Quote from: jhkim;625597I do think that things have improved within the story games community since 2006.  This is actually quite visible in the Story Games thread on the subject - which was resurrected in 2012.

That's probably true, you know, if only by virtue of Edwards no longer being the epicenter of the storygamer universe and everyone thinking the sun shines out of his every turd.

Of course, on the other hand its not like they really had anywhere to go but up, and its not like they've been in any great rush to face their other great Mt.Everest of group-identity shame: to finally admit that they're a different hobby from RPGs, and stop trying to parastically thrive off of RPGs' periphery.

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Quote from: RPGPundit;625578I declared victory over the Forge, which has indeed ceased to be.  Storygames continue to be made, of course, however reduced their mainstream influence might be in the advent of 4e's disastrous collapse and the OSR's rise.

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Victory? Not yet. I'm getting new posts on G+ this last week linked back to the Forge Manifest of 2004. The battleground has simply shifted, and your foe has gone to a new territory.

There is actually a story games community with almost 800 members, and Ron Edwards just raised 25g on Kickstarter for a Sorceror Upgrade.

https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/105298743270221910970/stream/94381a17-2098-486e-96b6-acbb0e2dde5b?tab=mX

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/847190685/sorcerer-upgrade

Quote from: GameDaddy;625740Victory? Not yet. I'm getting new posts on G+ this last week linked back to the Forge Manifest of 2004. The battleground has simply shifted, and your foe has gone to a new territory.

There is actually a story games community with almost 800 members, and Ron Edwards just raised 25g on Kickstarter for a Sorceror Upgrade.

https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/105298743270221910970/stream/94381a17-2098-486e-96b6-acbb0e2dde5b?tab=mX

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/847190685/sorcerer-upgrade

I'm not saying these guys aren't still dangerous; but they've suffered the obvious death-blow of seeing every attempt to apply their ideas to the mainstream hobby end in unmitigated disaster.  This has taken the wind out of their sails considerably.  They'll continue to be of some influence in the hobby (however diminished) until the next big Swine Idea comes along, and then the remnants of the Theory-Swine/Storygamers will end up looking as healthy and influential as those last couple of White-Wolf Swine out there look today.

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Quote from: RPGPundit;626107I'm not saying these guys aren't still dangerous; but they've suffered the obvious death-blow of seeing every attempt to apply their ideas to the mainstream hobby end in unmitigated disaster.  This has taken the wind out of their sails considerably.  They'll continue to be of some influence in the hobby (however diminished) until the next big Swine Idea comes along, and then the remnants of the Theory-Swine/Storygamers will end up looking as healthy and influential as those last couple of White-Wolf Swine out there look today.

Huh.  As a regular story game player, it seems like my post-death-blow time is pretty great.  

There are still lots of story games coming out, as well as a number of more mainstream games with narrative mechanics like Dresden Files, Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, Smallville, Leverage, Dungeon World, and others.  The Kickstarter campaigns have often been incredibly successful (Fate Core, Dungeon World, Hillfolk).  The story games "games-on-demand" event at the last Gen Con Indy was extremely well-attended, and there are lots of story games at other conventions and gatherings.  Outside of this forum, no one classifies story games like Sorcerer or Apocalypse World as different than RPGs (i.e Every game store, web store, and convention I have been to).  

If you consider D&D4 as part of the story games movement, then we suddenly were on top of the world in late 2008, and now are being cut down to size.  Personally, I have essentially zero interest in D&D4, and when I ignore that, story games seem to be a slowly but steadily growing niche within the slowly but steadily shrinking niche of RPGs.

Quote from: RPGPundit;626107I'm not saying these guys aren't still dangerous; but they've suffered the obvious death-blow of seeing every attempt to apply their ideas to the mainstream hobby end in unmitigated disaster.  This has taken the wind out of their sails considerably.

You're talking about 4e and WFRP3, right? If so I'm not sure I follow your logic. Neither of these games was written by known forge or SG posters, and neither of these games was significantly discussed or played by those posters either (4e saw some discussion and maybe a bit of play, but that's all pretty much died out now). I don't think the people you are talking about would recognise 4e or WFRP3 as 'their' games and I don't think the success or failure of these games in the marketplace has affected them one iota.

I think to be honest this whole taking over the marketplace thing is silly. It's in the nature of most storygames that they are a niche within a niche, and the very focus that makes them good at what they're trying to do also dooms them to a much smaller market share overall. I think most indie/storygame publishers know that going in, and aren't really trying to become the new D&D or whatever. Most SG people seem content to just sit in their little corner doing their own thing.

Quote from: soviet;626139You're talking about 4e and WFRP3, right? If so I'm not sure I follow your logic. Neither of these games was written by known forge or SG posters, and neither of these games was significantly discussed or played by those posters either (4e saw some discussion and maybe a bit of play, but that's all pretty much died out now). I don't think the people you are talking about would recognise 4e or WFRP3 as 'their' games and I don't think the success or failure of these games in the marketplace has affected them one iota.

