideas turns out to run campaigns with players and events as glorious, stupid and ridiculous as the most grizzled old-schooler.

Pat, there's another thread here where someone asked what came between Old School and New School, and someone answered it was Excluded Middle School. Which is of course where most of us play...

Quote from: Jacob Marley;725604The poll results often reflect that bias. Storytellers and Tacticians are almost always the two most popular results. (See here. (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?318457-Robin-D-Laws-The-7-Gamer-Types))

I scored Tactician/Specialist/Method Actor which I think is broadly accurate, but it lacks any of the nuance of my own personal style; and I do care about immersion.

I care about immersion a lot and method acting to me is immersion the two things are the same.
And see sig

Quote from: pemerton;725704No. But I didn't have the "remember me" box ticked, and I had been auto-logged out by the time I hit "submit" on my post.

For long posts, you may want to do a select-all copy of the text before hitting submit. This sort if thing occurs on my ipad frequently (never had the problem on a PC) and that seems to be the easiest way of avoiding losing the text. If it becomes a persistent priblem for you, consider opening a thread in the help desk.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;725759For long posts, you may want to do a select-all copy of the text before hitting submit.

I did, but didn't paste it into notepad - where I had the text of a different post to ENworld - and then I got confused and ended up copying the wrong text and pasting it in - hence the edit.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;725716I would have thought Imeji would stand and fight against the ridiculous odds

Maybe she was trying to distract the guards and lure them away with her initial flight, so the others could sneak in?

I remember she did fight in the end, which is where she cut down.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;725716I remember the party fleeing from a citadel and her and the paladin guarding the retreat, standing side-by-side in a narrow corridor, cutting down every orc that came, the party getting through, "close the gate, go!"
"But we're killing so many... more killing!"
Luckily the rest stopped us, players always like to push their luck

That would have been A1, I think. You went on to A2 - Slaver's Stockade - didn't you? It was in the withdrawal from the Pomarj that they met the firemage.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;725716I do remember Ursula though. A rival party of adventurers, we smacked them over so often they ended up allying with us (sort of).

Yep.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;725716there's another thread here where someone asked what came between Old School and New School, and someone answered it was Excluded Middle School. Which is of course where most of us play...

The only thing that makes me feel my game is at all out of the ordinary is when descriptions of my techniques sometimes seem to produce such uproar on ENworld.

In the latest 4e session (Sunday just past) at one stage half the party was stuck in the gullet of the Worm of Ages (an undead purple worm). At one stage the only PC on the outside was the invoker/wizard, solo-ing an undead beholder.

That was pretty funny (for everyone except the player of the paladin - it's a CHA paladin and so sucks at escape checks, and so couldn't get out until the Worm was eventually killed from inside).

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;725716The Forge's ideas are ill-thought-out, self-contradictory and based on wrong and stupid ideas but in the end someone inspired by some of those ideas turns out to run campaigns with players and events as the most grizzled old-schooler.

I can't remember how I found the Forge - someone linked to the System Matters essay, I think (probably around 2004) and I started reading that and the other articles. The review of The Riddle of Steel probably made the most sense to me at first, but reading and re-reading the other stuff, in light of play experiences plus reading others posts about their play and their problems, made the signficance of the other essays clearer to me.

It was pretty obvious to me from the start that Edwards personally would regard my game as pretty derivative and peurile, but that's fine because we won't be playing together!

Because I'm not part of the RPG design scene, and was never heavily involved in the online scene, I didn't know at the time that The Forge was regarded as especially controversial. In fact, I would have thought someone trying to work out what sorts of techniques and approaches tend to make it hard to avoid railroading would have been helpful!

As for The Forge games themselves - I can't imagine actually playing, say, Nicotine Girls, but reading it nevertheless helped me: it introduced me to the idea of a PC "endgame" as something built into the ultimate consequences of action resolution at the end of the campaign, and I used that to (what I hope was) good effect at the end of the 2nd long RM campaign.

This was particularly helpful to me because a lack of ultimate resolution techniques meant that the first camaign didn't end satisfactorily, but instead collapsed under the weight of its own mechanical and plot complexity - at which point we all agreed to start a new game at 1st level with some of the more problematic spells (especially teleport and divination) removed.

And 4e now builds the absence of such spells, and the idea of PC arc and endgame (ie epic destinies), right into its mechanics. For me, that is an indication of The Forge approach of deliberate design, focusing on at-table aspects of a rule rather than in-fiction aspects and simulation aspects of a rule (which is the approach that dominates Rolemaster design, sometimes to the game's detriment), having a wider effect on the hobby.

Quote from: pemerton;725967This was particularly helpful to me because a lack of ultimate resolution techniques meant that the first camaign didn't end satisfactorily, but instead collapsed under the weight of its own mechanical and plot complexity - at which point we all agreed to start a new game at 1st level with some of the more problematic spells (especially teleport and divination) removed.

This really is a pretty unexamined area of many traditional rpgs, a big omission form the "play advice" chapters.

Most game groups never finish a series of adventures, the group implodes when some key members leave for whatever reason.

The group implosion sometimes comes partly from the normal tension you get within a group over playstyles, how and when to tackle various challenges, plus normal interpersonal stuff like the stinky snacks someone brings. This is made worse by the sheer fact of not seeing an end to it all. People like a beginning, a middle and an end. If they have even the slightest discontent about what's happening at the game table, if it were going to end after X sessions it wouldn't seem as big a deal as if there were no endpoint. Everything is amplified in a small chamber.

A lack of clear goals will also often be a source of discontent. When is it time to stop? When can we pat ourselves on the back for a job well done? I enjoy the sandbox play, but this is a distinct problem with it - if not handled well by the GM. Things can just fizzle.

If they do go on, the high-level play (or high character points or whatever the system has) as you say just gets too much.

I think this is dealt with by things like AD&D1e's "name level" thing. You reach 9th level, either you change to a different type of campaign or you consider the characters retired. Plus a high death rate helped keep things fresh.

What I find is that even with everyone getting along smashingly and playing games they love, most people just can't commit to a years-long campaign. They have kids, change jobs, move house, and so on. Those weekends of binge gaming we had at uni at 19yo we're less likely to have a couple of decades later. I'm sure I had you checking Rolemaster charts at 2am Sunday at some point. Nowadays it's one night a week 6-9.

So the approach I usually use is to have an actual endpoint. Here's an adventure which I expect to take 12-18 sessions to finish. We do that, then we reassess. We could have the same characters do a follow-on adventure, or someone else can GM. And this gives players the chance to cycle out of the game group if they want a break, or to game with different people.

I didn't use this approach in the last campaign I ran and things were sort of fizzling out when luckily there was a TPK just before our holiday break, so it removed that awkwardness for us of figuring out what to do. But I think I'll return to this approach in future as it's worked so well in the past.

This is a bit of a rambling post but I tend not to make a huge effort towards coherence in hydra threads like this. However ill-formed, these are my thoughts.

Quote from: pemerton;725967And 4e now builds the absence of such spells, and the idea of PC arc and endgame (ie epic destinies), right into its mechanics.

Yup - it's certainly made long term play feasible for me in my 4e campaign. I would never try to do 5+ years of fortnightly play in other* versions of D&D. Compared to 3e especially, 4e both feels more stable, and also has a clear charted progression to look forward to. Right now late in 16th level the players are thinking about Epic Tier and Epic Destinies, but even at 21st level they won't be able to scry/buff/teleport any BBEGs. :D

*Although Mentzer BECM certainly has its temptations, and would be my second choice for a long-term (3+ years) campaign. 3e/PF with its rapid escalation is good for shorter campaigns in the 2-10 level range, my just-started PF campaign is planned to go for around 36 sessions, probably levels 2-10 or so, run fortnightly with a 3-4 month break in the middle.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;726033Most game groups never finish a series of adventures, the group implodes when some key members leave for whatever reason.

My 4e campaign (see sig) started ca April 2011. Of the players, only one original member is still playing. Having her there is very helpful for continuity, but the campaign isn't dependent on any one player or PC, and could continue even if she left. It's an old-school campaign in that it's setting-based, not plot/path based, so PCs can cycle in and out without a problem. Retired PCs often become part of the setting landscape. Old players & their PCs sometimes come back for "special guest star episode" one off re-appearances.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;725559GNS kind of brings these agendas (even ones done in the name of immersion) to the forefront artificially, but most people dont think like that or play like that. You just kind of play naturally.

In the 90s when I first started running LARP events there circulated a document (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartle_Test) on types of MMORPGs players which was applicable to the larp I was in because the LARP was run as a freeform shared world similar to a server on a MMORPG.

The types were Killer, Social, Achiever, Explorer. We concluded that while it described various behavior accurately the problem is that players are never just "one" thing over time or even during a single event. For example, a lot of what I do puts me into the achiever category, however I liked to fight and I really liked the roleplaying aspect. My friend is mostly a explorer, but like me he cares about his achievements and likes to roleplay.

The only thing that was nailed 100% was the observation that killer players (basically PvP) had a negative effect on the number players interested in the social aspect of the game.

In the end our conclusion is that it still boiled to knowing your players. That trying to put LARPers into neat categories doesn't reflect how they played over the long term.

For tabletop roleplaying publishing the take away is to be explicit about what your goals are for your product. Be up front about you are trying to accomplish and why.

Quote from: robiswrong;725600I think that the "Method Actor" category is intended to include immersive play.  It's a relatively weak fit given the *description* of the type I've seen.  But given that method acting is about the actor immersing themselves into the character, and relying upon their natural emotions and reactions rather than "faking" them, it seems appropriate.  But I do think there's a split between players that see their characters as an outlet of creative energy, and players that truly are primarily interested in immersing in their characters.  I'd actually argue that the former is more related to the "Storyteller" type using Laws' classification, but again, it just shows the weakness of any kind of broad categorization.

Quote from: jibbajibba;725722I care about immersion a lot and method acting to me is immersion the two things are the same.
And see sig

Immersion is clearly the biggest blind spot in the whole GNS mess. Edwards and his cronies don't get it. A lot of people don't get it.

For me and most of my group, it has nothing to do with immersion in character or method acting. It has to do with only seeing the world through the eyes of your character. That limited perspective helps you feel like you're in the game world, immersed in the setting, and facing the kinds of choices the character faces. You don't need to talk in character, or have a deep PC backstory, to enjoy immersion. You can be just as immersed in the game world with a pre-generated character in a one-shot as you can with a PC you've been running for six years.

