Okay, so you discovered this place however long ago and you got involved with everyone doing the whole posting and debating thing. But when and why did you first really feel you were part of the Forge community?

For me, it was Valamir acknowledging my comments on Robots & Rapiers in Indie Game Design a month or so ago. For the first time, I felt like I had made a contribution here.

Anyone else?

Cheers,
Steve Hickey.

I felt like I "belonged" to the indie-netgaming community around Memorial Day of last year, when the Weird Wild West Supers game happened. I didn't really feel like I belonged on the Forge itself until after meeting them all at GenCon.

I felt basically instantly welcomed as part of the community; from my very first design attempt, it was a very friendly and illuminating posting atmosphere.

hix wrote: For me, it was Valamir acknowledging my comments on Robots & Rapiers in Indie Game Design a month or so ago. For the first time, I felt like I had made a contribution here.

Anyone else?

Cheers,
Steve Hickey.

No need for the disconcertilation, Ralph. My experience here was basically one of enjoying hanging out with a group but not quite feeling like part of it.

Benchmarks for me in that transition period included: getting comfortable with the ideas behind GNS and Social Contract, identifying frequent posters and their personalities, trying out some games like Uni and Wuthering Heights, and freakin' loving Legends of Alyria when I realised it had dispensed with the "Equipment List" - the bane of my D&D playing life.

But I also had to learn the social norms here (like stay on topic, avoid 'me too' posts) - and most importantly, getting over my newbie fear of posting and making 'mistakes'/saying the wrong thing.

This is starting to sound like it belongs on the Thanks Ron and Clint thread, but yeah the Forge was a great theoretical and learning environment right from the start - but that community aspect, of giving back, that came a little later.

Steve.

Gen Con 2002.

I'd mostly lurked for the first few months I spent at the Forge, logged in and reading everything that came through, occasionally posting in actual play about the occasional indie game when I tried it out (I'm thinking of Donjon in particular, and Final Stand as well). I also had volunteered that summer as an editor for Jared on octaNe, in exchange for a copy of the finished book. So I recognized a lot of names but hadn't posted enough to get my own recognized.

Then I went to Gen Con 2002, hung out and played in many of the demos at the Forge booth (TROS with fellow customers and Jake GMing; Dust Devils with Josh Neff, Mario, and Matt Snyder GMing; octaNe with Jared and Juergen), spent a good portion of an afternoon away from the booth playing Mike Holmes' Synthesis with Mike and Josh Neff, and played some Trollbabe with Ron, Jared, and Danielle: basically, I got the chance to meet people and game with them, chit-chat some, and generally socialize. I highly recommend getting to cons and meeting people--I'd do it again this year but, you know, there's the whole issue of plane fares...

Getting involved in various projects has helped as well. First with octaNe and now with the No Press Anthology, working with people on stuff for publication really builds relationships.

These yearly birthday forums (yeah, I know, now that we've had two), are just amazing, as well. I wouldn't want them active all the time, but as a once a year thing, they're great community builders. They refresh my sense of community membership by giving me a greater sense of who people are outside of their RPG focused posts.

Rich

I started here right after last GenCon. Since then, I've always felt like a child running around a country club pretending to be a grown up. (I don't think this analogy is very clear, but I can't think of anything better.)

I suppose it's been incremental and will continue to be so. Playing Universalis on IRC was a step. Driving [URL=http://www.anvilwerks.com/index.php/TUA2/HomePage]The Universalis Arena to reality wa a step. Hooking up with Miller and Crane at [URL=http://indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=8646]Lolagazebo was a step. Playing MLwM and Sorcerer FTF is a step. I actually think these few days of off-topic discussion is a powerful step. The more things that link me to the community, the more I "belong." I dunno if and when it'll feel like I live here.

Chris

Actually, I don't feel like really belonging. I'm not that social a person usually, and then there's the language barrier for really doing anything useful. I'd have to start writing my games in english to really participate, and that wouldn't do any good for their language, let me tell you.

If I have time for some classy translating and actually get an English game done this summer, maybe I can then tell differently. Maybe stop falling from my chair every time some old hand acknowledges my post.

Last year's birthday thread, when somebody mentioned me as one of the people who makes the site good. Okay, he misspelled my name, but I can live with that (everyone else does, anyway).

