Previous Topics
In Indie Game Design

1/20/2002 Paul Czege: bring out the imp
Hey, On the "Imp" thread, James wrote: If I shy away from doing games similar to his, then I’ll never do games again. I didn't want to derail…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Paul Czege, Logan, Joe Murphy (Broin), James V. West, contracycle, Ron Edwards, Zak Arntson.

1/20/2002 James V. West: Imp
I’ve loved the work of Vaughn Bode for a long time, as well as Simon Bisley, the Pinis, Bill Willingham, and a slew of others. Years ago I saw an…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: James V. West, hardcoremoose, Ron Edwards.

1/18/2002 Paganini: Game Balance
Game balance, as a meta-game concept, is important, IMO. If one player is somehow more valuable, important, or effective than other players, then the gaming experience will be less enjoyable…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Paganini, Ron Edwards, Jack Spencer Jr, Laurel, Skippy, contracycle, Gordon C. Landis, Le Joueur, Logan, Epoch, joshua neff.

1/18/2002 Matt Snyder: I'm a plagiarizing bastard
Ok, I'm asking for it ... I've been working on creating a full-fledged book based on the BRP system. So, to do that, I have literally rewritten, in my own…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Matt Snyder, Ron Edwards, Paganini, Cynthia Celeste Miller, John Wick.

1/18/2002 Laurel: Devils Cay Skill System
http://www.geocities.com/devilscay/System1.html is what I've been working on and would love feedback. I'll beg and bake cookies for good feedback. There's a couple of caveats. I'm making this game under highly…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Laurel, Gordon C. Landis.

1/17/2002 Matt Gwinn: I'd look at Chicks in The Shower!!
Over the years Moose and I have had numerous conversations about what the world would really be like if people had super powers. One of our conclusions was that the…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Matt Gwinn, Paganini, Skippy, Mike Holmes, Laurel, efindel, Cynthia Celeste Miller.

1/17/2002 sdemory: Take a swing, please
Hey there, all, I've been pounding on this horse for well nigh two months now, and I think it's dead. I'm not sure, though... If any of you would be…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: sdemory, Mike Holmes, Laurel, gizem, joshua neff, Paul Czege, Tim Denee.

1/16/2002 jburneko: Healing System Needed
Hello All, So, I've finally gotten around to working on my game Isolation, again. The previous thread on this project can be found here. Briefly, the game is designed to…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: jburneko, Paul Czege, Ron Edwards, hardcoremoose, Jared A. Sorensen, Mike Holmes, Marco, Jack Spencer Jr, Zak Arntson, Bill_White, Garbanzo, Joe Murphy (Broin), Paganini, Skippy.

1/16/2002 Zak Arntson: Harlekin-Maus monthly: Cubes
Roleplaying at the office. Cubes Game design notes: This game came in a flash. I was really sick of work, so I wrote a quickie on Cubes (you can…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Zak Arntson, contracycle.

1/16/2002 Jared A. Sorensen: Page Layout
Okay, Adobe Acrobat is mine. But what program (if any) should I get for layout? I'm thinking of just doing it in HTML first ('cause I know it and I…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Jared A. Sorensen, Logan, Adam, Chris Passeno, mahoux, Matt Snyder, Nathan, Marco, Gordon C. Landis, Tim Gray, efindel.

1/16/2002 Jared A. Sorensen: Danger Patrol
http://www.dangerpatrol.com/dangerpatrol/files/dp_player_brief_150.pdf The website (http://www.dangerpatrol.com) looks cool. Sparse right now, but nice art-deco design. Character creation looks interesting (the pick two words part) and I like the Danger Meter. That chart…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Jared A. Sorensen, Joe Murphy (Broin).

1/15/2002 Paganini: Sharing Power
Since I don't know how to split threads (being much more skilled at splitting hairs!) here at the forge, I'm just posting the reply from the Triad thread in…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Paganini, Ron Edwards, Jared A. Sorensen, Laurel, Paul Czege, Le Joueur, Logan.

1/15/2002 James V. West: How much Premise does it take?
How much Premise do you need to create an egaging rpg? This is me asking because I’ve suddenly become very aware of Premise or lack of it in my ideas.…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: James V. West, Zak Arntson, hardcoremoose, Gordon C. Landis, contracycle, Paul Czege, Paganini, Ron Edwards, Mike Holmes, Marco.

