So, how'd you find this place?

[Christopher Kubasik]

I'm here because of Jesse.  And I can never thank him enough for it.

He kept saying, "I really think you'd like the discussions on the Forge."  It took me three weeks to think it'd be even worth my time to check it out.  Boy was he right.

Christopher

[Trevis Martin]

I think I was doing some searching for Theatrix.  Looking for information from people who had played the game, and to find out what their experience was with it.  I ran across references to threads in Google and followed them and proceeded to get swallowed up with all the great conversation going on here.

The great thing was that most of the stuff I read spoke to me and my dissatisfaction with the hobby very deeply.  It helped me put some words to ideas I had but hadn't been able to articulate about the hobby and myself as a hobbiest, as well as introduce me to some new ones.

On top of all that I found that people like Christopher Kubasik were posting here which I thought was just awesome as I have all but framed my tattered photocopies of his Interactive Toolkit articles. (Pleased to meet you Chris)

and finally there were all the great GAMES.... (happy sigh)

regards

Trevis

[Matt Machell]

Well, my profile says I registered for the forum in Aug 2001, but I seem to remember nosing around here for a while before.

I think I followed some link from RPG.NET when looking for places to promote games (this was round about the first version of Lost Gods and the Agency).

One of my early posts was on an idea I had for a game about megalomanics in an asylum. The response was positive, the ideas inspiring, and the game evolved into Bedlam!

I've been here ever since.

-Matt

[Maurice Forrester]

Also by way of rpg.net, but in my case it was a post (by Clinton maybe?) about kill puppies for satan.  I read the game and decided that if anyone else at the Forge was doing anything even half as cool as that I wanted to know about it.

[Judd]

I posted an idea on rpg.net for a wild west otherworld where the American west was settled by Egyptians, Norse, Romans and Greeks.  It got pretty zany and I was wondering which system I should use when Matt posted and suggested that I use Dust Devils, which I did.

Looked around the Forge and discovered and bought Sorcerer, InSpectres, octaNe and such.  Most recent Forge-related game I've gotten hooked on is Riddle of Steel.

Fun stuff, but sometimes the GNS discussions give me a headache, but, ya know, in a good way.

[Meguey]

Being married to Vincent helped. Gaming w/ him and EmilyCare helped too. Mostly I just put in a few words now and then when the topic of women&gaming shows up, or when Vincent or EmilyCare says "hey, check out this thread atthe Forge". Someday when the kids are older, I'll pick up the ElfQuest game I was writing back in 1992.

~Meguey

[Matt Gwinn]

It's all Moose's fault.   We've been friends for about a decade or so and all of a sudden I started to develop this itchy rash on my left butt cheek.   Over a period of a month or so it kind grew and started leaking this viscuous puss and... Doh!!  Wrong story.  You guys are talking about the Forge...Silly me.  Moose introduced me to the Forge too. :-)

,Matt G.

[arxhon]

I had just recently been bitten by the gaming bug again, and started looking about for message boards regarding gaming. After a short time, i found rpg.net, and started reading reviews.

There i found some kind of thingie about some kind of GNS theory, and read some other article about Fantasy Heartbreakers. I wanted to know what this GNS stuff was all about, so i did a Google search on it, and found the article Ron had written. However, IIRC, it came up page not found, so i did some URL hacking and found it that way. Meanwhile, i was reading about some guys on RPG.net bitching about how pretentious everyone on the Forge was. I thought to myself "They've got to be better than you people calling each other f4gz0rz for not liking D20 games"

After reading several posts in GNS discussion, i was inclined to think that perhaps the RPG.net people were right, especially after i made a post and someone made an arrogant remark about what i wrote. This alomst drove me away.

But then i discovered TROS, and i stayed.

Now i want to check out Sorceror. That game sounds like it rocks.

[dragongrace]

Had been designing little games to no avail for several years, mostly to please my bored mind, and when I developed one I wanted actual outside opinoins on I looked upo Independent Game Design or something to that effect and viola.  Now I'm still designing little games to no avail but at least I have a cool place to hang out :)

JOE--

[Julie]

Story:  Been a player since the mid-80s.  Lost track of gaming after college, 1996.  Was bereft.   Josh and I met in July 2002, and I was poking around in here because he had a link on Goblin Cartoons.  

Lo and behold, Ron, Mike, Jurgen, Josh and I all ended up at Mike's house and did a Sorcerer and Sword pre-GenCon 2002 thing, and I was hooked.   I had to have more.

I got the ovarios to sign up and start posting sometime between Josh's 1-on-1 Trollbabe and Mike's Hero Wars in Alternate Setting runs, and have been lurking and chiming in ever since.  

By the way, I find the analysis and dissection to be edifying, annoying and amusing all at the same time.

[Othyem]

I was referred to this place by Adam Jury, Editor of The Shadowrun Supplemental. I asked him for advice on pimping out my RPG to playtesters, and he sent me the link.



Othyem

[Enoch]

Back in the day when I wanted to find every free RPG out there (now I don't even bother) I found Haphaestus Forge (God I hate that god's name!).  Which as far as I can remember was just a list of free RPGs.  It wasn't even as good as some other ones I found either.  For some reason I later searched around for more free RPGs and found the Forge had changed a lot.  Even then all I did was use the resource library.

I'm not sure why I started reading the forums here.  I think it was because of some discussion on RPG.net.

-Joshua

[Julie]

Regarding my post above (too late to edit it and not look foolish), it was Sorcerer/SPACE, not sword.  Can't let my faulty memory go uncorrected.

[Stuart DJ Purdie]

Hmm.  I came by way of a half finished thought.

I was getting a bit bored with RPG's, and felt that they were all getting a bit same-y.  So I was thinking that by describing games on a set of sliding scales, and looking for any gaps that I couldn't fit a game to, I'd find that elusive "something different" I was looking for.

The first step was to consider a lot of games - and a web search turned up the resource library, amoungst others.  From there, I wandered about a bit, found the GNS eassy, skimmed it, looked at Sorcerer,  had one of those "well, duh, of course!" moments that accompany truly understanding something new, and I had discovered Narrativism.  My flaw in the idea was that I was only considereing Simulationism as the 'whole of the matter'.

Once sorcerer arrived, I ordered both the supplemts immediatly (Making them the 3rd and 4th supplments I've ever bought), and then started lurking a bit, and gradually grew to posting a little.  

Fast forward to present:  Still playing in some of the same games.  Not boring anymore.  Wierd, huh?

[Spooky Fanboy]

I saw the site mentioned on Adept Press and the Sorcerer site. Raided the library, stayed around when I tried the forums. Stayed on the Independent Forums for a long time, finally moved to Indie Games. Rest is history.