It's not much different enjoying first-person video games. It's more evocative, creepier, more intense to experience the game-world from the grounds-eye POV of your character than from a zoomed-out top-down perspective. And just as it can be disruptive to that feeling if all the enemies have stat-blocks glowing over their heads and named maneouvers flashing on-screen to indicate mechanics, it can be disruptive in a pen and paper RPG for the rules mechanics to intrude on experiencing the game world.

A couple of my players sketch while we play, and I know we've having a good session when they create detailed depictions of the scenes we're generating in play. It doesn't sound like Robin Laws, Ron Edwards, and most other system-fixated theorists experience RPGs the same way.

Quote from: Haffrung;726118For me and most of my group, it has nothing to do with immersion in character or method acting. It has to do with only seeing the world through the eyes of your character. That limited perspective helps you feel like you're in the game world, immersed in the setting, and facing the kinds of choices the character faces. You don't need to talk in character, or have a deep PC backstory, to enjoy immersion. You can be just as immersed in the game world with a pre-generated character in a one-shot as you can with a PC you've been running for six years.

That is a good way to put it.

My explanation revolved around "Act as if you are really there as your character even if the character just a reflection of yourself." But your explanation looks to be more understandable and accurate.

Quote from: Haffrung;726118For me and most of my group, it has nothing to do with immersion in character or method acting. It has to do with only seeing the world through the eyes of your character. That limited perspective helps you feel like you're in the game world, immersed in the setting, and facing the kinds of choices the character faces. You don't need to talk in character, or have a deep PC backstory, to enjoy immersion. You can be just as immersed in the game world with a pre-generated character in a one-shot as you can with a PC you've been running for six years.

A-fucking-men.

Very well said, Haffrung - I couldn't agree more.

Not to jump on the bandwagon, but Haffrung nailed it for me as well.  When we play, we're not really method acting at all.  first person and third person freely switch back and forth.  However, we always are looking through the eyes of the player we're playing, and viewing the game world that way.

for us, it's not only natural to do so, but is very enjoyable.

Quote from: Haffrung;726118For me and most of my group, it has nothing to do with immersion in character or method acting. It has to do with only seeing the world through the eyes of your character. That limited perspective helps you feel like you're in the game world, immersed in the setting, and facing the kinds of choices the character faces. You don't need to talk in character, or have a deep PC backstory, to enjoy immersion. You can be just as immersed in the game world with a pre-generated character in a one-shot as you can with a PC you've been running for six years.

That's very well put. It reflects my feelings and experiences on the matter as well. I do like to talk in character and so on, but it's not needed to enjoy the game from the character's point of view, and neither are complex personalities, backstories, etc etc. All you need is a basic character concept and the ability to imagine yourself in its place. It doesn't require any special insight or training. It's make-believe.

I made up a role-playing and "authorial stance" hybrid back in the 1980s (before I had seen any example of the form). I quickly concluded that the two are too much at cross purposes for me, the hybrid less interesting than either alone.

When I want a game, I would translate the GNS (for the sake of exercise) into more well known categories of game like this:

G = Conflict Simulation
exemplified by wargames in miniature, and Avalon Hill and SPI board games

N = Story Telling
exemplified by Dark Cults, Once Upon a Time, and Tales of the Arabian Knights

S = "Traditional" RPG

Trad RPG 'mechanics' can easily be used for a Conflict Simulation game; the shape of the context is the frontier between the older game form and its daughter.

In what I would call most definitely an RPG, role playing is fundamentally both the very means of play and "the object of the game" in itself. This has been perhaps somewhat obscured by the growing tendency, even among vehement objectors to "out of character" elements, to take considerable knowledge of the abstraction as a basic assumption.

If my dear friend John can't just play his character and leave it to the GM to know how the the formal algorithms work, then to my mind we have slipped away from the essential element of the kind of RPG that I like.

Yeah, Haffrung's statement is a good summary. I wouldn't want to throw the deep-IC immersionists under the bus; however, they tend to be used to portray the everyday immersive (IC-POV, world-experiencing) aesthetic as a tiny fringe, which in turn becomes a talking point for people who claim that heavy "author/director stance" has no experiential impact once you get used to the mechanical procedures.

On the contrary, I find that complex "simulationist" procedures are a minor impediment to IC-POV once they become habituated because they are purely procedural and require little or no change in cognitive perspective. That's not to say they can't slow the game down or scare away newbs. (Which is why I've pulled back from preferring something like Harnmaster or RQ 6 to stuff like Magic World/Elric, or Talislanta, as my upper limit of complexity.)

The key as Phillip says is whether a player can use natural language to describe their character's actions from the PC's perspective without knowing the rules, and someone else who does know the rules can fairly consistently translate that into mechanics.

Quote from: Phillip;726157. . . [R]ole playing is fundamentally both the very means of play and "the object of the game" in itself.

Worth repeating.

Quote from: Phillip;726157If my dear friend John can't just play his character and leave it to the GM to know how the the formal algorithms work, then to my mind we have slipped away from the essential element of the kind of RPG that I like.

Agreed.

Quote from: Haffrung;726118It's not much different enjoying first-person video games. It's more evocative, creepier, more intense to experience the game-world from the grounds-eye POV of your character than from a zoomed-out top-down perspective. (...)

I do prefer a third-person point of view in video games, but I'm apparently a minority. Actually seeing my character instead of just its hands or its weapon helps me be immersed more.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;726131Not to jump on the bandwagon, but Haffrung nailed it for me as well.  When we play, we're not really method acting at all.  first person and third person freely switch back and forth.  However, we always are looking through the eyes of the player we're playing, and viewing the game world that way.

for us, it's not only natural to do so, but is very enjoyable.

I'm with Haffrung on this as well.

Perhaps interestingly, though, I tend to find overly present method actors somewhat disruptive to immersion. Acting is definitely not the same as game immersion for me.

Quote from: Phillip;726157If my dear friend John can't just play his character and leave it to the GM to know how the the formal algorithms work, then to my mind we have slipped away from the essential element of the kind of RPG that I like.

I have expereinced the flip-side of this.

In an AD&D 2nd ed game in the mid-90s, I built my cleric PC using a fairly deep knowledge of the system parameters and the PC build options. A new player built his fighter PC following the advice of the GM, who was in effect translating this guy's conception of his character into the formal mechanical language of the game.

In the first combat, my cleric was dealing with foes at an effectiveness ratio of about 4:1 compared to the new player's fighter. His immersion was pretty shattered as he discovered that his PC, whom the GM had told him was a warrior, was barely effective compared to me PC, ostensibly a priest.

I think games with very transparent PC build rules, eg Traveller or RQ or a somewhat stripped-back RM, are better at avoiding this problem.

. . . or you just don't play with kits and weapon specs at level 1 and all sorts of shit that rig the game in favor of the guy who's read all the splats and squeezed every modifier he could get out of them. Just a thought.

Quote from: pemerton;726287I have expereinced the flip-side of this.

In an AD&D 2nd ed game in the mid-90s, I built my cleric PC using a fairly deep knowledge of the system parameters and the PC build options. A new player built his fighter PC following the advice of the GM, who was in effect translating this guy's conception of his character into the formal mechanical language of the game.

In the first combat, my cleric was dealing with foes at an effectiveness ratio of about 4:1 compared to the new player's fighter. His immersion was pretty shattered as he discovered that his PC, whom the GM had told him was a warrior, was barely effective compared to me PC, ostensibly a priest.

I think games with very transparent PC build rules, eg Traveller or RQ or a somewhat stripped-back RM, are better at avoiding this problem.

That is more a disparity between role-playing and power gaming. Mix the two in one game and of course something may go off kilter because player A: built a character for the experience and player B built a character to kill stuff.

Which is exactly what happens when I game with my security tech as a player rather than a GM. I like to create a character to experience the setting, the tech likes to squeeze the system till it cries so they can either massacre stuff or are effectively untouchable. Call of Cthulhu example: On one side was my totally mundane Zoologist doomed to learn things man was not meant to know, on the other was the techs Martial artist whom nothing short of a Mi-go teleporting in from the nth dimension could get the drop on.

Sometimes that is even ok with me as it means I can focus on the cerebral stuff and the others can try punching a shoggoth. Lots-o-luck that guys! ta-ta!

That's an issue of the GM looking over character sheets for approval and keeping things within the scope of their campaign and table expectations.

Any system is ripe for abuse without oversight. That's why humans have judgment.

Quote from: Opaopajr;726296Any system is ripe for abuse without oversight. That's why humans have judgment.

What does abuse of PC building look like in Runequest? In Traveller? In Rolemaster (without backgrounds/traits)?

Quote from: Omega;726295That is more a disparity between role-playing and power gaming. Mix the two in one game and of course something may go off kilter because player A: built a character for the experience and player B built a character to kill stuff.

Actually, my guy was also a better negotiator/diplomat.

But more importantly, if a new character builds a duelist warrior, what do you think he wants to experience? My guess is that he wants to kill stuff. That was certainly the occasion here.

If he'd build a pastry chef and my priest turned out to be a better warrior, I don't think it would have been such a big deal.

Quote from: pemerton;726340What does abuse of PC building look like in Runequest? In Traveller? In Rolemaster (without backgrounds/traits)?

You tell me. Probably the same as in In Nomine, AD&D 2e, L5R, WEG d6, Heroes Unlimited, CoC, etc. I don't have those games, nor played in them. Ask me about ones I have. However I have yet to come across a perfect system, so if you are willing to offer these as unbreakable examples of such...

edit: I will also add, if such structures were made so unbreakable perhaps we could replace quite a bit of our social organizations with them, too. Goodness knows we could appreciate a statutory or social policy system that solves ills without needing humans involved. Or could we?

I think what Patrick was saying was that "abuse of PC building" doesn't happen so much in character generation systems which are entirely random.

But generally people will take "building" to mean there is some player choice in there, and once you introduce player choice, minimaxing comes about, even if only in that they say, "well I rolled a high Strength and poor Intelligence so it's better to be a fighter than a wizard."

Remove player choice and make it all random, and it's pretty hard for players to abuse the system... unless there are opportunities to do so in play. If it's all point-buy (whether during initial generation, or "feats" as they go up levels) there's much more opportunity to fuck things nastily.

Minimaxing, I would note, is not necessarily in and of itself "abuse". I would say that if you're minimaxing to make the most effective character for the sake of the rest of the party then it's not abusive, it's only when you're minimaxing so you can dominate everyone else and be the star of the campaign.

If Anna makes the most effective fighter she can, Bob the most effective Magic-User, Charlie the most effective cleric, and Donna the most effective thief, then together they're a very effective party, and it's not abusive. But if Anna mimaxes while everyone else is either being thespy or is clueless about what makes an effective character in the system, then Anna is abusing the system.

