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In RPG Theory

4/19/2005 TonyLB: Meaning at the beginning, middle and end
In "Thematic Causality": What, why and how?, over in the Muse of Fire forums, we hit some very interesting general-purpose questions. Folks reckon, and I agree, that it might be…
In RPG Theory
Participants: TonyLB, Ron Edwards, Troy_Costisick, xenopulse, Miskatonic, Valamir, Ben Lehman, Noon, Simon Marks, JMendes, Sydney Freedberg, Silmenume.

4/18/2005 Gordon C. Landis: How DO Game Designers (or computers) influence play?
Borrowing from Josh's post towards the end of this thread, I'd like to offer a distinction between "participating in" the SIS and "contributing to" the SIS. "Participating in" the SIS…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Gordon C. Landis, efindel, Eva Deinum, Noon, Wysardry, contracycle.

4/17/2005 simonf: Single-player mystery RPGs?
Hi, Apologies if it's a bad forum - please relocate this to the appropriate place if necessary. I'm looking for single-person RPGs and adventures to run for my girlfriend. The…
In RPG Theory
Participants: simonf, MatrixGamer.

4/16/2005 John Kim: Role-playing Limits, or Do we need Molotov cocktails?
OK, so this is picking up from Walt Frietag: the LP in Solo CRPGs?. What I am curious about is a formulation of credibility which is inclusive of live-action…
In RPG Theory
Participants: John Kim, immlass, Alephnul, James Holloway, TonyLB, Wolfen, M. J. Young, Valamir, Mike Holmes.

4/15/2005 Roger: Solo (C)RPGs: A Thought Experiment
(inspired from Walt Frietag: the LP in Solo CRPGs?) Let's say that you've logged into a big old MMORPG and you're running around the system with thousands of other players,…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Roger, xenopulse, Gordon C. Landis, Bill Masek, Noon, Eva Deinum, Paul Hebble, Domhnall, Sabazius, M. J. Young.

4/14/2005 lumpley: Walt Frietag: the LP in Solo CRPGs?
This is a very narrow, very focused post. I want to hear from Walt before anybody else, if that's possible? Here, Walt Frietag"]Yes, the Lumpley Principle does get in the…
In RPG Theory
Participants: lumpley, Walt Freitag, pete_darby, contracycle, Bankuei, Valamir, Gaerik, John Kim, Paul Czege, Gordon C. Landis, C. Edwards, Wolfen, Noon, kenjib, joshua neff, Ben Lehman, Wysardry, James Holloway, Domhnall, Ron Edwards.

4/13/2005 Paka: System Examples of Scene Framing
I am thinking about scene framing and all I can think of for examples is MLwM where each scene contains one conflict roll. Is this even a tool of scene…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Paka, JMendes, Alan, Eva Deinum, Trevis Martin, GB Steve.

4/13/2005 contracycle: Raph Koster: A Theory Of Fun For Game Design
This is mostly an FYI/Heads Up post. Raph Koster is the creative director behind StarWars Galaxies, and something of a Name in the world of MUD design. He has recently…
In RPG Theory
Participants: contracycle, C. Edwards.

4/12/2005 Mike Holmes: Costick on Story/Games
Walt will want to check this one out. Herr Costickyan gave some sort of presentation recently on story in games, and getting beyond the implicit dichotomy. The Power Point presentation…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Mike Holmes, Selene Tan, John Kim, contracycle, pete_darby, C. Edwards, Christopher Kubasik, Gordon C. Landis, Walt Freitag, GregCostikyan, Marco, Ron Edwards, James Holloway.

4/12/2005 Da' Vane: Something of Interest...
I was directed to this forum by a friend, and I thought that somebody might be interested in something I worked on a while back. PCSIK Few people have seen…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Da' Vane, Mike Holmes, Selene Tan, Alan.

