Previous Topics
In Actual Play

12/19/2011 Frank Tarcikowski: [BARBAREN!] Who wants to be an Uber-Macho?
Hi there. This is basically the thread where I try to generate some buzz about the newly published English version of my game BARBAREN!, which is, at long last, available…
In Actual Play
Participants: Frank Tarcikowski, Ron Edwards.

12/18/2011 David Kay: [PTA] Driving Towards Conflict
Hello Forge community, This post is not an actual play report, so much as a request for actual play reports. I'm quite new to indie games, but I'm planning to…
In Actual Play
Participants: David Kay, Chris_Chinn, Ron Edwards, davidberg, czipeter.

12/17/2011 davidberg: [Pitfighter] SBP: the GM's role in resolution
"SBP" stands for Story Before Participationism.  It's basically gaming where (a) the GM makes certain things unavoidably happen in play as a part of getting across a "story" (by which…
In Actual Play
Participants: davidberg, contracycle, Anders Gabrielsson, JoyWriter, happysmellyfish, Noon, DWeird, Motipha.

12/15/2011 Porterhaus: How to enjoy Story Before without Participationism
So, I've been playing in a fairly new game of Dresden Files recently.  We've got four sessions under our belts so far.  The game is a spin-off of the Dresden…
In Actual Play
Participants: Porterhaus, stefoid, Alfryd, Chris_Chinn, Noon, davidberg, philipstephen, Dan Maruschak, contracycle, JoyWriter, Frank Tarcikowski, help im a bug, pawsplay.

12/15/2011 Bret Gillan: [HeroQuest 2] System and Story Tug of War
Hey guys. I recently got a Glorantha game going. We're using the HQ2 system and man is it weird. It does this judo on the way we determine obstacle levels…
In Actual Play
Participants: Bret Gillan, Eero Tuovinen, Neil the Wimp, Abkajud, Noon, epweissengruber.

12/13/2011 JoyWriter: [4e] Tonight everyone but Pius will die
I played a fully functioning participationist game the other week! The GM loves his characters and world, and they are his; we do all the pawn stance tactical combat stuff,…
In Actual Play
Participants: JoyWriter.

12/12/2011 chronoplasm: [AD&D] I Didn't Die :(
I fought a dragon on Sunday, and I am sad to say that I survived the encounter. It was first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. I was a third level…
In Actual Play
Participants: chronoplasm, Abkajud, Michiel Rutte, Chris_Chinn, Noon, rabindranath72, LandonSuffered.

12/3/2011 Noon: Not allowed to participate?
There's a campaign, from a premade module the GM downloaded. Very set piece combats, all requiring following A to B to C. Being run at the local game store. It's…
In Actual Play
Participants: Noon, Filip Luszczyk.

12/2/2011 Porterhaus: What does The Best Winner want to play?
So one of my good friends likes to play games, but he likes to always be The Best Winner, a term I made up.  Here's what it means.  In every…
In Actual Play
Participants: Porterhaus, Roger, Ron Edwards, davidberg, Noon, JoyWriter.

11/29/2011 Some Gamer666: Story before, Story Now, Bunch of Crap?
I keep seeing these posts about “Story Before” and “Story Now”.  I’ve read the “official” definitions of both, read some of the discussions, etc.  But I still don’t think I’m…
In Actual Play
Participants: Some Gamer666, davidberg, Ron Edwards, stefoid, Anders Gabrielsson.

11/29/2011 Michiel Rutte: Attributes and Duality
I have found in game play that attributes not always live in the imagination of the player. Some attributes are problematic to roleplay. At least I have often forgot for…
In Actual Play
Participants: Michiel Rutte, Some Gamer666, stefoid, Aisha Bennett, thedroid.

11/27/2011 Porterhaus: Help me like GMing, please.
I just finished running a nine-month Dresden Files campaign.  It was an awesome one.  The big bad guy cleverly manipulated the elements from behind the scenes.  The characters grew and…
In Actual Play
Participants: Porterhaus, davidberg, Anders Gabrielsson, Ron Edwards, stefoid, Ralls, Roger, Michiel Rutte, czipeter, Motipha, Blackrat, tymotzues.

