Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;418018Well, in practice the theory is going to be used for classifying people.

To the extent that I follow/understand Forge RPG theory (which is small-ish), the purpose of these ideas was to help dissatisfied gamers find better games, and help game designers make new games. I don't believe anyone involved in forming these theories has ever suggested it was intended to be used to categorize gamers.

Now, as you say, this is often what people have done. But how does that reflect poorly on the creators of the theory? If you use something incorrectly, you can hardly blame its maker.

"This hammer was a really terrible tool for opening my soda. I blame the hammer manufacturer for that, since, in practice, people are going to use this tool for opening soda bottles."

Also, I suspect that many of the people on this thread who are so filled with indignant condemnation over the games of Vincent Baker and other Forge designers have never actually played any of these games.  So your ideas about are mostly ignorant*.

* Where the word "ignorant" is used merely as a descriptor, meaning "lacking knowledge", rather than a pejorative.

Quote from: BWA;418045Also, I suspect that many of the people on this thread who are so filled with indignant condemnation over the games of Vincent Baker and other Forge designers have never actually played any of these games.  So your ideas about are mostly ignorant*.

* Where the word "ignorant" is used merely as a descriptor, meaning "lacking knowledge", rather than a pejorative.

I don't know whether I'm "indignant", but I do know I'm pretty tired of the whole "you can't judge a thing or its effects til you've tried it".  It gets trotted out a lot in this particular nerdwar, and it's pretty silly.  Am I not allowed to say "I don't think I have any real desire to see 'Tyler Perry's Why Did I Fart In Church?'" until I've watched the film?  That's ridiculous.  Adults don't talk like that to other adults.  Adults talk like that to children ("Just try the broccoli once, sweetheart, you'll like it.").  It really grinds my gears.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go sodomize one of the cats so I can later legitimately condemn bestiality.

Quote from: BWA;418045"This hammer was a really terrible tool for opening my soda. I blame the hammer manufacturer for that, since, in practice, people are going to use this tool for opening soda bottles."

Well, I always use a hammer to...

No, fair enough, I'll grant that's valid (with bonus points for hilarity*). Misuse may still reflect badly on the Forge culture in general, albeit not Edwards specifically, in this instance.



*Vector Sigma gets bonus points too. And stay away from my cat.

Quote from: Peregrin;417973GNS isn't about classifying players, it's not about classifying designs (although it can be used to study how a design works), it's about analyzing what happens when system meets actual play and how to get the most bang for your buck.

Except that even the designer used it to classify players.  From this Forge thread from 2001:

Quote from: Ron Edwards Somewhere, some place along the way, someone got the idea to defend G/N/S against the trolls by saying, "We don't use it to classify actual gamers."

Bullshit. *I* use it to classify gamers. G/N/S is about role-playing DECISIONS and PRIORITIES, and it is expressed in many ways. One of those ways is game design. Another of those ways is via a person's actual role-playing behavior.

This is not to say a person cannot demonstrate more than one of the priorities. However, in my experience, a person WILL tend to emphasize one of them, or have a favorite among the three. At that point, I say, "You are [fill in]."

Now plenty of people are sensitive to this practice, but, bluntly, Tough Shit. Sure, a person might change over time. Sure, they might not be constrained to "their" outlook 100% of the time. I am not claiming that sort of rigidity; it's not like having blue eyes or brown eyes. But the actual classification of the behaviors, especially when they are consistent over time for a person, is valid.

As for the value of Forge theory, the main value that most people seem to take away from it is that different gamers game for different reasons and that idea was explored long before Ron and the GNS going at least as far back as Glenn Blacow's "Aspects of Adventure Gaming" in Different Worlds #10 in 1980.  

