Previous Topics
In Actual Play

9/3/2001 Supplanter: Mechanics, Emotion and Amberway II
The strong version of "System Does Matter" is that a game's design must do more than not impede a desired play goal; it must support it with fostering mechanics. I…
In Actual Play
Participants: Supplanter, Ron Edwards, Mike Holmes, Mytholder, greyorm, Epoch, Knight, James Holloway, contracycle.

8/31/2001 hardcoremoose: The Pool in Action (Or, How I Learned to love the Hose)
By popular demand, here's my account of The Pool, which I had the pleasure of playing this past Monday evening. My intent with this post is to facilitate some interesting…
In Actual Play
Participants: hardcoremoose, Ron Edwards, James V. West.

8/23/2001 peteramthor: My Little Fears games
I've been running Little Fears since I got it back from Origins a little while back. Thought I would share some of the action with everyone here. Its been rather…
In Actual Play
Participants: peteramthor, Ron Edwards.

8/17/2001 Ron Edwards: About this forum
Hey everyone, "Actual Play" is supposed to be about exactly that. It's a forum for discussing what really happens during game sessions. The goal is to get practical. Anyone should…
In Actual Play
Participants: Ron Edwards, Clinton R. Nixon.

8/14/2001 joshua neff: slouching towards narrativism
As some of you know, I've been running a Mage narrative for about a month or so. I slimmed the rules down in order to make it more narrativist, &…
In Actual Play
Participants: joshua neff, jburneko, Paul Czege, Uncle Dark, Mike Holmes.

8/13/2001 Mytholder: The joys of plot critical mass
I've been running a Blue Planet game for a few weeks now. The first few sessions were ok, if a bit stodgy. Lots of plot set-up and showing the players…
In Actual Play
Participants: Mytholder, Ian O'Rourke, Gordon C. Landis, Supplanter.

8/10/2001 Laura Bishop: Lexicon: words words words
So, I've seen the terms 'Simulationist' and 'Narrativism' used several times here at the Forge, with a basic understanding of these terms by those who used them. I've also seen…
In Actual Play
Participants: Laura Bishop, Mytholder, Ron Edwards, Uncle Dark.

8/7/2001 Emily Care: Narrative Sharing
In the discussion of PC/NPC bonding Le Jouer mentioned the possibiity of the GM sharing narrative power with the players in order to involve them more in interaction with NPC's.…
In Actual Play
Participants: Emily Care, Uncle Dark, lumpley, Meguey.

8/5/2001 Supplanter: Good Omens in Campaign Prep
Our ftf Amber group has decided we'll play Nobilis as our "off game" - those Wednesdays when the Amber GM can't make it. We had our first prep session last…
In Actual Play
Participants: Supplanter, Epoch.

8/4/2001 Galfraxas: Hello/Question
Hello Everybody, I'm new to the forums here, and I just thought I'd see if I could get some advice out of my first post here. I'm starting a campaign…
In Actual Play
Participants: Galfraxas, james_west, Ian O'Rourke, Uncle Dark, Ron Edwards, Valamir, Damocles, Henry Fitch, Mike Holmes.

7/31/2001 james_west: My first sorceror session (sort of).
I ran a session Saturday the 28th that mostly used Sorceror rules and genre, although I threw in a whole bunch of other stylistic weirdness. For instance, scenes were rarely…
In Actual Play
Participants: james_west, Ron Edwards, Valamir, Paul Czege, Dav, hardcoremoose, Ferry Bazelmans, greyorm.

7/27/2001 jburneko: Scene Framing
You know, I often get torn between posting in the RPG Theory Forum and the Actual Play Forum. If I want to discuss, say a GMing technique, is that Actual…
In Actual Play
Participants: jburneko, Paul Czege, Ron Edwards.

7/27/2001 unodiablo: Madison, WI - Gamers sought
Hey Forgers, Like the title says, I'm looking for 2 or 3 people to game with weekly, or every-other-week. I'm on Madison's west side, so you need transpo, and I…
In Actual Play
Participants: unodiablo.

7/26/2001 Ferry Bazelmans: Curiosity killed the freckled fritzhopper
I was wondering who out there has played Soap and what their experiences were. Ron wrote a very insightful review here that resulted in me making the winning mechanic optional…
In Actual Play
Participants: Ferry Bazelmans, james_west.

7/25/2001 Mytholder: Hideous abuse of the Forge denizens
Hi all, I'm not going to GenCon (awww) but some friends of mine are (yippee). I'm fairly sure they haven't prebooked into any games, and I know from my experiences…
In Actual Play
Participants: Mytholder, Jared A. Sorensen, Ron Edwards, joshua neff, Dav, unodiablo, Jason L Blair, Clinton R. Nixon, greyorm, Clay.