Fair enough point, though I have as you say seen abuse even in random generation the second any player choice enters the picture. It is the nature of life to exploit advantages, and thus the same goes for loopholes and weak spots in human systems. Therefore relying so heavily on systems to do the job of judicious oversight is just going to lead to frustration.

There's a judge at the table. He or she mitigates just about everything from system to socializing. There should be more talk about table expectations before things get to such a sour point.

Quote from: Haffrung;726118Immersion is clearly the biggest blind spot in the whole GNS mess. Edwards and his cronies don't get it. A lot of people don't get it.

For me and most of my group, it has nothing to do with immersion in character or method acting. It has to do with only seeing the world through the eyes of your character. That limited perspective helps you feel like you're in the game world, immersed in the setting, and facing the kinds of choices the character faces. You don't need to talk in character, or have a deep PC backstory, to enjoy immersion. You can be just as immersed in the game world with a pre-generated character in a one-shot as you can with a PC you've been running for six years.

Yup, the best thing about RPGs is that they tell adults it's okay to play make-believe again.

Quote from: pemerton;726340What does abuse of PC building look like in Runequest? In Traveller? In Rolemaster (without backgrounds/traits)?

Good question. I'm not sure it is possible to abuse the character-building tools in RuneQuest ... If you're choosing the attributes you get from a series of rolls, there are a couple of important break-points that can be gamed, to make sure you get a +1d4 damage modifier, if that's your thing, or (particularly) to make sure you qualify for three action points per combat round rather than two, but apart from that, everyone has the same number of skill points to allot, and there are also maximums that can be allotted in each phase of character-building, so the characters that come out of it all have very similar power-levels. It's just a case of choosing what your character will specialise in ...

Perhaps you could try to abuse the magic system, but it's very much up to the GM how much starting magic is available to characters, and abuses can be reined in here to a large extent ....

Quote from: Arminius;726172Yeah, Haffrung's statement is a good summary. I wouldn't want to throw the deep-IC immersionists under the bus; however, they tend to be used to portray the everyday immersive (IC-POV, world-experiencing) aesthetic as a tiny fringe, which in turn becomes a talking point for people who claim that heavy "author/director stance" has no experiential impact once you get used to the mechanical procedures.

On the contrary, I find that complex "simulationist" procedures are a minor impediment to IC-POV once they become habituated because they are purely procedural and require little or no change in cognitive perspective. That's not to say they can't slow the game down or scare away newbs. (Which is why I've pulled back from preferring something like Harnmaster or RQ 6 to stuff like Magic World/Elric, or Talislanta, as my upper limit of complexity.)

The key as Phillip says is whether a player can use natural language to describe their character's actions from the PC's perspective without knowing the rules, and someone else who does know the rules can fairly consistently translate that into mechanics.

I'd basically agree with this. I'd say that a mechanic that has a 'handle time' is a lesser distraction than one needing a character to juggle OOC resources or worse, make player decisions in opposition to the PCs best interests (having to burn a relationship to pass a roll or something).

I would also mention that a simple IC decision might be supported by a fairly complex set of rules to make it operate. One of the more interesting ones I saw was someone playing a knight fighting an ogre in a Dragon Warriors game - the player in question said something like 'as he swings I drop to the ground under his blow and cut at his hamstring'. The GM, to his credit, rolled with it and made something up involving an Acrobatics roll (the GM had already house ruled in skills) but it was tricky since DW doesn't really have hit locations, or dodge rolls, or rules for doing 2 actions in a round with a penalty.

Quote from: pemerton;726341If he'd build a pastry chef and my priest turned out to be a better warrior, I don't think it would have been such a big deal.

Rifts conversion book. Palladium Priest meets Heroes unlimited Pasta Man.

But seriously. If the GM is allowing the battle priest and the chef. Then one generally expects the GM to be giving both sides some appropriate things to do.

IE: My last GM was awful at political and courtly intrigue sorts of RPs. I wouldnt expect them to say "Hey. How about you create a diplomat who deals with the nobles!" And if they did and I did then I'd expect them to toss in some things for said diplomat to interact with, rather than more sword fights. Otherwise I expect the GM to say "Hey. Please dont make any diplomat characters as I really suck at that sort of stuff."

Question though is. In the example you gave. Was the other player expecting to be good at combat? Or were they aware they were going to be not as effective in that area, but getting a character more fitting their concept? Was the other players character eventually getting things to do that fit their concept?

Quote from: Opaopajr;726370Fair enough point, though I have as you say seen abuse even in random generation the second any player choice enters the picture. It is the nature of life to exploit advantages, and thus the same goes for loopholes and weak spots in human systems. Therefore relying so heavily on systems to do the job of judicious oversight is just going to lead to frustration

Of course. But some systems require a LOT of oversight, and some require just a little bit. We can never prevent abuse, only minimise it.

The systems offering a lot of options require more oversights (GURPS, etc), the systems offering fewer options require less (AD&D1e, etc). So it's a tradeoff. Cost vs benefit.

I get up a 5 o'clock in the morning and game for about half the year, one weeknight each week for three hours. Usually I have not much brainpower left by that time of day. Also I'm lazy. For me the cost of added complexity is not worth its benefits. So I go for the simpler stuff requiring less oversight when I GM, and when I'm a player I just play a fighter. Other people with more time and energy to game may want to do things differently.

Quote from: Opaopajr;726347You tell me. Probably the same as in In Nomine, AD&D 2e, L5R, WEG d6, Heroes Unlimited, CoC, etc.

OK, what does abuse look like in (non-d20) CoC?

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;726353I think what pemerton was saying was that "abuse of PC building" doesn't happen so much in character generation systems which are entirely random.

Not only random but also transparent. In Rolemaster, for instance - assuming that backgrounds/talents/traits are out of the picture - being good at fighting basically means having a high weapon skill. If you want to play a good fighter, maximise your weapon skill and your body development skill and you won't go very wrong. (Later system adds like Stunned Fighting mess this up a bit.)

Quote from: Omega;726563In the example you gave. Was the other player expecting to be good at combat?

Yes. The other (new) player built a fighter. He expected to be good at fighting. In the first combat the PCs would have been TPKed, I think, except that my priest build turned out to be even stronger than I expected (I had expected it to be good, but not superlatively so: I didn't know the PC build system very well, but had experience in PC build from other games and was able to pick out some good options from the menu the GM was showing us.)

The player's response - which would be the same sort of response I would have - was to ask me for advice on how to improve his character. He wasn't any sort of stranger to maths - from memory he was doing an engineering degree - but he wasn't used to the idea that building a PC would require the effort of translating a character conception into a (not always intuitive) mechanical realisation.

I certainly prefer a system that makes it easy, rather than opaque, to build a character who is going to be mechanically effective in the way that you want. I don't think late 2nd ed AD&D really fits that description (the game I'm talking about started some time in the first half of 1996).

Quote from: pemerton;726631OK, what does abuse look like in (non-d20) CoC?

Just like you would with D&D and random chargen. First you petition the GM for the alternate chargen methods as mentioned in the book. If they don't relent, you try to bring in material from other books, such as new professions and equipment. Throw out pleas to your character concept if necessary. If stuck with a tight leash GM who won't allow even the alternate method to discard unwanted characters, you scry your random rolls and pick out any campaign hints during premise and pitch.

Usually up your EDU to just under 40 years of age for extra professional skills, select your primary campaign-relevant skills first and then work backwards to choose profession. Prioritize Spot Hidden, Dodge, Drive, and Credit (it's an investigation game with lethal attacks, chase/flee scenes, with money needs for buying access, egress, and allies (a.k.a. ablative armor, spare victims). The tens place d10 matters most, the ones place d10 is roughly a "tie breaker"; basically increase skills by tens and essentially overshoot by 10, so if you need tens place to always succeed 7 out of 10 times you need at least 79%. See how much EDU supply covers core survival skills from appropriate professions to around 69% or 79%, dependent on how long your group's average campaigns last (shorter campaigns get higher %, as there is little time to rely on gaining skill checks).

Then just abuse the wealth of the richest party member, ignore leads that don't play to you or your party's strength, and stockpile collateral victims *ahem* entourage to keep your survival chances high. It's dickish, and undermines a lot about what is best about CoC, but it's been very useful in CoC games I've been in. After a few games with annoyingly similar investigators showing up -- drifters, criminals, cops, dilettantes, detectives, etc. -- you begin to wonder if these GMs were any the wiser.

One of the best ways to mitigate that abuse, in my experience, is control the range of professions present at chargen, lower the lethality ramp (lulled into safety PCs are more engaged, natural, and diversified PCs), add body mod horror as an alternate to the threat of death, and ramp up the distrust between humans immensely (once spare wealth, gear, and labor is toned down the party has to again rely on itself).

The points of manipulation for abuse is: the GMs sensibilities, the mechanical system itself, the other PCs at the table, and the campaign setting's assumed organization. Everything can be gamed, and an RPG is more than its mechanical system. The best way to deal with this competitive and antagonistic attitude is to get the table on board with a different shared attitude during The Talk before the game starts. You gotta manage the people by setting the shared mood and goals before you worry about the details.

Which is exactly what your GM didn't do in your given example. Nothing argumentative about it. Just a familiar stumbling block I've experienced time and again, regardless of system.

Quote from: soviet;724085Not quite. GNS classifies games not gamers. It said that games should focus on only one agenda, true, but not that individual gamers liked only one type. I think the expected ideal is that games are specialised but groups pick and choose depending on what kind of campaign they feel like running at the time.

A classic dodge. In effect the only reason to have this reduction of scope is because it implicitly suggests that there will be gamers who will prefer games that only focus on one of the three arbitrary categories.  Thus it de-facto suggests that gamers will be either 'gamist', 'narrativist', or 'simulationist'.

QuoteI don't think that GNS is really interested in commercial success or makes any claims about it. By definition focusing on one specific playstyle reduces your potential share of the market even if it turns out to be an amazing game  for the subset of people who do like it.

And yet, forgists at their peak often suggested that their models would come to outstrip other games in aspects of performance and arrogantly suggested that if you didn't design games this way you were designing "inferior" games. However, I will concede that many Forge swine (either out of insecurity and lack of confidence in the real viability of their own theories, or a typical hipster disdain for the 'mainstream') would often suggest that commercial success somehow (ridiculously) shouldn't be major indicator of good game design.  Some went so far as to suggest that the less commercial success an "indie" game had the more "sophisticated" it was.

Quote? I don't recall that, have you got a link?

