Quote from: pigames.netWow - that Wick stuff is pretty screwed up.

I'm normally a fan of his stuff but the whole Fightor thing sounded pretty assholeish.  Although his ideas for the fantasy game he wants to do sound really interesting and the stuff he has written on it since are really good.

QuoteYour character's name is a mechanic that gives bonuses to your rolls.
Your character's background is a mechanic that gives bonuses to your rolls.
Your character's family is a mechanic that gives bonuses to your rolls.
Gender is (if not a mechanic) a crucial element of play.
Economy is a mechanic your character can interact with and influence.
The upper class is the focus of the game and crucial to the world's survival.
The law is not only present, but a mechanic players can interact with and influence.

Hmm. HeroQuest.

!i!

Quote from: RPGObjects_chuckYou seriously believe focus on table play was invented by the Forge?

I always considered Gary Gygax and Aaron Allston to be very, very, play/table focused.

Erik has a point. If I understand him correctly, he wasn't referring to D&D circa 1978. He was referring to the settings bloat of late AD&D 10+ years later... when D&D got chatty, so to speak.

It's plausible that Forge analysis of various gaming styles further drove home the point to various designers involved in D&D post-2E what the core of D&D pre-2E had been, or in any case what that core now looked like in retrospect.

In some but not all respects, that core is the polar opposite of the dominant style favored at the Forge. Nonetheless, gamism was one of the paradigms it anayzed, and in some examples tried to mesh with narrativism (bidding for narration--the Forger's powergaming). And besides, one can get a heightened sense of what one is doing by negative example: "Forge games are story in its pure state. So, let D&D be crunch in its pure state."

Or, the point Erik is making: Unlike 1990s games, Forge games are all about the play, not about the reading, and so is 3.x, or so it started out anyway.

So, if late AD&D was both storyesque and crunchy (settings, Skillz & Powerz), and if '90s games were as much for play as for reading, both Forge games and 3.x departed from that in their own distinct yet comparable ways. They stripped away the hybridity and the superfluous stuff, or what looked like it.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityErik has a point. If I understand him correctly, he wasn't referring to D&D circa 1978. He was referring to the settings bloat of late AD&D 10+ years later... when D&D got chatty, so to speak.

Even so, it's worth noting that D&D 3x was being developed while the Forge was in still in its infancy and most of their theories didn't exist at all or were still being hashed out. Their current philosophy bears little resemblance to their philosophy circa 2000 AD -- back then, drama-driven, story-oriented, play and transparent mechanics were the way of the future and everything else was The Devil.

Today, story-driven drama is almost verboten at the Forge (hence the formation of places like the Story Games Community) and meaningful complexity that empowers players is the order of the day. Games like The Window (once championed by the Forge) are now regarded as abominations. Things have changed quite a bit. In fact. . . I think that current Forge philosophy seems to have taken more from D&D 3x than their old philosophy contributed to it.

James, I'm sure you're right, and it would be madness to argue Ron Edwards invented 3E by negative example or anything. But there's a weird indirect parallelism that's fascinating.

The last part I didn't quite grasp, because I stopped visiting the place over a year ago--what's the latest trend, and is there a game that exeplifies it?

QuoteBut there's a weird indirect parallelism that's fascinating.

No it´s pretty obvious. It´s caused by Blume, Williams, Hickman and Rein-Hagen.

The stuff that happened in the nineties to the US gaming, which basically was a 130° turn from AD&D 1st or the BECMI, had happened in germany right in the eighties.

The Forge is a result, not a cause of the paradigm clash involved in US gaming.

EDIT: And the paradigm clash was basically all laid out on  gamin advocacy and gaming outpost.

And this paradigm clash goes back to the first time someone into superhero comics-stories but not into wargaming picked up RPGs and wanted to experience those thematics with RPGs instead of solving problems at the table.

It´s all about the history of reception.

Quote from: Erik BoielleWhat? You haven't noticed the razor sharp play focus of recent DnD over pointless world building or all that other 90's crap?

