Previous Topics

6/8/2004 Wormwood: Experimental Validation: GNS Congruence
This thread is to discuss the experiemental design of a GNS Congruence game. This stems from M.J. Young's post here. I've already designed a game which, in observing play, manages…
In GNS Model Discussion
Participants: Wormwood, Mike Holmes, John Kim, Valamir, M. J. Young, Walt Freitag.

5/10/2004 Wormwood: Experimental Validation: Query
As of late I have been working with different approaches to experimental game design. And by experimental I mean using the design process to shed light on some theoretical concern.…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Wormwood, M. J. Young, clehrich, Ben Lehman, simon_hibbs.

9/30/2003 Wormwood: Hybridization Question
I'm currently looking for the theoretical underpinnings of the statement that in a GNS hybrid has a primary and some number of secondary modes. I've viewed this statement as a…
In GNS Model Discussion
Participants: Wormwood, Gordon C. Landis, M. J. Young, jdagna, AnyaTheBlue, Mike Holmes, deadpanbob, Marco.

9/22/2003 Wormwood: "Realism" valued in both G and S?
This is an idea that stems from technical play analysis I've been doing. The common assumptions I've encountered indicate that the desire for the game to match real world features…
In GNS Model Discussion
Participants: Wormwood, Ron Edwards.

9/10/2003 Wormwood: Traditions of the Flesh: Open Design Notes
First, some ground rules: 1) this is soft sci-fi, with some vague merging into fantasy, but the key point is I don't care if it's scientifically feasible, or exactly why…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Wormwood, Jasper, Little_Rat, taalyn.

8/25/2003 Wormwood: In Search of an Uncertainty Principle
A decision does not possess a creative agenda. Rather the consequences of a decision evidence a dynamic which retro-actively places the decision within a creative agenda. This dynamic structure is…
In GNS Model Discussion
Participants: Wormwood, Valamir, Mike Holmes, Marco, Ron Edwards, M. J. Young.

6/17/2003 Wormwood: Drift: Playtest Draft Available
Several months ago I posted about a game in progress named drift at http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=4181&highlight=drift and http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=4384&highlight=drift. I've just recently completed the core playtest draft, and am looking for comments and…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Wormwood, Harsh Tranquility, Mike Holmes.

6/11/2003 Wormwood: Genre Simulation
Recently I've realized one of my problems with the NS barrier lies in the fact that I have a tendency to design games to simulate the genre, rather than emulate…
In GNS Model Discussion
Participants: Wormwood, Gordon C. Landis, Jack Spencer Jr, Shreyas Sampat, John Kim, M. J. Young.

6/3/2003 Wormwood: Proof of Concept Game Design: Where to post?
That's most of the question. But to flesh it out nonetheless: Let's say I'm designing a game which is intended to be a hypotest of some theory, possibly GNS, possible…
In Site Discussion
Participants: Wormwood, J B Bell, Jack Spencer Jr, Clinton R. Nixon.

5/29/2003 Wormwood: Technical Play and the one word GNS
In an earlier thread I suggested that the three GNS modes seem describably by what questions are asked by the player making the decision. I find however, that while this…
In GNS Model Discussion
Participants: Wormwood, jdagna, Mike Holmes, Ron Edwards.

5/19/2003 Wormwood: Drumming II (split)
I'd actually think more in terms of a tuba, but that's just the brass player in me. This sort of behavior, especially in the context of what Mario said about…
In GNS Model Discussion
Participants: Wormwood, Ron Edwards.

5/18/2003 Wormwood: Decision Merging: An Appoach to Hybridization
First, a little history: A while back there was a cyberpunk based CCG called Netrunner, put out by WotC using the same information property as Cyberpunk 2020. This game had…
In GNS Model Discussion
Participants: Wormwood, M. J. Young, Ron Edwards, Walt Freitag, Mike Holmes.

3/21/2003 Wormwood: Magic's End: Introduction
. . . And so the gods left this plane and its people. This world was a lesson that would not be forgotten, even if those who suffered and endured…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Wormwood, Garbanzo, Mike Holmes.

11/26/2002 Wormwood: Drift: Spending XP during play
Resources are fun, and advancement resources tend to be put to many different uses. In Drift however, advancement resources seem to need a little modification. While the idea of spending…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Wormwood, Ron Edwards.

11/26/2002 Wormwood: Clandestine: Sore wa himitsu desu
I'm trying to work out a mechanic to generate secrets, or at least guide their generations. By secrets, I mean in particular specific actions that produce specific effects, based on…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Wormwood, Mike Holmes.

11/13/2002 Wormwood: Clandestine: Organs of Conpiracy
I introduced this game here. One of the major elements in the game involves constructing bodies using a pool of points. At different levels these bodies are conspiracies, small bands…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Wormwood, Mike Holmes, Walt Freitag.

11/13/2002 Wormwood: The Importance of Play
One of the matters I've seen fairly ignored in most RPG theory discussions is the presence or lack of value in the play aspects of RPGs. In particular I mean…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Wormwood, Ron Edwards, Mike Holmes, MK Snyder, Kester Pelagius, Eric J., contracycle, lumpley.

11/7/2002 Wormwood: Drift RPG
I figured since there was discussion in RPG Theory about narrative space opera, I should toss in my version. Of course it's also a game design in progress, to eventually…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Wormwood, Valamir, Patrick Boutin, lumpley, RobMuadib, Emily Care, Mike Holmes, contracycle, Le Joueur, Blake Hutchins, greyorm, Christoffer Lernö.