Oh please. It was constantly cited as the classic example of "incoherent" design.

RPGpundit

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;726033So the approach I usually use is to have an actual endpoint. Here's an adventure which I expect to take 12-18 sessions to finish. We do that, then we reassess. We could have the same characters do a follow-on adventure, or someone else can GM. And this gives players the chance to cycle out of the game group if they want a break, or to game with different people.

Looks like a sensible thing to me.

Quote from: pemerton;726287I think games with very transparent PC build rules, eg Traveller or RQ or a somewhat stripped-back RM, are better at avoiding this problem.

Absolutely. There is no possible min-maxing in Traveller if you play by the book. You can make smart decisions that improve your chances, but you don't have total control over them.

Quote from: Benoist;726291. . . or you just don't play with kits and weapon specs at level 1 and all sorts of shit that rig the game in favor of the guy who's read all the splats and squeezed every modifier he could get out of them. Just a thought.

I disagree. I think that a good design prevents this things from happening, or at least minimises them. See RQ.

Quote from: pemerton;726631OK, what does abuse look like in (non-d20) CoC?

I have never seen such thing.

And Opaopajr experiences seem truly alien to me. And I fail to see how they are conducive to a significant advantage.

Quote from: soviet;724085Not quite. GNS classifies games not gamers. It said that games should focus on only one agenda, true, but not that individual gamers liked only one type. I think the expected ideal is that games are specialised but groups pick and choose depending on what kind of campaign they feel like running at the time.

The result are products marketed like RPGs but would be campaign books or adventure paths for more general purpose RPGs. Many, not all, forge games put a lot of work in to limiting the scope of their products.

And the idea that a game should only focus one agenda ignore the fact that gamers are out to do many different things during the course of a campaign.

The above two are why forge type games remain a niche within a niche hobby.

Quote from: estar;728112The result are products marketed like RPGs but would be campaign books or adventure paths for more general purpose RPGs. Many, not all, forge games put a lot of work in to limiting the scope of their products.

And the idea that a game should only focus one agenda ignore the fact that gamers are out to do many different things during the course of a campaign.

The above two are why forge type games remain a niche within a niche hobby.

I don't entirely disagree - but on the other hand, basically everything except D&D and WoD are niches within a niche hobby.

Also, narrow focus, non-long-term games are not necessarily tied to GNS. That is, someone can think GNS is bullshit and still enjoy and/or design narrow-focus games.

I enjoy a lot of narrow-focus games, both before and after contact with The Forge - despite thinking little of Ron's GNS theory essays.

Quote from: estar;728112The result are products marketed like RPGs but would be campaign books or adventure paths for more general purpose RPGs. Many, not all, forge games put a lot of work in to limiting the scope of their products.

How exactly would Burning Wheel, Dogs in the Vineyard, and Sorcerer akin to campaign books or adventure paths for other RPGs? The rules are hugely important to the entire premise.

Quote from: estar;728112And the idea that a game should only focus one agenda ignore the fact that gamers are out to do many different things during the course of a campaign.

Not really, I think most campaigns or games have one primary agenda. But note also that most indie games tend to be built for shorter campaigns than say D&D is, so it would be less of an issue.

Quote from: estar;728112The above two are why forge type games remain a niche within a niche hobby.

I agree with this. I think this is one good thing about being 'indie' - if you're beholden to no-one it's easier to go your own way and not worry about what 'the market' wants.

Quote from: RPGPundit;728064A classic dodge. In effect the only reason to have this reduction of scope is because it implicitly suggests that there will be gamers who will prefer games that only focus on one of the three arbitrary categories.  Thus it de-facto suggests that gamers will be either 'gamist', 'narrativist', or 'simulationist'.

No, I don't think so. You can enjoy one thing and then another, it doesn't have to define your whole identity. It's like genres in music or film, or different kinds of food. I like steak and I like pizza. I would not like it if someone covered my steak in melted cheese and tomato puree and served it to me in a box. That doesn't make me a steak-ist or an anti-pizza reactionary.

Quote from: RPGPundit;728064And yet, forgists at their peak often suggested that their models would come to outstrip other games in aspects of performance and arrogantly suggested that if you didn't design games this way you were designing "inferior" games. However, I will concede that many Forge swine (either out of insecurity and lack of confidence in the real viability of their own theories, or a typical hipster disdain for the 'mainstream') would often suggest that commercial success somehow (ridiculously) shouldn't be major indicator of good game design.  Some went so far as to suggest that the less commercial success an "indie" game had the more "sophisticated" it was.

I think we both know that many of the most prominent indie/forgist/swine games (Dogs, Burning Wheel, Sorcerer, Fate, Fiasco, Dungeon World) have actually been pretty successful commercially, clearly not anywhere near D&D standards but I would bet they have probably sold more games than any of the publishers who post regularly on these forums (including me and you). So maybe you want to reconsider this whole commercial success uber alles thing.

Quote from: soviet;728169How exactly would Burning Wheel,

Quote from: soviet;728169Dogs in the Vineyard,

The games focuses solely on the players playing God's Watchdogs.

Quote from: soviet;728169and Sorcerer akin

The games revolves around playing a sorcerer.  

Quote from: soviet;728169to campaign books or adventure paths for other RPGs? The rules are hugely important to the entire premise.

Many campaigns books/adventure paths introduce subsystem and/or detailed rules specific to what being covered.

The difference is that for GURPS, AD&D, Fate, etc these extend the core system. While with MANY of the forge game it is the point of the whole game. When you exhausted playing whatever it is focused on the only choice is to move on to a different game. Which is not true of the other systems. This limits the appeal of Forge games because not only you have to learn about the situation it depicts (no different than a sourcebook) you have the overhead of learning the other included systems that come just with being a RPG in the first place.  

You wind up spending the same amount of time learning dogs as you do deadlands but with deadlands much of you knowledge transfers over to other Savage Worlds games. Or in a game like D&D case, your knowledge transfers over to other types of campaigns that are run with D&D.

Quote from: soviet;728169Not really, I think most campaigns or games have one primary agenda. But note also that most indie games tend to be built for shorter campaigns than say D&D is, so it would be less of an issue.

Not surprising that shorter campaigns are the norm for most indie games.  There not much legs in an individual game.

I disagree that most campaigns or games have a primary agenda. The central mechanics that all RPGs possess in common is that they revolve around the players acting as his character. "Acting as his character", I can't stress that enough. The player is free to attempt anything his character do to.

The implication of this that by default RPGs are incredibly expansive. Tired of the dungeon, go to a port and jump on a ship. Tried of grinding the spacelanes for the last credit? Grab a gun, meet aliens, and kill them as a mercenary. And so on. A RPG designer has to do more work to in order limit the focus of his game than the reverse.

Since the focus is on the playing of individual characters and the ability to attempt anything that character can do, games that are designed to limit have limited appeal.

In short I can take Boot Hill and run the situation outlined in Dogs in the Vineyard however I would have to do a lot of work to use Dogs in the Vineyard to run everything I could with Boot Hill.

Quote from: soviet;728169I agree with this. I think this is one good thing about being 'indie' - if you're beholden to no-one it's easier to go your own way and not worry about what 'the market' wants.

I think that is more a function of the drastic drop in capital costs associated with created and distributing published works. What the Forge Indie should be proud of is creating and sustaining a supportive community of liked minded designers. That is never an easy thing.

Quote from: jhkim;728167I don't entirely disagree - but on the other hand, basically everything except D&D and WoD are niches within a niche hobby.

Yes but even by the standards of the games at the tier below the above to they are a really small niche.  

Quote from: jhkim;728167Also, narrow focus, non-long-term games are not necessarily tied to GNS. That is, someone can think GNS is bullshit and still enjoy and/or design narrow-focus games.

I enjoy a lot of narrow-focus games, both before and after contact with The Forge - despite thinking little of Ron's GNS theory essays.

I think for many people the games associated with the forge are very fun to play. There are also consequences resulting their design choices. Not all of them are positive. The same with the OSR. There are negative consequences for choosing classic D&D.

Quote from: soviet;728184No, I don't think so. You can enjoy one thing and then another, it doesn't have to define your whole identity. It's like genres in music or film, or different kinds of food. I like steak and I like pizza. I would not like it if someone covered my steak in melted cheese and tomato puree and served it to me in a box. That doesn't make me a steak-ist or an anti-pizza reactionary.

I guess my issue with the idea is the insistence that a game has to be just one of the three things, and that these three agendas are the only way to cut games up. It is like saying pizza can only have one topping. That is the problem. They are telling people who have used games with "mixed agendas" for years, that it is the equivalent if a steak covered in melted cheese and tomato puree and put in a pizza box. Just like you can blend genres and flavors, you can blend games, they dont have to focus on just one thing. And there are not just three ingredients or just three kinds of food. Now if people prefer games that just focus on one thing, in think few would object. But this is often presented as an essential feature of good game design by people who advance forge theory, so that is where lots of the conflict stems from.

Because you can attempt anything as your character the potential for what is dealt with in a campaign using a given ruleset is potentially anything. Trying to use GNS as a design guide is like trying to pigeonhole people activities with a simple scale. It just doesn't work in either case.

Quote from: estar;728210Because you can attempt anything as your character the potential for what is dealt with in a campaign using a given ruleset is potentially anything. Trying to use GNS as a design guide is like trying to pigeonhole people activities with a simple scale. It just doesn't work in either case.

This is an interesting point. In sales I encountered a model of customers based on communication styles that divided people into four categories. It could be useful at times, but the danger was you pingeon holed people and stopped listening to them, instead sending them into one of these categories and acting accordingly (i.e. He's an expressive so i should focus on relationship building rather than telling him about the product's key features). But human beings are much more individual than that. A better approach is to look for different cues from the person as your talking and respond accordingly. Don't put them in a box, take each thing as it develops.

Quote from: estar;728194The difference is that for GURPS, AD&D, Fate, etc these extend the core system. While with MANY of the forge game it is the point of the whole game. When you exhausted playing whatever it is focused on the only choice is to move on to a different game. Which is not true of the other systems. This limits the appeal of Forge games because not only you have to learn about the situation it depicts (no different than a sourcebook) you have the overhead of learning the other included systems that come just with being a RPG in the first place.

The difference in systems is more fundamental than that though. Don't kid yourself that games like AD&D or GURPS don't contain a lot of assumptions about how play will go and how things should be handled. Trying to create Dogs or Sorcerer by starting with GURPS or AD&D would require the removal of so much existing material that it wouldn't be the same game. You can't just add a couple of extra rules to them and expect it to be enough.