1/13/2002 Jared A. Sorensen: Scattershot and naming games
Fang! Why is your game called Scattershot, anyway? - J, who always thinks of to-the-death, Rollerball-esque hockey when he hears that name...
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Jared A. Sorensen, Le Joueur, James V. West, Ron Edwards, Mithras, Jack Spencer Jr.

1/14/2002 hyphz: A really silly idea. Could it work?
A very ridiculous idea which came to me as a result of a) being a fan of anime gaming and b) having an unexpected surprise exposure to episodes of Digi…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: hyphz, Jared A. Sorensen, Joe Murphy (Broin), hardcoremoose, Matt, James V. West.

1/12/2002 Paganini: Accuracy vs. Precision
Fang, and everyone, I thought maybe I was unclear in my last post, so I wanted to clarify. Here's what I meant to say: Detail in a system does not…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Paganini, Ron Edwards, Joe Murphy (Broin), Logan, hardcoremoose, efindel, Marco, Mike Holmes.

1/12/2002 Paganini: [Cornerstone] Announcement
I've got a Cornerstone draft ready to go, compelte with layout, fonts and everything. It's in postscript format, so those of you who are interested and can view postscript (or…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Paganini.

1/12/2002 Daredevil: Aeon Flux?
Heya, I'm a big fan of the Aeon Flux television series, authored by Peter Chung, and have recently thought about making some mechanics for game based on it. I'm wondering…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Daredevil, Joe Murphy (Broin), J B Bell, Le Joueur, FruitSmack!, Mike Holmes, contracycle.

1/11/2002 Epoch: Dwayne's Voices
Hi, everyone. I'm sick with a cold, and generally unable to focus on anything, so I just figured that I'd sit down and try to write something off-the-wall. Dwayne's Voices…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Epoch, Le Joueur, Paganini, Ron Edwards, Paul Czege.

1/10/2002 hardcoremoose: Man's Worst Friend
Hey guys, It's been a while since I posted anything of my own to this site, but since I'm trying to catch Josh Neff in posts, I figured I'd better…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: hardcoremoose, Clinton R. Nixon, Mike Holmes, Joe Murphy (Broin), Ron Edwards, James V. West.

<< more previous topics

Subsequent Topics
In Indie Game Design

1/21/2002 Jack Spencer Jr: The How-to of RPG How-to-ity
In another thread, Ron posed an interesting question: Now we have the interesting question, how well does a given how-to manual actually work? There are plenty of them, and I…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Jack Spencer Jr, Jason L Blair, Ron Edwards, Joe Murphy (Broin), Le Joueur, contracycle, efindel, Tim Gray.

1/22/2002 joshua neff: we got ourselves somethin' of a celebrity here!
Invisible City Productions mentioned our own Zak Arnston in their weblog: http://www.invisible-city.com/weblog/2002_01_01_ibs_archive.htm#8755415 Congrats, Zak!
In Indie Game Design
Participants: joshua neff, Jason L Blair, Zak Arntson.

1/23/2002 amiel: Narrativist Wargaming
None of you probably know who I am (can you say long time lurker, I knew you could). I have this idea and I wanted a bit of feedback to…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: amiel, Zak Arntson, hardcoremoose, Skippy, Bankuei, sdemory, Mike Holmes, Ron Edwards, Laurel, Ben Morgan, contracycle, Mithras.

1/23/2002 RobMuadib: "Entomorphasis: Awakening To An Uneasy Dream"
Forge Guys While taking the dog out today I had the idea for a cool punk-indie Narratavist RPG. (Some of you will remember that I am working on my great…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: RobMuadib, Jared A. Sorensen.

1/23/2002 xiombarg: Indie News?
Damn, I go away for a little while and the site gets a major overhaul. Looks great, tho. Regardless, my point in starting this topic is I've become an editor…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: xiombarg, Adam.

1/23/2002 Uncle Dark: Narrativist Vampires
Inspired from a thread in Actual Play: So you want to make a Vampire game. Start with some design goals. You’ve said you want it Narratiavist, which I’ll define here…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Uncle Dark, jburneko, Bailywolf, Mike Holmes, furashgf, Jared A. Sorensen, contracycle, Zak Arntson.