Listen to the DnD podcast dude - Mike Mearls is all focused on how things work at the table, rather than the non-gaming part of the hobby.

Obviously that came from the forge.

Yeah.. sure.. it came from that, and not from Peter Adkinson's and Ryan Dancey's rebellion against story-based gaming... :rolleyes:

RPGPundit

...which was in turn a reactonary movement harkening back to AD&D first and  RC/BECMI.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityOr, the point Erik is making: Unlike 1990s games, Forge games are all about the play, not about the reading, and so is 3.x, or so it started out anyway.

That's no surprise, both D20 and the Forge/GNS were reactions to the White Wolf Story-based Gaming of the 90s, but they were two VERY different responses. One went back toward the mainstream and actual fun play, while the other went of into pseudo-intellectual wackyland.

RPGPundit

Hofrat, your post needs some unpacking.... bearing in mind that arguably the Threefold was invisible to most people who weren't infraweb geeks from very early on; that Ron & some al. were part of gaming outpost also; and that, while the paradigm discussions had been around for a long time, critical mass (i.e., a significant number of actual games) was reached only in the Forge era.

How Hickman & ReinHagen "caused" anything is unclear to me--except if you mean they "caused" both 3E/Tweet and Edwards to run away from their stuff at full speed (if in different directions).

Well, fuck. I don't know about "movements", but I do know that you cannot have a meaningful campaign unless detailed time records are kept.

Stick that in your milieu and smoke it, Uncle Ronny!

Quote from: Settembrini...which was in turn a reactonary movement harkening back to AD&D first and  RC/BECMI.

Or so it seems to you, padawan.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityThe last part I didn't quite grasp, because I stopped visiting the place over a year ago--what's the latest trend, and is there a game that exeplifies it?

The latest trend is toward, not transparent mechanics that address only one or two key aspets around which all play revolves by default, but substantive mechanics that validate their existence by fulfilling a wide range of very specific functions in actual play that can accommodate many different styles of play.

I think, for me, Burning Wheel and Burning Empires epitomize this paradigm shift. Look for things like weapon reach, wealth rolls, and lifepath character generation. These are not the product of Sorcerer and the theories that it was built upon. These are the products of Forge theory re-engineered in the wake of D&D 3x's success.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityOr so it seems to you, padawan.

Oh, 'cmon, we all know that story-centric roleplay was in full swing during the Spring of 1976 :rolleyes:

Good grief.

The only thing that emerged out of The Forge were the games, and a movement veeeery similar to the one for open source software (the parallels are actually quite terrifying). I don't give a flying duck about the movement (and in a strange coincidence I feel the same way towards OSS), just the games. And some excellent games DID emerge as a result of it.

But as I said before, these little thought colonies are rather isolated, and it's more likely that D20 game designers hit upon the same ideas independently of The Forge. I mean, the new Star Wars Saga Ed feels a LOT like FATE to me, and even has mechanics for destiny. It's got a very 'forgey' feel to it though I doubt The Forge had anything to do with it.

Quote from: JimBobOzGygax's advice was to "expel" any players who were "disruptive" as Wick was trying to be... that is, if the "blue bolt from heaven doing damage on the offender's head" didn't work.

You know, you got a point. The Pundit did the same thing in a Vampire game, and now I'm wondering exactly how often this kind of thing happens at conventions. Regardless, I've had enough problem players to know that the only way to deal with them is to kick them out of the game. Punishing them via game mechanics never works.

But the difference is that while The Pundit was trying to (and from what I understand, successfully) piss everyone off, nobody was having any problem with Wick. The way he was playing was not seen as dysfunctional or disruptive.

Quote from: John WickI played in a whole series of RPGA events this way. Not once did anyone say anything about my character's oddities or behavior... because they were never an issue. Not once. Fighter was a nameless, sexless killing machine with no past, no friends, no family, no history. And Fighter thrived.

And I am suspicious of your theory that he was being politely tolerated because it seems most gamers are anything BUT tolerant (let alone polite about it) of people who play RPGs 'wrong' (let alone of John Wick), at least if forums like this are anything to go by.