7/24/2001 jburneko: Help With A Reply
Hello, This is a bit of a personal matter and I'm not sure how "apropriate" bringing this to the public forum is but I'm affraid I'm at a bit of…
In Actual Play
Participants: jburneko, joshua neff, Zak Arntson, Ron Edwards, Jack Spencer Jr, Supplanter, james_west, gentrification, Damocles, Epoch, Peter, Knight, Ian O'Rourke.

7/24/2001 contracycle: story and plotting
Hi folks. Maybe this is a well-worn rut, but I'd like to throw it oiut and see if anyone can offer any advice. I have immense trouble with story design;…
In Actual Play
Participants: contracycle, Max Tangent, joshua neff, Ron Edwards, Gordon C. Landis, Clay, Blake Hutchins.

7/21/2001 GreatWolf: Little Fear in action
Last night I actually got to do some gaming! Woo-hoo! And it wasn't playtesting anything of my own. Instead, I ran Little Fears for part of my group (the rest…
In Actual Play
Participants: GreatWolf, joshua neff, Knight, Laura Bishop, Ron Edwards, trelliz, Balbinus, Epoch, Mike Holmes, Jason L Blair, Tyrant.

7/18/2001 jburneko: PC/NPC Emotional Bonding
Hello, Ron and I have been going back and forth about characters emotional motivations. In his last email he suggested I open up part of the discussion to the rest…
In Actual Play
Participants: jburneko, James Holloway, joshua neff, Paul Czege, Blake Hutchins, mikeryan, greyorm, Le Joueur, gentrification, John Wick, Cameron, Mike Holmes, GreatWolf, Emily Care, Knight, Uncle Dark, Mytholder, contracycle.

7/18/2001 Paul Czege: I think my girlfriend is a...simulationist
My girlfriend is playing in Scott's Sorcerer scenario, which had its second session on Monday. It's basically her first experience with roleplaying. She played Soap previously, but that's a GM-less…
In Actual Play
Participants: Paul Czege, Uncle Dark, Supplanter, GreatWolf, Ron Edwards, hardcoremoose.

<< more previous topics

Subsequent Topics
In Actual Play

9/4/2001 jburneko: Taking It All Too Seriously or Curse You Ron Edwards
WARNING: This post is an uncensored dump of my personal feelings. Sarcasim and humor are used heavily and any 'blanket' statements I may make about play styles and individuals are…
In Actual Play
Participants: jburneko, Ron Edwards, Epoch, kwill, Mytholder, Blake Hutchins, Cameron, Ian O'Rourke, Emily Dresner, james_west, contracycle.

9/9/2001 Ron Edwards: InSpectre'd at last
Hey, I've been wanting to play this game for too damn long. I even got to watch others play it at GenCon (brilliantly, too). So, at long last, this past…
In Actual Play
Participants: Ron Edwards, Jared A. Sorensen, James V. West, hardcoremoose.

9/9/2001 James V. West: The Pool: the creator's first session
Hey all: Finally, at long last, I have played my own game. I knew when I wrote it I would enjoy playing it, but that's usually the case with designers,…
In Actual Play
Participants: James V. West, kwill, Blake Hutchins, Epoch.

9/10/2001 jburneko: Not Roleplaying vs Not Role Playing How I Like
Ron, said something that caught my attention in the "Taking It All Too Seriously Thread" I wanted to explore it a little and so I thought it deserved it's own…
In Actual Play
Participants: jburneko, Marco, james_west, Ian O'Rourke, TrizzlWizzl, Ron Edwards, Mike Holmes.

9/17/2001 Tor Erickson: SOAP! test-run
(note: I'm posting a few rules comments over in the Reviews Discussions forum, under the current SOAP! topic) Hello all, So I played SOAP tonight to get a feel for…
In Actual Play
Participants: Tor Erickson, Ferry Bazelmans, Ron Edwards.

9/17/2001 Zak Arntson: Inspectres w/ Clinton & Justin
Okay, just played Inspectres last night with Clinton (of the Forge) and Justin (2nd time playing an RPG ever, and he's good at it!) ... Setup: Character creation went smoothly,…
In Actual Play
Participants: Zak Arntson, Ron Edwards.

9/19/2001 jburneko: The Accidental Narrativist
Hello, It's been a while since I've posted anything with substance and anything I have posted has been rather short and curt. The reason being that my gaming experiences of…
In Actual Play
Participants: jburneko, lumpley, Paul Czege, Epoch, Ben Morgan, Ron Edwards, Le Joueur, unodiablo, Mike Holmes, Knight, joshua neff.

