Quote from: CalithenaI was responding to an earlier poster who was mocking game designers who bragged about selling 1 or 2 thousand copies. I'd love to write anything that sold 1 or 2 thousand copies.

If you were talking about me (and I hope you weren't) I was certainly not mocking people who had sold a couple of thousand copies of their game; in fact I think it's impressive. What I was comparing was the criteria for success in the indie and traditional market, and the fact that the most succesful indie games of all sell a tiny fraction of traditional games such as those released by Hasbro or Mongoose. In other words, the so-called threat to traditional games is a shibboleth. The fact that your criteria for success aligns with indie games rather than mainstream games is neither here nor there.

Quote from: Lee Short*THIS* is what has poisoned the well:  well-meaning people who have given their (mostly passive) support to Ron's theories.

Can you elaborate a little on what this passive support by humble, positive people actually is?

Is it people who are saying that other people are brain-damaged ... but in a way that's not arrogant or negative?  It's hard for me to see that kind of thing as not being negative, so I could use some help if that's the claim.

Or is it simply people who support the theories by omission ... by merely disagreeing with them, but not condemning them (whatever that means)?

I'm just trying to get a notion of what you're talking about here.  This whole "There is no number of positive, humble people who make up for a single asshole" thing sounds awfully bleak to me.

PG - it was you, and thanks for clearing that up. Something about the way you said it made me take the harsher interpretation of your words.

Some of you fuckers need to Chill Out.
You know who you are.
S'all I'm sayin'.

Quote from: TonyLBCan you elaborate a little on what this passive support by humble, positive people actually is?

Is it people who are saying that other people are brain-damaged ... but in a way that's not arrogant or negative?  It's hard for me to see that kind of thing as not being negative, so I could use some help if that's the claim.

Or is it simply people who support the theories by omission ... by merely disagreeing with them, but not condemning them (whatever that means)?

I'm just trying to get a notion of what you're talking about here.  This whole "There is no number of positive, humble people who make up for a single asshole" thing sounds awfully bleak to me.

You're right that saying "People have been brain damaged by traditional rpgs" in a way that's not arrogant or offensive is simply not possible.  Saying "rpg players form habits" actually captures the whole of the meaning, other than the gratuitous judgementalism.  About 90% of Ron's message in that series of post is tied up in gratuitous judgementalism.  So standing up for Ron's post in nearly any way is standing up for that judgementalism.  The way to stand up for his post without standing up for his value judgement is to come out and say "what Ron said is shitty, but I think there's a valuable thought behind it..."  I can't remember anyone doing that at the time, though.  Or another way would be to wait for the topic to cool off and post your thoughts on the topic in a completely new thread, phrased your own way.  But responding to the justified cries of outrage with a simple level-headed "what I got out of Ron's post was XXX, so let's talk about that" is nothing other than pandering to Ron's judgementalism and the nasty emotional message that his posts conveyed.  It is either denying that Ron's post has a nasty emotional message or denying that people rightfully ought to be offended by it.  

In general, the litmus test is this:  has your partication in The Forge given support to the judgmental parts of the theory?  Do you use value-laden terms like Illusionism, Incoherence, Ouija Board, etc?  Even if you don't use those terms, are there assumptions in your discourse that are heavily value laden (ie; rules are the best way to solve player social problems and games without such rules are deficient; traditional games rely on 'GM Fiat' but DitV doesn't; traditional games rely on Illusionism or Participationism; etc etc etc)?  With Ron's moderation policies, giving support to the judgmental parts of the theory is pretty much the price of admission to the Forge community.  More properly stated, not objecting to the judgmental parts of the theory is the price of admission at The Forge.  Posters like Paka showed that it is possible to be accepted at The Forge and not promote the negativity.  But it's a tough line to walk, and not many did it successfully.  In large part, I think many in the community there were simply oblivious to the negativity in the theory (insert parable about fish in water).   Many more didn't see how they were giving strength to it.  Hell, I think Ron himself is in major denial about the negativity in the theory.  

QuoteOr is it simply people who support the theories by omission ... by merely disagreeing with them, but not condemning them (whatever that means)?

