Previous Topics

4/23/2002 Paganini: Break Time - How to Cheat Death without really trying
GRR. Just hit the wrong button on my keyboard and caused the Forge to eat my post. Oh well... text reconstruction commences. So, I was beating my brains out last…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Paganini, Henry Fitch, Wolfen.

4/22/2002 Paganini: Cornerstone Beta
Hi all... it's been a while, but I've finally had some more time to work on my game. I've got a "finished" version of Cornerstone ready for folks to look…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Paganini.

1/18/2002 Paganini: Game Balance
Game balance, as a meta-game concept, is important, IMO. If one player is somehow more valuable, important, or effective than other players, then the gaming experience will be less enjoyable…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Paganini, Ron Edwards, Jack Spencer Jr, Laurel, Skippy, contracycle, Gordon C. Landis, Le Joueur, Logan, Epoch, joshua neff.

1/17/2002 Paganini: Sorcerer & Sword?
The Premise of Sorcerer doesn't really grab me... nothing personal, I'm just not interested in playing a guy who rules demons. Still, I've been thinking about getting it, just for…
In Adept Press
Participants: Paganini, Ben Morgan, hardcoremoose, contracycle, Ron Edwards, greyorm, Clinton R. Nixon, jburneko, Uncle Dark, Balbinus, Valamir, Gordon C. Landis, AndyGuest.

1/16/2002 Paganini: Identity Crisis
Ron mentioned elsewhere that The Window has a GNS identity crisis. As The Window was my first introduction to story centric gaming, it's still one of my "fan" systems, even…
In GNS Model Discussion
Participants: Paganini, Joe Murphy (Broin), Ron Edwards, Marco, contracycle, AndyGuest, Logan.

1/15/2002 Paganini: Narrativism
This came up in another thread (the one about player vs. GM power), but I thought it deserved it's own topic. Also, it's more appropriate for here, than for the…
In GNS Model Discussion
Participants: Paganini, Marco, jburneko, Clinton R. Nixon, joshua neff, Epoch, Ron Edwards, Le Joueur, Gordon C. Landis, hardcoremoose.

1/15/2002 Paganini: To the System Rulers
You know, I really like the new layout of the forums, but it didn't address the one beef I've had with the UI ever since I've been here. (All of…
In Site Discussion
Participants: Paganini, Mike Holmes, Clinton R. Nixon, Logan, greyorm, Ron Edwards.

1/15/2002 Paganini: Sharing Power
Since I don't know how to split threads (being much more skilled at splitting hairs!) here at the forge, I'm just posting the reply from the Triad thread in…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Paganini, Ron Edwards, Jared A. Sorensen, Laurel, Paul Czege, Le Joueur, Logan.

1/12/2002 Paganini: Accuracy vs. Precision
Fang, and everyone, I thought maybe I was unclear in my last post, so I wanted to clarify. Here's what I meant to say: Detail in a system does not…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Paganini, Ron Edwards, Joe Murphy (Broin), Logan, hardcoremoose, efindel, Marco, Mike Holmes.

1/12/2002 Paganini: [Cornerstone] Announcement
I've got a Cornerstone draft ready to go, compelte with layout, fonts and everything. It's in postscript format, so those of you who are interested and can view postscript (or…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Paganini.

1/11/2002 Paganini: [OT] GO?
This is not on topic at all, but it's paralell to the "How did you find the Forge" thread, so what the heck. A lot of people seem to have…
In Site Discussion
Participants: Paganini, Gordon C. Landis, Mike Holmes, Ron Edwards, Clinton R. Nixon, Laurel.

1/7/2002 Paganini: [Cornerstone] Death
I've run into a bit of a problem with my cornerstone mechanics. My current rule is as follows: "A character is out when he runs out of positive descriptors. Out…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Paganini, Gordon C. Landis, Laurel, efindel.

1/4/2002 Paganini: [Cornerstone] Outline
Today I made a list of all the things I have rules for and made an outline. Here's what I came up with: Definition of Descriptors (GM: Using Descriptors for…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Paganini.

