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In RPG Theory

11/20/2003 A.B.W: Game Book + You = Creative Sentai!
"Sentai" is the Japanese word for stories about teams of characters who have special powers in combination, by the way. In Art: Does It Matter?, Lxndr made a comment that…
In RPG Theory
Participants: A.B.W, Paganini, Shreyas Sampat, John Kim, Ron Edwards, M. J. Young, Andrew Martin, Andy Kitkowski, Mike Holmes, Dotan Dimet.

11/19/2003 Michael S. Miller: Survey of Damage Systems
Well, I've been ruminating on a narrativist superhero game and have hit a creative doldrum. You see, I'm working with the central metaphor of superheroes being "Power comes from Suffering"…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Michael S. Miller, xiombarg, Valamir, Heather Manley, M. J. Young, John Kim, Brassel, Thierry Michel, Shreyas Sampat, efindel, Calithena, Harlequin, Plane Sailing.

11/16/2003 hix: Kicker without a Home
So I'm about to start running my first game using Relationship Maps and Kickers. Very exciting and so far all the Kickers are working well. However, one player has presented…
In RPG Theory
Participants: hix, Paganini, Ron Edwards.

11/16/2003 sirogit: Counter-system for Physical/Mental/Social opposistion?
I was thinking of making a system wherein characters have Physical, Mental and Social scores, and when rolling against another character's score, gets a large advantage depending on what the…
In RPG Theory
Participants: sirogit, Shreyas Sampat, greyorm, Walt Freitag.

11/15/2003 ks13: Crunchy mechanics for social conflicts
In my present game system, I have a resolution mechanic that is applicable to any type of conflict resolution. However for things such as combat, the mechanics are expanded, outlining…
In RPG Theory
Participants: ks13, Mike Holmes, Brassel, dyjoots.

11/13/2003 anonymouse: system piece: the Human Machine
Had this thought today inna shower. The characters have the ability to alter aspects of themselves while they sleep, via dreams. Maybe they want to speed up their metabolism, or…
In RPG Theory
Participants: anonymouse, Comte, Harlequin, Emily Care, Paul Czege, Ron Edwards.

11/12/2003 Ben Lehman: Mainstream?
I am writing this from a hip little Internet cafe near my house, where RIGHT NOW on television (okay, it's in an ad break) two personalities on an ESPN talk…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Ben Lehman.

11/10/2003 Jay Turner: PCs and Plots: In Media Finiti Res
Okay, I'm not sure about my Latin in the subject. It's been awhile. :) Something I noticed, though, and this might be a specifically ME thing, was that an insane…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Jay Turner, jdagna, Mike Holmes, John Kim, M. J. Young, Noon, Ron Edwards.

11/10/2003 Eric J.: My eternal hunt for Planescape
I'm in an eternal hunt for a working Planescape RPG. I want something that will facilitate the type of gameplay that Planescape, in my view, should provide. I've made countless…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Eric J., ethan_greer, Ron Edwards, Mike Holmes, C. Edwards, Andrew Martin, Scripty, Jeff Powers.

11/8/2003 gobi: Game Design 101: A survey
Assume you were to create and teach a college course in the design of role-playing games: 1) Summarize the nature of your class and its ultimate goal. 2) What would…
In RPG Theory
Participants: gobi, M. J. Young, Eero Tuovinen, jdagna, fusangite, Calithena, Lxndr, Dotan Dimet, Emily Care, Mike Holmes, John Kim, Ben Lehman, Comte, ross_winn, eyebeams, damion.

11/6/2003 rosscowman: Anarchy in Game Design
Mr. TV-Head sayz “Anarchy is CHAOS!” That’s not what I’m talking about. When I say anarchy, I mean- an+archos = no ruler. I'd like to discuss ways of sharing the…
In RPG Theory
Participants: rosscowman, Ben Lehman, gobi, Mike Holmes.

11/6/2003 M. J. Young: Simple to Complex Combat in Multiverser
Over in design and resolutionI suspect I'd like Multiverser. The simple-to-complex issue (did I read you right? Up to 12 steps?) is a great assist in play. I also…
In RPG Theory
Participants: M. J. Young.

11/6/2003 John Kim: Mission Selection and Player Authorship
OK, I'm starting a new thread on this, because I think it doesn't really have to do with observations of new gamers. I'm discussing a style which Walt Freitag describes…
In RPG Theory
Participants: John Kim, jdagna, Walt Freitag, Jeph, Noon.

