This is the primary discussion forum at the Forge. There are a few operative principles governing posting here, and within their bounds, you are wildly and nakedly free to post as you see fit.

1. Posting here is about discourse. It can light and funny, deep and intense, or whatever, but whatever you write, the ideas and points may be subjected to scrutiny. People are to be treated with genuine courtesy; ideas are here for all-out dissection. Or more gently, for comparison and reflection.

Each thread must have a topic, and the replies should stay with it. Discussions can often spark new topics, and I ask that you pay attention to those times when you really want to talk about something besides the thread's topic. When that happens, please start a new thread. You can always include a link to the original thread for context. Threads can become twisted and humpbacked under accumulated topics, so it will greatly help me, and the site as a whole, if you self-regulate toward this end.

2. When you begin a thread, please include some account of or reference to any experience with role-playing. It can be from the distant past or a session you finished five minutes ago; it can be brief or long, detailed or sketchy; it can be about the game as a whole across ten years of play, or about five isolated minutes of play. It's helpful to name the game and to give a little social context.

The sole purpose for this requirement is for people to understand exactly what you mean. Long experience has shown me that without such content, discussions about role-playing swiftly nose-dive into multiple individual soliloquies.

3. Be quite familiar with the Site Discussion sticky, which concerns general etiquette and moderation here. As moderator, I am especially intolerant of what I perceive as intellectual, emotional, or social dishonesty.

4. "Theory," here, has a simple definition: making sense. It doesn't necessarily mean abstract, or complicated, or profound. You are welcome to introduce any concepts or ideas about role-playing for purposes of discussion. Over the years here, I've summarized some of my conclusions about role-playing in the Big Model (humorously named), which you can read about in the Articles section if you want. You're not expected to agree with any of it in order to post here, nor is this site supposed to be some kind of armed camp dedicated to its defense. That said, if you want to understand it better, or if anything in the articles seems wrong to you, then post about it here using the rules above, especially #2.

A system crash forced us to push material before 2008 into an archive, separate from this forum. To see those threads, which go back to 2001, go to the Actual Play Archive. You can sign in with the same username and password you use here; those threads are closed to posting but you can run searches.