I always knew I could run a great game but I wasn't sure what it took to make them consistently great. The greatness just happened, like mana from heaven.

Some sessions were sublimely life-altering while others fell flat.

I thought that in order to make a game great I needed to write a single notebook paper batch of notes, mostly NPC names. Now I realize that those names were bangs. The Forge has distilled how I go about my gaming, honed it. I learned here that it is not only the system and the fictional entities but the people at the table. I knew that table chemistry had something to do with it all but wasn't sure how much.

Great games are not easy to come by but my batting average on successful games to flops has gotten better.

Kickers, Bangs, Beliefs, Instincts, Traits, Spiritual Attributes, Descriptors and GM-less play were ideas that we were groping towards and even stumbling over here and there but it was such a relief to see them written out, to see people wrestling with the same ideas that Jim and I had been.

Not even our gaming friends were all that interested in talking about what made a game work, so long as it did work. But Jim and I liked to take the watch apart and look at the cogs, shine 'em up and remember when one worked for us or when one let us down. And here is a place where people are putting the cogs back together in these wonderful new shapes for these wonderful new purposes, taking the dialogue that Jim and I always had on my mom's front porch and going well beyond us.

Suddenly, the system isn't something that is getting in my way or even something that just manages to stay out of my way long enough for a game to happen. Suddenly, the system is helping me. Suddenly, game rules can be followed to the letter and work. I wasn't used to reading game books and running them to the letter. We never did that, it wasn't our way.

Conventions that I know Forge-folk are attending are suddenly fun because I know I can sign up for one of those games and have a wonderful time, right off the bat.

The Forge is, more than anything else, a tremendous relief, a place where ideas and learning are king and queen.

Thanks.

I used to be a D&D snob. And that's ironic, because I spent most of my time rehashing it. My position was: D&D is the Cadillac of RPG's; why look at another game by a company I've never heard of to do fantasy? How could it be anything more than Pepsi trying to copy Coke? (Which, I prefer Pepsi, BTW.)

I started to loosen up when my group got into M:TG. I had no idea a card game could be so damn fun. Like, as fun as an RPG.

Picking up Story Engine was a bit of a lark that, I now realize, prepared me for other games.

After getting back into an RPG group, finding the Forge, reading through the GNS articles (including M.J.'s excellent Applied Theory), buying TROS, Sorcerer and Burning Wheel and talking my group into trying something else besides 1st ed. AD&D, my whole RPG world has changed.

With TROS, we explored lethality, defense that costs and story-based heroic advantage. With Sorcerer, group chargen, multiple, inter-weaving storylines, modern setting and situation-driven play. During our Traveller campaign, I finally figured out how to connect to the GM's material from the player's seat: write your way in. I also stumbled on the play-multiplying technique of authoring your character's story to cross to other PC's (again, as a player). In WoD/V:tR, I was reminded of the malaise created by a total absence of player-to-player dialogue about how/where the game's going, the misplaced value of discovering what play is about and I got to fight (profitably) for the scene setup I asked for, damn it! (And I had a vision of myself as the GM, fucking up my player's setup in the name of realism. (Shudders.)) In BW, we used BITS in group chargen to seed storylines, played race as a heavily stamped cultural simulation, got the reward system firing like tossing sardines into a seal's mouth at a stage show at Sea World and worked out a rhythm of setting stakes and chaptering conflict.

I've come so far since Story Engine. RPG design has come so far since 1st ed. AD&D. Thanks Jake. Thanks Ron. Thanks Luke. Thanks Clinton. Thanks Ralph & Mike. Thanks Vincent. And thanks to everyone else who's helped me out or inspired me.

bcook1971 wrote: I used to be a D&D snob.

The Forge has brought me one thing that everyone I game with values. But I will not talk about that thing yet. I will, instead, beat about the bush for a bit with lesser things that all add up to the one big thing the Forge has brought me.

