So, how'd you find this place?

[Walt Freitag]

My path to the Forge started with Knights of the Dinner Table, and, in typical mythic fashion, led me here via two bridges of flame.

To wit: as a KoDT fan hanging out on the KoDT boards, I had been following the development, release, and market reaction to Hackmaster with some mild interest. As happens from time to time, word came to the Hackmaster boards that there was a flame war about Hackmaster going on on RPGNet. While checking that out, I got interested in a few other concurrent RPGNet threads, including a thread titled "what is GNS?" that developed into a half-flamey half-fascinating GNS discussion. That thread included many links to the Forge and posts by Forge members, which attracted my interest hitherward.

- Walt (who regrets that hardly anyone uses "to wit" any more)

[Gordon C. Landis]

Replace "Babylon 5 Wars mailing list" in Ralph's post with "Talislanta mailing list," and you've got me.  Oh, and I'm not sure I was ever happy killing orcs in dungeons.

But other than that - what Ralph said.  Interesting.  7th Sea/John Wick/GO/The Forge.  Huh.

Gordon

[Shreyas Sampat]

So, I was reading the Planescape mailing list - or skimming it, anyway.  I had become disenchanted with the poor signal-to-noise ration, but as a matter of policy I made a point of reading certain peoples' posts, because they tended to make insightful comments or otherwise provide valuable information.

So I was reading a series of Zak Arntson's posts on his Donjon Planescape game, which linked to Actual Play threads on the same topic.  I read these for a while, content.

Then I noticed the consistent quality of the replies to these threads, and started to explore.  Walt's Symmetry thread hooked me.  That mechanic is bloody gorgeous, Walt.

[xiombarg]

Pretty simple, really. I was reading rpgnews.com when I saw a post that referenced fantasy heartbreakers, with a link to Ron's article. Intrigued, I read it. Then I read a number of the other articles. Then I read the forum. Then I started posting.

Hey, cool to know someone noticed when I did that!

http://www.rpgnews.com/article.php?sid=2185

Hmmm, does anyone know if the game I'm referencing actually qualifies as a Heartbreaker? I never got to look into it in detail.

[Nick the Nevermet]

I had been going to rpg.net for a few years.  Every once in a while there were references to the Forge and GNS.  About the same time The Riddle of Steel came out,I began to notice the people I usually disagreed with at rpg.net were also often the people who were critical of the Forge.  So, I decided to post in the TROS forum and read up on the other stuff too.

[jburneko]

Basically, I was in the process of getting back into RPGs after spending A LOT of time in the Interactive Fiction community.  And quite frankly I was kind of frustrated with it.  So, I started looking for RPG sites to see if I could find any good discussions that might help me figure out what the problem was but nobody seemed to be talking about the kinds of things I wanted to talk about; mainly, how to produce a punchy powerful thematic story via roleplaying, although I didn't have the vocabulary to articulate that at the time.

So, I pretty much narrowed my wandering down to two sites, RPGnet and GO.  Well, over on GO there's this wack-job named Ron Edwards who seemed to be talking about precisely what I was looking for but his suggested methods for achieving it were preposterous, ludicrous and just plain WRONG.

So, I applied my Enraged Monkey learning technique.  I grabed hold, banged my head and screamed a lot until I got the answers I wanted.  Most of the banging and screaming and holding was done here on The Forge and now I'm more or less a permanent fixture.

Jesse

[Walt Freitag]

Oh, and I forgot to mention...

The very first post I read when I came here was Ron chewing somebody out for the lack of intellectual rigor in their argument. Really. (I just picked a first-page thread at random and clicked to view the most recent post.)

Just as well. It made me wary enough to avoid most of the usual n00b gaffes.

- Walt

[Andy Kitkowski]

Bit One: I've been an RPGNetter since like... 99?

Bit Two: I stumbled on Sorcerer waaay back. IIRC, it was a free download at one point (for testing/polishing purposes)... If I dig through my backups from when I lived in Japan, I've probably got it there somewhere.  I don't know why, but I was totally unimpressed with it the first time I saw it. Same thing happened with Fudge, tho (one of my OTHER favorite systems).

Bit Three: Sometimes talk of The Forge came up on RPGNet. Usually in the "Avoid those froo-froo folks, they're too busy blowing themselves to talk shop".

So, of course, I checked out the Forge dozens of times. Was a wallflower. Even I thought it got a little bit pretentious up in here. Turns out that I was, most likely like those other 'netters (note: No East Side/West Side stuff here- not everyone there hates the Forge, and not everyone here hates it there), looking at this site with a "Let's talk about small press/indie games" perspecttive. Took me a while to realize that, when you consider that the aim of this site is not "Let's Talk About" but "Let's Make", it all Friggin Clicks. Paradigm shift. It's not pretentiousness, it's criticism. GNS isn't pseudo-philisophical blowhard speak meant to raise "N" and lower "GS", it's a mode to think about making the Best Game you can for the audience you're aiming for.

