Quote from: jeff37923If the print run is only 20 copies then that doesn't say much.


So here's your chance to change my opinion. Tell me about the game and why I'm mischaracterizing it. In your own words, of course.

I have no idea what size the print run was, but there appeared to be more than 20 copies at the booth when I bought it (it's in pamphlet form, since it's just an ashcan at this point).  

As for the game, I think I'll write a review of it, preferably after a playtest game.

Quote from: droogI dunno. I guess I don't think it needs 'justification'. But if you've sufficiently enjoyed one game by somebody, you've got a good chance of enjoying another.

Oh there's more to that leap than that simple dodge you either knowingly or unknowingly made there.

DitV is basically the exact same product and attempt as Poison'd- making a game that explores "how far will you go". The only difference is that it picked a subject that wouldn't by it's natue immediately go as far as fast.

Quote from: One Horse TownConsidering that the AP was not just a random 'at home game' and was a demo at Gencon, the biggest RPG con, then i'd assume the same.

Excellent point.

Quote from: KenHRTo imagine that this can be legislated from the outset by a set of rules is dubious at best, dishonest at worst.

I agree with everything in your post; however, the mechanics of Forge-y games do accomplish something, it's just not something as sexy as reliably producing the next Godfather or Taxi Driver. Namely, they arbitrate the moment-to-moment question of who has narrative authority, and some of them even include a formal feedback system where you tend to get more authority if the other players like what you do with it. (No, they don't do this perfectly; it's often still possible within the formal mechanics to try an end-run. E.g., in Dogs, you could make ridiculous Raises or try to declare a conflict that resolves the whole scenario in one go. Or in Polaris you could simply narrate stuff that contradicts or undercuts whatever the people to your right and left have done, as long as the person opposite you agrees.)

The people playing still need to be socially and aesthetically compatible, but if we take that as given--and in some ways, this is accomplished through culture-formation among Forge fans--the power-sharing undoubtedly has benefits (note, benefits, not necessarily advantages over traditional games), while the arbitration at least offers a way to avoid unintentional "power struggle" compared to freeform rules-less collaborative storytelling.

QuoteThe best a game like this could do to communicate "meaning" would be on par with an after-school special.  And that ain't Art-with-a-capital-A no matter how many ways you slice it.

I think it could do better, but again, it would depend on the players. The game can also help by including excellent advice & guidelines, or analysis and criticism of genre sources. Thus the "rules" for town creation in Dogs are a useful structure (even if they'll still yield trite situations in the hands of a hack), and the analysis of S&S (esp. as compared with generic or "Tolkien" fantasy) in Sorcerer and Sword is pretty useful (not to mention the campaign examples). But those are things that most people would see as "fluff" which could be applied to any game, Forge-y or not.

Quote from: Kyle AaronMaybe, yes. But I also have a regular game group. I have a strong suspicion that the lads who have their characters rape dead kids do not have a regular game group. Or they do at least have the choice of a narrower range of gamers to play with.

As an aside, I think it was a woman who narrated that bit at the demo...

EDIT:

Quote from: HollianI apologize for my general fucked-upness. I am aware that rape is not cool. There's a whole other thread possible on why we say sick things and find them funny, but I do and mostly get away with it because I'm a girl.

Quote from: Elliot WilenI agree with everything in your post; however, the mechanics of Forge-y games do accomplish something, it's just not something as sexy as reliably producing the next Godfather or Taxi Driver.

I think the simple statement of your post comes down to this- it provides an illusion that they are doing something they think is art.

Hey, they may very well produce art (or rather quality stories combined with a meaningful shared experience, I'm not very enthusiastic about the "is it art?" debate). It's just that the game itself doesn't guarantee it; to be snarky, which is the road we're going down now, you could say the game provides cover for believing you're doing something great and meaningful even if you aren't, or for justifying what happens in-game by appealing to the same authority/insecurity dynamic which is often used to justify stuff like a $100 million diamond-studded platinum skull.

Quote from: Elliot WilenHey, they may very well produce art (or rather quality stories combined with a meaningful shared experience, I'm not very enthusiastic about the "is it art?" debate). It's just that the game itself doesn't guarantee it; to be snarky, which is the road we're going down now, you could say the game provides cover for believing you're doing something great and meaningful even if you aren't, or for justifying what happens in-game by appealing to the same authority/insecurity dynamic which is often used to justify stuff like a $100 million diamond-studded platinum skull.

