Previous Topics
In RPG Theory

8/3/2001 Mytholder: Gamestudies.org
http://www.gamestudies.org is an attempt to set up an academic journal about computer games. I had a quick glance over their first issue. Most of it went over my head by…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Mytholder, Gordon C. Landis.

7/25/2001 joshua neff: new directions
What are the assumptions about RPGs? What traditions have we become bound by? & how can we break these assumptions & rethink RPGs? Off the top of my head: *…
In RPG Theory
Participants: joshua neff, James Holloway, Dav, Gordon C. Landis, GreatWolf, Uncle Dark, Jack Spencer Jr, Damocles, jburneko, james_west, Mike Holmes, Valamir, Ron Edwards, Blake Hutchins, contracycle.

7/23/2001 Jack Spencer Jr: "Not enough rules"
Over on the Elfs board I mention playing briefly w/ the wife. (The game. The game.) AFterwards I asked for her impressions and she said it could be fun but…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Jack Spencer Jr, joshua neff, jburneko, GreatWolf, Ron Edwards.

7/23/2001 Jack Spencer Jr: This fifth business.
OK, after reading Kubasik's Interactive Toolkit, I've noted something. He refers to a narrativist (as it were) GM as Fifth Business after an old theatre term, etc etc... Here's my…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Jack Spencer Jr, Mytholder, joshua neff, Le Joueur, Ron Edwards, Damocles.

7/22/2001 Tim C Koppang: Player Induced Rewards
After reading a couple of posts, I was thinking about a mechanic that would allow players to divvy out rewards themselves instead of giving the GM all of the control.…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Tim C Koppang, James V. West, Le Joueur.

7/20/2001 hardcoremoose: Reward Systems, or Making Your Players Behave
I've discussed this topic elsewhere and it came back to me full force while reading through the "silliness" thread in the GNS forum. Basically I propose that the most important…
In RPG Theory
Participants: hardcoremoose, James V. West, Ron Edwards, Jack Spencer Jr, wyrdlyng, Jared A. Sorensen, kwill, John Wick, Damocles, james_west, Doc Midnight, Tim C Koppang.

7/18/2001 Dav: the Gamble and the Stake
I wanted to bring this theory up to the collective to see what happens with it. on and I were talking briefly about the stakes in games. My position is…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Dav, Ron Edwards, John Wick, Jared A. Sorensen, hardcoremoose, James V. West, Le Joueur.

7/16/2001 Jack Spencer Jr: premise
The education of Jack continues.... Now I'm trying to get a handle on this thing called a premise and i know it's fairly simple, something like "It's what the game…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Jack Spencer Jr, Ron Edwards, James Holloway, Blake Hutchins, jburneko, joshua neff, contracycle, James V. West, Supplanter, Mike Holmes, Valamir.

7/10/2001 Jack Spencer Jr: immersive authorship...(not sure either)
OK, those who been following the forum may have seen me say something to the effect of how I prefer to play immersively. Well, not quite immersive but the point…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Jack Spencer Jr, John Wick, Jared A. Sorensen, Dav, Ron Edwards, joshua neff, GreatWolf, Clinton R. Nixon, jburneko, Gordon C. Landis, james_west, greyorm.

7/5/2001 james_west: Favorite things I've learned
Favorite things I’ve learned from reading this site: (1) Facilitating the creation of good stories as an explicit design goal. This is from the GNS discussions. Previously, I’d only thought…
In RPG Theory
Participants: james_west, joshua neff, John Wick.

7/2/2001 Jack Spencer Jr: Character currency
I got this from the GO forum. It's Hunter Logan quoting Ron Edwards Ron wrote, ]Effectiveness then becomes all the ROLLS (or Karma scores) that determine how well the character…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Jack Spencer Jr, Ron Edwards, Epoch, Mytholder, Clinton R. Nixon, Blake Hutchins, Supplanter, Jared A. Sorensen.

6/29/2001 Epoch: Player Control
This is an idea I threw out at one point on the GO, and didn't get any feedback on, so I figured I'd try it here. I got the idea…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Epoch, jburneko, Supplanter, GreatWolf, Tim C Koppang, Mytholder, Ron Edwards.

6/25/2001 Jack Spencer Jr: Story, schmory
I suppose there are several ways to look at it. Some of the more recent RPGs (meaning post 1982) have been focused on story even to the point of having…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Jack Spencer Jr, Jared A. Sorensen, Ron Edwards, joshua neff, james_west, Zak Arntson, Stivven, Paul Czege, jburneko, Mytholder, Supplanter, John Wick, contracycle.

6/22/2001 james_west: A Mechanic for Other Plot Types?
In Relationship Maps, Edwards has done a very good job of producing a concrete mechanic for running scenarios based on the style of plot found in mysteries and a lot…
In RPG Theory
Participants: james_west, Paul Czege, Jared A. Sorensen, joshua neff, Uncle Dark.

6/13/2001 jburneko: The Orchestra Metaphor
I don't know if this belongs down in the Sorcerer Forum or up in the G/N/S Forum so I thought I would comprimise and post it here. Ron has often…
In RPG Theory
Participants: jburneko, Mike Holmes, Jared A. Sorensen, Ron Edwards, ConfigSys.boy.

6/7/2001 Ron Edwards: The "universal" issue
Hello everybody, Martin and I were saying hello in the Site forum, and this topic came up. I thought it might be better served here. It seems like a good…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Ron Edwards, Dav.

6/6/2001 Damocles: Preventing dysfunction
Most of the time, game design seems to be concerned with attempts to faciliate (or create) a certain style of play. But lately I have been wondering whether it should…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Damocles, Ron Edwards, John Wick, joshua neff, james_west, greyorm.