Quote from: estar;728194I disagree that most campaigns or games have a primary agenda. The central mechanics that all RPGs possess in common is that they revolve around the players acting as his character. "Acting as his character", I can't stress that enough. The player is free to attempt anything his character do to.

The implication of this that by default RPGs are incredibly expansive. Tired of the dungeon, go to a port and jump on a ship. Tried of grinding the spacelanes for the last credit? Grab a gun, meet aliens, and kill them as a mercenary. And so on. A RPG designer has to do more work to in order limit the focus of his game than the reverse.

Going to a port to jump on a ship is not a creative agenda. Most storygames can accomodate that stuff just as easily as most non-storygames. The point is how that activity is handled by the system and the players.  

Quote from: estar;728194Since the focus is on the playing of individual characters and the ability to attempt anything that character can do, games that are designed to limit have limited appeal.

Which storygames exactly do you think limit what the character can do anymoreso that say D&D does? Dogs, Burning Wheel, and Sorcerer certainly don't.

Quote from: estar;728194In short I can take Boot Hill and run the situation outlined in Dogs in the Vineyard however I would have to do a lot of work to use Dogs in the Vineyard to run everything I could with Boot Hill.

The former is not at all true. The rules in Dogs are the centre of the game. The escalation rules are a huge part of what drives the moral dilemmas the characters must face. Dogs using Boot Hill would be an entirely different experience altogether.

The latter I also don't think is true: I suspect you could run pretty much any Boot Hill situation in Dogs as long as you wanted it to revolve around characters deciding how far they will go to get what they want.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;728200I guess my issue with the idea is the insistence that a game has to be just one of the three things, and that these three agendas are the only way to cut games up. It is like saying pizza can only have one topping. That is the problem. They are telling people who have used games with "mixed agendas" for years, that it is the equivalent if a steak covered in melted cheese and tomato puree and put in a pizza box. Just like you can blend genres and flavors, you can blend games, they dont have to focus on just one thing. And there are not just three ingredients or just three kinds of food. Now if people prefer games that just focus on one thing, in think few would object. But this is often presented as an essential feature of good game design by people who advance forge theory, so that is where lots of the conflict stems from.

But the creative agendas aren't that specific. There are variations within them, it's not like all narrativist games for instance are the same (look at the variety of 'narr' games that the forge produced for example). I don't think it's saying that all pizzas should have the same topping, it's saying that if you like pizza and you like ice cream maybe you should enjoy them separately on different occasions rather than just blending them together into a generic sludge that you eat regularly.

Quote from: estar;728210Because you can attempt anything as your character the potential for what is dealt with in a campaign using a given ruleset is potentially anything. Trying to use GNS as a design guide is like trying to pigeonhole people activities with a simple scale. It just doesn't work in either case.

I wrote and published a game. GNS ideas and the discussions on narrativism in particular significantly informed the way I designed it. It is an explicitly narr-supporting game. In my game characters can do anything at all; in fact I would suggest that my game has far more flexibility in this area than, say, GURPS.

Quote from: soviet;728214But the creative agendas aren't that specific. There are variations within them, it's not like all narrativist games for instance are the same (look at the variety of 'narr' games that the forge produced for example). I don't think it's saying that all pizzas should have the same topping, it's saying that if you like pizza and you like ice cream maybe you should enjoy them separately on different occasions rather than just blending them together into a generic sludge that you eat regularly.

I wouldn't agree. It is an analogy, so while i accept that ice cream and pizza dont mix together well, i don't accept that gamism is like pizza and simulation is like ice cream. I dont even accept the fundamental pillars offered by gns, but putting that aside, i think its questionable to say a game should only focus on one of these things.

Quote from: soviet;728218I wrote and published a game. GNS ideas and the discussions on narrativism in particular significantly informed the way I designed it. It is an explicitly narr-supporting game. In my game characters can do anything at all; in fact I would suggest that my game has far more flexibility in this area than, say, GURPS.

And i do not disagree with you using the model if you personally find it useful. Everyone is going to onto design with a philosophy or approach that shapes their work. What i object to is being told that i must accept GNS agendas just because, and that games that fail to focus on one of these agenda are bad design.

Quote from: soviet;728213The difference in systems is more fundamental than that though. Don't kid yourself that games like AD&D or GURPS don't contain a lot of assumptions about how play will go and how things should be handled. Trying to create Dogs or Sorcerer by starting with GURPS or AD&D would require the removal of so much existing material that it wouldn't be the same game. You can't just add a couple of extra rules to them and expect it to be enough.

Of course it will play differently. My point that whatever situation that the players is facing as a Dog in the Vineyard character can be setup in Boot Hill. And despite the difference in mechanics, if in both games the players make the same choices and the referee rules with the same consequences then there will be NO difference in the ensuing stories about what happened.

What dice is used, the interaction between the referee and the players is different, what takes a short amount of time to resolve in Dogs make take a long time in Boot Hill. Dogs may provides mechanics for actions that a Boot Hill referee will has to use his judgement on. And so on. The two games will play as a game very differently.

But since both are RPGs about players playing a character, the "meta-game", point of the whole exercise is the same.  Traveling from town to town acting as God's Watchdog. In Campaign A, Dogs in the Vineyard is used to handle this, in Campaign B, Boot Hill.

Quote from: soviet;728213Going to a port to jump on a ship is not a creative agenda. Most storygames can accomodate that stuff just as easily as most non-storygames. The point is how that activity is handled by the system and the players.

My point is that the number of "creative agendas" in RPGs is as infinite as the number of people playing the game. Because an RPG is about letting the player attempting anything he can do as his character.  

Quote from: soviet;728213Which storygames exactly do you think limit what the character can do anymoreso that say D&D does? Dogs, Burning Wheel, and Sorcerer certainly don't.

Burning Wheel is designed to be a general purpose system. The only two with scope problems are Dogs and Sorceror in your list.

Dogs and Sorceror offer little support for the world outside of the situation they are focused. In contrast to Dogs, Boot Hill  authors talk and offer support all aspects of the Western Genre.

On initial examination Ars Magica and Sorceror have the same scope problem But by having players playing the role of Grogs (servants) Companions (non-mage PCs) as well as mage. And also spreading the focus of the order of Hermes to all of Europe. The line expanded to encompass any type of character possible in mythic europe.

Quote from: soviet;728213The former is not at all true. The rules in Dogs are the centre of the game. The escalation rules are a huge part of what drives the moral dilemmas the characters must face.

Moral dilemmas are Moral dilemmas regardless of the mechanics to use to handle them.

The mechanics are the medium in which the player can play an individual character in an imagined situation. Just like I can read the bible on a scroll, a bound book, a e-ink tablet, my computer screen or other technologies capable of displaying the printed word.

The bible is the bible regardless of where it words appear. People may prefer a scroll, a bound book, or a e-ink tablet to read the Bible. But it doesn't change the fact that it is the Bible that being read.

Dogs in Vineyards depicts a certain situation. Boot Hill can be used to depict the same exact situation. Both can result in the same sequence of events occurring ending in the "same" story. But the medium that the two games are played out on is different. One person will prefer Dogs, another Boot Hill.

Dogs in Vineyard rulebook only focus on that particular situation which happens to take place in the American west. While Boot Hill is designed to run the entire western genre. Once my interest fades in what Dogs describes the book is of not further use to me as well as its supplements. While with Boot Hill I can pick some other aspect of the Old West and focus on that without too much work.

Quote from: soviet;728213Dogs using Boot Hill would be an entirely different experience altogether.

In playing the mechanics yes you are right.

Quote from: soviet;728213The latter I also don't think is true: I suspect you could run pretty much any Boot Hill situation in Dogs as long as you wanted it to revolve around characters deciding how far they will go to get what they want.

Popular games tend to expand beyond their original focus. D&D and Ars Magica are examples of that. In Ars Magica 5th edition there are supplements that allow you to play just about any character in their version of Europe.

Quote from: estar;728233Of course it will play differently. My point that whatever situation that the players is facing as a Dog in the Vineyard character can be setup in Boot Hill. And despite the difference in mechanics, if in both games the players make the same choices and the referee rules with the same consequences then there will be NO difference in the ensuing stories about what happened.

What dice is used, the interaction between the referee and the players is different, what takes a short amount of time to resolve in Dogs make take a long time in Boot Hill. Dogs may provides mechanics for actions that a Boot Hill referee will has to use his judgement on. And so on. The two games will play as a game very differently.

But since both are RPGs about players playing a character, the "meta-game", point of the whole exercise is the same.  Traveling from town to town acting as God's Watchdog. In Campaign A, Dogs in the Vineyard is used to handle this, in Campaign B, Boot Hill.

The first time I heard about the DitV setting, my initial reaction was, 'That would make an interesting Boot Hill campaign.'

It never crossed my mind that such a campaign would require some sort of special rules to play.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;728221I wouldn't agree. It is an analogy, so while i accept that ice cream and pizza dont mix together well, i don't accept that gamism is like pizza and simulation is like ice cream.

Gygaxian D&D has a sturdy (but light and fluffy) Simulationist pizza dough base, supporting a delicious tomato/cheese/pepperoni Gamist topping. :D Without the base it'd just be a mess!

Quote from: S'mon;728238Gygaxian D&D has a sturdy (but light and fluffy) Simulationist pizza dough base, supporting a delicious tomato/cheese/pepperoni Gamist topping. :D Without the base it'd just be a mess!

I think with D&D people could sit here and debate all day long what the core, essential features of the game are. But I think most people would agree there is a blend involving things like exploration, getting stuff, inhabiting a setting, growing in power, being challenged, playing a character, development of different campaign elements, social interaction, etc. And how all these things get condensed into groups of "agendas" would vary from one person to the next. If I reduce it to being all about "step-up on up" or something, I feel like I would lose a lot of all the other things that make me happy about playing D&D.

Quote from: soviet;728218in fact I would suggest that my game has far more flexibility in this area than, say, GURPS.

Perhaps I haven't played your game so I can't weigh on the consequences of the mechanics you use to resolve actions. But I do know Fate. Out of the box its mechanics are very simple to handle a wide variety of actions. But the consequence is the lack of detail and having to fit Overcome, Creating an Advantage, Attack and Defend onto the action that being resolved.

GURPS in contrast opts for detailed subsystems layered in some instances on top of a general purpose framework. In general the GURPS authors opt for a one to one correspondence with what they are describing. Definitely not the approach that Fate takes.

And the mechanics of neither game is to everybody tastes.

