Previous Topics
In Indie Game Design

6/7/2001 Nathan: The Wild Has Returned!
Howdy, Actually have had time to write again, so here she is... the new, nice-looking (in my humble opinion) the Wild : Get it now!. So here is what…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Nathan, Ron Edwards, Jason L Blair.

6/5/2001 hardcoremoose: Human Wreckage
Hey Guys, I just finished writing up a little game based on the idea of the ever escalating body count (as seen in cheesy horror movies). It needs a lot…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: hardcoremoose, Ferry Bazelmans, Ron Edwards, Zak Arntson, unodiablo.

6/2/2001 poppocabba: a hybrid system for one shots
i am kinda jazzed about my new idea. The character sheet is simply a half page "to do" list slightly altered with a section on the bottom called "how" ,…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: poppocabba, Ron Edwards.

6/2/2001 Matt Gwinn: The Ballot System
I just had a new idea for a game mechanic and I was wondering what you all thought of it. I was thinking that a player could announce what he…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Matt Gwinn, james_west, Ron Edwards.

5/31/2001 Ferry Bazelmans: New game: storyboard
New to the board, perhaps not to the names ]:). I posted a new RPG on The BlackLight Bar. You''ll find it under Games-Free Games. It's largely concerned with…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Ferry Bazelmans, Ron Edwards, hardcoremoose.

5/28/2001 Damocles: silly little game: "Trust me."
"Trust Me" (First Draft) __Introduction__ "Trust Me" is a minimalist universal roleplaying game emphasizing mutual trust between players and game master. After a fashion. __What You Need__ For each player:…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Damocles, james_west.

5/27/2001 Zak Arntson: Freebie RPG: Courts & Corsets
After watching Amadeus (and being a fan of those effeminate costume dramas in general), I thought about writing an RPG that recreates the intrigue-filled life of those characters. I thought…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Zak Arntson, Damocles, Paul Czege.

5/25/2001 Jason L Blair: Game #2: Zodiac 12
Okay, this one is even more neophytic in design than the previous site. More will be added soon but I decided, "Hey... why not post it?" Again, horribly edited but…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Jason L Blair, Clinton R. Nixon, hardcoremoose, james_west, gentrification, contracycle.

5/24/2001 james_west: The right level of self-confidence
I was having a conversation with my wife yesterday (whose artistic inclinations tend in different directions) which seemed extremely relevant to this forum. It boils down to: Strong creativity happens…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: james_west, JSDiamond.

5/23/2001 Jason L Blair: Game #1: Machina
Dag, both JS and Zak have posted that they are working on games where players take the role of machines. Well, I have a game dealing with that as well…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Jason L Blair, Dav, JSDiamond, Zak Arntson, Jared A. Sorensen, james_west.

5/23/2001 Clay: Micro Wars - The simple war game
Somebody in another forum complained that there didn't seem to be any gamist action here. To counteract that trend, I've put up my web site for Micro Wars, a simple…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Clay.

5/22/2001 poppocabba: the depiction of women in gaming
this topic started in another venue, and I was interested I seeing what people here had to say... now here is my concern on a broader level. I honestly feel…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: poppocabba, Ron Edwards, Dav, Clay, james_west, Jared A. Sorensen, Zak Arntson, JSDiamond, Cameron, greyorm, Jamie Thomas Durbin, kwill, contracycle.

5/21/2001 Jason L Blair: No rest for the... restless
Well, I'm wrapping up Little Fears and it looks like it might not be out 'til GenCon. I'll know this week whether it's gonna be delayed. But anyhoo -- I…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Jason L Blair, Ron Edwards, james_west, hardcoremoose, poppocabba.

5/17/2001 JSDiamond: GOLEM
hardcoremoose came up with a brilliant system-mechanic that I have altered somewhat for an rpg (tentatively) called "GOLEM" In it, players are robots that have 'awoken' within a behemoth factory…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: JSDiamond, Dav, hardcoremoose, Ron Edwards, GreatWolf, Clay, Zak Arntson, canisPRIME, Doc Midnight, John Wick.