1/23/2002 Bailywolf: Beans
I have a system mechanic/paradigm I'd like to hit yall with: Beans Every character has a pool of Beans- these can be anything from a number written on a napkin…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Bailywolf.

1/24/2002 lumpley: More Narrativist Vampires
Here's what I've been working on. === To make a vampire, answer in a single sentence each of these: What is it when you drink blood? What is your power…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: lumpley, Mike Holmes, Bailywolf, Ben Morgan, Uncle Dark.

1/24/2002 Mithras: The Kap - A premise too far?
Is my premise good enough? I've wanted to do an ancient Egypt game for years and failed on more than one occasion. The big problem is premise. Egypt is so…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Mithras, Ron Edwards, Epoch, Ben Morgan, Bailywolf, Mike Holmes, contracycle, archangel_2, Bankuei, Laurel, Tim Gray, mahoux, Clinton R. Nixon, Marco.

1/25/2002 archangel_2: My Game Mechanics Revisited
Well, it's been a while since I posted about my game mechanics here. (That's mostly because I got busy and wasn't able to work on 'em for quite a while,…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: archangel_2, Laurel, RobMuadib.

1/25/2002 Bailywolf: Narrativist Mages
OK, we did it for vampires... so how about mages? Ron has pretty much created the definitive 'what will you do for power' game... and his sorcerers have such a…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Bailywolf, Laurel, mahoux, Mike Holmes, Bailey, Valamir, Uncle Dark.

1/27/2002 Tim Denee: Guy Ritchie's RPG?
Hey, I've been pondering how to capture the feeling of a Guy Ritchie film, (you know, "Lock stock and two smoking barrels", "Snatch", etc), in an RPG. What do you…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Tim Denee, lumpley, hardcoremoose, Mike Holmes, Ron Edwards.

1/28/2002 RobMuadib: The Million Worlds - 2 - Core Mechanics - Outcome Test
Hi all I mentioned to Fang that I was going to post a summary of the Outcome Test mechanic for my opus magnum, The Million Worlds: Chronicles Of The Eternal…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: RobMuadib, Mike Holmes.

1/28/2002 Galfraxas: My New Idea... And Some Other Stuff...
Hey All, I realize that I haven't been doing or saying much lately, but that's because I've been in a creative slump. At least until 2 days ago when I…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Galfraxas.

1/29/2002 ReverendCuster187: Hard Time (Prison RPG)
Hey I'm currently working on a prison based RPG, and would like some help with it. Its gonna be a brutal and realistic system, and I am likely to use…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: ReverendCuster187, hardcoremoose, Bailywolf, Mike Holmes, Ron Edwards, Mithras, Jared A. Sorensen, J B Bell, Tim Denee, jburneko, contracycle, Skippy, lumpley, Marco, amiel, GMSkarka, Ben Morgan.

1/29/2002 www.bionicbros.de: SOBRPG-State of Beings RPG (edited to Spam Discussion)
Project description now available for those who are interested Alife gaming. It is now three years in the making and is one of the largest games written to date- period!…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: www.bionicbros.de, Bailywolf, greyorm, mahoux, Laurel, Mithras.

1/31/2002 Ian Freeman: Even More Narativist Vampires and The Uber Kicker
Lot's of great vampire ideas have just been written up and I think I came up with an odd little idea. So here's what I've been working on: War in…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Ian Freeman, Bailywolf, DaR, Mike Holmes, Ron Edwards.

1/31/2002 Matt: How legends are made
This is my idea of the moment, a game about how legends grow in the telling, evolve and get hijacked. The idea is akin to Chinese Whispers, the first player…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Matt.

1/31/2002 lumpley: Another Stab at Narrativist Vampires
Okay Ron, I'll bite. (Ha ha ho. I slay me.) We use violence to protect ourselves from intimacy. Make up a vampire. I'd go with text about how old you…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: lumpley, Bailywolf, Mike Holmes, Ron Edwards, Tim Denee, Mithras.

2/1/2002 Le Joueur: Scattershot (only the mechanics) is Here!
After many private requests for a 'mechanics-only' version of Scattershot, without all the presumptuous design-speak, I have finally cobbled one together. (I bet you were wondering where I had disappeared…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Le Joueur.

more subsequent topics >>