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In Indie Game Design

11/6/2002 Alan: Narrativist Space Trader
I've noticed that SF is not yet greatly explored by games which favor narrativist play. In particular, I'm thinking of SF in the tradition of space exploration or space trading.…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Alan, Marco, Matt, Ron Edwards, RobMuadib, Andrew Martin, Tony Irwin, Tim C Koppang, Mike Holmes.

11/6/2002 Patrick Boutin: a new fantasy game
This post is a logical sequel to the thread "some questions about fantasy" in the Rpg Theory forum. First thing first, I want to let you know that the game…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Patrick Boutin, Mike Holmes, thoth, Christoffer Lernö.

11/6/2002 Ferry Bazelmans: Soap is out, but is it good?
Hi there, I recently put out my game Soap as a 31-page PDF file (I'd say about 23 pages of pure content, 3 ads, cover, introduction, dedication, toc and credits).…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Ferry Bazelmans.

11/6/2002 RobMuadib: TMW:COTEC - The Sundering of the Omyrae (Long)
Hey All Figured I should point out the Game Universe and Mythos that my game will be set against. The idea behind the games UberMetaSetting is to provide a universe…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: RobMuadib, Shreyas Sampat, Kester Pelagius.

11/6/2002 Shreyas Sampat: Torchbearer: Vision and Duty Traces
I was considering the transformative model of Torchbearer magic, and its effects on the game's mechanics. Basically, the transformative model says that whenever you activate a magical trait, it replaces…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Shreyas Sampat, Jonathan Walton.

11/6/2002 Demonspahn: Chris made a clam
and Christoffer made a fox for the upcoming playtest of my new game about animals who gained human level intelligence and rose up against their masters, briefly outlined here,…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Demonspahn, Le Joueur, Jonathan Walton, Christoffer Lernö, J B Bell, C. Edwards.

11/5/2002 Kester Pelagius: Quick CharGen Question
Greetings All, I am in the process of revising sections of my Pixies rules find original thread here and was wondering whether character generation should be point allocation or random…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Kester Pelagius, ethan_greer, Ron Edwards, Mike Holmes, Marco, M. J. Young, Le Joueur.

11/5/2002 Anthony: Character generation thoughts. (long)
Forgive me if this rambles a bit, it is a topic I've been thinking about for quite some time and because of that I've got quite a bit I want…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Anthony, szilard, Mike Holmes, Bankuei, Paul Czege, Ron Edwards, Andrew Martin.

11/5/2002 Steve Dustin: CREATURE FEATURE: GM-less Monster Movie Roleplaying
I'm currently writing up a playtest version of a game idea I got from watching a bunch of 1940's Mummy movies around Halloween. It got me thinking -- watching monster…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Steve Dustin, Matt, ethan_greer, Mike Holmes, jrients, talysman, Jonathan Walton.

11/5/2002 RobMuadib: TMW:COTEC - Why You SHOULD Care (Long) (updated)
Hey all By my rash Subject,…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: RobMuadib, ethan_greer, Andrew Martin, Jonathan Walton, lumpley, Emily Care, Mike Holmes.

11/4/2002 Nathan: Experiment #4,221: PENDULUM (a double game system game?)
Yup, I had a freak idea over the weekend, and here is the first punch out of it. It seems like we've had games without systems, games with very lite…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Nathan, Mike Holmes.

11/4/2002 RobMuadib: TMW:COTEC - Sample Of Play - Pt1 (Long)
Hi all As my posts thus far seem to have garnered little comment on the game, I thought I would post a sample of play, or rather a vision of…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: RobMuadib, Shreyas Sampat, Voidwalker, Valamir, Christoffer Lernö.

11/3/2002 Kester Pelagius: Devils and Demons: the RPG of Divine Lunatics (longish)
Greetings All, What follows is a short little game designed to test a mechanic principle which I have outlined in a post at RPGnet which can be found here and…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Kester Pelagius, Sylus Thane, Shreyas Sampat, Christoffer Lernö, Gwen, Mike Holmes.

11/2/2002 Shreyas Sampat: Creating Traits in Torchbearer
This is partly in response to Christoffer's query in the Wayfarer's Song - Soulburn thread, which itself was an outgrowth of his own thread on Ygg: Demonic Weird, and partly…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Shreyas Sampat, Jonathan Walton, Bob McNamee.