5/14/2001 hardcoremoose: System utilizing Director's Stance?!
I posted this over at RPGnet, but it really deserves to be here where the great minds can mull it over. There's a game spinning in my head for which…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: hardcoremoose, Ron Edwards, JSDiamond, Jared A. Sorensen, Clay, Doc Midnight.

5/14/2001 JSDiamond: Endless Dance
Ron Edwards mentioned a game called "Hero" from a long time ago and that got me to thinking about a game I 'designed' a long time ago but never finished.…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: JSDiamond.

5/13/2001 Jared A. Sorensen: Jeff Noon -- Cobralingus
Not really sure where to put this...but hell, I know Josh Neff will be interested, at the very least! http://www.codexbooks.co.uk/book.html Really interesting.
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Jared A. Sorensen, joshua neff, DonQuixote.

5/12/2001 Jared A. Sorensen: Convention bastards.
Well, due to my lateness in submitting my game, I'll be running Elfs at KublaCon on a Sunday morning. Feh. In the conversations between the con RPG organizer (a nice…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Jared A. Sorensen, Mytholder, Ron Edwards, GreatWolf, JSDiamond, Clinton R. Nixon, poppocabba, hardcoremoose, Dav, Blake Hutchins, james_west.

5/9/2001 Jared A. Sorensen: Centerfolds
Something that I'd really like to see (on this site or on individuals' sites) is a kind of "gamer profile" that would shed light on a person's style, turn-ons and…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Jared A. Sorensen, Paul Czege, Ron Edwards, Clinton R. Nixon, Blake Hutchins, George Pletz, Zak Arntson, Mytholder, hardcoremoose, joshua neff, Jason L Blair, GreatWolf, Clay, poppocabba, DonQuixote, gizem, unodiablo, james_west, Supplanter, Ferry Bazelmans, John Wick, ephealy, Gordon C. Landis, Matt Gwinn, gentrification, Nathan, Dav, Ian Freeman, archangel_2, Jamie Thomas Durbin.

5/8/2001 Dav: Minimalism vs. Half-booty
A brief open question: Sorcerer, as well as other games, have proven that a core concept as well as good, efficient mechanics can present a saleable item. No setting. Or…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Dav, james_west, Ron Edwards.

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Subsequent Topics
In Indie Game Design

6/11/2001 poppocabba: player vs game defined characteristics
one of my players was qouted as saying once " what is the point of creating a detailed setting if the players can't destroy it", and what she was refering…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: poppocabba, Don Lag, Ron Edwards, Max Tangent, joshua neff.

6/13/2001 Don Lag: Algorithms, complexity and what any of this has to do with R
First off, I must admit to being a computer engineering & physics major in progress. So all this is predictably spwaned from way too much contact with these disciplines. Many…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Don Lag, greyorm, james_west, Ron Edwards, Zak Arntson, jburneko, John Wick, Mytholder, Clay, Supplanter, Epoch, Gordon C. Landis.

6/15/2001 Jared A. Sorensen: Dice mechanics
I know dice mechanics for task resolution are the RPG equivalent of stupid pet tricks, but... Just thought of a new dice mechanic...if it works I might use it in…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Jared A. Sorensen, james_west, Max Tangent, Gordon C. Landis.

6/19/2001 Ron Edwards: Request
Hi there, I suppose this thread could go in the Site Discussion, but frankly, I think more people will see it here. As many of you can tell, Clinton and…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Ron Edwards, Clinton R. Nixon, Zak Arntson, Jason L Blair, Dav, Jared A. Sorensen, hardcoremoose, Epoch.

6/19/2001 Ian Freeman: Racial/Gender mechanics
It tends to be pretty common in RPG for differents races/species to have different statistical modifers. And, it is very rare for this to apply to genders. Who here uses…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Ian Freeman, Jason L Blair, James Holloway, JSDiamond, Ron Edwards, james_west, hardcoremoose, Zak Arntson, Damocles.

6/22/2001 Ian Freeman: Fate
Here's a thought for a system tag-on. Each character has a number of fate point. These fate points represent how much life the character has left to live. When the…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Ian Freeman, hardcoremoose, Clay, Jared A. Sorensen.

6/22/2001 Zak Arntson: Presentation and Design Goals
Okay, I'm moving this D&D discussion to Game Design from Actual Play because I think it's a design-level issue. I am going to concentrate on Presentation. For most games, Presentation…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Zak Arntson, james_west, JSDiamond.