6/6/2001 james_west: Fiduciary responsibility?
[I]:: Warning: This essay is going to seem elitist and egotistical, but it is genuinely something I wonder about. I'm honestly not trying to troll. ::[/I] When you look into…
In RPG Theory
Participants: james_west, Valamir, Mike Holmes, Ron Edwards, Ian O'Rourke, John Wick, JSDiamond, gentrification, greyorm, Nathan, Gordon C. Landis, Ian Freeman, James V. West.

6/3/2001 james_west: strong player directorial power
To me, games with strong, continuous player directorial power seem to as different from traditional RPGs as RPGs are from boardgames. I'm thinking Baron Munchhausen, Crayne's Storyboard or SOAP, Clinton's…
In RPG Theory
Participants: james_west, Ron Edwards, joshua neff.

6/1/2001 Gordon C. Landis: The FitM pattern at other "scales"
I've been thinking a lot about Ron's focus on linear vs. non-linear resolution mechanics. It took me a little work to wrap my brain around Fortune in the middle (FitM),…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Gordon C. Landis, Supplanter, Paul Czege, Ron Edwards, Mike Holmes, james_west, Dav.

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Subsequent Topics
In RPG Theory

8/9/2001 Theory of X: D*/"&yd^
k
In RPG Theory
Participants: Theory of X, Ron Edwards, Le Joueur, Jack Spencer Jr, contracycle, Clinton R. Nixon, joshua neff, Cameron.

8/9/2001 Jeffrey Straszheim: What is Fortune in the Middle
Hey folks, I've been reading the archives on this site and I've noticed many references to "Fortune in the Middle". This seems to refer to the types of resolution mechnaics…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Jeffrey Straszheim, Ron Edwards, jburneko, joshua neff, Uncle Dark, Supplanter.

8/10/2001 Theory of X: E=p/c@ert%4

In RPG Theory
Participants: Theory of X, jburneko, James V. West, Ron Edwards.

8/12/2001 Jared A. Sorensen: Those wacky Swedes...
http://fate.laiv.org/index.htm
In RPG Theory
Participants: Jared A. Sorensen, joshua neff.

8/15/2001 jburneko: Mixing Styles Across The Table
This might belong in the GNS forum but this isn't a discussion about the model directly but rather the set of tools that are generally associated with each point of…
In RPG Theory
Participants: jburneko, Gordon C. Landis, gentrification, Supplanter, Ron Edwards, Emily Care, Jack Spencer Jr, TrizzlWizzl, Blake Hutchins, Mike Holmes, Laurel, James Holloway, Marco, Paul Czege, Valamir, joshua neff.

8/17/2001 contracycle: player character premises
Hiya, Just wanted to ask if people are conscious of the character premises brought to the table by players. I imagine the root concept of a character is/strongly related to…
In RPG Theory
Participants: contracycle, jburneko, Ron Edwards, TrizzlWizzl, Blake Hutchins, Mike Holmes, Laurel.

8/17/2001 jburneko: On Author and Director Stance
This post is probably more 'thinking out loud' than asking an actual question. But in my gaming circles I find it difficult to explain why having Author/Director power given to…
In RPG Theory
Participants: jburneko, joshua neff, Emily Care, Laura Bishop, Ron Edwards.

8/20/2001 GraveyardGreg: Incomplete Games
It was mentioned over in the "Publishing" aspect of the forums that Sorcerer was not complete because it had no sourcebooks. It struck me as odd. Sorcerer doesn't need any…
In RPG Theory
Participants: GraveyardGreg, peteramthor, Laura Bishop, James Holloway, Ron Edwards.

8/21/2001 Paul Czege: talkin' 'bout degeneration
On the "Mixing Styles Across the Table" thread, Gordon wrote: I'm already well aware of many degenerate forms of G and S. I would like to see more discussion…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Paul Czege, Mike Holmes, Ron Edwards, Gordon C. Landis, Zak Arntson, Supplanter, pacific_steve.

8/22/2001 jburneko: The Role of Genre In RPG Design
Down in the Theory Forum Ron made the claim that Genre is not a very useful term when it comes to RPGs. I'd like to explore this assertion. When someone…
In RPG Theory
Participants: jburneko, Ron Edwards, Jack Spencer Jr, Jared A. Sorensen, FilthySuperman, Laura Bishop, Marco.

8/29/2001 James Holloway: Theoretical Speculations about LARPs.
I don't have an agenda, really. I just wonder if there are any differences in the way that the theoretical framework discussed here and described in the FAQ applies to…
In RPG Theory
Participants: James Holloway, jburneko, Ron Edwards, Epoch, Matt, Mytholder.

8/31/2001 Tim C Koppang: character vs player rewards
I’m pretty sure that this sort of idea has been presented in one form or another in the past, but here goes: It seems to me that there is a…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Tim C Koppang, Ron Edwards.

9/6/2001 DaR: Implementing Premise
So I found myself with a couple of days of downtime, and decided to actually start working up the fantasy campaign I'd been meaning to for a while. Aha, I…
In RPG Theory
Participants: DaR, james_west, Zak Arntson, jburneko, Ron Edwards, hardcoremoose, contracycle, Uncle Dark, Mike Holmes.

9/7/2001 Marco: Killing off all the PC's (gimicks in modules)
We just released a horror module with, what I had thought was a pretty unique twist: the players get two sets of pre-defined characters (they're high school students) and in…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Marco, Ron Edwards, Mike Holmes, Mytholder, wyrdlyng.

9/10/2001 Jack Spencer Jr: Stephen King's On Writing
I recently pick up this book and I've found it to be pretty decent. Now, naturally King is talking about writing instead of RPG or Narrativist play or whatever you…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Jack Spencer Jr.

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.

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.

9/24/2001 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.

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.

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.

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