11/2/2002 Christoffer Lernö: Yggdrasil: Bob made a Goblin...
I stated earlier that I was gonna avoid all the problems with game balance by making all characters able to fight in Ygg if someone remembers that? Anyway short story:…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Christoffer Lernö, Demonspahn, Valamir, damion, Bob McNamee, Andrew Martin, Bankuei, Lugaru, Spooky Fanboy, Walt Freitag.

11/2/2002 Jonathan Walton: Storypunk: "Do you think you can tell?"
I was drafting a webpage/introduction for my game Storypunk (formerly the project called "Quixote & Coyote," discussed here and here) when I was suddenly inspired by multiple sources.…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Jonathan Walton, Paul Czege, Christoffer Lernö, Gwen, talysman, RobMuadib, Matt Snyder, Shreyas Sampat, Bob McNamee, Kenway, Mark Withers, szilard.

11/1/2002 Christoffer Lernö: What Is Yggdrasil - Just the premise, no questions
[b]Setting - Mythic Fantasy[/b] That means magic is alive with qualities unknown. (The presentation on my site unfortunately does a poor job describing). It's not High Myth of say [i]Torchbearer[/i],…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Christoffer Lernö, Bankuei, Mike Holmes, Valamir, Bob McNamee.

10/31/2002 Matt Snyder: Nine Worlds (or whatever): Why you DON'T CARE
This has got to work, right? Ok, in light of a certain thread in Site Discussion, I'll take a stab at something. It's a bit humorous, but the intent is…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Matt Snyder, J B Bell, C. Edwards, Bankuei, xiombarg, ethan_greer, RobMuadib, Gordon C. Landis, Andrew Martin, Demonspahn, Gwen, Christoffer Lernö, Mike Holmes, Jonathan Walton, Valamir, Jared A. Sorensen, Kester Pelagius, Roger Eberhart.

10/31/2002 xiombarg: S Combat System
For those of you who aren't watching the GNS forum, this thread is spun off from this thread, and refers to the S combat system. Why not both?…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: xiombarg, Andrew Martin, Mike Holmes, Gwen.

10/31/2002 Sylus Thane: Dawn of the Magi (new and kinda long)
I've been working on the setting I'm going to offer with my rules mechanic I call Frontier, here's the intro for it and the species that are available in the…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Sylus Thane, J. Backman, Mike Holmes, Andrew Martin, Demonspahn, Emily Care, Christoffer Lernö.

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Subsequent Topics
In Indie Game Design

11/7/2002 b_bankhead: Narrative Spaceships
One of the most important characters in any kind of show begining with the work 'Star' is usually given short shrift in discussions of narrative games. That character of cours…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: b_bankhead, Andrew Martin, Mike Holmes.

11/8/2002 Shreyas Sampat: Torchbearer: Boxes within Boxes
[i]There is a legendary sanctum at Veamaandhi's Basilica of Red Cliff. It can hardly be called a chamber; at best it's a pavilion. It sits atop the Great Hall, open…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Shreyas Sampat, Andrew Martin, GreatWolf, Emily Care, Mike Holmes, Jonathan Walton.

11/9/2002 Blake Hutchins: MUSE: some thoughts on heroic fantasy
It's finally happened. I've been mulling over a game design, primarily as a design exercise that incorporates techniques and ideas I've learned on the Forge. My goal is to produce…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Blake Hutchins, Jonathan Walton, Gwen, ADGConscience, Mike Holmes.

11/9/2002 J B Bell: Hero Wars-like dice system with d6
I really dig the Hero Wars resoution system. Having a non-asymptotic setup is appropriate for fairly cinematic settings, or any setting where you believe strongly that the right answer to…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: J B Bell, Paganini, Mike Holmes.

11/10/2002 RobMuadib: TMW:COTEC - Rewards Systems Costs (LONGISH)
Hi all I have put together the tentative rules for the Rewards System Costs, and was wondering how you guys think this would work. The essential concept here, in terms…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: RobMuadib, Mike Holmes, Tony Irwin.

11/11/2002 scobie: Casefile: ZODIAC - First draft available
Hi folks I've only recently discovered the Forge and it looks like a good place to share my humble first draft rules for a game which I am developing. The…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: scobie, Andrew Martin, Ron Edwards, Shreyas Sampat.

