Previous Topics
In RPG Theory

2/4/2005 Phil Levis: The role of dice
I'm new to the Forge. I've perused some of the articles and recent threads with a good deal of interest. On one hand, the precise vocabulary and terminology used suggests…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Phil Levis, LordSmerf, Bankuei, contracycle, Valamir, Doctor Xero, Erick Wujcik, Marco, lumpley, M. J. Young, Paganini, Noon.

2/3/2005 Ben Lehman: Lessons for Designers
I do not know if this post goes in the RPG Theory board or in the Indie RPG Design board. Move if necessary. Since people recently have been talking about…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Ben Lehman, Rob Donoghue, TonyLB, LordSmerf.

2/3/2005 Storn: What Purpose?
[quote]The problem I have with your point 3 is that I don't think the Forge ever set out to teach, or preach, but to explore and discuss. The practice of…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Storn, Ron Edwards, Bob Goat, lumpley, Bankuei, Paganini.

2/3/2005 caeman: The Big Numbers Fantasy System
Greetings. I have had an idea on paper for yet another way of handling RPG mechanics. I like the idea of many attributes. I also like using multiple types of…
In RPG Theory
Participants: caeman, M. J. Young, lev_lafayette.

2/3/2005 lumpley: Theory Seminar [cont'd]
In my thread Roleplaying Theory in Person...Vincent, this isn't the first time you've done this sort of thing, right? Do you feel that non-Forgies 'get-it'? What types of questions do…
In RPG Theory
Participants: lumpley, Christopher Weeks, timfire, Harlequin, Andrew Morris, TonyLB, Bob Goat, M. J. Young.

2/2/2005 lumpley: Roleplaying Theory In Person
This is more Dreamation 2005 writeup. I had two hours on Sunday afternoon to talk about roleplaying theory. There were 3-6 other people there, depending on which bit of the…
In RPG Theory
Participants: lumpley, ffilz, xenopulse, inthisstyle, Ben Lehman, clehrich, timfire, Noon, Shawn De Arment, M. J. Young, Jonathan Walton, J. Tuomas Harviainen, Clinton R. Nixon, Christopher Weeks, Storn, pete_darby, Ron Edwards.

2/2/2005 Vaxalon: Loser roleplaying
Dimestore Katanas Kill Puppies for Satan I'm sure there's others... Am I the only one that feels a little... squicked by this? I mean, if playing heroes invokes our aspirations…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Vaxalon, TonyLB, jrs, Jason Petrasko, lumpley, Roger, pete_darby, Paka, Ron Edwards, Christopher Kubasik, inthisstyle, Bankuei, bcook1971, clehrich, Paganini, Marco.

2/2/2005 John Kim: How to design System for pre-determined Theme?
OK, So the recent talk on GNS has got me thinking about pre-determined Theme. So now I'm pondering about how to design a system to support playing to a pre-determined…
In RPG Theory
Participants: John Kim, timfire, komradebob, Marco, Alan.

2/1/2005 Bryan_T: Scenarios presented in modular format for greater utility
This is a presentation of some ideas I had to maximize scenario utility. I start with some background, but if you want to get right to the ideas part, jump…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Bryan_T, NN, M. J. Young, Mike Holmes, Donald, John Burdick.

2/1/2005 M. J. Young: On Story in CRPG Design
I followed a link earlier today to an article in Slate entitled Oughtta Stay Out of Pictures: Why video games shouldn't be like the movies.. Clive Thompson was complaining…
In RPG Theory
Participants: M. J. Young, inky, Marco, shlo, contracycle, Wysardry, Noon, NN.

1/31/2005 Brendan: Intentional Vagueness (split)
Split from Early role-playing. Virtually all games have moved away from this model. Even Fantasy Heartbreakers tend to have 'more unified' mechanics. It's certainly more manageable for designers to create…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Brendan, TonyLB, timfire, ffilz, komradebob, Noon, Kesher, Ron Edwards, Sean.

1/30/2005 Marco: Storytelling, GM-Control, and Drift
In the Deception Thread Chris said this: If you ditch story and play WoD games Sim, you'll be happy. And the self-deception comes in if you tell yourself that…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Marco, John Kim, clehrich, M. J. Young, contracycle, Storn, Silmenume, Walt Freitag, Mark Woodhouse, Ian Charvill, Doctor Xero.

1/30/2005 sirogit: Showcasing NPCs for players.
Ran into a little spat with a player, talking about my TSOY game, Khalien Moons: Me: Using a relationship map. Him: Cool. Could you tell me what's on it, so…
In RPG Theory
Participants: sirogit, bcook1971, Doctor Xero, M. J. Young.