The main value designers seem to have gotten from Forge their was the whole coherence/incoherence idea that it's better to design a game specialized for a single style of play at the expense of all others rather than to design a game that has something to offer everyone, an idea that seems to have made it as far into the mainstream as 4th Edition D&D, which seemed to treat representational mechanics as expendable, even though it's been the non-representative mechanics that D&D has had since the beginning (e.g., hit points, class limitations, etc.) that have drawn the most criticism because they are essential to players who value verisimilitude and some correspondence between the rules and the reality of the game setting.  

To quote Ryan Dancey from 2000, explaining the approach taken by D&D 3e based on marketing research:

Quote from: Ryan DanceyWe believe that a game that appeals to all four differentiated segments [...] is a game that is likely to have strong overall sales and retain long term interest in the player community.

Games that lack support for one of the four differentiated segments struggle, and games that lack support for more than one are rarely played (though frustratingly for some such a game may be the >perfect< game for one of the subgroups; the problem is finding two or more people of the same inclination to play the game regularly).

What Forge theory promoted for years was the opposite, that it was better to create the >perfect< game for one style of play (what Dancey calls a "segment" or "subgroup" here), even if it's at the expense of other styles of play.  The reason why many people have no interest in Forge games (or D&D 4th Edition, for that matter) is that the designers made a conscious decision to maximize certain styles of play at the expense of other styles of play and, SURPRISE!, the people who enjoy those styles of play given short shrift don't have any use for those games and react with a bit of hostility at condescending suggestions that there is something wrong with them for not liking those games and maybe not wanting highly specialized games that, at times, resemble rules wrapped around a single adventure scenario.

Quote from: RPGPundit;418002In the first, I declared that 4e was clearly not going to be an abject sort of failure.

I'm sure that's exactly what you said...

Seanchai

Quote from: John Morrow;418063Except that even the designer used it to classify players.  From this Forge thread from 2001 ...

Huh. Well, that certainly seems to be at odds with what I understood the point of most Forge theories to be. But there you are. My understanding is limited.

I'm not sure I could categorize myself thusly, nor do I think there would be much value in doing so.

Quote from: VectorSigma;418046I don't know whether I'm "indignant", but I do know I'm pretty tired of the whole "you can't judge a thing or its effects til you've tried it".  It gets trotted out a lot in this particular nerdwar, and it's pretty silly.  Am I not allowed to say "I don't think I have any real desire to see 'Tyler Perry's Why Did I Fart In Church?'" until I've watched the film?  That's ridiculous.  Adults don't talk like that to other adults.  Adults talk like that to children ("Just try the broccoli once, sweetheart, you'll like it.").  It really grinds my gears.

You can say anything you like about anything, regardless of your experiences with it. The question is how valid your observations are in the absence of experience.

The primary purpose of an RPG is not to be read, or discussed on the internet, it is to be played, right? So when someone tells me all the things they think about Game X, a big question for me is "Have you ever actually played that game?". If the answer is "No, but here are my opinions on it anyway" then I'm simply less inclined to take their opinions seriously.

At some point, if you haven't played, say, Dogs in the Vineyard, but you always have something to say about it on the internet, then you're not really talking about the actual game, you're just talking about the cloud of internet jabber that clings to it. Which I guess is it's own real thing, in a way, but it's not what most of us are about, hopefully.

"GNS" has been bullshit for quite awhile now.


- Ed C.

Quote from: BWA;418069Huh. Well, that certainly seems to be at odds with what I understood the point of most Forge theories to be. But there you are. My understanding is limited.

The key part of Ron's comments that should make you wonder is where Ron attributes the "we don't use it to classify actual gamers" as a defense against trolls rather than the actual intent of the GNS.  In other words, how much of the touchy-feely claims about being non-judgmental, objectivity, and so on was simply a matter of political posturing to deflect criticism of the theory and what it was really all about?

