Previous Topics
In RPG Theory

10/31/2001 James V. West: relationship maps and all that jazz
Friends I'm rather in the dark about a lot of the stuff that's been discussed here at the Forge before I came along. Not to mention the fact that there…
In RPG Theory
Participants: James V. West, Don Lag, Ron Edwards, Laurel, Paul Czege, Jack Spencer Jr.

10/30/2001 Jack Spencer Jr: Bobby G
The Bobby G thread in Actual Play has gotten away from the actual play aspect and moved to theory. Hence this thread. I had to fight the urge to paraphase…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Jack Spencer Jr, Ron Edwards, Marco, contracycle, Laurel, joshua neff, Mike Holmes, jburneko, Gordon C. Landis, Paul Czege, mahoux.

10/30/2001 kwill: seven deadly sins
the most recent issue of Twilight Time had an article entitled Seven Deadly Sins of Character Motivation (part 1/2) the basic idea is that NPC (or PC) motivation…
In RPG Theory
Participants: kwill, Laurel.

10/30/2001 Jack Spencer Jr: possible future trends?
I debated with myself about whether to post this here or not. I already posted it on RPGnet's forums here. Basically, I foresee games that allow other players to sustain…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Jack Spencer Jr, Bankuei.

10/26/2001 Bankuei: Game Goals
Inherent to every game is some sort of goal or goals. They may not all be necessary, or may be equally important, but the goals often dictate how the game…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Bankuei, contracycle, Le Joueur, Ron Edwards, Mike Holmes, Jared A. Sorensen, Marco, Daredevil.

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.

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.

10/24/2001 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.

10/23/2001 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.

10/19/2001 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.

10/19/2001 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.

10/17/2001 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.

10/17/2001 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 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.

10/16/2001 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.

10/15/2001 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.

10/13/2001 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.

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.

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.

9/14/2001 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.

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Subsequent Topics
In RPG Theory

11/3/2001 Gordon C. Landis: Who do you hook?
First - get your mind out of the gutter! Now . . . In one of the extraordinary Art-Deco Melodrama thread(s) over in the Sorcerror forum, Ron made a statement…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Gordon C. Landis, Ron Edwards, joshua neff, Logan, 333Chronzon.

11/5/2001 lumpley: Making Stuff Happen Stance
In Further On Stances, Ron says: "The arrow has struck Borax the Very Clean Warrior!" This statement is irrelevant to Stance entirely. NOT ALL ROLE-PLAYING STATEMENTS ARE MADE FROM A…
In RPG Theory
Participants: lumpley, Ron Edwards, Don Lag.

11/5/2001 lumpley: Making Stuff Happen non-Stance
Ron, Cool, I'm there. So let's see, so here's my thing: what happens in the game, happens because everybody agrees it does. Right? Who gets to assert things that happen?…
In RPG Theory
Participants: lumpley, Ron Edwards, Don Lag, kwill.

11/5/2001 Galfraxas: Suspension Of Reality And Playing Odd Characters
I recently got into an arguement with a friend of mine about RPGs, and how certain things aren't playable as characters, and how people can't suspend reality to a certain…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Galfraxas, 333Chronzon, unodiablo, Mike Holmes, Laurel, Ron Edwards, kwill, Paul Czege, Jared A. Sorensen, James Holloway, Jack Spencer Jr, contracycle, lumpley, gentrification, Jason L Blair, Meguey.

11/6/2001 jburneko: Cut-Scenes In RPGs
As I've been watching various TV Shows and Movies I've noticed something that whole exists in those mediums and does not exist in RPGs. That element is that the audience…
In RPG Theory
Participants: jburneko, Bankuei, Ron Edwards, Le Joueur, contracycle, Ian O'Rourke.

11/7/2001 John Wick: A superhero RPG
This is rough stuff. I wrote it at 3 AM last night. I may have had a fever. Anyway, it is what it is. Interested in seeing what you guys…
In RPG Theory
Participants: John Wick, kwill, Mike Holmes, Tim Gray.

11/9/2001 jburneko: Incharacter Play vs. co-Author
I have a feeling here that I'm going to open up a huge can of worms. You have been warned. In Ron's new review of Little Fears he talks about…
In RPG Theory
Participants: jburneko, Jared A. Sorensen, lumpley, Ron Edwards, Marco.

11/9/2001 Damocles: Imitating other media
It's pretty much a commonplace that new media start out by imitating other media and then start to develop into new and unique directions. Roleplaying games are strange in that…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Damocles, Mike Holmes, Laurel, Ron Edwards, Epoch, unodiablo.