However what Fate and GURPS do share in common that they are both focused on the player playing a character with the ability to attempt anything that character can do. Both offer support for multiple situations the same as your game, Other Worlds does. So it isn't too much work to use the core rulebook to run fantasy then switch to a western and then to a golden age sci-fic campaign then finally running a transhuman sci-fi campaign.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;728237It never crossed my mind that such a campaign would require some sort of special rules to play.

Likewise.

However there I believe if Town Creation is to be incorporated into the campaign then you will need to add something. But my view this is no different than adopting Battlesystem if your AD&D 1st campaign is going to have a lot of mass combat.

Ars Magica didn't have specific game mechanics for setting up the troupe (the players and their stable of characters). But they wrote a lot about the subject in their core rulebook because the designers considered it an important feature of a typical Ars Magica campaign.

Quote from: estar;728233Of course it will play differently. My point that whatever situation that the players is facing as a Dog in the Vineyard character can be setup in Boot Hill. And despite the difference in mechanics, if in both games the players make the same choices and the referee rules with the same consequences then there will be NO difference in the ensuing stories about what happened.

What the story looks like when written down afterwards is irrelevant. The point of an RPG is the play experience itself. The play experience under D&D or Boot Hill will be very different from the play experience under Sorcerer or Dogs.  

Quote from: estar;728233Moral dilemmas are Moral dilemmas regardless of the mechanics to use to handle them.

But the point is how they are handled. How they are handled is the whole point of play, the nature of the dilemma itself is just the setup.

Quote from: estar;728233The mechanics are the medium in which the player can play an individual character in an imagined situation. Just like I can read the bible on a scroll, a bound book, a e-ink tablet, my computer screen or other technologies capable of displaying the printed word.

The bible is the bible regardless of where it words appear. People may prefer a scroll, a bound book, or a e-ink tablet to read the Bible. But it doesn't change the fact that it is the Bible that being read.

But that's because the content is exactly the same. The point of different rule sets is that they drive the content in different ways and thus create different experiences. The rules are a part of the content.

Honestly I think a large part of the divide between people who value GNS and people who don't is the value you put on rules. I think the rules are very important.  

Quote from: estar;728233Dogs in Vineyards depicts a certain situation. Boot Hill can be used to depict the same exact situation. Both can result in the same sequence of events occurring ending in the "same" story. But the medium that the two games are played out on is different. One person will prefer Dogs, another Boot Hill.

I agree with that, I'm not saying one is better, I'm saying they are not interchangeable.  

Quote from: estar;728233Dogs in Vineyard rulebook only focus on that particular situation which happens to take place in the American west. While Boot Hill is designed to run the entire western genre. Once my interest fades in what Dogs describes the book is of not further use to me as well as its supplements. While with Boot Hill I can pick some other aspect of the Old West and focus on that without too much work.

But it doesn't support other genres, does it? You can't use Boot Hill to play science fiction or superhero games. It doesn't even offer very much support for the characters jumping on a ship and sailing to the Antarctic. Or (I presume) giving up any idea of shooting people for money or justice and peacefully running a farm instead. Which is fine, because why would you play Boot Hill if you didn't want to play a western?

Well, why would you want to play Dogs in the Vineyard if you didn't want to play characters faced with difficult moral dilemmas?

Quote from: soviet;728251The point of different rule sets is that they drive the content in different ways and thus create different experiences. The rules are a part of the content.

Honestly I think a large part of the divide between people who value GNS and people who don't is the value you put on rules. I think the rules are very important.

I wanted to repeat this because I think it directly addresses the points made by Black Vulmea and Estar (post 496) and I didn't want it to get lost in the shuffle.

Quote from: soviet;728254I wanted to repeat this because I think it directly addresses the points made by Black Vulmea and Estar (post 496) and I didn't want it to get lost in the shuffle.

I think you will find people who dislike GNS who still value rules (I know I care about rules and mechanics). But the point of disagreement is on whether rules should be focused on a single agenda of play as defined in GNS.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;728241I think with D&D people could sit here and debate all day long what the core, essential features of the game are. But I think most people would agree there is a blend involving things like exploration, getting stuff, inhabiting a setting, growing in power, being challenged, playing a character, development of different campaign elements, social interaction, etc. And how all these things get condensed into groups of "agendas" would vary from one person to the next. If I reduce it to being all about "step-up on up" or something, I feel like I would lose a lot of all the other things that make me happy about playing D&D.

But I don't think the agendas are as reductionist as portrayed. For example I would say that all editions of D&D are primarily gamist with a strong supporting  pillar of simulationism (arguably 2e was the other way round). But the gamism of AD&D 1e is all about player skill, exploration, puzzle solving, caution, thinking outside the box and outwitting the GM. The gamism of WotC editions has an element of that but particularly with 4th edition it is much more strongly on rules play - character builds, group tactics, precise movement, rationing and combining mechanically defined powers, gambling on dice odds, etc. So while AD&D 1e and D&D 4e are both primarily gamist games, the play experiences are very different.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;728255I think you will find people who dislike GNS who still value rules (I know I care about rules and mechanics). But the point of disagreement is on whether rules should be focused on a single agenda of play as defined in GNS.

Brendan which games do you play out of interest?

Quote from: estar;728246Perhaps I haven't played your game so I can't weigh on the consequences of the mechanics you use to resolve actions. But I do know Fate. Out of the box its mechanics are very simple to handle a wide variety of actions. But the consequence is the lack of detail and having to fit Overcome, Creating an Advantage, Attack and Defend onto the action that being resolved.

GURPS in contrast opts for detailed subsystems layered in some instances on top of a general purpose framework. In general the GURPS authors opt for a one to one correspondence with what they are describing. Definitely not the approach that Fate takes.

And the mechanics of neither game is to everybody tastes.

However what Fate and GURPS do share in common that they are both focused on the player playing a character with the ability to attempt anything that character can do. Both offer support for multiple situations the same as your game, Other Worlds does. So it isn't too much work to use the core rulebook to run fantasy then switch to a western and then to a golden age sci-fic campaign then finally running a transhuman sci-fi campaign.

My game is a lot closer to Fate than to GURPS. I would agree with your characterisation of the two approaches and the advantages/disadvantages of each. But what I'm saying is, my game is a storygame, and it's written with some ideas from GNS in mind, but it's just as flexible as GURPS if not more so (again, accepting that the GURPS approach has other advantages). So therefore contrary to what you seemed to be suggesting, games inspired by GNS do not necessarily pigeonhole people or characters in any way (I accept some do, just like some non-GNS games do. But it's not inherent to the concept).

I personally dont put a lot of value on rules, except insofar as they interfere with the game. For me, the point of role-playing is playing a character in a shared imaginative space, with rules there just so you dont have to deal with situations like "The arrow hits you in the chest" "Nuh uh, I was hiding behind the pillar!"

Quote from: soviet;728259Brendan which games do you play out of interest?

I play D&D (2E, 3E and 1E; OSR games like Arrows of Indra), Savage Worlds, and Network System (as the main go-to games people are willing to run and play in my groups). I try to run Network the most, because I want to make sure I am improving the system. Sometimes we will also play GURPS, Call of Cthulu (though it has been a while since I had a proper session of this), Colonial Gothic, Doctor Who, and Shadows of Esteren. Probably forgetting something.

Quote from: soviet;728258But I don't think the agendas are as reductionist as portrayed. For example I would say that all editions of D&D are primarily gamist with a strong supporting  pillar of simulationism (arguably 2e was the other way round). But the gamism of AD&D 1e is all about player skill, exploration, puzzle solving, caution, thinking outside the box and outwitting the GM. The gamism of WotC editions has an element of that but particularly with 4th edition it is much more strongly on rules play - character builds, group tactics, precise movement, rationing and combining mechanically defined powers, gambling on dice odds, etc. So while AD&D 1e and D&D 4e are both primarily gamist games, the play experiences are very different.

I guess we disagree. I see that as quite reductionist. And I think it would be a mistake to look at D&D, believe you see a trend of gamism dominating 1E, then make an edition that serves gamist ends.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;728266I guess we disagree. I see that as quite reductionist. And I think it would be a mistake to look at D&D, believe you see a trend of gamism dominating 1E, then make an edition that serves gamist ends.

I see what you did there. :)

Quote from: soviet;728251But that's because the content is exactly the same. The point of different rule sets is that they drive the content in different ways and thus create different experiences. The rules are a part of the content.

I excised this rest because I believe this is the heart of our disagreement. It my opinion and experience that in RPGs the rules are subordinate to the content.

That the content i.e. the roleplaying of an individual character is what defines the experience of a tabletop roleplaying campaign. The game i.e. the mechanics are not critical to that experience.

I have never seen bad roleplaying fixed by rules. I have seen bad rules fixed by good roleplaying.

Where mechanics are important that the actions in a tabletop campaign are resolved by using a game. So helps the roleplaying everybody understands and likes the game being using to resolve their action.

My view of the #1 problem in the industry in the past decade is persistent attempts to try to fix tabletop roleplaying by "better" mechanics. Forge, 4e, etc are all focusing on the wrong thing in my opinion.

What we need is better roleplaying, by the referee, by the players.

Quote from: estar;728269I excised this rest because I believe this is the heart of our disagreement. It my opinion and experience that in RPGs the rules are subordinate to the content.

That the content i.e. the roleplaying of an individual character is what defines the experience of a tabletop roleplaying campaign. The game i.e. the mechanics are not critical to that experience.

I have never seen bad roleplaying fixed by rules. I have seen bad rules fixed by good roleplaying.

Where mechanics are important that the actions in a tabletop campaign are resolved by using a game. So helps the roleplaying everybody understands and likes the game being using to resolve their action.

My view of the #1 problem in the industry in the past decade is persistent attempts to try to fix tabletop roleplaying by "better" mechanics. Forge, 4e, etc are all focusing on the wrong thing in my opinion.

What we need is better roleplaying, by the referee, by the players.

This, precisely.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;728265I play D&D (2E, 3E and 1E; OSR games like Arrows of Indra), Savage Worlds, and Network System (as the main go-to games people are willing to run and play in my groups). I try to run Network the most, because I want to make sure I am improving the system. Sometimes we will also play GURPS, Call of Cthulu (though it has been a while since I had a proper session of this), Colonial Gothic, Doctor Who, and Shadows of Esteren. Probably forgetting something.

OK, so what support do your games of D&D, GURPS, and Call of Cthulhu give to narrativism? By which I mean: What freedom do players have to add their own content to the game world or negotiate the potential stakes of their own actions? How much authority does the GM have? Does the GM have the authority to fudge dice rolls in secret? How important are the characters' goals, relationships, and personalities to what happens in play? How important are the players' decisions as to where the game goes next?