11/25/2011 luke6080: Re: What's the worst thing you've ever done as a GM?
Geeze, hmmm. There was that one time I forced my whole group's characters to go balls deep in some twelve year old Japanese schoolgirls in GURPS.
In Actual Play
Participants: luke6080, Ron Edwards.

11/25/2011 dreamingjohnny: Help: Akward Session Opening
Hello, first time poster, I´ll try to be brief with my bakground here so that I can get to the problem at hand. I've been GMing on and of for…
In Actual Play
Participants: dreamingjohnny, Artanis, Noon, contracycle, stefoid, Michiel Rutte, Neil the Wimp.

11/23/2011 Some Gamer666: Using a "Plant"
Hey all, I would like to bring up the notion of using a "plant" within your group or party (cast of characters?).  Is it a viable option?  Should it be…
In Actual Play
Participants: Some Gamer666, Ron Edwards, davidberg, chronoplasm, SaintHax, Michiel Rutte.

11/19/2011 Abkajud: [D&D3.0] Zac's examples (split)
I've been run through modules a couple of times, and there's this way in which a hook that's sufficiently open-ended can give a player room to explore theme. But I…
In Actual Play
Participants: Abkajud, Noon, davidberg, stefoid, Ron Edwards.

11/21/2011 Noon: The Gank Effect and Social Contract Dogmatism
From a post by Zac here. Well, the reason why it (now) looks like we should have rolled is because the character was making a demand of the NPCs. She…
In Actual Play
Participants: Noon.

11/18/2011 Chris_Chinn: [Feng Shui] Stumbling into Narrativism
Spinning off from Ron's thread: Incipient Narrativism and its discontents. Back in 1996-1998, I ended up running a campaign for several friends using Feng Shui.  We…
In Actual Play
Participants: Chris_Chinn, Abkajud.

11/14/2011 davidberg: [Pitfighter] how I learned to push my GM plots into play
Hello, This post is part background for my other Pitfighter threads, part summary of my take on a classic problem in RPG play, and part response to Jamie's recent encounter…
In Actual Play
Participants: davidberg, Web_Weaver, Roger.

11/12/2011 Web_Weaver: How Glorantha both inspired and frustrated my play.
Story before  Have been reading David's thread: Decoupling Reward Systems from broad-scale Story Arcs And Ron's thread: Incipient Narrativism and its discontents In the latter I asked if Story Before…
In Actual Play
Participants: Web_Weaver, Ron Edwards, Abkajud, Noon, Paul Czege, contracycle, davidberg.

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Subsequent Topics
In Actual Play

1/2/2012 Double_J: Setting expectations, resolving conflicts, and other Rx's for dysfunctional play
Hey all, First-time poster, short-time lurker (though I have put myself through quite a crash course since I first stumbled upon this site a couple of months ago). I've read…
In Actual Play
Participants: Double_J, stefoid, Noon, Chris_Chinn, Caldis, epweissengruber, enderbean, davidberg, dindenver, Motipha.

1/9/2012 epweissengruber: [Heroquest 2] Pass/Fail and Setting-Heavy Story Now
Can it be done? My first thoughts are here: http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/for-clan-kin-and-the-gods/wikis/first-thoughts These are in preparation for an HQ2 campaign I am trying to start up.
In Actual Play
Participants: epweissengruber, Web_Weaver, JoyWriter.

1/10/2012 help im a bug: [DFRPG] Two games at once
I'd like to get this out of the way: this is not a complaint or a fix-my-game post. I'm very happy with the way things stand in it, and I'm…
In Actual Play
Participants: help im a bug.

1/16/2012 Ramlama: [Elfs] Stages as narrative bonus
My weekly gaming group just had to prematurely end a Dogs in the Vineyard game (one of the four players had to drop, and we'd missed a handful of sessions-…
In Actual Play
Participants: Ramlama.

1/23/2012 pawsplay: RPGs as languages
I'm hashing out some ideas for my latest gaming projects, and while doing so, I've had some intriguing thoughts pop into my head. A lot of the really successful genre-specific…
In Actual Play
Participants: pawsplay, Sp4m, czipeter, Ron Edwards.

1/29/2012 DWeird: Two Apocalypse World games: character relationship to setting
So I've been having thoughts about setting/character relationships for a game I'm kinda sorta thinking about making that is essentially about exploring and building upon a preestablished setting via characters…
In Actual Play
Participants: DWeird, help im a bug.