Quote from: John Morrow;418063What Forge theory promoted for years was the opposite, that it was better to create the >perfect< game for one style of play (what Dancey calls a "segment" or "subgroup" here), even if it's at the expense of other styles of play.  The reason why many people have no interest in Forge games (or D&D 4th Edition, for that matter) is that the designers made a conscious decision to maximize certain styles of play at the expense of other styles of play and, SURPRISE!, the people who enjoy those styles of play given short shrift don't have any use for those games and react with a bit of hostility at condescending suggestions that there is something wrong with them for not liking those games and maybe not wanting highly specialized games that, at times, resemble rules wrapped around a single adventure scenario.

Point taken, and thanks for the info.  Dancey's view reflects a criticism I made a while back, which is one of my few criticisms with models that break agendas up -- you can create a game to reflect one type of play priority, but wouldn't it be easier/better to just make a game that's easily shifted towards whatever priorities take the forefront for a given group.

It does make me wonder.  Specifically about games like Burning Wheel that, while they may be driven by a specific agenda in order to "work" properly (Nar for BW as the core), they include lots of other bits for other people to hook onto (lots of skills and lifepaths for the people into the "world" aspect, lots of crunchy rules for combat for the people who love to game the system, etc).

Although I guess BW isn't exactly played by that many hardcore Forge peeps, and Luke's mostly gone on to do his own thing.

Quote from: DKChannelBoredom;417454Do you apply this to other types of art and/or entertainment also? Do you only watch feel-good, happy-go-lucky action comedies? if you do, why would anyone then watch for example "Requiem for a Dream" - are the 68.000 people who rated it 10 over at IMDB just doing it to be cool and edgy, and would actually much rather watch Cannonball Run II? Because Requim is just about as misery touristy as I can imagine anything being... but it's also SO much more.

There are things people do once to see what it's like, and then most people generally don't do it again.  Watching Requiem for a Dream is a good example of that.  I watched it once.  Love the soundtrack.  Thought it was very powerful.  I'm in no rush to watch it again.  And most normal people react to movies like that way the kid reacted in the movie version of The Princess Bride when he thought it was going to have an unhappy ending, "Jesus, Grandpa, what did you read me this thing for?"

Playing a campaign with evil PCs is another example.  Plenty of groups give it a try, particularly as teenagers and college students, but most don't seem to repeat the experience because they don't actually find it much fun.  

So where does that leave the edgy Forge games?  You spend $20 (+/-) to buy a book, invest time to learn the rules to play, convince a group of players to give it a try, and then how many times do you play it?  There are people who have played D&D campaigns that have run for decades.  How many people are running Dogs in the Vineyard campaigns for even a year or two?  

And one also has to wonder about the motivation behind making such games.

Here you can find Paul Czege talking about programming the brains of the players:

Quote from: Paul CzegeRoleplaying is increasingly the most socially threatening and personally dangerous leisure pastime in middle america. My Life with Master is a meme that infects players with a psychology for breaking out of controlling relationships. The activity of playing the game puts programming into your brain. (Thank god I have your best interests at heart.) Imagine the social and economic impact of a truly fun roleplaying game that infects players with an ability to resist powerful advertising messages and more consistently make purchasing decisions they feel good about in retrospect. Or one that exposes the extent to which our educational system works in service to corporate america and the economy and not in the interests of the individual.

Good stuff if you're a progressive. But if you're not also creeped way the fuck out, you're not paying attention. Have you read Meg Baker's ideas about using ritual in roleplaying games? Her concurrent suggestion to me was that Bacchanal players might benefit from Polaris-style ritual phrases. But the thing about ritual is that it taps way into the human reptilian brain, and makes you feel comfortable when you're not. If I ritualized Bacchanal I could temporarily make players feel comfortable about entering seriously transgressive territory. But they'd wake from it the next day, and regret having revealed their innermost secrets, or of betraying illicit desires.

"Click here to always trust and install memes from Paul Czege. He absolutely certifies they're safe."

And here a user named Corinne writes (emphasis mine):

Quote from: CorinneSeveral years ago I read A Simple Plan. Good book. Good movie too, but the book is different. You know how people say they did this and that and afterwards they "felt dirty". That's how I felt after reading that book...but not in some cliched way, but really, really dirty. I loved the book, but at the same time, I felt less good about myself for having participated in it.