Quote from: estar;728269I excised this rest because I believe this is the heart of our disagreement. It my opinion and experience that in RPGs the rules are subordinate to the content.

That the content i.e. the roleplaying of an individual character is what defines the experience of a tabletop roleplaying campaign. The game i.e. the mechanics are not critical to that experience.

I have never seen bad roleplaying fixed by rules. I have seen bad rules fixed by good roleplaying.

Where mechanics are important that the actions in a tabletop campaign are resolved by using a game. So helps the roleplaying everybody understands and likes the game being using to resolve their action.

My view of the #1 problem in the industry in the past decade is persistent attempts to try to fix tabletop roleplaying by "better" mechanics. Forge, 4e, etc are all focusing on the wrong thing in my opinion.

What we need is better roleplaying, by the referee, by the players.

I see rules as a positive tool that can create or strongly reinforce a particular mood or type of play. It's not about fixing bad roleplaying, it's about making good roleplaying even better.  The rules by which you determine the content of the game cannot help but influence the nature of that content.

Quote from: soviet;728279OK, so what support do your games of D&D, GURPS, and Call of Cthulhu give to narrativism? By which I mean: What freedom do players have to add their own content to the game world or negotiate the potential stakes of their own actions? How much authority does the GM have? Does the GM have the authority to fudge dice rolls in secret? How important are the characters' goals, relationships, and personalities to what happens in play? How important are the players' decisions as to where the game goes next?

Never really given it much thought, since I don't think in terms of Narrativism. But Nothing in D&D prevents you from making relationships, goals and personalities important in play. There is also nothing in the mechanics that impeded making the players decisions impact where the game goes next.

Now if Narrativist, you are looking for mechanics that give the players powers traditionally held by the GM, those are not really going to be found in games like CoC and 2E. But this doesn't go against anything I have been saying.

I am not saying you can't have games with these things, that better serve your interests. And I am not saying mechanics don't matter. Clearly having mechanics that empower players to control plot, drastically impacts play. That isn't something I am denying. I am denying the three grouping category of GNS as an ideal model for designers. I think the definitions and divisions are questionable and I believe the focus on one agenda and coherence is deeply flawed. You can see this with a game like Savage Worlds. Which has things like bennies in it, so I Guess it is kind of narrativist, but then it also is trying to simulate genre physics as well (plus it has what you might call gamist content). My problem with this, is it is an artificial way to dissect play and games. You are forcing games into artificial categories the same way the social styles sales program I mentioned forces people into artificial categories. Once you have a model, it is easy to fit things into it. Cut anything into 2, 3, 4, 5 or six groups that are well definied and you can easily do that. But it segregates the natural play experience. People find things they like are suddenly only allowable in an N game, or only allowable in a G game or only allowable in an S game, because holders of the theory decided to place each of those things into one of the three categories. So I just think the theory doesn't hold up in my experience. When these elements get separated and put into systems devoted to G or N or S, I don't enjoy it. So I just can't accept that this ought to be held up as the measure of good game design.

Now, all that said, if you like games that fall into the N category of GNS and find making games toward that works for you. I am fine with it. All I have been saying is I don't like how so many proponents of GNS demand that others adhere to their idea of coherent design using GNS, and belittle games that don't worry at all about that. My own personal gaming philosophy is the best games are composed of mixed elements that allow for a broad range of playstyles and appeal to a wide audience because gaming groups tend to be made up of varied players.

It goes back to my point about d&d editions. If you examined 2E and said, it is clearly striving for a narrativist agenda, so lets bake in tons of narrativist options and build a game focused on N, you would have a game that probably loses interest from everyone who liked 2E (even those who found its promise of a good story enticing).

Quote from: estar;728269It my opinion and experience that in RPGs the rules are subordinate to the content.

That the content i.e. the roleplaying of an individual character is what defines the experience of a tabletop roleplaying campaign. The game i.e. the mechanics are not critical to that experience.

I have never seen bad roleplaying fixed by rules. I have seen bad rules fixed by good roleplaying.

This is not a statement of fact, but rather a statement of preference. For some people in some games, the rules do make a big difference to their experience.

While I disagree with the expression of GNS because I think it is muddle-headed and confused, I agree with the principle that different people play for different things at times.

I enjoy the games that you describe - but I also enjoy other types of games.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;728288Now, all that said, if you like games that fall into the N category of GNS and find making games toward that works for you. I am fine with it. All I have been saying is I don't like how so many proponents of GNS demand that others adhere to their idea of coherent design using GNS, and belittle games that don't worry at all about that. My own personal gaming philosophy is the best games are composed of mixed elements that allow for a broad range of playstyles and appeal to a wide audience because gaming groups tend to be made up of varied players.

To be fair, players are constantly belittling games that aren't their preference - with or without GNS.

Still, I agree with you at least to the extent that "coherent" games are not necessarily better. (That was an addition of Ron's not present in the Threefold Model.) However, I'm not convinced that mixed games are necessarily better in any objective sense either.

Quote from: jhkim;728301To be fair, players are constantly belittling games that aren't their preference - with or without GNS.

Still, I agree with you at least to the extent that "coherent" games are not necessarily better. (That was an addition of Ron's not present in the Threefold Model.) However, I'm not convinced that mixed games are necessarily better in any objective sense either.

Fair enough. I think mixed games work better for your typical group which is going to be made up of players wanting different things. That said, i don't think focused design is objectively worse than broad scope design. However if you are making a game like D&D where you have a huge playerbase, i think a narrow design scope is a bad choice.

I think personally the scope of a game has no connection to how good a game will be, but the wider the scope, the more people will find something in it they enjoy.

That being said, I like both wide scope games and narrow scope games depending.

Quote from: soviet;728258So while AD&D 1e and D&D 4e are both primarily gamist games, the play experiences are very different.

1e and 3e are both Gamist plus Simulation.
So, mechanically, is 2e, but it adds in some Dramatist GMing advice.
4e is Gamist + Dramatist. It doesn't like Sim at all.

I think that's the difference. 3e and 4e are both charbuild games, so the Gamist element is pretty similar, but IME they play very differently, because 3e uses a process-sim framework and 4e uses a dramatist framework. This is why 3e still 'feels like D&D' despite its clunkiness and battlegrid, while 4e doesn't. 4e feels like this, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=YmA93ppNBws) only in extreme slow motion! :D

Quote from: soviet;728279OK, so what support do your games of D&D, GURPS, and Call of Cthulhu give to narrativism? By which I mean: What freedom do players have to add their own content to the game world or negotiate the potential stakes of their own actions?

Player can add whatever their characters can add to the game world in a tabletop roleplaying games. Narrative mechanics have nothing to do with the roleplaying of an individual character and when present in a game are part of what the player does. Not as part of the player acting as his character.

What happens in my games is that if the player makes a case for something that ought it be there then I declare it is there or assign a random chance for the proposal to be true. It not involved but simply recognizing that there is only so much time to go into the details.

Quote from: soviet;728279How much authority does the GM have?

Complete authority in two areas; the setting and adjudication of actions. Because the player's information about the two are incomplete it requires a referee with a final say to work.

With that being said it is a gathering of friends and the "Don't be a dick about it rule" very much applies. For me I don't mind been told what the rules say while refereeing and encourage players to question me and offer their opinion about my rulings. If one of my players has a good idea for a detail of my setting I will incorporate it. What story games try to do with narrative mechanics are not necessary at my table.

Quote from: soviet;728279Does the GM have the authority to fudge dice rolls in secret?

It is the referee decision on how an action is to be adjudicated is final. If he rolled something and decided otherwise then that is his call. However overuse of fudging is often not a good sign of how the refereeing is managing his campaign.

Quote from: soviet;728279How important are the characters' goals, relationships, and personalities to what happens in play? How important are the players' decisions as to where the game goes next?

Considering I run and manage sandbox campaigns and wrote quite a bit on the topic. I would say both are quite important. The campaign wouldn't happen without the players deciding something that furthers their goal even it is something as mundane as kill things and take all their stuff.

I let go of the idea long ago that the players should be or do anything in particular in accordance to my wishes. The only two requirements for my games is that your character must plausibly fit into the setting I run. And that you play as if you are there as your character.

If the player crafts a distinct personality and deeply immerse himself that absolutely fabulous. If Joe shows up and plays Joe the fighter out to kill things and take their stuff that is likewise absolutely fabulous. I have successfully ran games with both types of players sometime with them in the same group.

Quote from: soviet;728282I see rules as a positive tool that can create or strongly reinforce a particular mood or type of play. It's not about fixing bad roleplaying, it's about making good roleplaying even better.  The rules by which you determine the content of the game cannot help but influence the nature of that content.

My experience is that rules neither help or hinder roleplaying. It solely stems from the interest of the player and the encouragement of the referee. System that "aid" roleplay do so by being fun for that particular group. For another group it will be utter and complete failure. For a third group they will be indifferent.

For example there is nothing special about Dogs in the Vineyard that makes it better at handling moral dilemmas. The author's well crafted hype attracts players looking to roleplay moral dilemmas so it become a self feeding of cycle around the game. The mechanic itself a cute euro style game that many find fun. But it has no more to do with simulating moral dilemmas than Carsonne is about the simulation of medieval resources. It just dressing on a fun game.

In the end it works Dogs in the Vineyard is a steady seller for the author and people have fun with it.

The job of the mechanics in a roleplaying game is to make the  adjudicating the actions of the players easier in a given genre or setting. That it. For Dogs in the Vineyard the dice pool mechanic does that job for moral conflicts.

Quote from: jhkim;728296This is not a statement of fact, but rather a statement of preference. For some people in some games, the rules do make a big difference to their experience.

A player needs to be comfortable with the mechanics used to resolve actions. If not then his roleplaying will suffer perhaps to the point where he doesn't even want to be involved in the campaign.

Quote from: jhkim;728296I agree with the principle that different people play for different things at times.

My experience this occurs all the time. From campaign to campaign, from session to session, sometimes even within a session a player will do a 180 on his interest.

Quote from: pemerton;726287I have expereinced the flip-side of this.

In an AD&D 2nd ed game in the mid-90s, I built my cleric PC using a fairly deep knowledge of the system parameters and the PC build options. A new player built his fighter PC following the advice of the GM, who was in effect translating this guy's conception of his character into the formal mechanical language of the game.

In the first combat, my cleric was dealing with foes at an effectiveness ratio of about 4:1 compared to the new player's fighter. His immersion was pretty shattered as he discovered that his PC, whom the GM had told him was a warrior, was barely effective compared to me PC, ostensibly a priest.