1/29/2012 czipeter: What are my reasonable options?
My experience is as bad as it is vivid. I hope I can recall much of the table ephemera without too much judgment. Social setup: The game itself was preceded…
In Actual Play
Participants: czipeter, Chris_Chinn.

1/29/2012 Waser: [Fragged Empire] Briefly Documenting the Growth of my Indie Sci-Fi RPG
Hi all, I am a long time browser of The Forge. There realy is some great stuff here. This thread will be me briefly documenting the development of my scratch…
In Actual Play
Participants: Waser.

1/30/2012 way: [AD&D2e] Doing things for the first time
I've been DMing an AD&D 2e game this weekend. One of the characters was a poisoner/alchemist: I've created a quick modification of the mage class for him. Part of the…
In Actual Play
Participants: way, DWeird, Noon, JoyWriter, thedroid.

1/31/2012 masqueradeball: The One Ring, Last Night
So, tonight I played The One Ring for the first time. Just thought I'd record a few responses: * Character creation is fast and gives you a lot of canned…
In Actual Play
Participants: masqueradeball, Mel_White.

2/2/2012 Eero Tuovinen: [Mars Colony] The Man Out of Time
Maracon is a great gaming convention for me, being as how it's small enough to ensure that I don't work all through it. This time around it was small enough,…
In Actual Play
Participants: Eero Tuovinen, Tim C Koppang.

2/14/2012 Blackrat: Story Now in a one-on-one setup
This is more of a request for actual play experiences than a report of them; I hope that fits within the spirit of the guidelines. Due to the busy schedules…
In Actual Play
Participants: Blackrat, Eliarhiman6, Abkajud, Mel_White.

2/28/2012 Motipha: [IAWA] Mid-dice negotiation and shifting loyalties
Cross-posted from Barf Forth Apocalyptica: http://apocalypse-world.com/forums/index.php?topic=2359.0 Ok, so this is a complicated situation.  We have three PC's: Tabni-Ishtar, Goddess of Fertility and the Harvest.  She wants to get rid of…
In Actual Play
Participants: Motipha, lumpley.

3/5/2012 TheDarkness73: [Nobilis] Starting a new game, looking for people
Okay, so I want to start a game of nobilis. I don't have too much experience, but I have a lot of the book memorized. I also have skype if…
In Actual Play
Participants: TheDarkness73, hansel.

3/13/2012 Motipha: [Apocalypse World] The Leviathan
So I'm on a podcast where three of the four hosts all game with each other on as part of our normal gaming group.  We recently finished an 8 session…
In Actual Play
Participants: Motipha.

3/16/2012 mael.rimbault: "The Right to Dream", game preparation, reward system, and my experience
Hello all, First, I need to warn you : I am French, so while I will do my best with my poor English to be clear, I may fail. If…
In Actual Play
Participants: mael.rimbault, Eliarhiman6, davidberg, Marshall Burns.

3/20/2012 Bret Gillan: [Lamentations of the Flame Princess] Dungeon Crawl Tension
I have never gotten to play classic dungeon crawls! I grew up in a household where D&D was forbidden, so I learned about roleplaying through other games like Marvel Superheroes,…
In Actual Play
Participants: Bret Gillan, Noon.

3/23/2012 tymotzues: Satisfying the curious
Hello folks So I've recently published my first game Ascendancy - Rogue Marshal It's doing ok so far, enough sales and interest to keep me happy, however, there are those…
In Actual Play
Participants: tymotzues, Eero Tuovinen, Chris_Chinn, davidberg.

3/23/2012 tymotzues: Satisfying the curious - examples of play
EXAMPLE PASSIVE ACTIVITY Rithanas is searching a library for a reference that he needs in order to continue his investigation into the Torgen’mae ‘WhiteBlood’. This reference is obscure and the…
In Actual Play
Participants: tymotzues, davidberg, epweissengruber.

4/2/2012 davidberg: [Pitfighter] SBP: reward system options
Hello, I've been recounting some key features of the d20-based homebrew Pitfighter game I ran in college here in Actual Play, to serve as a springboard for discussing ways in…
In Actual Play
Participants: davidberg, mael.rimbault, JoyWriter, Anders Gabrielsson.

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