1/27/2005 LordSmerf: Toy Quality (A fresh start)
Ben Lehman proposed that we discuss Toy Quality, which he defines as "Any part of the game that is enjoyable when divorced from the SIS" . I quickly derailed the…
In RPG Theory
Participants: LordSmerf, Nathan P., Dantai, Noon, Rich Forest, bcook1971, daMoose_Neo, Caldis, matthijs, M. J. Young, contracycle.

1/27/2005 LordSmerf: Toy Quality (Take 2)
Ben Lehman proposed that we discuss Toy Quality, which he defines as "Any part of the game that is enjoyable when divorced from the SIS" . I quickly derailed the…
In RPG Theory
Participants: LordSmerf.

1/27/2005 ffilz: Non-combat mechanics - design issues
In preparing to run my Cold Iron campaign, I have never been satisfied with how non-combat situations are resolved. First some description of the original system: The original game system…
In RPG Theory
Participants: ffilz, Sydney Freedberg, Roger, clehrich, NN, Grover, Ron Edwards.

1/26/2005 Uccisore: Mechanism for the 'Hard Core'
In my Magic And Martial Arts Horror Game, one theme that I envision the coming up in the game is the players becoming distant from society because of their exposure…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Uccisore, Noon, LordSmerf, Ron Edwards, Paul Czege, apparition13, Lee Short, gains.

1/26/2005 Wormwood: [Deceit] Self-Deception as a Design Consideration
Caveat: This stems from a post by Lisa, here. For the purposes of these threads the moral implications of deceit should be ignored. This is really the only way to…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Wormwood, Marco, M. J. Young, Wolfen, contracycle, John Kim, Dantai, xiombarg, clehrich, ffilz, Doctor Xero.

1/25/2005 Kedamono: Event Driven Adventure Design
One of the main complaints about commercial adventure modules for RPGs is that they either follow a linear design, or they are a list of encounters, where each encounter must…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Kedamono, LordSmerf, M. J. Young, Vaxalon, Noon, shlo, daMoose_Neo, Marco, komradebob, contracycle, John Kim, NN, clehrich, Dantai.

1/24/2005 Astrivian: The Dead Game and RPG mortality
Reading through the various essays, something occurred to me: games can die. To start, I need to define what I mean by "death," and by contrast "life," in terms of…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Astrivian, LordSmerf, Nathan P., lumpley, Noon, timfire, bcook1971, Dantai.

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Subsequent Topics
In RPG Theory

2/4/2005 lev_lafayette: Pro-Forma Against..
Please excuse the lateness of my response. I'm new here. Seeming that everyone has said "right on", I'm going to try to take the best possible negative argument. Combat systems…
In RPG Theory
Participants: lev_lafayette, Mike Holmes, Ron Edwards, Jinx, Marco, Wolfen, xiombarg, CPXB, LordSmerf, b_bankhead, M. J. Young, komradebob, Dauntless.

2/4/2005 Vaxalon: Incredible resource for wacky ideas
(Not sure where this should go, feel free to shove it into whatever group is appropriate) There's this author... writes "Anacrusis" which is a collection of pieces of fiction of…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Vaxalon, Brendan.

2/4/2005 Alan McVey: Early roleplaying and the interpretation of scripture
I'm splitting this off of Early Roleplaying because what I'd like to discuss seems to have more to do with theory than play. At the moment, my ideas are largely…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Alan McVey, Valamir, clehrich, Sean, Noon, sophist, lev_lafayette, contracycle, T'oma.

2/7/2005 matthijs: A theory journal?
This is one of those "wouldn't it be cool if..." posts. Over in Diaspora: How I learned 2 stop worrying & love the Forge, Chris Lehrich mentioned journals. Does anyone…
In RPG Theory
Participants: matthijs, Jonathan Walton, Brendan.

2/7/2005 ShaneNINE: Banish the ignorance, please
Someone who know what they're talking about, please, please, banish the ignorance over at this this thread about dice pools vs. linear models on the Hârn Forum. Sorry if this…
In RPG Theory
Participants: ShaneNINE, Bankuei, Walt Freitag, Eero Tuovinen, Ron Edwards, Noon, John Kim, Paganini, NN, M. J. Young, clehrich, inky.

2/7/2005 Wormwood: Techniques of the Meta-SIS
This is a branch from this thread, focusing on developing our understanding of mystification in techniques. I believe this is of interest to understanding the shared space of mystifications, which…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Wormwood.

2/7/2005 Wormwood: Culture and Mystification
This is a branch from this thread. This thread is intended to discuss the relationship between culture (and as a default assumption American culture) and the mystification that occurs within…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Wormwood.

2/7/2005 Noon: Narrativism as design process (split)
Over here in Early roleplaying and the interpretation of scripture I put out the idea that making rules is satisfying in a narrativist way. I thought I'd write up a…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Noon, Brendan, Mike Holmes, Marco, contracycle.