I think games with very transparent PC build rules, eg Traveller or RQ or a somewhat stripped-back RM, are better at avoiding this problem.

Quote from: Benoist. . . or you just don't play with kits and weapon specs at level 1 and all sorts of shit that rig the game in favor of the guy who's read all the splats and squeezed every modifier he could get out of them. Just a thought.

The notion that those are "build rules" has blown my mind since I discovered that people had widely turned them into that. Which transformation explains 3E, I suppose!

Kits, when I saw them, struck me as just examples of how one could customize characters, as DMs had with discretion been doing since Day One.

Pemerton, what was to you the point of ensuring that your priest would be a better fighter than the warrior played by the dude who was big on playing an effective fighter? What do you think was the point to the DM of letting you do that and keeping the other fellow in the dark?

That just baffles me.

Quote from: pemerton;726631OK, what does abuse look like in (non-d20) CoC?

The same as in your example: I want to play a champion fencer, but the GM makes my character not as good as your nigh-untouchable one who is billed as an unathletic bookworm.

Quote from: Imperator;728101I have never seen such thing.

And Opaopajr experiences seem truly alien to me. And I fail to see how they are conducive to a significant advantage.

They might actually be alien to you. How often did you circle around tourney style players, from CCGs, minis, and RPGA/Living/Society? If your contact has been low, that's a blessing in my book.

Not that into this type of stuff in high school, but traveled lightly among such circles in college. Yet later worked in game stores, both FLGS and video games. It was a youthful experience I would not want to do again.

Age at least brings wisdom, as in not being afraid of one's own tastes and being upfront about them. Cuts through all the bullshit and tears drama that boggled my mind before. "It's a fucking game, dude. Cope."

Quote from: S'mon;728319I think that's the difference. 3e and 4e are both charbuild games, so the Gamist element is pretty similar, but IME they play very differently, because 3e uses a process-sim framework and 4e uses a dramatist framework. This is why 3e still 'feels like D&D' despite its clunkiness and battlegrid, while 4e doesn't. 4e feels like this, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=YmA93ppNBws) only in extreme slow motion! :D

Interesting assessment explaining D&D editions through GNS theory.

But the Bruderschaft music video link reminds me that with all the monotone industrial singing, I need to start my own industrial band with R&B diva yodeling. Maybe if I do a mash up of Whitney Houston's "I Will Alway Love You" and something Funker Vogt or :wumpscut:?

Quote from: soviet;728251But that's because the content is exactly the same. The point of different rule sets is that they drive the content in different ways and thus create different experiences. The rules are a part of the content.

Quote from: estar;728269I excised this rest because I believe this is the heart of our disagreement. It my opinion and experience that in RPGs the rules are subordinate to the content.

That the content i.e. the roleplaying of an individual character is what defines the experience of a tabletop roleplaying campaign. The game i.e. the mechanics are not critical to that experience.

Leaving aside both the Forge and the idea that rules can fix bad roleplayers for a minute, it seems a very mild statement to say that the rules can influence the content.  The rules often encode opinions on the relative importance of certain factors, and some rules primarily exist to serve up content.

When the kingdom's best swordsman is surprised by four dagger-armed goblins while unarmored, for example, what he decides to do next is going to be strongly influenced by whether the game is D&D 3e, Rolemaster or Burning Wheel.

If praying each morning to free yourself from sin gives you +2 for the day, that can affect the choices players make in how they characterize their PCs.  If relative social status is the largest single modifier to urban NPC reaction rolls, that shapes the game's content.

Similarly, if the chargen process makes sure that each PC has parents, a mentor, and a friend, with known locations and professions, the game is primed differently than a game whose chargen makes murder hobos.

The majority of content inevitably comes from the group, of course, and there's nothing stopping BECMI players writing PC backgrounds that include family. Even with a game that includes family in chargen, the group can of course ignore all this and go and play pirates.

Quote from: fuseboy;728478it seems a very mild statement to say that the rules can influence the content.  The rules often encode opinions on the relative importance of certain factors, and some rules primarily exist to serve up content.

You bring up some good points. My view is that particular RPGs are used in for particular kinds of campaigns because it save time and work for whatever the system addresses. You need to do a lot of work to use OD&D for a golden age space campaign. You need to do a lot of work to use Traveller fora dungeon crawl fantasy campaign.*  But it easy to use OD&D to run dungeon crawls and Traveller to run sci-fi campaigns.

It my experience that there are two broad types of mechanics. Rules to help you adjudicate the actions of a character and rules to help manage/generate setting detail. Setting detail includes character creation.

For example Classic Traveller makes it easier to run a sci-fi campaign revolving around a tramp freighter plying the spacelanes. It has support for other sci-fi tropes but not in as much detail until later expansions.

OD&D goes into detail dungeon adventures, wilderness adventures, and estabilshing strongholds. But it has little in the way of information on running campaign around politics or the clash of culture or religion. There are nothing that stops an OD&D campaign from having a political angle but the referee has to do more work.

Another comparison is OD&D can be used to run a Arthurian campaign. However it is a lot less work to use Pendragon.

Quote from: fuseboy;728478When the kingdom's best swordsman is surprised by four dagger-armed goblins while unarmored, for example, what he decides to do next is going to be strongly influenced by whether the game is D&D 3e, Rolemaster or Burning Wheel.

I agree that mechanical steps to resolve the swordsmen being surprised and the ensuing combat will be completely different. But the situation is universal, you as your character are surprised by four goblins with daggers, what do you do?

Well I could try to resolve it as follows (assume that setting details I describe exist before the encounter).

1) I get hit by two goblins in the initial surprise and but remain standing.
2) I grab the chandelier and swing at one of the goblins and knock him down.
3) As a result of the swing only one goblin can attack (and misses) and the other two have to move into position.
4) I draw my sword and step back so only two goblins can attack me.
5) One hits and one misses, the wounds are slowing me down.
6) I attack and down a goblin.
7) By the end of combat I am severely injured but all four goblins are down.

There is nothing in D&D 3e, Rolemaster, or Burning Wheels that prevents the above occurring. Now in a very lite system the combat is resolve by a single opposed roll and the above is just after the fact narrative. Or it could be a second by second resolution of the fight using GURPS. Or something in between like D&D 3e.

Now here is an important caveat, when I say it the same outcome. The characters are equivalent the initial situation is also the same. The goblin in the AD&D Monster Manual, is not the same as D&D 4e goblin in Monster Manual I, not the sames a the Goblin in Rolemaster, which is not the same as the goblin in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy, and so on.

You could make equivalents but not by just yanking out 'as is'. Each the systems have a different implied setting even when dealing with the same genre/subsgenre.

Quote from: fuseboy;728478If praying each morning to free yourself from sin gives you +2 for the day, that can affect the choices players make in how they characterize their PCs.

If it is part of the setting that praying in the morning to free yourself from sin make you more likely to succeed on your actions then that needs to be represented in or added to your chosen rule set.

Quote from: fuseboy;728478If relative social status is the largest single modifier to urban NPC reaction rolls, that shapes the game's content.

Again that is a feature of the setting and if you are switching system and using the same setting then you need to add it or find its equivalent.

Quote from: fuseboy;728478The majority of content inevitably comes from the group, of course, and there's nothing stopping BECMI players writing PC backgrounds that include family. Even with a game that includes family in chargen, the group can of course ignore all this and go and play pirates.

Exactly and my contention the ability to do this makes mechanics irrelevant as far as the CAMPAIGN goes. People who think their lack prevents a game from featuring X, in this case families, are wrong.

These mechanics are useful because either it saves work or the group enjoys the resulting mini-game. Which to me is absolutely fine. RPGs are an leisure activity you should enjoy the game mechanics you use, leisure time is precious for many and they should save you work in doing what you enjoy.

Quote from: soviet;728184I think we both know that many of the most prominent indie/forgist/swine games (Dogs, Burning Wheel, Sorcerer, Fate, Fiasco, Dungeon World) have actually been pretty successful commercially, clearly not anywhere near D&D standards but I would bet they have probably sold more games than any of the publishers who post regularly on these forums (including me and you). So maybe you want to reconsider this whole commercial success uber alles thing.

First, let's distinguish between general "swine" games, Storygames, and games designed by GNS principles.
"Swine" is a term for a certain pretentious mentality; but its entirely possible for a game to be a "Swine" game and still be an RPG, and not a storygame.  Vampire, for instance; definitely a Swine game, definitely not a Storygame.

A Forge-designed GNS game in theory could be a non-storygame (if it was designed in an attempt to be "G" or "S"), though in practice almost all the games that came out of the Forge were "N" games because Forgists were storygamers at heart; the other two parts of GNS were ways of explaining "Games we don't like", and the few attempts to do these sorts of games were horrible parodies of how Forge Swine imagined regular gamers run games they despise.

Both Storygames (which are in essence all "N" games) and almost all other Forge-designed games that I've seen thus far are not actually RPGs.  Virtually all of them are Swine games, but not all Swine games are Storygames or designed by Forge theory.

So that out of the way, let's look at your particular examples: a few of those you mentioned were not in fact big commercial successes by any measure, a couple were big-hits within the tiny incestuous community of Forge Swine (dogs, sorcerer), because their authors are considered the "great minds" of their movement and the games came out when that movement still had a large following.  People buy Sorcerer or Dogs because it shows their Forge credentials.  Now, you could argue of course that this is a good commercial model for Edwards or Vince Baker, I mean I'm sure they made a tidy sum off it, in the same way that L. Ron Hubbard made a very tidy sum off of his utterly shitty novels because his cult members would buy them out of fanaticism too.  But to me there's a certain difference between something like that and more regular commercial success.

As for the other more recent cases, pretty much every other game you mentioned there that was a commercial success did so by becoming AS CLOSE TO A REGULAR RPG AS POSSIBLE.  In other words, by trying to deceive people or dilute the entire Forge/Storygame Swine ideas.  Dungeon World, arguably the most successful of the bunch (maybe excepting FATE, which I'm not sure was actually designed with GNS theory in mind at all) went so far in that direction that it actually was no longer a Storygame with a thin pretense of being an RPG and instead became an RPG with a thin veneer of pretending to be a storygame (you can say the same thing about FATE, for that matter).
The only one on your list that went the other direction is FIASCO, which is so far from RPGs at all that its become more of a party game; there are games completely outside the hobby that are more reminiscent of an RPG than Fiasco.  You could no more consider Fiasco an RPG than you could that mob-hitman-game (the one where one player is secretly a traitor, or whatever) whose name eludes me at the moment, or various other boardgames that were no way connected to RPGs.

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