11/4/2003 Chris Barrett: Man vs. Nature
I'm new here so forgive me if this has been discussed before. I didn't find it with a search. The conflict in RPGs is primarily man vs. man/supernatural. Does anyone…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Chris Barrett, jdagna, Ian Charvill, Mike Holmes, b_bankhead, M. J. Young, John Kim, Walt Freitag, Gordon C. Landis.

11/3/2003 ross_winn: design and resolution
In my experience there are three major areas of player satisfaction in game design. Shiny stuff is the flashy art and conceptual pieces people like. Soft stuff is the interpersonal…
In RPG Theory
Participants: ross_winn, Ron Edwards, Valamir, Marco, M. J. Young, Ben Lehman, Mike Holmes.

11/3/2003 Drifter Bob: Using Realism in RPG's, part 2
Hello Forgers (that has a criminal connotation to it, Forgites? Forgees?) you may remember me from my earlier much reviled mechaics of melee article. Part 2 has been more or…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Drifter Bob, Jack Aidley, Ian Charvill, Marco, Mike Holmes, John Kim, Devlinhugh, M. J. Young, Tomas HVM.

11/3/2003 eyebeams: Non-gamers say the darnest things
Hey there. I saw a thread on non-gamers "challenging assumptions" and whatnot. It made me think of some recent experiences, but the ansuing discussion was pretty "meta" compared to what…
In RPG Theory
Participants: eyebeams, Ron Edwards, Marco, jdagna, Walt Freitag, Lxndr, Valamir, Paul Czege, Jack Aidley, Jay Turner, Mike Holmes, John Kim, M. J. Young.

11/2/2003 LordSmerf: Do Generalized Systems Inhibit Long-term Play?
First, this is a personal observation stemming from my experiences playing Universalis and the Pool primarily. I was really curious as to other people's experiences. It seems to me that…
In RPG Theory
Participants: LordSmerf, C. Edwards, Marco, Ron Edwards, Valamir.

11/2/2003 LordSmerf: GM/PC Play Simultaneously?
So Ron tossed this off in the Adept Press forum, almost anecdotally. I really thought it was a great articulation of something that i wanted to do. After some thought…
In RPG Theory
Participants: LordSmerf, jdagna, lumpley, C. Edwards, Lxndr, Ron Edwards, Emily Care.

11/2/2003 John Kim: Story and Narrative Paradigms in RPGs
I have just finished a fairly in-depth essay about the relation of story in static narratives (i.e. books and film) versus story in RPGs. It's a sort of formalist approach…
In RPG Theory
Participants: John Kim, Ben Lehman, RaconteurX, Marco, Emily Care, Mike Holmes, fusangite, Ron Edwards, peejay.

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In RPG Theory

11/21/2003 LordSmerf: Shooting people with guns mechanics
I'm not sure if this should be in Theory or not, i'm sure it will be moved if it needs to be. Anyway, what i'm looking for is a survey…
In RPG Theory
Participants: LordSmerf, xiombarg, Harlequin, Dev, Mike Holmes, Ben Lehman, jdagna, M. J. Young, theltemes, contracycle, gobi.

11/22/2003 gobi: Die-types as analagous to card suits
Just a quick "anyone thought of this?" question: The seeds of a task resolution system for my criminal RPG began developing from the earlier thread on dice-bluffing. It's very sketchy,…
In RPG Theory
Participants: gobi, Harlequin, J B Bell, LordSmerf.

11/23/2003 Dotan Dimet: A few things to add
Edit: this is really supposed to be in the international gaming thread. Oops. A few bits to add to Mark's summary: * Israel has practically no gaming stores, but the…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Dotan Dimet, Valamir, Ron Edwards, Emily Care.

11/24/2003 linux: Feedback Requested
First, thumbs up to Drifter Bob on an excellent article. Your knowledge is always helpful and welcomed. (This article assumes you have read the realism paper by Drifter Bob and…
In RPG Theory
Participants: linux, Andrew Martin.

11/25/2003 Harlequin: Help request - Fortune in the _______?
Disclaimer: The primary game I am working on is (if contracts happen before completion - else this disclaimer may vanish as I self-publish) not indie. A major game publisher wants…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Harlequin, cruciel.

11/25/2003 Cemendur: Non-Visual Thinkers & Imagined Space
In Art Does It Matter?, ways of learning and ways of thinking were discussed in relation to RPGs. On the other hand (and this is getting a bit tangential)…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Cemendur, Lxndr, M. J. Young, Alan, ethan_greer, Green.

