Rules for the First Thoughts forum

[Ron Edwards]

Hiya,

Color isn't just a setting issue - it can apply to anything that gets described or that happens during play.

"I cut off his head!" (that's what's described & what happens)

"Blood squirts everywhere! The head spins twice in the air and hits the ground!" (that's Color)

The Color doesn't change anything about what's there or what happens. It only makes imagining it more vivid.

Sometimes, Color can turn into more important stuff later. Someone might describe some candlesticks just to round out the shared visual image of a given room, and a little bit later, someone is using those very candlesticks to conk someone else. Or perhaps it can be the other way around - someone introduces a key character ("this is Tony the chauffeur"), but due to events and due to others' lack of interest, that character becomes just Color (the group is not interested in Tony the chauffeur and eventually the GM gives up trying to make them listen to him, and from then on, Tony just drives the damn limo).

Does that help?

Best, Ron

P.S. I'll split your inquiry and my answer into their own thread. The very best way you can help me with this is to provide at least one example of your own experience in play which seem to you to be like or unlike (your choice) my explanation of Color.

[Paul T]

I have a draft of a game I'd like to get some feedback on, in PDF format. This sounds like the right forum for that.

However, I do not have a website where I could post it for people to refer to. Can anyone suggest what the easiest way to get a small PDF file hosted online might be?

Thank you,


Paul

[Paul T]

To answer my own question, "PBWiki" provides free web space that's really easy to set up as a means of advertising their paid services. This is most quick, easy, and painless means I've found.

http://pbwiki.com/

I'm posting this here because I think it might useful to anyone who, like me, wasn't savvy enough to know about this.

If I am alone in this, I won't be in the least offended if the moderators decide to remove my two posts from this thread,

If, on the other hand, this is useful information and any of you have other suggestions to make, please do so.

Best,


Paul

[Sydney Freedberg]

For those of us too Internet-inept even to use PBWiki (like, say, me), you can also send your PDF to the "1mt1kt" free RPGS website (short for "one thousand monkeys, one thousand typewriters"), which seems to be very good about throwing your document up there within a day:

http://www.1km1kt.net/submissions/

It's not really a place to publish your final game, nor for putting up fragments of a game, but it's ideal for putting up a "beta version" that's reasonably complete but almost certainly broken.

[Adam Dray]

The rules in the Site Discussion thread (sticky at the top of that forum) say that a thread is too old if it off the first page or three weeks old, whichever comes first.

I have altered that rule in the Actual Play forum by saying that any thread in the first three pages of the forum is OK to post to.

First Thoughts moves awfully quickly too, so I may consider opening that up a bit, but for now, the old rule stands.

Oops, I just checked this after responding to a couple page-2 threads that needed some love. They're mostly less than a week old. Threads are rolling off page 1 in about 3.5 days right now. Can we get this extended to page 2 or 3?

[Ron Edwards]

No sweat, Adam. I don't want to formalize a change yet, but it does seem wrong to disallow a thread's continuance when it's only a few days old.

Best, Ron

[bookworm_85]

Hello.  Me any a group of friends are working on writing a roleplaying game system, and it seemed to us that it would be a good idea to try and do some research on what kinds of things people liked to see most in games, what their biggest complains were with other systems, and so on.  We've put together a survey, and I was wondering if I could post the link on this forum somewhere, but I thought that I had better ask here first in case it counted as spam.  If it's any help, we'd be happy to post the results on the forum as well.  So, would posting the link to our survey website be OK?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

The Connections forum is the best place for that post. In any other forum, posting requires a topic for discussion, rather than merely participation in a poll.

Best, Ron
content moderator

[castus nigh]

To Those at The Forge
The very reason I found my way onto 'The Forge' is to find a gaming company or RPG publisher to publish my system.  Medieval, The Experts Rule Playing System is unique rules heavy system with fluid combat rules and the most personalized character generation you have ever seen.  I have removed the areas in traditional D&D games that foster arguments (alignments) and replaced them with a quantitative system that fosters true role-playing with a reward in both experience for such play and the ability to purchase additional abilities for your character.   And thats not all!

The system has taken me 10 years to write, has many unique features I would be happy to discuss at length, at the end of which, I'm sure you will be one of the Medieval e.r.s. too!

Castus Nigh

[David Artman]

Hi, dude;

This site is called "indie-rpgs.com" for a rather specific reason: we are independent publishers, be it by self-distributing of small-run print job or be it by Print On Demand services.

That said, you could try to approach some of the smaller indie publishers (large, for us) about being represented. But here, there's a BIG "can-do" attitude of self-management and self-publishing.

Hope this helps you find your way--I am not a mod;
David

[Greg 1]

Hi there!

I just found The Forge and I'm not sure if this forum is the place to post what I would like to post.

I have written three brief game settings and am working on a fourth.  I am not trying to make money, I just want to give away free content online.  It is my hope that I can find useful feedback here.  My work does not include new rules systems.  In fact, while it is my hope that they could be plunderable by people using a variety of systems, all rules are given in GURPS terms.  I do not reprint the GURPS rules nor in any other way infringe the copywrite of Steve Jackson Games.

My instinct is to start three threads in this forum (First Thoughts).  Each thread would include a very brief introduction to one of my settings and a link to the entire writeup.  Is this appropriate?

[Eero Tuovinen]

Sounds appropriate to me! But hey, in the future, let's have these discussions in the Site Discussion forum, right? Not you Greg, but the next one who's going to write in this thread: do it at Site Discussion instead, it fits there better. It's a bit awkward to have sporadical questions about conduct on the forums in this thread.

(I'm not a moderator or anything, mind; just doing my bit in trying to save Ron some work.)

[vilonious]

Hello,

I love the site I just found it and I'm sure will spend countless hours going through the wonderful resources here.

I'm sorry if this is the wrong place to ask this but I didn't see anywhere else.  I was wondering if anyone could point me towards any links dealing more with the game aspects of independent rpg development if they exist?  So far I've mostly seen stuff on setting, story development, tone and roleplaying issues.  Is anyone aware of good resources or discussions on conflict resolution designs and theory, the mechanics of character design, game system scalability, game balance, or character advancement?  I was kind of suprised that I couldn't find much about that sort of thing on the forums and I'm hope I was just looking in the wrong posts.

[Ron Edwards]

Hiya,

That sort of thing is actually pretty core stuff at the Forge, usually centered around the concept of "Currency." I'm surprised you didn't find it more easily.

Maybe the best way to get to it is to post about some actual play of your own, focusing on some quantitative feature that was important in that game (for good or ill), and then the discussion will end up pointing to various useful threads in the past. If you have any other questions, or want to chew over how to get to it a little bit more, then send me a private message.

Best, Ron

[Carnifex]

Hi Ron,

I'm working on a boardgame (but I've been playing RPG's for a almost 30 years). The boardgame is in the playtesting phase but I'd need some help. Is The Forge the right place to post or could you recommend any other place?

//Claes