10/27/2002 Wormwood: Clandestine: Memetic Roleplaying
I am currently working on developing a game I've been calling Clandestine. Originally the game was to center on playing conspiracies, but in the design process it seems to ahve…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Wormwood, Ron Edwards, talysman.

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Subsequent Topics

9/29/2004 Wormwood: Big Model as a Scientific Theory
Note: this is not a critique of accuracy. Rather it is an attempt to point out places where the structure and formalisms of the Big Model Theory cause difficulty in…
In GNS Model Discussion
Participants: Wormwood, clehrich, Jere, Ron Edwards, Sean, ErrathofKosh, timfire.

10/26/2004 Wormwood: Play as Social Function
This is a split from Classifying By Social Function and is related to some discussions I started a while ago, Technical Play and the one word GNS. John asked me…
In GNS Model Discussion
Participants: Wormwood, contracycle.

1/26/2005 Wormwood: [Deceit] Self-Deception as a Design Consideration
Caveat: This stems from a post by Lisa, here. For the purposes of these threads the moral implications of deceit should be ignored. This is really the only way to…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Wormwood, Marco, M. J. Young, Wolfen, contracycle, John Kim, Dantai, xiombarg, clehrich, ffilz, Doctor Xero.

1/26/2005 Wormwood: [Deceit] Deception in the Big Model
Caveat: This stems from a post by Lisa, here. For the purposes of these threads the moral implications of deceit should be ignored. This is really the only way to…
In GNS Model Discussion
Participants: Wormwood, Ron Edwards.

2/7/2005 Wormwood: Techniques of the Meta-SIS
This is a branch from this thread, focusing on developing our understanding of mystification in techniques. I believe this is of interest to understanding the shared space of mystifications, which…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Wormwood.

2/7/2005 Wormwood: Culture and Mystification
This is a branch from this thread. This thread is intended to discuss the relationship between culture (and as a default assumption American culture) and the mystification that occurs within…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Wormwood.

10/14/2005 Wormwood: A Faustian Arc, or The Thin Line Between Narrativism and Munckinism [7th Sea]
Bear with me here as this is a portion of a game a ran some time ago, but I believe it presents an interesting case study. Context: The system and…
In Actual Play
Participants: Wormwood, Joshua BishopRoby, Andrew Norris, mutex.

10/14/2005 Wormwood: Retooling the Bug ["Firefly d20"]
About a year ago I was asked to write a d20-based game for playing in the universe of the Firefly TV series. Since d20 was part of my design constraints…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Wormwood, SPDuke.

10/25/2005 Wormwood: Play: Content, Controls, Constraints (PCon3) - Overview
As a central aspect of all RPGs play behavior is surprisingly unexamined in the context of RPG theory. About three years ago I started trying to piece together a theory…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Wormwood, MatrixGamer, HenryT, Mike Holmes.

11/4/2005 Wormwood: Methods of Play Content Analysis (PCon3)
PCon3 is presented here: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=17387.0 One of the advantages of examining the whole of play content is that active content can be classified in multiple ways, without dependence on the…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Wormwood.

11/15/2005 Wormwood: Parallel and Hierarchical Views (PCon3)
I've already discusses the basics of a PCon3 here: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=17387.0 . Likewise I demonstrated an approach to reducing play goals to atomic pairs of topic and form. (Such as ethical…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Wormwood, TonyLB, M. J. Young.

12/4/2005 Wormwood: From Outside the Big Model
Years ago, and subsequently as I was developing an understanding of core theory at the Forge, I discovered my most persistent hurdle was accepting the disenfranchisement of the model. The…
In Actual Play
Participants: Wormwood, Paka, talysman, Joshua BishopRoby, jburneko, Mike Holmes, Simon Marks, Adam Dray, Silmenume, Caldis.

3/3/2006 Wormwood: [Revolutions] Questions, with 19
I'm hoping to get a playtest draft of this done before the Iron Game Chef competition, so I'm looking for some suggestions. Questions I'm looking for help to answer: A)…
In Endeavor
Participants: Wormwood, Troy_Costisick, contracycle.

8/29/2006 Wormwood: [Drift] Seeking Playtesters
I'm starting another round of public playtesting for Drift, a game of space travel and distance, both between worlds and the people on them. The crux is in the far…
In Connections
Participants: Wormwood.

5/10/2007 Wormwood: [Coming of Age] Squires of Sword and Sorcery
Last night I held another playetest of <a href="http://wyrmwood.srgames.org/playtest/list.html">Coming of Age</a>. This time it was for somewhat veteran players, Zach had played the first playtest of the current incarnation, where…
In Playtesting
Participants: Wormwood.

7/23/2007 Wormwood: Total Party Kill
I've been thinking about two of my Gamechef 2006 designs: <a href="http://www.1km1kt.net/rpg/The_Marriage_of_Persephone.php">Marraige of Persephone</a> and <a href="http://www.1km1kt.net/rpg/One_More_Hour.php">One More Hour</a>, as well as some (as yet still offline) setting and story…
In First Thoughts
Participants: Wormwood, Primordia.

9/24/2007 Wormwood: [Homeworld Project] Lost Treasure of Chaladni
I just ran the first session of the next round of <a href="http://wyrmwood.srgames.org/playtest/HomeworldProj.pdf">Homeworld Project</a> playtesting. Due to scheduling, only one of the players was able to make the game, more…
In Playtesting
Participants: Wormwood, Simon C.

10/24/2007 Wormwood: [Genetic System (d20 - variant)] Task as Conflict
A few years ago I put together a d20 variant due to a specific design request for a Firefly series RPG. This has since evolved into a generic OGL system,…
In Playtesting
Participants: Wormwood, Meadslosh.

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