This post isn't about one night, it is about 4 years, my past four years with the Forge and its games and the game tables I have played at with Theory as my co-pilot.

I only understand the real basics of theory, the parts where we understand that its people who rules are aimed at, not fictional creations and character sheets.  But damn...that's a huge revelation and it has turned me from a talented young GM who has greats nights that rock worlds, good nights and dismal, dismal slow nights.  Before understanding theory at all I didn't know why these bad nights happened.  I didn't understand that I was afraid to push a conflict because I wasn't going to like where the rules took me.

I wasn't sure of the exact moment during character generation when a play jumped the tracks and started trying to manipulate me, the party and the game.

But my great games were so damned great that I was willing to chance it, my homeruns were hit with the combined power of everyone at the table and I knew that was a great thing but I wasn't sure how to harness it, how to get the power behind every swing.

The truth is, games that aid my style of play, lets call them Forge-baked, and the theory that guides my play of them hasn't changed my frequency of homeruns but it has increased the overall batting average.  I hit way more doubles and triples and when I say *I*, I mean *we* but in that way that the GM seems like a magician pulling rabbits out of his hat and taking silver dollars from behind his players' ears when everyone should know the players manufactured the cute li' rabbit and their ears are producing the silver dollars, all shiny and pretty.

I was lucky to have Dust Devils as my first Forge-baked game.  Dust Devils showed me how to let go as a GM.  It showed me that when I let go the game begins to really fly.  It showed me that the burden isn't all mine.  I was blessed to have it as a first.

Sorcerer showed me how to get players' input for the game, what to have as prep going into the game.  I used bangs and kickers but I didn't have names for them and didn't understand what they were.  It was like using salt and pepper but not know what the fuck salt and pepper were, only that they were in these rocks I passed over my stew (man, the shitty metaphors are FLOWing).

The Riddle of Steel and Burning Wheel showed me how rules effect setting and how the character sheet should have everything the GM needs to create the adventure, which should have the elements that are important to the player.  Of course Sorcerer and Dust Devils had this too in their own ways but I was still reeling from my lessons learned from them.

Dogs in the Vineyard showed me that I can trust the dice, that they were my friend, that they can aid the story instead of hinder it.  It changed the way I look at my dice bag.

Burning Wheel Revised taught me all of the lessons of TRoS and BW but better and through circles it showed again the power of player-created collaborative setting creation.  I should have put my pen down when creating Sorcerer-setting after Sorcerer-setting and turned to my players but in my pride, I didn't.  It took BWR to show me that I had to, like in Dust Devils, get out of the way every so often and make shit up with them to get at the best setting.  Less is more.  How can I inspired them with the least words possible?

And lately Primetime Adventures showed me that players need to enjoy one another or this all doesn't mean shit.  Good groups are creative and fun.  Great groups are creative and fun and enjoy each other.

So, the theory GNS and Theory boards are gone and so theory will remain where it always has been, right here in our AP threads.  To make a corny comparison, theory's like that painting/poem about God and the footprints. 

Amen, brother!

[insert boistorous cheering and fist-pumping!]

I'm bursting with envy :)

I spend hours and days and weeks trying to convince my rpg-friends to accept some "changes". It's like fighting a mother protecting her children.

I needed this kind of post to keep my morale high, Thank you :)

Hi Judd,

Give me two examples, prefereably pretty different from one another. Context of play, rules used, people involved, fictional events. Actual play, man, not this vague-ass generalizing.

Best,
Ron

Paka wrote:
To make a corny comparison, theory's like that painting/poem about God and the footprints.

Paka wrote: Burning Wheel Revised taught me all of the lessons of TRoS and BW but better and through circles it showed again the power of player-created collaborative setting creation.

I was lucky to have Dust Devils as my first Forge-baked game.  Dust Devils showed me how to let go as a GM.  It showed me that when I let go the game begins to really fly.  It showed me that the burden isn't all mine.  I was blessed to have it as a first.

Sorcerer showed me how to get players' input for the game, what to have as prep going into the game. 

Burning Wheel Revised taught me all of the lessons of TRoS and BW but better and through circles it showed again the power of player-created collaborative setting creation.

Well, I agree with your sentiments, but I got that release from West End Games' old Paranoia and, of course, Teenagers from Outer Space by R. Talsorian (way back in the 80s.)

Paranoia specifically encourages you to "create the illusion of fairness" which I think is the fore runner of concepts like tuning rules to reflect perceptions rather than physics. (Sigh.) Specifically: Primetime Adventures uses a fluctuating value for screen presence, giving one player the "feel" of being focused on. Specifically: Unknown Armies gives you benefits for your passions (as alternatives to alignments, etc., when trying to motivate players.)

R. Talsorian fed its scenarios to you as TV Guide blurbs and measured injuries in terms of embarrassment levels. It gave storybuilding advice based on frustration and situation comedies.
("Frustration is funny" It said. I beleived it.) It suggested that you write out events on little cards and make up excuses to spring them on players. That works. It's taken to it's next level by Capes, I think, which has you write out specific events on little cards and assign scores to them, then has players fill in the roles which need playing. The story flows along from event to event.
In the game we played, we told a revised version of the invasion of galacticus using a gingerbread man, a guy whose only power was a big magnet and this really powerful little raccoon. We traded off characters a lot whenever we had a funny or keen idea for one player. We all had fun. We're going to do it again.

So, yeah. Letting go - as in not, for instance, running the entire game from a map with numbered and pre-planned encounters on it, gives you a lot more options to fit the game to the players.

Arpie wrote:
So, yeah. Letting go - as in not, for instance, running the entire game from a map with numbered and pre-planned encounters on it, gives you a lot more options to fit the game to the players.

"Well, but my players add to the game through their characters!"

...is what a common response to this is. Judd, for Forge folks this rhetoric might work. But to convey what you mean you have to include what you mean specifically by

let go and followed the player's lead but still was a strong leader.

Mike wrote:
So, Judd, give an example of your first trepidation in Dust Devils in giving up control of...what?

Mike

Well, yeah. Still a bit vague. I was hoping for a "In one session Player A lost the conflict, but had high card, and narrated..."

Mike

Mike wrote:
Well, yeah. Still a bit vague. I was hoping for a "In one session Player A lost the conflict, but had high card, and narrated..."

Mike

Paka wrote:

But even through my 20's when I was really putting in my time with the GM's Heavy Bag, pounding away on a year and a half long Ars Magica game or the year long Deadlands campaign, I still didn't realize that the magic in those games happened when I let go and followed the player's lead but still was a strong leader.

I'm not even talking about not running modules, I'm talking about coming to grips with the very real fact that games rock harder when everyone at the table gives something to the session and shapes it.