Previous Topics
In RPG Theory

8/21/2001 Paul Czege: talkin' 'bout degeneration
On the "Mixing Styles Across the Table" thread, Gordon wrote: I'm already well aware of many degenerate forms of G and S. I would like to see more discussion…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Paul Czege, Mike Holmes, Ron Edwards, Gordon C. Landis, Zak Arntson, Supplanter, pacific_steve.

8/20/2001 GraveyardGreg: Incomplete Games
It was mentioned over in the "Publishing" aspect of the forums that Sorcerer was not complete because it had no sourcebooks. It struck me as odd. Sorcerer doesn't need any…
In RPG Theory
Participants: GraveyardGreg, peteramthor, Laura Bishop, James Holloway, Ron Edwards.

8/17/2001 jburneko: On Author and Director Stance
This post is probably more 'thinking out loud' than asking an actual question. But in my gaming circles I find it difficult to explain why having Author/Director power given to…
In RPG Theory
Participants: jburneko, joshua neff, Emily Care, Laura Bishop, Ron Edwards.

8/17/2001 contracycle: player character premises
Hiya, Just wanted to ask if people are conscious of the character premises brought to the table by players. I imagine the root concept of a character is/strongly related to…
In RPG Theory
Participants: contracycle, jburneko, Ron Edwards, TrizzlWizzl, Blake Hutchins, Mike Holmes, Laurel.

8/15/2001 jburneko: Mixing Styles Across The Table
This might belong in the GNS forum but this isn't a discussion about the model directly but rather the set of tools that are generally associated with each point of…
In RPG Theory
Participants: jburneko, Gordon C. Landis, gentrification, Supplanter, Ron Edwards, Emily Care, Jack Spencer Jr, TrizzlWizzl, Blake Hutchins, Mike Holmes, Laurel, James Holloway, Marco, Paul Czege, Valamir, joshua neff.

8/12/2001 Jared A. Sorensen: Those wacky Swedes...
http://fate.laiv.org/index.htm
In RPG Theory
Participants: Jared A. Sorensen, joshua neff.

8/10/2001 Theory of X: E=p/c@ert%4

In RPG Theory
Participants: Theory of X, jburneko, James V. West, Ron Edwards.

8/9/2001 Jeffrey Straszheim: What is Fortune in the Middle
Hey folks, I've been reading the archives on this site and I've noticed many references to "Fortune in the Middle". This seems to refer to the types of resolution mechnaics…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Jeffrey Straszheim, Ron Edwards, jburneko, joshua neff, Uncle Dark, Supplanter.

8/9/2001 Theory of X: D*/"&yd^
k
In RPG Theory
Participants: Theory of X, Ron Edwards, Le Joueur, Jack Spencer Jr, contracycle, Clinton R. Nixon, joshua neff, Cameron.

8/6/2001 lumpley: An approach for mechanics and innovation
I'm new, but that doesn't stop me having crackpot theories. The point of every game mechanic is to create consensus among the players. Consensus is the underlying mechanism of roleplaying,…
In RPG Theory
Participants: lumpley, Jack Spencer Jr, Emily Care, Ron Edwards, Le Joueur, Paul Czege, Doc Midnight, Mike Holmes, greyorm, Tim C Koppang, Gordon C. Landis, contracycle, Logan.

8/3/2001 Mytholder: Gamestudies.org
http://www.gamestudies.org is an attempt to set up an academic journal about computer games. I had a quick glance over their first issue. Most of it went over my head by…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Mytholder, Gordon C. Landis.

7/25/2001 joshua neff: new directions
What are the assumptions about RPGs? What traditions have we become bound by? & how can we break these assumptions & rethink RPGs? Off the top of my head: *…
In RPG Theory
Participants: joshua neff, James Holloway, Dav, Gordon C. Landis, GreatWolf, Uncle Dark, Jack Spencer Jr, Damocles, jburneko, james_west, Mike Holmes, Valamir, Ron Edwards, Blake Hutchins, contracycle.

7/23/2001 Jack Spencer Jr: "Not enough rules"
Over on the Elfs board I mention playing briefly w/ the wife. (The game. The game.) AFterwards I asked for her impressions and she said it could be fun but…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Jack Spencer Jr, joshua neff, jburneko, GreatWolf, Ron Edwards.