1/4/2002 Paganini: Eh?
How does one delete a message (such as this one, which is now in the process of being heavily edited :wink: that has been, for example, posted multiple times? font…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Paganini.

1/1/2002 Paganini: RPG Layout
For Cindi, a bit, but also I want to present an idea I had for the layout for Cornerstone. :smile: Cindi, and anyone who's interested, I have an RPG Layout…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Paganini, Cynthia Celeste Miller, Ron Edwards, James V. West, Laurel, Matt Snyder, Jack Spencer Jr, J B Bell, Bailey.

12/30/2001 Paganini: [Cornerstone] [Genreal Design] Chapter Layout
Fang: Thanks for directing me to a useful and interesting thread. One thing not mentioned with respect to layout is: What if you only have one chapter for everything? That…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Paganini, Mike Holmes, Le Joueur, Laurel, Ron Edwards.

12/30/2001 Paganini: [Cornerstone] Poll: Organizational Writing
What, in your opinion is the best way to approach layout and writing in an RPG? This is not a general question... I want specific information form individuals about what…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Paganini, Le Joueur, Mike Holmes, Cynthia Celeste Miller, Mithras.

12/30/2001 Paganini: [Cornerstone] Content
Supposing you picked up the latest $5-$10 self-published indie-RPG. You take it home and read it, and, regardless of what kind of setting information it contains, as far as rules…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Paganini, James V. West, Cynthia Celeste Miller.

12/29/2001 Paganini: Outcomes as Plot Devices
I just read Raven's thread on cinematic results where failure results in a success plus a complication. I agree that *always* succeeding removes real tension from the game. No matter…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Paganini.

12/29/2001 Paganini: [Cornerstone] Introduction
Greetings! I'm a new user on the forge (check out my profile if you're interested), but I'd bet that I know a lot of you from other RPG-related lists around…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Paganini, hardcoremoose, Mike Holmes, Cynthia Celeste Miller, contracycle, joshua neff.

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Subsequent Topics

5/5/2002 Paganini: Forge Online Gaming Groups
I was going to make a poll for this, but I guess Clinton has disabled them. Clinton: If you haven't, and if you get time (yeah right) drop me a…
In Site Discussion
Participants: Paganini, Russell Hoyle, unodiablo, Wolfen, Nick Pagnucco, Mike Holmes, Clinton R. Nixon.

5/7/2002 Paganini: Value of Quantification
In the thread about RPG Conventions I haven't noticed anyone mention this one: "Characters are defined by lists of quantified abilities." (Maybe someone did mention it and I just missed…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Paganini, Jack Spencer Jr, J B Bell, Gordon C. Landis, Wolfen, Mike Holmes, Andrew Martin.

5/21/2002 Paganini: Inspiration
In another thread Ron asked this question: "My question is very basic: what do the main characters actually do in play?" It's a very good question, and his following examples…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Paganini, Jared A. Sorensen, Paul Czege, Zak Arntson, Seth L. Blumberg, Le Joueur, Jack Spencer Jr, Mike Holmes, hardcoremoose.

5/21/2002 Paganini: Dice Pool Definition
In another thread, Ron is using a definition of "dice pool" that I found a little confusing, in that he includes Tunnels & Trolls and Star Wars D6. As far…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Paganini, Ron Edwards, efindel.

5/21/2002 Paganini: What makes a game fun?
This is something I've been thinking about recently. As an exaple, let's take a fantasy dungeon crawl, which is something my brother and I like to do, but often get…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Paganini, Walt Freitag, Mike Holmes, Seth L. Blumberg, Le Joueur, Jake Norwood.

5/24/2002 Paganini: Indie-netgaming Formed
I've set up a yahoo group for organizing online play sessions of indie-games. The front page can be found by following this link: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/indie-netgaming/ Anyone who is interested, please join…
In Actual Play
Participants: Paganini.

5/25/2002 Paganini: Premise?
Since Ron sets great store by the work of Louis Egri, I've been doing some net research into Egri's use of the word "premise" in hopes of obtaining a better…
In GNS Model Discussion
Participants: Paganini, Ron Edwards, J B Bell, Le Joueur, Jared A. Sorensen, Paul Czege.

