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In Indie Game Design

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 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 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 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.

1/22/2002 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.

1/21/2002 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.

1/21/2002 Jared A. Sorensen: Character Creation placement
Just a revelation I had while driving home from Maine today. Much of the discussion about placement in RPGs seems to revolve around the whole "setting, then rules" or "rules,…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Jared A. Sorensen, Logan, Jack Spencer Jr, Le Joueur, Adam, Jason L Blair, Joe Murphy (Broin), Ron Edwards, RobMuadib, Epoch, JSDiamond, Mario.

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.

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Subsequent Topics
In Indie Game Design

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.

2/1/2002 amiel: Narrativist Wargames Part the Second
Okay, after taking some of your thoughts into consideration: Everyone makes decisions regarding base setting together, or the GM just makes it up. Faction/State generation: Write a 50-100 word description…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: amiel, Ron Edwards, Mithras.

2/2/2002 Zak Arntson: Divine Right - Harlekin-Maus Monthly
Okay, I've put up February's game: Divine Right. It was originally about exorcists, but then the basic Premise, "What would you sacrifice to save another," kept sticking in my…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Zak Arntson, Ron Edwards, Fabrice G..

2/4/2002 Paul Czege: The World, the Flesh, and the Devil Font...
...is now available for download. Intended to aid in the creation of dice for the game, it provides five fabulous icons (World, Flesh, Devil, and plus and minus symbols in…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Paul Czege, Joe Murphy (Broin), hardcoremoose, lumpley, Ben Morgan, James V. West.

2/6/2002 Epoch: More of the Same
My fanatical groupies (yeah, right), will notice that this is a concept that I've approached over and over again, looking for a good way to do it. This time, I'm…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Epoch, Tim Denee.

2/11/2002 furashgf: Player Directorial Stance in Rules or Ad Hoc?
I was enjoying Jared's new OCTANE rpg, and noticed (obvious to everyone else) that players get directorial power based on rules w/ in the system. Elsewhere, people seem to say…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: furashgf, Ron Edwards, efindel.

2/14/2002 Mike Holmes: Narrativist Spies
Well, BW, here's your chance. I can't think of a Narrativist game that does traditional spies. Oh, sure, EV, would work, but might not generate the right mood for some.…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Mike Holmes, lumpley, Ron Edwards, Mithras, Bailywolf.

2/14/2002 Mithras: Egypt Needs Characters (and a few mechanics)
Hi all, I've been sketching out more ideas for this Ancient Egyptian game, a game that's going to focus on trying to maintain the eternal balance and the power of…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Mithras, lumpley, Paul Czege, Epoch, Mike Holmes, Blake Hutchins, contracycle, amiel, Mytholder, Le Joueur, Valamir.

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