6/26/2001 gizem: Singularity - a new game
I have designed a game and uploaded it to the net. It is more a setting than a game actually, but it has some simple mechanics also. It is rather…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: gizem, Jared A. Sorensen, Jason L Blair, Zak Arntson, Jamie Thomas Durbin.

6/27/2001 John Wick: Looking for Hex Paper
Anybody know where I can download hex paper? (Sorry I couldn't think of any other forum to ask this in. It's for one of the forthcoming WICKED PRESS products, so…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: John Wick, Clinton R. Nixon, Gordon C. Landis, Clay.

6/29/2001 Ian Freeman: Salvation and a Moral Compass
Okay, here's a really, really strange idea. Atleast i think it is, has anybody seen stuff like this before? The basic insperation comes from all the games which have some…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Ian Freeman, james_west, Dav, Ron Edwards.

6/29/2001 Gordon C. Landis: You ARE the bar
So, the last time I tried to design a game (as opposed to just extensively tweak an existing one) it involded taking a Japanese bayonet (which my father had brought…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Gordon C. Landis, Dav, GreatWolf, Paul Czege, Jared A. Sorensen, Jamie Thomas Durbin.

6/30/2001 GreatWolf: #Origins, anyone?
This seemed to be the best place to put this, so apologies for the off-topic bit. But.... Any of you going to be at Origins? I'd love to be able…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: GreatWolf, Jason L Blair, archangel_2, Ron Edwards.

7/6/2001 Ron Edwards: Call for Action
Hi everyone, The Forge is trying to convert to an entirely author-driven links and promo library. The software to do it is up and running. If you have a game…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Ron Edwards, Jared A. Sorensen, archangel_2, Clinton R. Nixon, Zak Arntson, Paul Czege.

7/10/2001 Jack Spencer Jr: idea...
There a certain style of play that's been receiving less and less attention these days, solo play. There are plenty of doomsayers out there who believe computer games are killing…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Jack Spencer Jr, Dav, Nathan, archangel_2, Jared A. Sorensen, Ron Edwards, Jason L Blair, Mytholder, Mithras, Jamie Thomas Durbin, James V. West, Loryndalar, Matt, FilthySuperman, xiombarg, Cadriel, Mike Holmes.

7/11/2001 poppocabba: another spirt concept rpg
Recently I have gotten a lot of horror rpgs that I will never be able to convince anyone to play them all, namely Nephilim, Lost Souls, Kult, Whispering Vault ,so…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: poppocabba.

7/11/2001 barteee: How much detail is needed?
I'm new so you'll have to forgive me if this has already been asked. One of the problems I always run into in game design is how much you have…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: barteee, Jamie Thomas Durbin, Dav, Ron Edwards, Mytholder.

7/15/2001 RobMuadib: Troupe "Universal" World Building Simulationist Shared Nar
I am in the process of writing up my RPG, tentatively titled The Million Worlds: Chronicles Of The Eternal Cycle, which I hope to "commercially" publish in some form, and…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: RobMuadib, Ron Edwards.

7/17/2001 RobMuadib: Shared Creationism - The Next Step for Simulationist?
Hey I was wondering what the "indie" guys here at the Forge think of "Shared Creationism" as the next evolutionary step for Simulationist game play. In most simulationist games there…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: RobMuadib, james_west, FilthySuperman, Emily Care.

7/22/2001 Clay: Well armed, large breasted women put people off games?
I'm interested in taking up this thread about how women are depicted in gaming. In particular, I want to assert that it may at times be appropriate to show some…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Clay, Damocles, greyorm, James V. West, Jack Spencer Jr, Uncle Dark, contracycle, Fletch, GreatWolf, joshua neff, Ron Edwards, Dav, hardcoremoose, Blake Hutchins, Logan, Supplanter, Cameron, james_west, Levekius, gizem, John Wick.

7/23/2001 Paul Czege: Sigil
Hey James V...everyone, I've been thinking seriously about running a scenario using Sigil. I even bought wood cubes at a craft store over the weekend. But I'm worried about play-balance…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Paul Czege, James V. West.

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