Hello!

One of my long-standing projects was to write a series of posts with a "best threads compilation" for a indie rpg.  None of these compilation is at this time really ready or complete, but seeing that in three weeks the Forge will close, I post them now or never...

In the state they are now, these can't be really called list of "best threads". So I am calling them "a few threads about..."

These threads are obviously open to contributions: if you know a thread that in your opinion should be in this list, post the link.

Today, we look a IT WAS A MUTUAL SITUATION (2006) by Ron Edwards

The history of the game is neatly explained by the author in this thread from april 2006:
[It Was a Mutual Decision] Case study for discussion
The thread turn quickly in a discussion about printing, layout, etc in general, the part about IWAMD is in the first page.

But before that, the first mention of the game was in November 2005, [It Was a Mutual Decision] Girlfriend + Rat, and then at the publication time (april 2006) in [It Was a Mutual Decision] My first game at Forge Midwest. Both threads cover the reasoning and aesthetic choices during game creation, not specific rules questions

The first thread about rules questions is this:
[It Was a Mutual Decision] mechanics question  :  When ticking off scores, are the transformation threshholds the ORIGINAL scores or the Trust-modified scores? and other questions about the tick-marks and their effects.

Both a detailed actual play and a list of rules clarifications:
[It Was A Mutual Decision] Huw and Delphine
1. Only one point of Trust can be spent at a time.
2. Using three or four black dice does not establish a character as a were-rat; it requires hinting that the character might be a were-rat. Technically, no literal were-rattiness should have entered your story at all, because neither character had all three scores transformed into their new names.
- the rule that an action can either be utilizing the named score, or struggling against it. This applies to every usable score: Needy, Stubborn, Cunning, Greedy, and Murderous.

Another actual play thread, by Jesse Burneko, and a following thread about gender rules...
[It Was A Mutual Decision] OrcCon 2007

An enlightening actual play thread:
[It Was A Mutual Decision] [Forge Midwest] Scared by rats

More rules questions:
It Was a Mutual Decision- Some Questions
[It was a mutual decision] Trust enhanced scores?

This is not a thread but a single post (part of a post) from Ron about demo play:
GenCon demos that I ran, 2007
One caution: if anyone plans on demoing this game, stay strictly to the rule about player gender. You'll need women to play the men, and men to play the woman. This feature should not be sacrificed to the convenience of demo play. I've tried it the other way "just because" and regretted it sorely; the demo did not "snap" without it.

Not a whole lot of things to read, eh? In fact, "It was a mutual decision" was not in my initial list of games to talk about in these posts: the threads and the questions are so few that everybody can simply search them for himself with little effort. But I had to search for them to organize a IWAMD game at Internoscon, so why don't post it here?

The "Scared by rats" thread has always pissed me off. Seth ported one of his posts in the Knife Fight thread Best game I played that tackles gender issues to start it. The original thread was begun by John and was unconditionally positive; note its title. John and his wife praised the game for actually bringing genuine loveinto play. Unfortunately reading that thread requires signing onto the Knife Fight, which is at least a logistic barrier. So instead of the understanding for the game which that thread would have promoted, we get Seth's misrepresentation that play traumatized someone at the table (which it didn't), and especially his phrasing in his first few posts which blamed the game itself. I doubt anyone ever got to his final posts which admitted that he hadn't read it beforehand and had mistakenly thought it was supposed to be a "hilarity ensues" type of comedy.

Best, Ron