9/26/2001 Zak Arntson: Indie Gaming - Red Box D&D
Okay, so our Sunday Indie Gaming went a little odd this weekend. I had to step out while the gang played Chez Geek ... One of our players had never…
In Actual Play
Participants: Zak Arntson, Ben Morgan, J B Bell, Bankuei, Jared A. Sorensen, Clinton R. Nixon.

9/26/2001 Galfraxas: When Players think the GM is trying to kill them...
Something odd happened at my last gaming session. I was running a one shot adventure of All Flesh Must Be Eaten, using the Adventure that comes with the screen, and…
In Actual Play
Participants: Galfraxas, Ben Morgan, Ron Edwards, Marco, Mike Holmes, Knight, Wart, unodiablo, Jared A. Sorensen, Ian O'Rourke, xiombarg.

10/2/2001 Ian O'Rourke: Top 5 Begins!
Not sure if this is the place for it, but the Top 5 RPG's series of articles has begun on Fandomlife.net. The first one is very interesting - or I…
In Actual Play
Participants: Ian O'Rourke, Mike Holmes, Marco, greyorm, jburneko, Ron Edwards, Valamir.

10/5/2001 Knight: Salvaging Unknown Armies
I dislike Unknown Armies. I really, really dislike it. But, I think I've hit on a way of getting a good game out of it - use the Dying Earth…
In Actual Play
Participants: Knight, Ron Edwards, Mytholder, Mike Holmes, Ian O'Rourke, Epoch, Jason L Blair.

10/8/2001 Dav: Little Fears
My Thursday night group has started Little Fears. First, let me say that the character sheet, more than almost anything else, truly helps the character development stage. Filling in the…
In Actual Play
Participants: Dav, Ron Edwards, Paul Czege.

10/10/2001 Ron Edwards: Sorcerer in action (briefly)
So I finally got badgered into running a short Sorcerer experience for some of the people in the campus group. I've been resisting this for a while, partly due to…
In Actual Play
Participants: Ron Edwards, Tor Erickson, random.

10/15/2001 Paul Czege: Drama like your cold feet under my covers
Have you been compulsively checking this forum for some closure on the Theatrix superhero scenario I first wrote about in the "Theatrix in action" thread? Too bad. This is a…
In Actual Play
Participants: Paul Czege, jburneko, Mike Holmes, Ron Edwards, Ben Morgan, Laurel, Clay.

10/16/2001 greyorm: Recent Playtest
As I recently mentioned, I planned to use Cameron's A Game Within A Game in the context of my 3E game. What a life-saver! After the closing session of…
In Actual Play
Participants: greyorm, Mike Holmes, Ron Edwards.

10/18/2001 Ron Edwards: The Mystery Meat thing
Hey there, Last Tuesday, our own Doc Midnite ran a session of what is apparently called "Mystery Meat," that is, a session of play in which the players are unaware…
In Actual Play
Participants: Ron Edwards, Galfraxas, Mike Holmes, joshua neff, Epoch, Marco, Doc Midnight.

10/20/2001 Blake Hutchins: X-Games
I've put a group together to run a series of short-run games where we experiment with some of the narrativist-focused systems out there. We're starting with The Pool, followed by…
In Actual Play
Participants: Blake Hutchins, hardcoremoose, Ron Edwards, James V. West, Mike Holmes, Paul Czege.

10/26/2001 Galfraxas: Jerk Reoccurances?
Anybody who was part of my last discussion on the "Actual Play" forum knows that my gaming group is seriously troubled. Well, no longer. I have found a new group.…
In Actual Play
Participants: Galfraxas, Jason L Blair, Ron Edwards, greyorm, Laurel, Mike Holmes, Balbinus.

10/26/2001 Ian O'Rourke: Variation of Style
Okay, this is sort of inspired by a couple of the threads in the Sorcerer forum, but it's not Sorcerer specific, and this forum seemed the closest fit. This issue…
In Actual Play
Participants: Ian O'Rourke, Paul Czege, James V. West, Bankuei, Mike Holmes, Blake Hutchins, Laurel, mahoux.

10/29/2001 Ron Edwards: Narrativism and Bobby G
Hey, So last Tuesday, I got a chance to play D20, finally! It was the new Star Wars, and I leaped into action with my Twileek bodyguard and translator for…
In Actual Play
Participants: Ron Edwards, Matt, joshua neff, Mike Holmes, Marco, Doc Midnight, Jack Spencer Jr, Don Lag, contracycle, jburneko, Gordon C. Landis, James Holloway.

more subsequent topics >>