AOE is a little like that. It seduces you with some real awesomeness. I mean, in one playtest, I got to play a newborn child trying to unmake his own existence amidst the chaos of Hiroshima mere moments after it was bombed. Another time I taught a man the secret language of the stars and then cradled him as he went slowly mad beneath the reeling night sky, after which he was my apprentice. I created that stuff...the characters, the settings, the mythology of it all. The game opens you up to that kind of stuff, and you gotta admit, it sounds pretty awesome. But once you're in there, oooh boy, because that stuff up above...that's the lighthearted stuff.

One of our ongoing players had to bow out after a few sessions. They didn't like that they could come up with the really awful stuff the game demands, or that they could do it over and over again, or that it seemed to get easier over time. It's a challenging game in many ways. There is, however, a secret reward for playing it...which I won't spoil here, but if it gets ironed out through these last bits of playtesting, the game is really going to sing.

So it's all just good clean fun to convince players to feel comfortable about things that naturally would make them feel uncomfortable?

Quote from: Peregrin;418073It does make me wonder.  Specifically about games like Burning Wheel that, while they may be driven by a specific agenda in order to "work" properly (Nar for BW as the core), they include lots of other bits for other people to hook onto (lots of skills and lifepaths for the people into the "world" aspect, lots of crunchy rules for combat for the people who love to game the system, etc).

While I think Burning Wheel has it's problems, I think it succeeds despite Forge theory and not because of it.

Quote from: CRKrueger;416364It's all in the intent.  Immersive role-playing isn't done with the intent of creating a story, it's done with the intent of immersing yourself into a setting and playing the role of a person in that setting.  Storygaming is about creating the story, roleplaying the character is only a means to an end, hence the typically dissociated mechanics.  With immersive role-playing, playing the role is the end itself.

Immersive role-playing is an experience, not a goal oriented activity trying to create anything.  It's like taking a roller-coaster ride or going on a vacation.  The point isn't to get to a destination.  The point is to experience what happens along the way.  If you try to understand that in terms of a "creative agenda", it's not going to make any sense because the goal isn't to create something.

That's precisely why it's usually boring to listen to someone talk about their vacation, even if they have pictures, because the magic was in the experience of being there.  Similarly, it's often quite boring to listen to another role-player talk about playing in a game that you weren't involved in because the magic was in the experience of being there.

So do you feel that some of these designers cling to the "Narrativist" perspective of design by "creating" something worthwhile, "artistic", or whatever, because they are unable to "get into the moment", and so seek refuge outside of "immersive" play since it doesn't click for them and they believe that it's the type of gaming that's broken, rather than their own lack of interest in actual role-play?

Quote from: RPGPundit;418008That's not what I'm comparing it to. I'm comparing it to 3e, its immediate predecessor.

But again, it is the same market? How have things changed?

QuoteYou can't adjust "number of players" for inflation.

No, but there is a huge number of factors involved that you should bear in mind. Come on, no one here is saying that 4e is Teh Bestest Success Evah. And anyway, I disagree with the notion that "popular"= necessarily better."

QuoteWell, on that I'd agree with you.

RPGPundit

Cool. See, I'm not a great defender of WotC business' and design decisions, but obviously they're not working so badly. I will agree with you any day that they could be easily getting much more market, but that doesn't turn you in a 100% pure fail.

I have a mindset of abundance. I see the hobby and to me it looks more healthy and interesting than ever. I feel that the survival of the hobby is assured, given that we stopped depending of publishers.