7/23/2001 Jack Spencer Jr: This fifth business.
OK, after reading Kubasik's Interactive Toolkit, I've noted something. He refers to a narrativist (as it were) GM as Fifth Business after an old theatre term, etc etc... Here's my…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Jack Spencer Jr, Mytholder, joshua neff, Le Joueur, Ron Edwards, Damocles.

7/22/2001 Tim C Koppang: Player Induced Rewards
After reading a couple of posts, I was thinking about a mechanic that would allow players to divvy out rewards themselves instead of giving the GM all of the control.…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Tim C Koppang, James V. West, Le Joueur.

7/20/2001 hardcoremoose: Reward Systems, or Making Your Players Behave
I've discussed this topic elsewhere and it came back to me full force while reading through the "silliness" thread in the GNS forum. Basically I propose that the most important…
In RPG Theory
Participants: hardcoremoose, James V. West, Ron Edwards, Jack Spencer Jr, wyrdlyng, Jared A. Sorensen, kwill, John Wick, Damocles, james_west, Doc Midnight, Tim C Koppang.

7/18/2001 Dav: the Gamble and the Stake
I wanted to bring this theory up to the collective to see what happens with it. on and I were talking briefly about the stakes in games. My position is…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Dav, Ron Edwards, John Wick, Jared A. Sorensen, hardcoremoose, James V. West, Le Joueur.

7/16/2001 Jack Spencer Jr: premise
The education of Jack continues.... Now I'm trying to get a handle on this thing called a premise and i know it's fairly simple, something like "It's what the game…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Jack Spencer Jr, Ron Edwards, James Holloway, Blake Hutchins, jburneko, joshua neff, contracycle, James V. West, Supplanter, Mike Holmes, Valamir.

7/10/2001 Jack Spencer Jr: immersive authorship...(not sure either)
OK, those who been following the forum may have seen me say something to the effect of how I prefer to play immersively. Well, not quite immersive but the point…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Jack Spencer Jr, John Wick, Jared A. Sorensen, Dav, Ron Edwards, joshua neff, GreatWolf, Clinton R. Nixon, jburneko, Gordon C. Landis, james_west, greyorm.

7/5/2001 james_west: Favorite things I've learned
Favorite things I’ve learned from reading this site: (1) Facilitating the creation of good stories as an explicit design goal. This is from the GNS discussions. Previously, I’d only thought…
In RPG Theory
Participants: james_west, joshua neff, John Wick.

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Subsequent Topics
In RPG Theory

8/29/2001 James Holloway: Theoretical Speculations about LARPs.
I don't have an agenda, really. I just wonder if there are any differences in the way that the theoretical framework discussed here and described in the FAQ applies to…
In RPG Theory
Participants: James Holloway, jburneko, Ron Edwards, Epoch, Matt, Mytholder.

8/31/2001 Tim C Koppang: character vs player rewards
I’m pretty sure that this sort of idea has been presented in one form or another in the past, but here goes: It seems to me that there is a…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Tim C Koppang, Ron Edwards.

9/6/2001 DaR: Implementing Premise
So I found myself with a couple of days of downtime, and decided to actually start working up the fantasy campaign I'd been meaning to for a while. Aha, I…
In RPG Theory
Participants: DaR, james_west, Zak Arntson, jburneko, Ron Edwards, hardcoremoose, contracycle, Uncle Dark, Mike Holmes.

9/7/2001 Marco: Killing off all the PC's (gimicks in modules)
We just released a horror module with, what I had thought was a pretty unique twist: the players get two sets of pre-defined characters (they're high school students) and in…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Marco, Ron Edwards, Mike Holmes, Mytholder, wyrdlyng.

9/10/2001 Jack Spencer Jr: Stephen King's On Writing
I recently pick up this book and I've found it to be pretty decent. Now, naturally King is talking about writing instead of RPG or Narrativist play or whatever you…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Jack Spencer Jr.

9/14/2001 Tor Erickson: Class in RPG Theory
Hello All, This semester I'm teaching a course on RPG theory, centering around GNS. I have five students signed up and we meet for the first time on Monday night,…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Tor Erickson, Ron Edwards, jburneko, Mike Holmes, Blake Hutchins, pacific_steve, contracycle, Paul Czege.