2/8/2005 John Kim: Conflict Resolution and the Zeppo Effect
So a question came up on the 20x20 Room which I thought was interesting. Rob mentioned in his post you can see the Comedy is Easy, PTA is Hard.…
In RPG Theory
Participants: John Kim, Nicolas Crost, Rob MacDougall.

2/8/2005 Paganini: Theory Without Jargon - Help for the Desparate - Number 1
Theory Without Jargon - Help for the Desperate - Number 1 Version 0 (Draft) The Forge is a place where people talk a lot about the theory of role-playing…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Paganini, clehrich, CPXB, J. Tuomas Harviainen, xenopulse, Andrew Morris, Emily Care, sophist, LordSmerf, Wolfen, Eero Tuovinen, John Kim, komradebob, timfire, greedo1379, Marco, Valamir, NOS.

2/8/2005 contracycle: naval speculation
I'm raising this thread somewhat tentatively as an invitation to discuss abstract movement and combat systems for naval actions. I would hope the discusison would be fruitful because addressing such…
In RPG Theory
Participants: contracycle, Nathan P., komradebob, lumpley, Valamir, MikeSands, Piers Brown, Jules Morley, Ben Lehman, greedo1379.

2/8/2005 Paganini: Theory Without Jargon - Help for the Desparate - Number 2
(As you can see, the reason I've been enthusiasticaly participating in some of these recent threads is that they pertain directly to what I've been writing. Let's hear it for…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Paganini, J. Tuomas Harviainen, Doctor Xero, clehrich, CPXB, greedo1379, kenjib, Wolfen.

2/9/2005 ethan_greer: Where is the Grail?
Hi, Forge. Maybe you can help me out with something. I want a game. It has to support fantasy play, prefferably Tolkien-ish, but with either no setting, or one easily…
In RPG Theory
Participants: ethan_greer, Bankuei, Jasper, MikeSands, Clinton R. Nixon, Sean, pfischer, Valamir, GB Steve, Mike Holmes, Ben Lehman, bcook1971, CPXB, Mark D. Eddy, clehrich, M. J. Young, groundhog.

2/9/2005 xenopulse: Freeform Roleplaying
From the thread on “Nar Play with Sim Rules:” An interesting thing about this is that while making the rules lighter can facilitate better Nar and Gam play relative to…
In RPG Theory
Participants: xenopulse, Sean, Emily Care, Noon, Wolfen.

2/9/2005 John Kim: Mechanics, Contribution, and Doug the Dice Guy
[quote="clehrich"]But mechanics carry baggage: they have particular places in complex systems which we have (as you put it) preloaded into the game, and furhermore they have strong ascribed values and…
In RPG Theory
Participants: John Kim, Sean, xenopulse, Valamir, LordSmerf, Marco, Paganini, M. J. Young, Simon Kamber, contracycle, Ian Charvill, sophist, ffilz, daMoose_Neo, clehrich, John Kirk, Erick Wujcik, timfire, Caldis.

2/10/2005 matthijs: Defining the Nordic Style
In Limits of acceptable "Theory", Eero Tuovinen mentions some differences between role-playing cultures. In particular, there's mention of the elusive Nordic style. I'm interested in definitions of this style. I'm…
In RPG Theory
Participants: matthijs, J. Tuomas Harviainen, humis.

2/10/2005 Doctor Xero: Player Responsibility
This was inspired by a post in another thread http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=14118&start=45 Let's say that a player is playing "The Teen Horror Movie Game" and it has this mechanic as a hard…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Doctor Xero, timfire, Marco, contracycle, LordSmerf, clehrich, CPXB, Mike Holmes, Kedamono, Vaxalon, M. J. Young, Noon, ffilz, xiombarg.

2/11/2005 Sydney Freedberg: Incentive Systems and Wanting to Lose
Yes, yes, yes, in D&D you kill things and take their stuff, and as a result you get better at killing things and taking their stuff. Not what we're talking…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Sydney Freedberg, TonyLB, coxcomb, Brendan, Ron Edwards, Noon, Marco, Troy_Costisick, Doug Ruff, Mark Woodhouse, John Burdick, LordSmerf, Artanis, John Kirk.

2/11/2005 contracycle: AMA/NLT
Here's another micro-mechanic for discussion. Its a Fortune device but with a kinda blurring of gamble and crunch. AMA/NLT stands for "As Much As" and "No Lower Than" and is…
In RPG Theory
Participants: contracycle, LordSmerf, Nathan P., Valamir, lumpley, Marco.

2/11/2005 coxcomb: Credibility of the rules as written
Over on this thread we started getting into a discussion about the intrinsic credibility of the rules as written. That was veering off topic, so here's one dedicated to that…
In RPG Theory
Participants: coxcomb, Brendan, lumpley, Bankuei, matthijs, TonyLB, clehrich, Doctor Xero, Valamir, Ron Edwards, Vaxalon, Noon, bcook1971, ffilz, Marco, John Kim, M. J. Young.

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