[QUOTE="VectorSigma;418046]I don't know whether I'm "indignant", but I do know I'm pretty tired of the whole "you can't judge a thing or its effects til you've tried it".  It gets trotted out a lot in this particular nerdwar, and it's pretty silly.  Am I not allowed to say "I don't think I have any real desire to see 'Tyler Perry's Why Did I Fart In Church?'" until I've watched the film?  That's ridiculous.  Adults don't talk like that to other adults.  Adults talk like that to children ("Just try the broccoli once, sweetheart, you'll like it.").  It really grinds my gears.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go sodomize one of the cats so I can later legitimately condemn bestiality.[/QUOTE]
Don't be silly.

You don't need to play DitV to decide if you are interested or not on it. I have neither played nor read Poison'd, Steal Away Jordan or Grey Ranks and I know that I'm not interested. The premise seems boring/juvenile as fuck to me, so I play something else.

Now, a different thing is to criticize a game that you haven't even read, or attribute to it mechanics that doesn't have, or have it say things that are not on the actual text. And that is a common trend around the web: some people criticize games that they haven't read / played, makeing mistaken / false attributions to it. So, you end up thinking that Sorcerer is a game that encourages you to rape your GM and kick him in the balls, when it's actually a 100% regular RPG, with some interesting advice to get more contribution from your players and advice to not railroad.

Quote from: John Morrow;418075So where does that leave the edgy Forge games?  You spend $20 (+/-) to buy a book, invest time to learn the rules to play, convince a group of players to give it a try, and then how many times do you play it?  There are people who have played D&D campaigns that have run for decades.  How many people are running Dogs in the Vineyard campaigns for even a year or two?

Though I prefer to run long campaigns, I understand that they are not the best choice to everyone, for many different reasons.

Of course, if you want long-term games, paying 20+$ for a book you won't play in that way is a bad investment. But not everyone shares the same situation. And for some people short-term, very focused games may be a better fit to their schedule, or to the amount of time and energy they can/want to invest in this hobby. Not everyone needs to be Teh Hardcore Gamerz piling 20 year long campaigns under his fat belt.

QuoteAnd one also has to wonder about the motivation behind making such games.

Probably do somethign that interest them, and getting paid for it.

QuoteHere you can find Paul Czege talking about programming the brains of the players:

It is a good thing that reality doesn't work like that. It amazes me how ignorant some game designers (and I have to say that a lot of them are at the Forge) are about the workings of the brain. I attribute it to reading too much psychoanalisis and similar bullshit, and very little actual psychology.

Saying "the book made me do it" doesn't make it true. Games cannot program people to resist advertising, rape kittens, or clean their rooms. That statement is idiotic, misleading, or insane. Same that happened with the brain damage shit. The brain doesn't work that way, period.

So to me it looks like a guy wanting desperately to change the world through his nerdy hobby, which is really very in line with the Web 2.0 über alles fad/delusion of these days, where everyone and his dog thinks that humanity will trascend to the next evolutionary phase through tweeting each dump you take and telling about it to everyone (with pictures). Sorry, everyone, human brain is more resistant than that, and people in dysfuntional relationships won't get out of them through playing My Life with Master, D&D, or any other RPG. Hint: if that was the case, it would be called psychotherapy, not a game.

QuoteAnd here a user named Corinne writes (emphasis mine):

Idiotic girl gets off by beind edgy. News at 11. So what? Most people will look at that and say "What the fuck is this shit?" and go back to slaying orcs. And if everyone started producing such games, gamers wouldn't adjust to them. They would stop buying them, and stick to what works for them.

QuoteSo it's all just good clean fun to convince players to feel comfortable about things that naturally would make them feel uncomfortable?

I don't think the goal is to make anyone comfortable with that, but to explore some themes despite they can make you uncomfy. Same reason why you read disturbing fiction, or see a disturbing movie from time to time, and you still are not a psycho slasher.

Quote from: BWA;418069You can say anything you like about anything, regardless of your experiences with it. The question is how valid your observations are in the absence of experience.

By this logic, since you have never been shot in the head with a 357 magnum revolver, you can't with absolute certainty be sure that it would kill you, until you try the experience yourself.

I think there is more than enough information out there about the Forge and Forge games to render a judgement.