The Forge has brought me into contact with guys like Mike Holmes, whose HeroQuest IRC game rocked with mighty guitar the likes of which could challenge even the opening riff of “The Immigrant’s Song.” I loved the game not just because it was fun for me as a player, but because it gave me one of my few chances to see in actual play action the ways that a GM as experienced as I am deals with modes of play that I had little experience in. Watching Mike handle players and characters did a great deal to solidify ideas I’d only had in nebulous other-spaces before.

The Forge has brought me terminology. Much as I’m not a GNSer, and often cry poopoo at the model, I freely acknowledge that terms that crawled out of the chthonic mire of its chaotic protoplasm have found usage at my gaming table and among my gaming circle. Having a word that at least points to an idea, even if it does so in a less than perfect way, is far better than having no word at all.

The Forge has brought me clarity of understanding about what I want and what others want out of RPGs. I, like so many others, used to live in a mire of ideas about what “RPGs are/should be” without having examined why I thought that or what value the RPing styles of others might have. Some time at the Forge has led me to believe that the unexamined RPG is not worth playing, but that if you know what you want out of it any game, from D&D to Dogs in the Vineyard can be fun.

The Forge has brought me a working understanding of the importance of the social contract in gaming. My wife, a long time gamer who still has little patience for fancy narrativist tricks and no patience at all for GNS jargon, often praises “those forum guys you talk to” for giving an enunciated, examined look at the social contract and how it works to build functional play. She’s a big proponent of social responsibility in everything she does, and finding a way to use that passion to also make her games better has made her a happy woman. It’s also started to rub off on others, many of whom have turned to me as of late and said, “So this other game was going shitty, and so I talked to the people I played with and told them what I was feeling and what I needed, and they talked with me, and now things are working out….” Funny that it’s a surprise to all of us, but when you talk about things like adults, openly and honestly, they work out better.

These things have all added up to the greatest gift of all: The Forge has made me realize that I am a fucking mental retard. I spent years in school working on English, Cultural Studies, Rhetoric, and Psychology – and then would sit down at the table with the same thoughts and attitudes in my head that I had when I was 16. Oh sure, my methods had become more advanced, my tricks more subtle, my mastery of the one form I knew near perfect – but it wasn’t enough, wasn’t making me happy, wasn’t giving me what I wanted. It was all of the things above, gifts of the Forge, that made me remember that I’m an intelligent human being with massive amounts of training in understanding how games, people, and words work – and I hadn’t been using any of them in my favorite hobby. The Forge made me realize that thinking about game, working at game the way I worked at other things in my life, would make my games better. And not only did it give me that, it gave me my first pointers on how, exactly, to do it.

So thank you Forge, for making me realize I was a dip shit!

I used to play all GM-driven. Now I want player input badly, but my old group just won't provide it. Also, we keep playing Star Wars d6, to my dismay. It's still ok, but not as much fun as it used to be, especially cause I have a hard time motivating myself for all the prep necessary. Well, at least I can play the games I really wanna play in IRC.

I used to think that the major differences in rpg designs were by what stats they measure a character's capabilities and what check, combat and health mechanics they have. Now, well, I opened my mind.

I used to think design was mostly about setting. Now I go thinking more about theme and mode. Not too much, though. Mostly I've learned to ask the question: "What is this game supposed to be like? And does this particular rule serve that purpose?"

Not much more than a year ago, I equipped myself with five boxes containing 12 books, to get to play the 4th edition of Germany's most popular rpg, "Das Schwarze Auge". Even read most of the stuff. Even thought it was good. Half a year later, I was at least using the setting with Unisystem Lite rules. Now I have this little booklet of 101 pages by the name of "Dogs in the Vineyard" on my table, right here beside me, and think that it's probably the best thing I've ever read and it's a damn shame I have no one to play it with.

Oh, I have also become initiator and moderator of the new rpg theorie channel in Germany's biggest general rpg forum, the GroFaFo. And I'll be doing a workshop called "Does it have to be that way?" at NordCon, our annual rpg convention here in Hamburg.

What's changed for me since the Forge? Well, everything. :)

I used to tinker with AD&D2E. I used to write my own fantasy heartbreaker, that still didn't do what I wanted it to. I used to believe that my fantasy heartbreaker was wildly different from AD&D. I didn't understand why my roleplaying experiences were strangely unsatisfying.