4/12/2005 sirogit: Charmed and Harry-Potter online free-form roleplayers
This always stumped me. Why is it when ever I put the words "roleplaying" into a search engine or livejournal, a very large number of the results are about freeform…
In RPG Theory
Participants: sirogit, Vaxalon, Valamir, Librisia, inthisstyle, daMoose_Neo, Danny_K, James Holloway, b_bankhead, Andrew Morris, Brendan, John Kim, Alephnul, SK, David Bapst, Mike Holmes, Andrew Norris, John Burdick, komradebob, Selene Tan, contracycle.

4/11/2005 TonyLB: What are the tools of pacing?
Okay, first off, what this question is not. I am not asking what tools a GM can use in order to effect changes in pacing. I'm asking why one effects…
In RPG Theory
Participants: TonyLB, Shreyas Sampat, C. Edwards, xenopulse, Harlequin, Gaerik, Bankuei, matthijs, timfire, MatrixGamer, Bill Masek, John Kim, Marco, Alan.

4/11/2005 pete_darby: The limits of cultural play...?
In this thread, When it comes right down to it, we have to recognize that in spite of all of our aspirations in this forum, when it comes right down…
In RPG Theory
Participants: pete_darby, Brendan, Bankuei, C. Edwards, Eva Deinum, lumpley, Comte, John Kim, contracycle, Sean, Domhnall.

4/10/2005 Bob the Fighter: One-shot sessions
So I've come across a glut of really neat games lately, and I was wondering what I could do to try 'em all out in relatively rapid succession. I'm thinking…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Bob the Fighter, bcook1971, Michael S. Miller, Troy_Costisick, Danny_K, Adam Dray, Valamir, Eva Deinum, hix, FzGhouL, Andrew Morris.

4/10/2005 Brown: [Codex] Precognitive Conflict Resolution
Pre Conflict Resolution or Precognitive Resolution Greetings, Long time Reader, first time poster. The Forge has always been an inspiration to my attempts at writing. This is something I am…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Brown, timfire.

4/10/2005 matthijs: The creation of meaning
At what point is a game imbued with meaning? How can you design a system to ensure that players will breathe life into its dry bones? In some RPG's -…
In RPG Theory
Participants: matthijs, WorldSaversInc, TonyLB, Ben Lehman, Noon, John Kim, Damballa.

4/9/2005 Paka: Table & Text: Strange Bed-fellows
I have been going through some of the threads from the Forge Birthday topic, Best Threads of the Year. As a rabid writer of fiction and a rabid gamer, I…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Paka, groundhog, TonyLB, JMendes, John Kim, ScottM, Jason Mical, Paganini, bcook1971, Wolfen, Latigo, M. J. Young.

4/9/2005 Ron Edwards: Eastern bloc role-playing
Hi everyone, Due to the very exciting My life with RPG's thread, I am starting up a general discussion of role-playing as it arose and persisted in eastern bloc countries,…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Ron Edwards, James Holloway, ( o Y o ), mindwanders.

4/9/2005 Shreyas Sampat: Human Behaviour is Patterned
So, I have been thinking about psychology. Human behaviour is something that has observable patterns. There are innumerable games which concern themselves solely with the emulation of observable patterns, and…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Shreyas Sampat, Bankuei, Paul Czege, Ron Edwards, efindel, JMendes, Eva Deinum, Sean, TonyLB, contracycle, Domhnall, beingfrank, James Holloway, Harlequin, John Kim, Bill Masek.

4/5/2005 TonyLB: Tony's Standard Rant #1: Roleplay/Game Duality
This rant brought to you courtesy of discussion in this thread. There is a misconception that's become a pet peeve of mine, and that I want to debunk: The idea…
In RPG Theory
Participants: TonyLB, Jasper, Vaxalon, Shreyas Sampat, Doug Ruff, Andrew Morris, gorckat, Noon, contracycle, C. Edwards, John Kim, Lee Short, JMendes, James Holloway, groundhog, Ron Edwards.