That clicking, for me, happened when I picked up Sorcerer and Sword on a recommendation and a whim (I think it was Jared who recced it to me, on teh RPGNet chat forums). I spent all night reading it. My first giddy post can be seen here:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=1883
(note: I'm still working on that game, on and off. Bits of it are even being worked into a Dread supplement I'm working on now, my first gaming product)

From that, my desire to actually make a game (at some point) started bubbling forth, and the "Forge shift' occoured.  I registered my name, and have been a loose regular ever since.

Admittedly, sometimes I've blundered here, or found administration kinda heavy-handed, but looking back on it all it's been a great ride. I got a lot done in that year since I registered, and certainly got a hell of a lot out of The Forge. :)

-Andy

[Tim C Koppang]

Back in my pre-computer, sit in front of the high school library terminal days, I did nothing but search for modules and read reviews at rpg.net.  Then, I found GO; made a few feeble posts and generally got interested in all the theory talk.  I found a link to some crazy Hephaestus' Forge site where I read Ron's System Does Matter article, and left the whole thing alone for a while.  When GO went pay, I went Forge.

[C. Edwards]

I'm with Ethan, I can't remember how I found The Forge.  The memory is there dancing just out of reach, when I make a grab for it disappears in a poof of smoke like some unruly imp.  Grrrr.

*looks around suspiciously*


-Chris

[greyorm]

Short version: Ron said to me, "Hey, this site hasn't gone live yet, but check it out. Want to do a logo for it?" and, unh, so I checked it out.

Slightly longer version: Ron introduced me to the Forge back when it was entitled Hephaestus' Forge, before it even went live for the world to see, and well before there were forums here. I stayed through the server crash, the redesign into the Forge, and here I am.

[Fabrice G.]

Hum, I really fear that my "how did I find the FOrge" story is pretty lame...

Step 1: buy Little fears

Step 2: go to the Key20 website

Step 3: join the forum to discuss the game... and read about the session of a verbally proactive member of the board named R. Edwards...


...Read further... enjoy... learn... repeat.

Fabrice.

[Bob McNamee]

After getting back into role-playing after quite a while away from it (D&D 2ed) last year, I decided I might like to run a Supers game again. I had run a couple long term ones back in the 80's and there was some interest in me starting something.

I didn't want to go with Champions (our old game) anymore. I wanted to avoid its habit of going from a Social role-playing mode into a tactical wargame role-playing mode. Fun as it is, I have bad memories of a pitched Heros vs Villains plus agents battle that raged for about 6 hours real time (over a minute game time) (little agent buggers kept waking up).

So I went looking for some free rules-light games (Super or Generic). That led me to The Window, which really excited me. It had completely customizable characters, and minimal rolling. Yea!

But it had almost no support.

Looking for support I actually read the review here, before I knew what this place was. And I joined the Window mailing list. There I encountered Paganini and some others. Saw some attempts at the Cornerstone game, which was to adjust for some statistical flaws in Window. Their discussions about average attribute being unnecessary and story focus at some point included a link or two to the Forge.

Read those...needed to read System Does Matter to understand them well. Then things about FitM and Narrativism, all of GNS, and so on. And Threads on Theatrix and Clinton's Panels (I'll buy it)...then just read about everything I could find.

I realize now that some of the few things that went wrong in the old days games were mostly communication problems. Or some players wanted to play games that really only exist now.

My players are all busy with Life (Life Happens), so we've stopped the gaming for now. I now game almost exclusively with the Yahoo indie-netgaming crowd on-line.

[Michael S. Miller]

While browsing for some game-design theory in summer 2001 while putting the polish on FVLMINATA, I stumbled across Hesphestus' Forge following some link from only Hesphestus knows where. Read something (can't remember what) that was different enough that the name stuck in my head as a place to come back to when I had time to think.

GenCon 2001, FVLMINATA is released. At the con, I hear that this Ron Edwards guy has bought a copy of it. He's selling his own game called Sorcerer. It rang the slightest bell. I think Jon Wick (who is the gaming columnist's god, in my eyes) mentioned something about it. In the interest supporting folks who are doing something different, I go to his booth, introduce myself. A strained "Hey, I bought your game." "Hey, I'm buying yours now" type conversation ensues. I get it signed and even pick up a mini-supplement from some guy named Jared Sorenson. The rest of GenCon is a whirl of Roman-themed dice rolls.

A few months later, I'm reading Sorcerer. This is something else ... I mean really something else. There's some stuff I don't get, so I check out the FAQ, and finally into the forum. Eventually I read the One Thread To Rule Them All: Art Deco Melodrama and I'm hooked. I stuck to lurking the Actual Play forum for quite a while, cause I'm no theorist. Ron's "Big Five" threads this past fall started me posting more, but work and RL have been hell the past month or so. Plus, every word I type here is one that ain't going in my game. So why am I even typing this???

[Christoffer Lernö]

How did I get here?

By way of www.rpg.net: First Andrew Martin recommended Sorcerer as something to read for inspiration for a magic system, and then Bailywolf said that this was "the place to be". So I decided to check it out...