Then I came across the Forge, read some stuff here and there, threw away my fantasy heartbreaker and started a long train of experiments with free-form and quasi freeform systems. I had fun, more fun than previously, but it still was not as satisfying as I felt it could be.

So I returned to the Forge. I bought My Life with Master and Sorcerer, and started by playing the first. I blew me away. I bought some more games. I tried to get the hang of bangs and stuff.

You know what has changed? I have more satisfying games. I still have unsatisfying roleplaying experiences now and then. But every time, with a little reflection, I know what went wrong, and I know what I can do to change it. I know there are many techniques I have not yet mastered. I know there is a lot to learn. But I know how to go about it, I know how to become better, I know how to have more fun. Thanks.

I was one of those guys stumbling toward a play style, hating almost everyone I played with because they didn't kick it the way I did. I know it sounds lame, but the Forge helped me make my peace with gaming. I enjoy it much more now, and I've never run games that made me happier than the ones I've run since I really started paying attention here.

I haven't come all over all Narrativist (well, maybe vanilla), but it's certainly done a lot to improve my play.

I actually run and finish games, instead of planning massive campaigns that collapse under their own weight after 8 sessions.

I use Kickers to design adventures around the players.

My horizons have expanded beyond D&D and White Wolf. Still haven't played Kill Puppies for Satan, though, which is the game that brought to the Forge in the first place.

I'm aware of the Social Contract, that it exists and how important it is.

Before the Forge, I was alone. I knew that this thing called roleplaying had such amazing potential to be a medium for collaborative creations of fantastic splendor. Nobody else was buying it. I would have to prove it by myself.

Now, I'm not alone. I have comrades in arms. I can say stuff like: "What do you think of the potential for mechanics that aren't based on numbers or manipulating resources, but are instead guidelines about the kinds of in-game statements that can be made?" I mean, where else could I say something like that and A) have people know what I meant, and B) take the idea seriously?

The Forge gave me a body of knowledge to define my own thoughts against. Once I finally got a grasp on a significant chunk of the great stuff people spout on these pages, I could decide where my own experiences agreed and disagreed. I could decide where I thought more work needed to be done, where more attention was needed. It gave me a badly needed foundation, instead of trying to work from scratch. And it gave me a sounding board for my own thoughts, where people would respond honestly and thoughtfully.

Most important of all, the Forge put me in contact with some brilliant and fascinating people, with whom I'm proud to associate with and, together, work towards the future of the medium.

The Forge helped me to free my inner Gamist. My friends and I spent so much time railing against and denigrating all those powergamers and munchkins but couldn't figure out why most of our own game experiences were so unsatisfying. We played the games the way the DMG or other source materials said we were supposed to play but all that advice just seemed to fall flat in actual play. Then I found this website that showed me that there wasn't anything wrong with the way I had secretly wanted to play all along. I LIKE to Step On Up! I like to take the risk and succeed or fail based on my own wits and a little help from the dice! I like to maximize my character and watch it roar through the challenges like a well-tuned NASCAR! Woot!

But the Forge didn't stop there. It gave me the tools and techniques neccessary to begin mastering how to play and have fun. The things I've learned here have breathed life and excitement in my regular gaming and I REALLY look forward to meeting some Forgites at GenCon this year and thanking everyone for their advice in person.

I game more and obsess about gaming less. That's definately an improvement for me. :)

I got back into gaming a few years ago through Neverwinter Nights, and developed Illusionist skills that myself as a fourteen-year-old DM would have killed for. I had notebooks full of maps and plots, the works. But it wasn't really doing it for me. After the time I've spent here, I realized that it didn't matter how good I got at feeding people a plot, it wasn't going to make me happy.

Now I talk about gaming with my fiancee, and I give her the whole spiel about stories having a theme and premise, and everybody at the table having an equal creative stake, and she smiles and goes, "Well, duh, how else would it work?" But it took me a year and a full campaign to finally shed the old habits.