11/25/2003 Dotan Dimet: Races and "races" in literature and RPGs
Re: the RPG-Orc thing, the weirdest case of symbolic stand-ins IMO was in the Underground RPG, where psychotic superpowered discharged vets (the PCs of the futuristic setting) play a literary…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Dotan Dimet, Ron Edwards, James Holloway.

11/26/2003 Dotan Dimet: Just Desserts (clarify Reward techniques, please)
Forge newbie ramble. Please bear with me. In The Whole Model, Ron writes: I consider the two most important Techniques to be reward system and IIEE. Now, I understood…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Dotan Dimet, MachMoth, Ron Edwards, M. J. Young.

11/26/2003 Calithena: Interesting RPG history link
I got some offline queries about RPG history. Victor Raymond, who plays in M.A.R. Barker's Thursday Night Game, wrote the article at the attached lnik; he hasn't followed it up…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Calithena, Emily Care, Valamir, Jack Spencer Jr, Liz Henry.

11/27/2003 Noon: Good cop, bad cop
Recently I had an idea to operate a game at a different level. I thought of almost having two GM's (yeah, nothing new). But in this case one has more…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Noon, Mike Holmes, Michael S. Miller, MachMoth, The Benj, Andrew Norris, Emily Care.

11/27/2003 sirogit: Relationship Map Techniques?
Having a spot of difficulty in making relationship maps that involve the PCs strongly in the story(Even with group created R-maps.) I was wondering if anyone used paticurly effective techniques…
In RPG Theory
Participants: sirogit, Noon, hix, Roy, Mike Holmes.

11/28/2003 Thierry Michel: Wishes non fulfilled
There an article by Umberto Eco there, about the death of the printed book. The last paragraphs are especially interesting (to me, at least): Indeed, in a role-play game…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Thierry Michel, pete_darby.

12/1/2003 anonymouse: system part: Karmic character design
Sprung from some discussion in #indiegames tonight and simmered for awhile.. A character accumulates Karma over the course of its life. When it dies, its Karma is totalled up and…
In RPG Theory
Participants: anonymouse, Ron Edwards, LordSmerf, Paganini, Shreyas Sampat, MachMoth.

12/2/2003 Noon: Primal situation
Awhile ago on the RPG.net forum there was a thread on situation and characters by Valamir. It was a rant, but the focus was the players supplying the situations that…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Noon, Valamir, qxjit, Christopher Kubasik, Mike Holmes, Ron Edwards.

12/2/2003 Dev: Game Mechanic: the "Wobble" factor
Instead of "success/failure" task resolution, this idea is based on increasing the "wobbliness" or "wonkiness" of certain tasks, while looking for certain dice-patterns instead of numberical results. What's the point?…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Dev, xiombarg, contracycle, Mike Holmes, gobi, Lxndr, M. J. Young.

12/2/2003 sirogit: Game Mechanic: Creepy magic
The basic idea is, a player states what his character is doing to activate a magical effect(Which can be anything, even simply activating the effect at will.), and it's effect/if…
In RPG Theory
Participants: sirogit, Mike Holmes, simon_hibbs, Jonathan Walton, gobi.

12/3/2003 Emily Care: lexicon entry
Hello, I hadn't come across this entry to the RPG Lexicon before. Makes it all seem strangely codified and real to be posted this way. http://harmonies.tzone.org/RPGLex/index.cgi/Threefold Amusingly enough, there is…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Emily Care, Ron Edwards, M. J. Young.

12/3/2003 anonymouse: mechanic: Trouble!
I know Orkworld has this as some foundation of its in-game society and probably mechanics as well, but since that apparently had some super-1337 printrun never to see the light…
In RPG Theory
Participants: anonymouse, Ben Morgan, Ron Edwards, Noon.

12/4/2003 MachMoth: Two, two games in one!!!
In my early days of RPG, I quickly became trained in the art of never letting the party split. It was believed, at the time, that attempting to juggle multiple…
In RPG Theory
Participants: MachMoth, Noon, gobi, C. Edwards, Trevis Martin, jdagna, contracycle, Paganini, Ron Edwards, M. J. Young, Ben Morgan, LordSmerf.

12/4/2003 bigsimon: A different take on initiative...?
I'm not sure if anyone has tried something like this before. It doesn't completely get rid of "turn based" combat, but changes it a little. ------------------------- Action Pool Initiative is…
In RPG Theory
Participants: bigsimon, HMT, s3kt0r, Mike Holmes.

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