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Subsequent Topics
In RPG Theory

4/21/2005 Andrew Morris: DFK (and SRV): Concrete examples and discussion (long-ish)
[b][i]Introduction[/i][/b] Back in [url=http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=14773]this thread[/url], I brought up the concept of Skill as a possible candidate to flesh out the Drama, Fortune, and Karma triumvirate used to classify resolution mechanics…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Andrew Morris, xenopulse, Miskatonic, M. J. Young.

4/25/2005 David Bapst: Difficulty/Success Needed as it relates to GM Fiat
Hello all, Don't precisely know if this has been discussed before. If anyone could post links to past conversations, that would be greatly helpful. I've been thinking recently on difficulties/success…
In RPG Theory
Participants: David Bapst, Matt Wilson, WhiteRat, Jinx, John Burdick, Noon, John Kim, daMoose_Neo, Valamir, Landon Darkwood.

4/26/2005 David Chunn: Layering Conflict Resoultion over Task Res.
Does anyone have suggestions and methods for or experiences with layering conflict resolution over a task resolution system without changing the existing game mechanics? In other words, I don't want…
In RPG Theory
Participants: David Chunn, WhiteRat, Ben Lehman.

4/26/2005 paulkdad: Stages of Development and Roleplaying Theory
Background: The thread, “Meaning at the beginning, middle and end” got me thinking about the active construction of meaning in RPGs, which in turn got me thinking about something I…
In RPG Theory
Participants: paulkdad, J. Tuomas Harviainen.

4/27/2005 TonyLB: (Accepting/Rejecting) x (Text/Meaning)
Recent discussions have led me to think a lot about what it means to tell people that they cannot reject anything that another player contributes to the narration of a…
In RPG Theory
Participants: TonyLB, Vaxalon, Shreyas Sampat, xenopulse, Brendan, Walt Freitag, Noon, Troy_Costisick, charles ferguson, Victor Gijsbers, John Harper.

4/27/2005 Wysardry: Earth-like worlds in fantasy games
I am in the early stages of planning a single player CRPG aimed at less casual CRPG and PnP RPG players, and have reached somewhat of an impasse with the…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Wysardry, contracycle, killacozzy, Troy_Costisick, Sydney Freedberg, Jake Boone, Mike Holmes.

5/1/2005 killacozzy: Destiny and the Universal Character
Start by clicking here and catching up, as this is a continuation of a thread I started in the Design Forum asking about game traits, which evolved into a discussion…
In RPG Theory
Participants: killacozzy, TonyLB, Troy_Costisick, timfire, Valamir, pasoliati, Bob Goat, Sydney Freedberg, contracycle, Doug Ruff, shaheddy.

5/2/2005 Valamir: Fun with math
So I was noodling around with some mechanics (I'll spare you the boring details) and hit upon an interesting relationship I thought some might find useful. We're all familiar with…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Valamir, Technocrat13, Victor Gijsbers, TonyLB, Mike Holmes, bcook1971, Ben Lehman, Eva Deinum.

5/2/2005 Adam Dray: Giving players control of risk
In David Bapst's Difficulty/Success Needed as it relates to GM Fiat, people posted a variety of ways to remove GM Fiat from setting difficulty levels. In my Verge game (in…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Adam Dray, Mike Holmes, Lxndr, Jasper, Noon.

5/4/2005 am: Do RPGS allow for diverse participation/discourse?
Hello, my name is Anna. I've been gaming for around 2 years. I am working on my masters degree, & I plan on analyzing role playing games from a performance/literary/rhetorical…
In RPG Theory
Participants: am, Bankuei, Ben Lehman, John Kim, greyorm, jrs, TonyLB, Michael S. Miller, Ron Edwards, Christopher Kubasik, Matt Wilson, Danny_K, xenopulse, WhiteRat, paulkdad, zephyr_cirrus, Miskatonic, Wysardry, J. Tuomas Harviainen, Mike Holmes, GameLoft, komradebob, contracycle, BrennaLaRosa.