5/26/2002 Paganini: Freeform Design
So, I thought I'd do a couple of freeform games to show how they can be different. #1. Illusion - The One-page Freeform Game for the Authorial Narrator Meta Introduction…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Paganini, Jack Spencer Jr.

5/29/2002 Paganini: Splits?
Just for my own peace of mind, could someone explain what's going on over in the GNS forum? I have become greatly confused. :) The moderators seem to be wielding…
In Site Discussion
Participants: Paganini, Clinton R. Nixon, Christopher Kubasik.

5/30/2002 Paganini: Marketing
So, the publisher for my cinematic action game was the same as Sidhain's and I've got a bunch of comments and reports and an unedited manuscript sitting around on my…
In Publishing
Participants: Paganini, Ron Edwards, Michael Hopcroft.

6/3/2002 Paganini: Good vs. Evil
One of the other threads got me thinking about this. So, it's a cliche, yeah, but IMO it's a good one. The simple idea of "good vs. evil" is great…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Paganini, Eric J., C. Edwards, Wolfen, Ron Edwards, xiombarg, mahoux, ks13, Le Joueur, Mike Holmes, Tim Gray, contracycle.

6/9/2002 Paganini: FRPG Dungeon Crawl (Whee! Actual Play! Actual Play!)
Please comment on all parts of this post, reasoning, motivation, execution in mechanics, everything. :) Okay, so I've been playing some dungeon crawl games with my brother and sister, using…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Paganini, Andrew Martin, Jack Spencer Jr, Christoffer Lernö.

6/9/2002 Paganini: GNS on the SFCONSIM-L
This is a copy of a post I made to the SFCONSIM-L yahoo group this afternoon. I wanted to see what you all think of it. :) BEGIN POST Sunday,…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Paganini, Ron Edwards, Christopher Kubasik, Jake Norwood.

6/11/2002 Paganini: Indie Netgaming - SQUEAM!
We set up an impromptu game session over on the indie-netgaming list today. I was the GM and ran SQUEAM. We used IRC on the MagicStar server (which has some…
In Actual Play
Participants: Paganini, Nathan, Jared A. Sorensen, greyorm.

6/11/2002 Paganini: Indie Netgaming - SQUEAM!
Just a heads up that we played a big SQUEAM game in the #indierpgs IRC channel last night. Play report is up over in actual play.
In Memento-Mori Theatricks
Participants: Paganini, Jared A. Sorensen.

6/11/2002 Paganini: Narrativism sans Directoral Power?
I've been doing some serious thinking about narrativism over the last couple of weeks, playing in the Synthesis playtest, the Squeam game last night, and just generally reading Forge-y games…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Paganini, Ron Edwards, Mike Holmes, jburneko, Walt Freitag, Paul Czege.

6/11/2002 Paganini: Directoral Mechanics?
In a narrative game, I'm thinking that the most important function fulfilled by the mechanics is to determine who gets to say what happens. This contrasts with traditional games, where…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Paganini, Ron Edwards, Zak Arntson, Seth L. Blumberg, Valamir, WhistlinFiend, Wart, Mike Holmes, Jaif, Jared A. Sorensen, Clinton R. Nixon, Blake Hutchins.

6/12/2002 Paganini: Who says it? When does he say it? How much can he say?
Well, "Directoral Mechanics" doesn't really seem to be the right topic for this thread (I needed a review of what Director Stance really is), so I've started a new thread.…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Paganini, Zak Arntson, Le Joueur, Mike Holmes, Ron Edwards.

6/12/2002 Paganini: Exploration of System?
I was checking over the GNS essay this evening to review terms for the Directoral Power thread, and I got interested all over again. Towards the back (Ch 5. I…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Paganini, Mike Holmes, Gordon C. Landis.

6/12/2002 Paganini: The Words Of Gratuitous Capitalization
Well, since no one else seems to be doing it, I've put together the foundation of a Forgian dictionary. This is by no means complete. Please, please, PLEASE, post to…
In GNS Model Discussion
Participants: Paganini, joshua neff, Le Joueur, Mark D. Eddy, Victor Gijsbers, Seth L. Blumberg, rafael.

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