Previous Topics
In RPG Theory

3/26/2003 Kester Pelagius: What do you want from game designers?
Greetings All, If you had a chance to sit down with the game designer of your favorite game when they were designing it what would you have said to them?…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Kester Pelagius, Thomas Tamblyn.

3/26/2003 Tim C Koppang: categorizing mechanics
Over in the “Sense of Wonder” thread, I started thinking about mechanics more closely. What I’m starting to convince myself of is that you can group mechanics generally into two…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Tim C Koppang, szilard, Mike Holmes, Jack Spencer Jr, Valamir, M. J. Young, efindel.

3/25/2003 Shreyas Sampat: Sense of Wonder
Those of you who have been watching the games I've been working on may have noticed this common thread: I want my games to have an air of wonder. I…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Shreyas Sampat, szilard, Jonathan Walton, Matt Snyder, ZeOtter, Valamir, Paganini, Brian Leybourne, Tim C Koppang, Jack Spencer Jr, Mike Holmes, Le Joueur, Paul Czege, GreatWolf.

3/25/2003 cruciel: Task Based Traits vs Descriptor Based Traits
Well, as part of my big user interface kick I've hit an imponderable. In my mind I can see character traits (stats/skill) falling into two basic categories. Task based: The…
In RPG Theory
Participants: cruciel, Mike Holmes, Mark Johnson, Johannes, JMendes, Andrew Martin.

3/25/2003 jburneko: Roleplaying The Short Story
Hello All, I have to admit that I really enjoy the classic four hour con event. I find the thrill of playing with (mostly) strangers in a brief effort to…
In RPG Theory
Participants: jburneko, Jonathan Walton, xiombarg, Mike Holmes, Blake Hutchins.

3/25/2003 AV: Former Characters a question...
In the first game that I ever played, I came in late into the adventurings and mass murders of a trio of hitmen. I eventually more or less became the…
In RPG Theory
Participants: AV, Mike Holmes, M. J. Young, Jack Spencer Jr.

3/25/2003 Jack Spencer Jr: What is 'adventuring'
[quote="Kester Pelagius"] The reasons for adventuring will be the same as why you adventure in any RPG, myriad and based upon what the GM and players have decided they want…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Jack Spencer Jr, Valamir, Kester Pelagius, Mike Holmes, M. J. Young, Johannes, JMendes.

3/23/2003 dragongrace: Why we come to the 'table'
More than likely this has been discussed here but I'll bring it up again. GNS seems more or less how we play the game, or what kind of game we…
In RPG Theory
Participants: dragongrace, Lugaru, Jack Spencer Jr, Paganini, Bruce Baugh, Mike Holmes, cruciel, M. J. Young, Dr. Velocity.

3/22/2003 Mark Johnson: At What Point Is Redundancy Redundant?
How much redundancy is necessary in writing game text?
In RPG Theory
Participants: Mark Johnson, greyorm, Jack Spencer Jr, Tar Markvar, cruciel, ethan_greer, Le Joueur, Ron Edwards, szilard, M. J. Young, Bruce Baugh.

3/21/2003 xiombarg: Tropes: An Addition to the Forge Lexicon?
[url]http://www.livejournal.com/users/bruceb/24788.html[/url] Now, general Forge wisdom is genre isn't a useful thing to discuss, but what about Tropes? It's certainly true that we've discussed, in essence, certain Tropes that apply to…
In RPG Theory
Participants: xiombarg, Ron Edwards, clehrich, Bruce Baugh.

3/20/2003 ZeOtter: Game mechanics which attribute to govern firearms
I am new to these forums, and I hope I am posting this in the right place. Now that, that is out of the way... I have been kicking around…
In RPG Theory
Participants: ZeOtter, Paganini, quozl, Andrew Martin, Mark Johnson, Ben Morgan, M. J. Young, szilard, Mike Holmes, dalek_of_god, Ron Edwards, Rob MacDougall, JMendes, Solacus, Bob McNamee, bladamson.

3/20/2003 GreatWolf: Suspension of disbelief
In the "realistic RPG" thread, the topic of "suspension of disbelief" came up. In this thread, Ron stated: #3 is most general, and I hope it doesn't spawn a string…
In RPG Theory
Participants: GreatWolf, Valamir, Alan, Gordon C. Landis, Ron Edwards, Sylus Thane, Mike Holmes, cruciel.

3/20/2003 Kester Pelagius: Does theory really matter?
Greetings, Final posting, with annotations and bibliography. Kind Regards, Kester Pelagius # The Alchemy of Role-Playing Copyright © 2002, 2003 by C. Demetrius Morgan Part 3 of 3 Part One…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Kester Pelagius.