I felt like I was "in" last year, when, after participating heavily in the AD&D history threads, Ron asked me to be one of the readers on the Gamism essay and then cited me as the source of the term "cargo cult" (it's no Lumpley Principle, but hey we take our props where we can). Also, my friend Bryant came back from GenCon, and said people at the Forge booth knew who he meant when he mentioned me - "oh yeah, that Rob guy".

But then I think I dropped the ball. My comments on Ron's essay were late and I don't think especially brilliant, and I've been too busy since then to post as much as I'd like (I'm supposed to hand in my PhD dissertation next month), so now I feel like I've fallen out of the club again. Nobody's fault but my own, mind you, but actually being a live participant in something as fertile and active as the Forge takes effort!

One nice thing is that my gaming circle in real life is starting to connect up with Forge-related people. Chris Lehrich and I still haven't met, but I've met friends of his and we're tentatively in a game together; similarly I've played Kill Puppies for Satan and hope to play Dogs in the Vinyard with a good friend of Vincent Baker's, and Jared Sorenson is hopefully playing in either my upcoming Charnel Gods game or my Starchildren w/ Hero Quest rules game. So while I don't feel like I'm sitting at the cool kids' table, I do feel only a couple of degrees of separation away.

I definitely feel that I became part after just a couple of posts. The responses were quick and helpful and really helped steer me in the right direction for RPG design. My thoughts on RPG design have changed a lot since I first joined.

Happy Birthday Forge!

Oh, this an easy one. Ron's and M.J.'s replies to my post in this thread. It made me feel like I might have something to offer, and not like some newbie who everyone was ignoring.

I felt like a member of the Forge when I was derisively called "Forge Boi" by "Eyebeams" on LJ, who later decided to attack me here because of our argument about metaplots.

When people recieved my half-baked tribal robot concept so warmly and openly. That was great :)

How is that going, anyway? It was the awesome.

I'm still a fringer, mostly by choice. I love the forge, but I rarely feel that I have anything unique to contribute. For a while I was proud of my quick "get the big topics" links page (a slow version of search-fu), but it's proved to be handier for me than a boon to others.

Meh-- how about I put it this way. I get more than I contribute. It's someone disquieting, since I'm usually fervent about keeping the scales balanced-- so far, I haven't stumbled on a useful contribution to make.

Mmm, too serious for a party. Pass the nachos!

Shreyas Sampat wrote: How is that going, anyway? It was the awesome.

I love how it says when did you belong to the Forge, not at the Forge.

I was an uprooted cultie just lookin' for a cult to join. So I did!

-Vincent

Yeah, Vincent, there's also this matter of a certain Principle. You ain't going anywhere.

Julie

Many of us were transplants from the discussions originally on The Gaming Outpost.

Mike

Belong?!? And sacrifice my aloofness? That'll be the day.

Though, all this online discussion has done wounders for my atrocious grammar (I think it's simply bad now).

I realized that I felt I belonged when I read a some blog quite a while ago that refered to Ron as L.Ron Edwards and disparaged the Forge in general. The depth of my miffed reaction made me realize how much I cared about and self-identified with this place.

regards,

Trevis

Certainly not yet... but we'll see.

Mike Holmes wrote: Many of us were transplants from the discussions originally on The Gaming Outpost.

Came over when Ron suggested I post a couple of stories I told him in the Actual Play forum, which is still my favorite place to hang out.

For that reason, I don't exactly feel like I "belong". Don't get me wrong -- I don't feel unwelcome, or even merely tolerated. I just get lost in or impatient with or have MEGO at all the technical theoretical stuff. I'm not interested in turning my entire way of playing around. I just want to know what I can steal and how I can use it.

-Lisa

I "belonged" when I started working on Spin System (which, by the way, still may see a revision and resurrection) and soon after that, Pagoda. Getting posts and e-mails and PMs about stuff you're working on is way cool, and really makes you feel like you're doing something worth while.

--Jeff

I'm not sure I do fel I "belong", despite having found the site very useful; and, in fact, that's probably a good thing.

The Forge is a forbidding place to newbies. There's a high level of discussion, and a lot to wade through. I try not to post unless I'm certain I've got something useful to say. Half the time I'm probably wrong. :)

That forbidding feeling is mitigated by the Forge's excellent atmosphere; it isn't a site for flamewars and the usual internet BS.

That forbidding feeling also helps in maintaining the Forge's civilized atmosphere: it's hard to approach it as "just another Internet forum"....

So before somebody feels they have to apologize for my feeling I'm ot quite in the door.... don't. If any old yahoo could feel at home to rant and rave here, it wouldn't be as worthwhile as it is.