So this is more of a debate as to whether the games are high art or low art?

Quote from: Kyle AaronMaybe, yes. But I also have a regular game group. I have a strong suspicion that the lads who have their characters rape dead kids do not have a regular game group. Or they do at least have the choice of a narrower range of gamers to play with.

I've gotten the impression that the circle of gamers is fairly large, but kind of spread out, with smaller sub-sections kinda spread across long distances.

Games tend to be at conventions or small groups at home. In a lot of ways, not much different then the situation for lots of gamers, except it's a small group that games according to a subset of theory, and so the one group is nearly fully representative.

Quote from: BalbinusBut it's hard to top storming the Reichstag, fighting through every floor and then suddenly realising that you've won and it's all over.

That was just incredible. Best computer game moment I remember having.

QuoteIncidentally, I thought Ian actually said somewhere he was trying to sell the game?  He's not a shill because he does enjoy it, but I think he is trying to market it, in part because he said so.

Yes, stated like that it's true, but there's a difference between enthusiastically if misguidedly posting about a game and being a snake-oil merchant. And that diff is a function of competence. Ian has played a vast range of games. The kool-aid faction are clueless 25-year-olds who no longer even know what *nineties* games were all about.

I don't have much to say about the game in particular. It's a Vincent Baker design, so it most probably has issues in play anyway. I'm not too outraged by the themes, although this definitly isn't my cup of tea.

But I find the contrast between the reactions to FATAL and Poison'd on rpg.net to be very enlightnening.

Really makes me happy I'm not posting there anymore.

I know this is going to sound like heresy but after RPGsite, my second favorite forum is quickly becoming story-games.

RPG.net is now strictly a "what's new" ressource for me. It's so big that it pretty much garantees they break many news. But as far as actual discussions? It wasn't worth posting anymore and now, it's isn't even worth reading for me.

PS, wow it's all about art now. Well, have fun with all that, but as someone who deals with this professionally I've seen very, very few real artists in the RPG scene. Gene Weigel is definitely one, and I'm not referring to his cyclops drawing skills (which aren't bad, mind you), ditto in a different way David Johansen. But the Forge... I can't think of one, frankly... there may be one or two around, but they get buried under all these ISSSUES, like "ediginess" and all that shit. So, the pretenses, so far from actually being the art, make the art so much harder to spot.

Quote from: John MorrowAnother article you might be interested in on this topic, and relevant RPGs, too:
http://hollylisle.com/fm/Workshops/suckitudinous.html

Yessss... Embrace the Tapioca, brother, and join the Gray Side of the Force.

Yup, that would be what I'm talking about, there.   Thanks for the linkie.


I received this link from someone recently and thought it may have some bearing on this:  The Secret Source of Suckitudinousness.   I suspect this has at least *something* to do with all the Story-Nihilism spewing out of Hollywood, the News/Mass Media and Game Industry.   :eek:

In any event, I maintain that Good Story is the best counter-attack, and  Great Story is even better.    The cognisant dissonance comes in, however, when I try to contemplate: Why it is that those who are promoting "Narrativist - Story Games" (who I should think *would* be natural allies in the Quest for Great Story) would also be the same ones championing Suckitudinousness in the form of Poisonous Games... ??  

*Zzzzzzot!*  Synaptic Melt Down.

What the fuck is so great about art?

For myself, as a good hardcore Nietzschean, to name the guy who's not so strangely absent from that website even though it was he who put the term on the seriously philosophical map, I consider "stories" in general to be nihilist. Very much including "good" ones.

Nihilism is a hatred for the world fueled by fear--the fear that the world is not made for humans, that it doesn't bow to their wishes, that the meaning they map onto it is just that, an add-on that sometimes comes off, and what's laid bare at that moment is not pretty.

Vincent Baker's moralization of the meaninglessness of violence is an example for that fear. His remedy: story. You may commit the most atrocious act of violence... but at least you go to hell for that. So it wasn't all in vein. There's some real meaning to be had here--punishment, torment and all the rest of it.

In other words, nihilism is not about the edgy erosion of "values" (which doesn't happen in Poison'd, given its moralism). It's about trying to glue values to the world until it looks tolerable.