3/19/2003 Eric Kimball: Book randomization
This is a question I have had for a while regarding methods of generating a binary success or failure. In most game dice are used for the random mechanics and…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Eric Kimball, Paganini, talysman, Enoch, Jonathan Walton, Yasha, M. J. Young, Jack Spencer Jr, Johannes, JMendes, Mike Holmes, Ron Edwards, cruciel, Stuart DJ Purdie.

3/19/2003 Kester Pelagius: Where Did it All Begin?
Greetings All, Given current events I thought we could all use a distraction. So, without further adieu, part two. Kind Regards, Kester Pelagius # The Alchemy of Role-Playing Copyright ©…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Kester Pelagius.

3/19/2003 Kenway: Flawed/Incoherent Games explained?
Mike's #1 rant (and Ron's articles) bring up lots of examples of flawed (and incoherent) games. I've only pieced together some of the flaws from various threads on The Forge,…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Kenway, Mike Holmes.

3/19/2003 Johannes: What is the most realistic RPG?
The purpose of this thread is NOT to immerse ourselves into endless arguments about personal preference. What I want from this thread is that people would reflect on what meaning…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Johannes, Mike Holmes, Paganini, Jack Spencer Jr, Lugaru, ThreeGee, Marco, quozl, Valamir, Emily Care, Ron Edwards, lumpley, Thingmaker, Walt Freitag, Le Joueur, M. J. Young, simon_hibbs, weeble, CplFerro.

3/18/2003 Lugaru: Critical hits = less damage (I figured this is the forum)
Ok, I decided to try making that card based game where the amount of cards you drop of a single suit is what determines successes, damage and stuff like that.…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Lugaru, Kester Pelagius, Valamir, John Kim, contracycle, cruciel, Tar Markvar.

3/18/2003 Kester Pelagius: What is. . . 'The Alchemy of Role-Playing'?
[color=darkblue]This post is revisiting an old article posted here a while back. As always I look forward to reading your remarks and special insights.[/color] [size=16px][b]The Alchemy of Role-Playing[/b][/size] [color=darkred]Copyright ©…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Kester Pelagius.

3/17/2003 ethan_greer: Sorcerer/Donjon dice mechanic
I wasn't sure where to put this, so here it is in RPG Theory... So, Sorcerer and Donjon use variations of the same dice mechanic - each participant rolls a…
In RPG Theory
Participants: ethan_greer, Mike Holmes, iago, szilard, M. J. Young, cruciel.

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Subsequent Topics
In RPG Theory

3/27/2003 szilard: Magic as plot device
From some thoughts that started out in my LiveJournal... It seems that, in fantasy fiction/movies/television, the use of magic often (certainly not always) has a few features: 1. Magic use…
In RPG Theory
Participants: szilard, ThreeGee, efindel, gentrification, greyorm, Mike Holmes, Bruce Baugh, Ron Edwards.

3/27/2003 Matt Wilson: regarding character ownership
In a game I'm working on, I had this mechanic idea for a player rolling a Setback, a complication to the character in question. My original idea was that the…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Matt Wilson, cruciel, Matt Gwinn, Clinton R. Nixon, Dr. Velocity, Le Joueur, Tim C Koppang, Andrew Martin, Tony Irwin, xiombarg, Mike Holmes.

3/29/2003 Jonathan Walton: Narratology & Roleplaying
I was in the college library doing some research for Storypunk when I stumbled across the academic discipline of narratology. I suppose I was vaguely aware that it existed, but…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Jonathan Walton, Johannes, Clinton R. Nixon.

3/29/2003 Matt Wilson: Playtesting strategy
I'm currently playtesting a game, and I wondered if anyone has any thoughts on strategy based on experience or otherwise. I've been taking the laboratory approach of focusing on one…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Matt Wilson, Mike Holmes, Marco, Bruce Baugh, Walt Freitag, Sylus Thane, Othyem, Valamir, M. J. Young.

3/30/2003 Christoffer Lernö: Randomized Character Creation: a good thing for beginners?
It was a long time since I GM:ed a total beginner, and a solo adventure at that. I was running a really old Swedish RPG which had a lot of…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Christoffer Lernö, Mark Johnson, Jack Spencer Jr, Lugaru, ThreeGee, Mike Holmes, Walt Freitag, Ron Edwards.

3/30/2003 Jack Spencer Jr: Storyteller Heartbreakers
This idea recently occured to me. I'll see if I can express it properly. With the fantasy heartbreaker articles, there has been some discussion over whether there are other types…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Jack Spencer Jr, Lugaru, ThreeGee, Paganini, Rob MacDougall, Jared A. Sorensen, Mike Holmes, Bruce Baugh, Clinton R. Nixon, Ron Edwards, cruciel, greyorm, szilard, Valamir, Paul Czege, Blake Hutchins, John Kim.

3/31/2003 cruciel: Rules-lite = story? (split from Storyteller Heartbreakers)
[quote="Jack Spencer Jr"]Or basically games that claim a focus on story yet have little if anything in their system to fascilitate the creation of a story.[/quote] I don't get it.…
In RPG Theory
Participants: cruciel, Jack Spencer Jr, Paganini, Lugaru, Valamir, Bob McNamee, Mike Holmes, Matt.