5/6/2005 M. J. Young: Character, Sheet, and Play Revisited
In The relationship between character, sheet, and play Fred (Vaxalon) wrote of character secrets not being part of the shared imagined space. I disagree. I'm very sorry I missed this…
In RPG Theory
Participants: M. J. Young, Troy_Costisick, 1of3, MatrixGamer, Valamir, pete_darby, Mike Holmes, John Kim, C. Edwards, xenopulse, contracycle.

5/7/2005 Jason Petrasko: Classifying general classes of goals for conflict resolution
Alright, so I've finally made the jump from task based resolution to conflict based resolution. Now I'm trying to classify the types of goals (the intent) of PCs seek out.…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Jason Petrasko, TonyLB, MatrixGamer, contracycle.

5/10/2005 Troy_Costisick: Using Task Reso to get Conflict Reso
Heya, This is loosely related to another thread over in the GNS forum: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=15369. I hope I'm not honking off anyone by asking this sort of question here about a…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Troy_Costisick, pete_darby, paulkdad, timfire, Ron Edwards, John Burdick, Doug Ruff, Yokiboy, Valamir, M. J. Young, Alephnul.

5/10/2005 Ben Lehman: [Vocab] Task versus Conflict
Hi. Boy, there are a lot of threads about Task Resolution vs. Conflict resolution. Gee whiz. I think a lot of these are stumbling over the meanings of the terms,…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Ben Lehman, Adam Dray, timfire, Valamir, Gordon C. Landis, xenopulse, John Kim, Jinx, Noon, Ron Edwards, lumpley, Matt Snyder, Troy_Costisick, Andrew Morris, Walt Freitag, Caldis, Alephnul, Alan, Warren, WhiteRat, M. J. Young, GB Steve, greyorm.

5/10/2005 MatrixGamer: Role Playing as it is done in Historical Miniatures Games
I live in that part of the gaming world that crosses over between miniatures gaming and RPGs. Role playing is it is done now grew out of miniatures but the…
In RPG Theory
Participants: MatrixGamer, komradebob, Vaxalon, Noon, contracycle, Ron Edwards, Mike Holmes, Hereward The Wake.

5/11/2005 Andrew Morris: Mechanical limitations to the scope of conflict resolution
Reading the recent threads on conflict resolution (here and here) reminded me of a question I have about defining stakes in conflict resolution. What mechanical methods currently exist for limiting…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Andrew Morris, Ron Edwards, Jasper, MatrixGamer, Gaerik, Bankuei, Harlequin, TonyLB.

5/12/2005 List: Larps?
I noticed that there is very little discussion of larps and larp theory... Is this because larps are not generally Forge domain? If not, could somebody point me to some…
In RPG Theory
Participants: List, Andrew Morris, komradebob.

5/12/2005 johnzo: Renouncing the agenda-driven NPC
From this thread: I've encountered this very situation with many instances of Sorcerer and HeroQuest, in which playing an agenda-driven NPC has resulted in very clear cues from…
In RPG Theory
Participants: johnzo, TonyLB, Domhnall, Noon, Troy_Costisick, Danny_K, MatrixGamer.

5/12/2005 afray: Japanese-style computer-rpg mechanics? [ot?]
First off, I realise this may be out of your area of expertise, but thought I'd ask anyway. :-) I'm a video games developer who's trying to develop a new…
In RPG Theory
Participants: afray, Bankuei, Mike Holmes, Miskatonic, contracycle, Selene Tan, Noon.

5/12/2005 M. J. Young: Perpetuating Sing-Sex Play Groups
[quote="In [a href="http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=15305"]Do RPGS allow for diverse participation/discourse?[/a] Julie"]One of these days I'd like to see someone address the issue of why gamers perpetuate the existance of single sex play…
In RPG Theory
Participants: M. J. Young, Mike Holmes, xenopulse, Noon, jrs, James Holloway, Bret Gillan, Gordon C. Landis, Paka, komradebob, BrennaLaRosa, Emily Care, GameLoft, Andrew Morris, Ron Edwards, contracycle, Walt Freitag.

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