11/9/2001 jburneko: Metaplot and Story Creation
The planets must be aligned funky or something. Today seems to be an idea day for me. Anyway, down in the Immersion & Co-Authoring thread Ron reasserted his claim that…
In RPG Theory
Participants: jburneko, Jared A. Sorensen, Ron Edwards, Zak Arntson, Gordon C. Landis, Blake Hutchins, John Wick, Ian O'Rourke, contracycle, Mytholder, Mike Holmes, Paul Czege, Matt, Ben Morgan, Laurel, joshua neff, Nathan.

11/11/2001 erithromycin: Rewarding Players
Experience points. Do players deserve them? Is it better to reward someone for a successful negotiation with a reputation as a rainmaker or an enhancement to his mechanical character? …
In RPG Theory
Participants: erithromycin, Ron Edwards, hardcoremoose, Marco, Bankuei, Jack Spencer Jr, Mike Holmes, Jared A. Sorensen.

11/12/2001 Matt Snyder: "Universal group" systems
I have long loathed systems billed as "universal." There are a number of reasons, not the least of which I admit is ignorance about their actual usefulness in play. By…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Matt Snyder, Mike Holmes, Ron Edwards, Ben Morgan, Marco, Laurel.

11/13/2001 jburneko: An Experiment In The Ordinary
There's an idea I've been mulling over for a while now. It's something that's been brought up before on various game sites but never really addressed in an interesting way.…
In RPG Theory
Participants: jburneko, Mike Holmes, Ron Edwards, Epoch, Laurel, Jared A. Sorensen, joshua neff, hardcoremoose, Marco, Ben Morgan, Bankuei, mahoux, Le Joueur.

11/26/2001 Paul Czege: the big three you never see
Hey everyone, I was sitting last night reading Hardball, by Chris Matthews, and had an awareness that the fiction and nonfiction I read, and the movies and television programs I…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Paul Czege, jburneko, Mike Holmes, Ron Edwards, Blake Hutchins, hardcoremoose, John Wick, joshua neff, Le Joueur, Jack Spencer Jr, Gordon C. Landis, contracycle, Uncle Dark, James V. West, James Holloway, Marco, Ian O'Rourke, Jared A. Sorensen.

11/27/2001 jburneko: Valid Premises
This was said down in the "big three you never see thread." I have a question about it that I thought deserved its own thread. I *DO NOT* want this…
In RPG Theory
Participants: jburneko, Epoch, Marco, joshua neff, Ben Morgan, contracycle, Mike Holmes.

11/28/2001 Laurel: Romance, Happiness, and Expectation
(building off of Valid Premises thread) Taking as a premise the validity of Gareth's statement "{Romance} has become the default filler of nearly anything made for TV.... as a way…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Laurel, mahoux, Ron Edwards, Mike Holmes.

12/6/2001 Firbog: Meta-plots, Railroading and Settings
Since I am new to this forum, and not sure if these have been discussed in the way I am bout to ask questions, I hope that you all will…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Firbog, Matt, Tor Erickson, Mike Holmes, Ron Edwards, jburneko, Manu, Ben Morgan.

12/8/2001 Jack Spencer Jr: "Hmm, a thread about magic stuff would be cool,"
[quote] Ron Edwards wrote: "Hmm, a thread about magic stuff would be cool," [/quote] Seems like a good idea to me. The previous Three you never see thread got on…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Jack Spencer Jr, Marco, hardcoremoose, mahoux, contracycle, Ranko, James V. West.

12/10/2001 jburneko: Narrativist Missions
Hello All, I've had one of those weekends where I had a lot of ideas that generated nothing but questions. Some of these ideas and questions are a bit unfocused…
In RPG Theory
Participants: jburneko, Mike Holmes, Ron Edwards, gentrification, xiombarg, contracycle, Paul Czege, Le Joueur, Marco, Daredevil.

12/16/2001 Jack Spencer Jr: What is an RPG supposed to be?
This is a question, and various answers that I've run into when talking RPG w/ people. Invariably I run into a wall of "an RPG is supposed to be (blank)."…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Jack Spencer Jr, Armin D. Sykes, Marco, Mike Holmes, Ron Edwards, Mario, Laurel.

12/17/2001 greyorm: It Never Fails
So, I've been a movie-watching buff lately. I've sucked down more special-effects-ridden media than I have in years. Other than coming to the realization that all of John Carpenter's movies…
In RPG Theory
Participants: greyorm, Ron Edwards, Paul Czege, Mike Holmes, contracycle, gentrification, Bankuei, hardcoremoose.

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