If you disagree with the theories but don't discuss them at all, you haven't given them support.  

If you disagree with the theories but continue to discuss things using the theory's language and with its viewpoint and assumptions, then yes you are supporting the theory's hegemony.  As I noted above, this is pretty much the price of admission to ongoing theory discussion at The Forge.  

If you disagree with the theories but regularly respond to posts that question the value of the theory with "but I think the theory has some value" and never with "yes the theory has serious flaws; let's look at alternatives" -- then yes you are supporting the theory's hegemony.  I understand that this is much a half-empty/half-full sort of thing but nonetheless that pattern supports the theory.  

If you are aware of the nasty emotional content in the theory but are not willing to acknowledge it and instead always direct such threads onto to the analytical content of the theory -- then yes you are supporting the theory.  

In short:  yes, there are about a million ways you can support the theory even if you disagree with it.

Lee:  What if you find some bits of the theory useful (and can express them in a genuinely humble and positive way) and only talk about those?

I'm not sure I buy this notion that all the theory-thought that comes out of the Forge is inseparably one hegemony, and that supporting any of it is supporting all of it.  Can you explain a bit more why you think that is (if, indeed, I've read you correctly)?

QuoteHell, I think Ron himself is in major denial about the negativity in the theory.  

Worse. He´s oblivious to it. He´s oblivious to a lot of things. Especially how things come across when he says them.
Oh, he knows when he´s being offensive, that he´s being offensive.

But he is oblivious to the self-relevation parts in many of his utterances.

And he is oblivious to the fact that people in the room are smarter or more exerienced than he is. And this is...well...not helping.

I wanted to quote Lee for Truth, but the damn thing was too long.

That's the best explanation I've heard about how it looks/feels with respect to the Forge discussion.  "Go read these terms and understand them and then we can have a discussion."  It's really a way of saying, "The price of admission is that you will speak about games in this value laden way or we will not dicuss it with you."

It's a perfect description.  Thanks, Lee.

Quote from: TonyLBLee:  What if you find some bits of the theory useful (and can express them in a genuinely humble and positive way) and only talk about those?

I'm not sure I buy this notion that all the theory-thought that comes out of the Forge is inseparably one hegemony, and that supporting any of it is supporting all of it.  Can you explain a bit more why you think that is (if, indeed, I've read you correctly)?

Well, I wouldn't say that the theory is all of one piece.  Certainly you can talk about flags and kickers and bangs independent of GNS and independent of coherence.  You can also talk about Stances independent of these things.  But you can't talk about Simulationism independent of Incoherence or Narrativism or Illusionism or Partipationism or Dysfunction or Deprotagonization.  And you can't talk about Rewards, as the forge defines them, without talking about CA and Instance of Play, which of course means bringing in G/N/S and all the baggage that goes with that -- or you have to do some real handwaving if you do.  

So some parts of the theory are tied together and others aren't so much.  So you can have a perfectly good conversation about flags which might support the hegemony of that term in that subfield without supporting the hegemony of the terms Simulationism and Dysfunction in their subfields.  But you can't really discuss Creative Agenda without supporting the hegemony of the terms Incoherent, Simulationism, etc. in their particular areas.  

So, yeah, it's certainly possible to directly support some bits of the theory but not others.  

But let's consider the case of the unnuanced "GNS theory is teh suck" post.  If you respond to that post with "I've found value in the theory and it improved my gaming" rather than "I've found value in parts of the theory and it improved my gaming but other parts of the theory are wonky and unjustifiably negative about other styles of gaming."  The first of these responses is an unnuanced response which supports the hegemony of all parts of The Forge's theory.  Your actions have in fact buttressed even those parts of the theory that you may not agree with.  

The detailed answer is:  it's all a matter of how you do it.  It's certainly possible to do it.   But just because you are only talking about part of the theory does not mean that you are not supporting the rest.

Quote from: Lee ShortBut let's consider the case of the unnuanced "GNS theory is teh suck" post.  If you respond to that post with "I've found value in the theory and it improved my gaming" rather than "I've found value in parts of the theory and it improved my gaming but other parts of the theory are wonky and unjustifiably negative about other styles of gaming."  The first of these responses is an unnuanced response which supports the hegemony of all parts of The Forge's theory.