9/17/2001 GB Steve: Game Balance
I'm writing an article for the next issue of Places To Go People to be on the delicate issue of game balance. I'm certainly not looking for people to write…
In RPG Theory
Participants: GB Steve, Mytholder, Ron Edwards, Wart, Mike Holmes, Epoch, Gordon C. Landis, Marco.

9/24/2001 Valamir: Protagonist: player vs character
There's been quite a few threads recently on the idea of the PC as protagonist. However, some of the discussions seemed to focus less on the idea of the "C"…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Valamir, Ron Edwards, contracycle, Mike Holmes, Paul Czege, Epoch, jburneko.

10/13/2001 Jack Spencer Jr: Starting to Collaborate
Last night I was in the RPGnet chat room on IRC and plugging The Wheel because I have no life. SOmeone mentioned a game called Ergo by Ian Millington that…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Jack Spencer Jr, Mike Holmes, lumpley, Le Joueur, Ron Edwards, Matt, ergosum.

10/15/2001 Jack Spencer Jr: Audience stance???
I don't know if I was the first person to suggest it, but I do recall coining it at one point when someone gave some kind of example or other.…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Jack Spencer Jr, contracycle, Ron Edwards, Laurel, Le Joueur, Valamir, Clinton R. Nixon.

10/16/2001 Manu: Thematic interaction in roleplaying
My latest essay is now online at: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shuttle/6021/tiir.htm Come visit !! :smile:
In RPG Theory
Participants: Manu, Mike Holmes, Laurel, Ron Edwards.

10/17/2001 Mike Holmes: Audience
We can continue this discussion here. I propose the following as a definition for Audience behavior. This definition tries to acknowledge Ron's version of the stance definition. Audience Behavior, is…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Mike Holmes, Ron Edwards, Jared A. Sorensen, jburneko, Laurel, Valamir, Jack Spencer Jr, contracycle, Ampersand, Blake Hutchins.

10/17/2001 lumpley: Is Director Stance Real?
Hey, is there a reason to have Director Stance instead of talking about Actor / Author / Pawn Stance with regard to? When I do Director Stance, I do it…
In RPG Theory
Participants: lumpley, hardcoremoose, jburneko, Mike Holmes, Ron Edwards, Jared A. Sorensen, Paul Czege, Valamir, Le Joueur, gentrification, Laurel, Jack Spencer Jr, Ampersand.

10/17/2001 Laurel: Roles & Stances
Ron suggested a new thread to cover this topic, and I'm going to go on a limb and do it because it involves an issue I'm working with in Narrative…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Laurel, Mike Holmes, Ron Edwards.

10/19/2001 Blake Hutchins: Intuitive Continuity
This may belong in the Actual Play forum, but I'll start here. I'm interested in comparing concrete methods (meaning what you've actually tried in gameplay) for implementing the intuitive continuity…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Blake Hutchins.

10/19/2001 Gordon C. Landis: The "Audience" experience
Audience stance . . . I'm not sure I've got my brain firmly wrapped around the stance issues yet, so apologies if this isn't actually as relevant to the issues…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Gordon C. Landis.

10/23/2001 Jack Spencer Jr: Further on Stances
This has grown out of the Is Director Stance Real? thread. To recap, Ron Edwards posted: I disagree, mainly because I see both Author and Actor Stances as being…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Jack Spencer Jr, Ron Edwards, Blake Hutchins, Valamir, lumpley, Mike Holmes, random, contracycle, Logan, Don Lag.

10/24/2001 Le Joueur: Communal Language (or perhaps Lingua Illudo)
I’ve brought this over from the "The 4 steps of action (for Ron)" discussion in GNS Model Discussion. Pardon my Latin (I have never made a study of it) if…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Le Joueur, Mike Holmes, Laurel, Bankuei.

10/25/2001 lumpley: Stance and Event Resolution
In Further on Stances, Mike (hi Mike!) says (Note that in this example, there is no resolution other than the player power. If you had set a crate falling with…
In RPG Theory
Participants: lumpley, Mike Holmes, Ron Edwards.

10/25/2001 jburneko: Rule Sets
Hello All, So, I've been thinking about rule sets and complexity. Most people talk about systems being either rules-light or rules-heavy which ultimately isn't very useful because we can go…
In RPG Theory
Participants: jburneko, Mithras, Don Lag, Ron Edwards, Valamir, Mike Holmes.

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