3/31/2003 Paganini: Horror Games
So we're playing SQUEAM again over at Indie Net-gaming. So far it's going real well, I learned a lot about how to use it in the last game we did…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Paganini, Mike Holmes, Ron Edwards, Jared A. Sorensen, hardcoremoose, Christoffer Lernö, talysman, dragongrace, Bob McNamee, M. J. Young.

3/31/2003 Matt Wilson: the order of story elements
This is half baked, but I thought I'd serve it up for thought. There's different orders of resolving fortune, like FitM and so on. What about moving other pieces of…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Matt Wilson, Mike Holmes, Valamir, Paul Czege.

4/1/2003 taalyn: Difficulty levels
How do you folks determine difficulties? How do you decide what's a reasonable difficulty for any given task? Do you use probabilities at all, i.e. figure out what the average…
In RPG Theory
Participants: taalyn, Mark Johnson, bladamson, Wolfen, RobMuadib, Thomas Tamblyn, Ron Edwards, Mike Holmes, Bruce Baugh.

4/1/2003 Jonathan Walton: Microfiction-Style Roleplaying
Hopefully, most of you are familiar with the relatively recent writing form known as "microfiction." I don't mean the stuff that's just really brief short stories, but the stuff that's…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Jonathan Walton, Jack Spencer Jr, Stuart DJ Purdie, szilard, Bob McNamee, ScottM, talysman, Mike Holmes, Paganini, Ron Edwards, ThreeGee.

4/1/2003 Thierry Michel: Character Generation and Literary Portrait
I'm aware of a few systems (for instance HeroWars or the Pool) that allow players to write a short portrait of their character and use it to derive traits and…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Thierry Michel, Ron Edwards, ethan_greer, Paganini, Bruce Baugh, Mike Holmes, szilard, M. J. Young, bladamson.

4/2/2003 redcrow: Applying Modifiers
Recently while writing up some situational modifiers for combat and difficulty levels for skills I came up with a bit of a conundrum. Is it better for a modifier to…
In RPG Theory
Participants: redcrow, Bruce Baugh, szilard, Mike Holmes, xiombarg, Jason Kottler, M. J. Young.

4/2/2003 GameAddict224: Here is a good RPG
http://www.outwar.com/page.php?x=101630
In RPG Theory
Participants: GameAddict224, Valamir, Ron Edwards.

4/2/2003 Sindyr: Is the "Great Impossible Thing" truly impossible?
I have a question about a phrase I have recently been exposed to. Let me repeat the phrase in context: "All of these games are based on The Great Impossible…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Sindyr, Mike Holmes, Valamir, Jack Spencer Jr, Jonathan Walton, DaGreatJL, Paganini, M. J. Young, simon_hibbs, Ron Edwards, Bruce Baugh, Marco, John Kim, bladamson.

4/3/2003 DaGreatJL: Cheezy Cracksmoking
Something I've noticed y'all like to do a lot/ have done a lot in the past is dissect popular terms and ideas in gaming. Therfore, I'm going to through one…
In RPG Theory
Participants: DaGreatJL, ethan_greer, Ron Edwards, Mike Holmes, Bruce Baugh, ThreeGee, Ben Morgan, Jack Spencer Jr, John Kim, Othyem, deadpanbob.

4/3/2003 Michael Hopcroft: 100% Subjective Character Creation
I was wondering if anyone can recall a game in which charatcers were created using neither dice nor points. How would someone make that work?
In RPG Theory
Participants: Michael Hopcroft, RpgAlexWyld, Alan, Mark Johnson, b_bankhead, Andrew Martin, Ron Edwards, Mike Holmes, xiombarg, The_Confessor, M. J. Young.

4/3/2003 taalyn: how much "color terminology" is too much?
I like color terminology (like my motes, caern, hand, etc.) but I wonder if there's any theory or ideas on when it's gone too far. Particularly, does anyone have good…
In RPG Theory
Participants: taalyn, Bruce Baugh, Valamir, Ron Edwards, Matt Wilson.

4/4/2003 Eric Kimball: Mental combat
Has any game ever dealt with arguments and social relations in the same way most rpg deal with combat? What I mean when you are trying to persuade some one…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Eric Kimball, Brian Leybourne, simon_hibbs, Ron Edwards, talysman, M. J. Young, Mike Holmes, Harlequin.

4/4/2003 taalyn: Probability calculation
I'm not sure this is the right forum, but I'm not sure what would be the right one. Anyhoo, can anyone direct me to wensites, discussion, or books that are…
In RPG Theory
Participants: taalyn, John Kim, bladamson, Bruce Baugh, Thierry Michel, Mike Holmes, Paul Czege.

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