Ah, gotcha.

I think I'd say, instead, that it can be read (quite reasonably) as supporting all parts of the Forge's theory ... in the same way that it can be read (again, quite reasonably) as meaning the same thing as the second statement.  It is, as you said, an unnuanced statement.  It leaves some things to the interpretation of the reader.

Does that sound like a fair (if not necessarily an important) distinction to you?

Tony, you aren´t helping yourself right now.

How about being a sensible guy?
Don´t pull this Socratic bullshit.

Don´t you, in all honesty, see how the Forgers are perceived from the outside?

Can´t you imagine what and why people think what they do?

Your question game seems to aim for "I just wanna understand".

But it truly reeks a lot like shrewd defensive strategy, playing innocent. I don´t buy it.

But, alas, whatever the answer may be (stupendous naivité bordering Melinglorian levels or purposeful obnoxiousness): You won´t stop.

On the Incoherence thing...

If you liked play that switched back and forth between doing different kinds of things with your exploration (oh, just say, for fun, taking on risk and challenge, exploring particular stuff really intensely, and addressing emotionally or morally fraught material), you could call this kind of play, with some justification, coherent. After all, coherence in wave mechanics is when you have different waves interfering with one another, which interference can be constructive (all three go together harmoniously) as well as destructive (they fuck each other up). But both the constructive and destructive interference are examples of coherence.

From this you get good and bad coherent play based on whether you've got constructive or destructive interference. If you're afraid of the destructive interference, you can act on this fear by decohering the different waves. Therefore Creative-Agenda focused play in the Forge sense is actually decoherent play, whereas those of you who happily move around between Forge-described Creative Agendas are playing coherently with a constructive interference between the three agendas.

There, wasn't that easy? You've turned their words back on them!

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I find the umbrage about Illusionism in this thread amusing, given that this site seems to be full of a lot of hard-core anti-railroading old-school D&D/Runequest/Fantasy Trip types. I would think that this part of the theory would suit you fine. Illusionism is a technique employed by e.g. the first Dragonlance module (where no matter how you deal with one encounter, the next one comes at you exactly the same way, giving your characters effectively no influence over the environment or story), and most of you hate it. Railroading is one form of Illusionism.

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I'm suspicious of what Ron writes about Ouija-board Narrativism as well.

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So I broke my personal rule for this site and discussed Forge stuff: I doubt it will happen again.

Why did I bother? It's your language, folks. You own the words. You're grownups and it doesn't matter what some fucking asshole says on the internet if you don't want to agree. (I personally like Ron and have found him and his ideas very helpful to me, but I get that a lot of you don't.) Suck it up and think the stuff through for yourself; use the terms the way you want to.

As it is, it's fucking pathetic, like listening to rich white guys whine about how feminism or Affirmative Action is unfair to them. I know the pleasures of resentment are endlessly tempting, no matter how much you have in life, but they're not worth the price. Someone else thinks differently about things than you do and maybe even judges you or what you do negatively for it: suck it up and be your own man.

Lee, you're awesome.

In other news, claiming that you can talk in the Jargon of the Forge without supporting Ron Edward's asinine motives is a little like saying you can claim to be a "little bit Creationist" without opposing science.

RPGPundit

I still think a gated community is a good idea.

In fact, I'm going to open one together with Elliot. We will call it "My Friend Harvey," after the Jimmie Stewart movie.

Don't tell Elliot, it's supposed to be a surpise.

Quote from: SettembriniDon´t you, in all honesty, see how the Forgers are perceived from the outside?

Oh, absolutely.  But what I'm interested in is whether there's anything I (and by extension my humble, positive, theory-lovin' friends) can do, from the inside, that makes any difference in whether we're seen that way.

Because, frankly, if there's something I can do within the context of ... y'know ... the fact that I get value from parts of the theory then I'd like to do it.  But if I'm damned by association from the get-go no matter what I do then I'll just say "Okay then, there's nothing to be done," and proceed just the way I've been doing so far.