11/11/2002 Christoffer Lernö: What's the best way to present a mechanic for discussion?
Hi All, I know this is a little late for me to ask (doh!), but what is really the best way to present a system one has written? I'm talking…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Christoffer Lernö, Gordon C. Landis, Valamir, Ron Edwards, Paul Czege, talysman, Jeph, SrGrvsaLot, Andy Kitkowski, permacultureguerilla, Shreyas Sampat, greyorm, Doctor Xero, Alex Johnson, Adorame.

11/11/2002 Kenway: MyGame: "Advancement via Notoriety and PC-summoned foes
"Advancement via Notoriety and PC-summoned foes" From the similarly-named thread in the rpg theory forum, here are 2 ideas for a new system. Setting, characters, etc. still need to be…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Kenway, Anthony, talysman, Bob McNamee, Rich Forest.

11/12/2002 Jonathan Walton: Storypunk: The Troupe
If you are not familar with the previous threads about this game, don't worry. You don't need to be. Still, if you're interested, searching for "storypunk" will turn up everything…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Jonathan Walton, J. Backman, szilard, Shreyas Sampat.

11/13/2002 Shreyas Sampat: Marionettes: Morality?
Okay, a new idea for Marionettes: Marionettes is a game about morality, as the Puppets and Puppeteers embody them. The Puppets are governed by Principles, which are static rules by…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Shreyas Sampat.

11/13/2002 Wormwood: Clandestine: Organs of Conpiracy
I introduced this game here. One of the major elements in the game involves constructing bodies using a pool of points. At different levels these bodies are conspiracies, small bands…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Wormwood, Mike Holmes, Walt Freitag.

11/15/2002 Tony Irwin: Theme Chaser: Rolling Dice
Actually I suppose this isn't really an issue about rolling dice, more of identifying with characters. There came a point in our playtest last night (while fighting the fire spiders)…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Tony Irwin, thoth, Le Joueur, Jonathan Walton, Mike Holmes, Matt Wilson.

11/15/2002 Matt Wilson: A narrativist premise for my game
I've been wanting to put a narrativist premise in place for the game I'm designing, and I think I have one that fits with the setting. It's a future space-opera…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Matt Wilson, Alan, szilard, Mike Holmes.

11/16/2002 Sparky: Character Death Mechanics?
Hi folks! I'm mainly looking for some options here. I tried various search queries in the forge archives and even a couple of google searches...I couldn't find anything much on…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Sparky, Andrew Martin, Mike Holmes, M. J. Young, GreatWolf, Jared A. Sorensen, Ron Edwards, damion, John Wick.

11/17/2002 Christoffer Lernö: Yggdrasil: Playtest reference preview
I have written a playtest reference for Yggdrasil. Some things are still missing but those are comparatively minor things. Possible points of interest: Disadvantage/Advantage mechanic Although the basic resolution is…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Christoffer Lernö, Tony Irwin, Gwen, C. Edwards, RobMuadib.

11/17/2002 J. Backman: I finished my game
I finally finished Theatrum, my small, narrative role-playing system. You can download it here (~155k pdf). And here's a character sheet (~25k pdf). Comments are welcome.
In Indie Game Design
Participants: J. Backman, Jonathan Walton, Mike Holmes.

11/18/2002 Gwen: TV Land
This is an old idea of mine, which is a combination of "Stay Tuned" and "Quantum Leap." Stay Tuned was a movie from the early 90's where Satan sells people…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Gwen, Mike Holmes, Emily Care, Eric J., Walt Freitag, szilard, Ron Edwards, Bob McNamee, Jonathan Walton, Jason E. Roberts, Jared A. Sorensen.

11/19/2002 Sidhain: Gunknight: Chivalry Extant
Playing around with my ITR system, I was thinking "what will I use this system for" a system without something to support is a skeleton without skin. And rather ugly…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Sidhain, Andrew Martin, J. Backman, Gwen, Mike Holmes, ethan_greer, scobie, Ron Edwards.

11/19/2002 Stuart DJ Purdie: An unusual (?) approach to stats
This is a little sketchy at present, an unnamed, but I hope you find it interesting. There has been a few games recently looking at the power of belief, and…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Stuart DJ Purdie, Le Joueur, Wormwood, szilard, Aelios, Ron Edwards, damion, Don Lag, M. J. Young.

11/20/2002 RobMuadib: TMW:COTEC - "Butchering the GM..."
Hi All I have been plugging away at the Game Concepts: Shared Play chapter for TMW, and have layed out the basic idea of the Game, and what you do…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: RobMuadib, Mike Holmes, Gwen.

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