Andrew Norris wrote: I game more and obsess about gaming less. That's definately an improvement for me. :)

Before the Forge (and this starts literally before the Forge as we now know it) I had pretty much given up on roleplaying in favor of pure literature. I had hardly played for four or five years, preferring to hone my literature skills. I knew pretty much about what roleplaying is and how it's done, and I wasn't impressed.

Reading the Forge intermittently from 2001 or so onward, my interest got reawakened. The Edwards essays on theory singlehandedly proved to me that there's actually more cultured people in roleplaying than the local D&D geeks. From there it's been quite a ride...

Paka wrote: I used to be a real narrativist snob. I had no idea what that was but I thought that people who played for historical simulation or for hack and slash fun were just missing the point entirely. I really used to think that their fun was inferior before I came here and realized that some games have different leanings and such.

Simply put, my entire view on RPGs has changed. I used to think that tailoring your system to your setting meant having an appropriate 'skill list,' and maybe tacking on a 'unique' mechanic.

This works, but it produces bland, flat, uninteresting traditional sim-style games. Since I've come here, I've seen games that are so much more. I've had my mind blown more times than I can count. Ghost Light, Sorcerer, Unsung, Dogs in the Vineyard, My Life With Master, Primetime Adventures, Legends of Alyria. Every time I read a game, my jaw drops.

There is more to Roleplaying than I ever knew, and this website and the people here are the reason I discovered that fact.

Well, simply put, I had given up roleplaying due to inconsistent results and pleasures from it (after playing for 10-12 years).

Forge brought me back, and I now I think I know how to better get what I want from roleplaying and being able to formulate it better than before (I hope)

And I am still amazed at what Sorcerer can do (and the games it inspired).

Per

What a nice thread. I have much more fun when I roleplay now, and I roleplay many different kinds of games. I roleplay much less than I used to, but I roleplay with many more different people now.

Andrew Norris wrote: I game more and obsess about gaming less. That's definately an improvement for me. :)

I think a lot of people have said, in different ways, basically the same thing. It's the main thing the Forge has done for me, as well.

The Forge didn't teach me how to think about gaming, but indicated that maybe I *should*, and pointed out a few good places to start.

The Forge didn't tell me it was okay to game my way. The Forge told me it was okay that other people *didn't* game my way.

The Forge didn't say "don't design that game, there's nothing original." The Forge said "design that game, but keep in mind what makes it original."

Mad props to the Forge. Fer real, yo.

Yeah. What the others said.

I now realize why I have fun playing some things and not others. And I know what needs to be done about my current gaming, though I am still hesitant to do it.

Also, I used to be on this stereotypical quest of making that great generic, flexible system. Now I don't believe in generic anymore; I realized the power of focus, constraint, and player empowerment.

Thanks.

I found the site and I was like "shyeah." Then I read the essays and I was like "huh." Then I read the forums and I was like "oh." Then I bought Capes and Dogs and PTA and I was like "OH."

What The Forge has meant to me:

First, it was a place where my partner could finally get the support in his game design that he couldn't get from me. I was/am just not the person to discuss GNS or FITM vs. FATE or theory what-have-you with him. So, I was glad he found community.

Second, I was intrested in some discussion and Actual PLay threads, and found myself respectfully heard.

Third, I'm edging into actually having friends who post here and I want to keep up on their ideas, and I'm posting here sometimes myself.

I may eventually even come out with my first (bound by the rules of writing to be sucky) game / game idea. But that may be a long way off, yet.

I definately have a wider variety of great games and people to play them with than I did pre-Forge. Plus, I have the keen T-shirt! (Thanks, Clinton)

I have not been a member of The Forge for very long but my whole concept of roleplaying and why we do it has changed fundamentally.  I have been roleplaying since the age of 11 (in 1979 good god) playing Runequest during the lunch hour at school!  However at some point during the late 80's things changed, commercialism and greed led to a succession of poor games from major companies and a lot of gaming groups stopped using their collective imaginations, to play in settings that encouraged metaplot's and supplement saturation.  I have felt like this for quite some time but in reading the Sorcerer rpg and it's accompanying supplements I found my way to The Forge.  In some ways I feel like I am being deprogrammed or that this is some kind of intervention!  I think I forgot how to play and run games sometime in the early 90's as my game collection swelled.  So thank heaven for The Forge and this new wave of indie publishers.  This is a groundswell of movement in our hobby and even if my part is to get half a dozen people playing these important new games and more importantly having fun then I am proud to be a part of it.

Thanks for posting to this one, Jason.  I had forgotten about it and its wild to go back and read myself a year ago.

Neat.

To be honest Judd I had not realise that your post was from last year, but it is great to reflect sometimes.  I am looking forward to this next years gaming so much with my Sorcerer game in the pipeline and I am purchasing Conspiracy of Shadows sometime this month and already have some cool ideas for it.  It will be great to look back on this year, next year and see all the progress that I have made (hopefully) as a player and a GM thanks to the community at The Forge and your amazing podcast's.

Respect

Jason

Wow, Jason.  Consider me firmly kicked in the nuts with flattery.

Stunned.

Thanks.

I've said it before but I am floored that anyone out there is listening other than Jeff's wife, my mom and a handful of gamers in Ithaca.

I am feeling really mellow, as I have been posting and reading Lorraine and I have been watching Hudson Hawk and polishing off a few bottles of red wine and it is now 1.30 am here.  My intentions however remain sincere (hic).  Sons of Kryos rock on!

I first discovered the Forge when I bought one of almost everything they had at the Forge booth at GenCon SoCal 2004. For me the most important thing was that I got to understand more broadly and deeply what an RPG is, and in doing so got out from under some preconcieved notions. Run Robot Red, for example, has a much smaller overall "scope" than I was used to, but then the game is that much better for its laser-accurate focus on what it wants to do. InSpectres and octaNe, on the other hand, rip apart conventional assumptions about the division between GM and players. And all of the above do these things without doing anything gratuitously weird or baroque with the game mechanics.

Then I went and wrote a game about disturbed anime mascot girls quarreling with each other, which has rock-paper-scissors as the default resolution mechanic. If I ever finish any of the other games I've started working on, then we'll see how the fruits of discovering indie RPGs and the Forge turned out in terms of game design.

In terms of actual gameplay, the changes have been relatively slow, partly because I have a close-knit and overall very functional group, in which I'm the only one who actually buys RPGs and reads about them on the internet. However, more closely analyzing how we play and how we might do it better came about independent of my discovering the Forge, but having a better vocabulary for it is definitely useful at times.

When I came to the Forge i hada deepdiscontent with my current gaming. I still do. But now I sorta know why. Ideas about Social Contract and knowing what you want out of a game are rock-solid to me and make me go "YEAH! That's it!" All kinds of other Theory things are less clear, but I have been given the invaluable gift of knowing how to ask the right questions.

It's a start. We'll see how amazing things are by next year, maybe.

I've learned to appreciate the spectrum inside singular small games, especially one-story narratives. The "Campbellian" stuff, i.e. the game's concept extending to only repeating one thing over and over. Not usually my thing, but knowing how far it can be taken by clever and stylish design has been very illuminating.

The other thing is that through here, I've gained a lot of contacts, fellow theorists, friends. For someone as obsessed as I am with actually understanding role-play as a phenomenon in itself, that's a very, very valuable thing.

-Jiituomas

Among some of the sentiments expressed above, discovering the Forge has made me mourn those I've known who drifted away from gaming because they 'outgrew' it - at least the ones I can clearly now see with hindsight were frustrated narrativists. I've entice one old friend back into a one-on-one session of one of those weird little games he's heard another of my other friends disparage, and I have my sights set on another old friend...

Andrew wrote:
Now I talk about gaming with my fiancee, and I give her the whole spiel about stories having a theme and premise, and everybody at the table having an equal creative stake, and she smiles and goes, "Well, duh, how else would it work?" But it took me a year and a full campaign to finally shed the old habits.