I think to be honest this whole taking over the marketplace thing is silly. It's in the nature of most storygames that they are a niche within a niche, and the very focus that makes them good at what they're trying to do also dooms them to a much smaller market share overall. I think most indie/storygame publishers know that going in, and aren't really trying to become the new D&D or whatever. Most SG people seem content to just sit in their little corner doing their own thing.

I dont know how directly itmay have influenced D&D, but there are a lot of 4E advocates on En World who promote 4E as the narrative edition of D&D and express an interest in seing story mechanics in Next. Personally always found 4E to be the gamey edition, but aparently lots of people see it as having story game use.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;626141I dont know how directly itmay have influenced D&D, but there are a lot of 4E advocates on En World who promote 4E as the narrative edition of D&D and express an interest in seing story mechanics in Next. Personally always found 4E to be the gamey edition, but aparently lots of people see it as having story game use.

Hmm. I must say we found skill challenges fairly easy to get into because of our experience with similar (superior) mechanics in storygames, but I don't really see the storygame influence in 4e. For instance, 4e has pretty much nothing to say about character's personalities, goals, relationships, and flaws - all pretty key storygame characteristics IMO. I think there are narrative mechanics in 4e (refluffing powers, etc) but that's not the same as narrativist.

I like storygames and I like D&D but I think they need to stay separate.

Quote from: soviet;626143Hmm. I must say we found skill challenges fairly easy to get into because of our experience with similar (superior) mechanics in storygames, but I don't really see the storygame influence in 4e. For instance, 4e has pretty much nothing to say about character's personalities, goals, relationships, and flaws - all pretty key storygame characteristics IMO. I think there are narrative mechanics in 4e (refluffing powers, etc) but that's not the same as narrativist.

I like storygames and I like D&D but I think they need to stay separate.

I am not a 4E proponent, or a story game proponent, so not well equiped to make their argument. I certainly see 4E as more gamey, but I have  seen many posters arguing that it wirks for narrative play (and they seem to know both 4E and storygames well). I dont know if they think it was consciously designed that way  or just capable that kind as a story game. I fact most of the people i see defening 4E lately are doing so on story grounds. Could just be asmall group of vocal posters and possible I am misunderstanding their position.

0h Christ people he's not talking about D&D 4e!

http://rpgpundit.xanga.com/769747851/item/

Quote from: Mistwell;6261480h Christ people he's not talking about D&D 4e!

I roll to disbelieve!

Quote from: soviet;626139indie/storygame publishers know that going in, and aren't really trying to become the new D&D or whatever. Most SG people seem content to just sit in their little corner doing their own thing.

A lie they've been repeating since the very start.  Meanwhile they subverted D&D, and now they're trying to subvert the OSR. That's not "staying in your little corner".  
If your statement were true, the Storygaming hobby wouldn't be afraid to stop calling misrepresenting itself as RPGs, much less misrepresenting its fake-RPGs as OSR games and the like.

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Quote from: soviet;626143Hmm. I must say we found skill challenges fairly easy to get into because of our experience with similar (superior) mechanics in storygames, but I don't really see the storygame influence in 4e. For instance, 4e has pretty much nothing to say about character's personalities, goals, relationships, and flaws - all pretty key storygame characteristics IMO. I think there are narrative mechanics in 4e (refluffing powers, etc) but that's not the same as narrativist.

That's because 4e isn't narrativist.  The influence was in the sense of Ron Edwards spending years claiming that D&D was "incoherent" because it tried to be more than just Gamist; and that all it was good for was to be a kind of tactical skirmish game, and then the morons at WoTC listening to his lies and thinking what a great idea it would be to make them truths.
Of course, its because they'd drunk the kool-aid: Edwards had promised that a game that tried to be JUST G, N, or S would be a much bigger success than a game that tried to be many things to many people and was full of what he saw as "incoherent".
This theory had already been proven wrong by the fact that no Forge game had made any really significant commercial success; but the Forge Swine were always be able to claim that this was because their games were edgy and hip and didn't care about profit, but that if a big game like D&D applied GNS theory on a massive scale it would be tremendous.

So WoTC did it; and it went just as I predicted (not that this makes me a genius, any idiot could see how obvious it is): by becoming 1/3rd the game it once was it lost 2/3rds of its customers.

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Quote from: RPGPundit;626333Of course, its because they'd drunk the kool-aid: Edwards had promised that a game that tried to be JUST G, N, or S would be a much bigger success than a game that tried to be many things to many people and was full of what he saw as "incoherent".

This theory had already been proven wrong by the fact that no Forge game had made any really significant commercial success; but the Forge Swine were always be able to claim that this was because their games were edgy and hip and didn't care about profit, but that if a big game like D&D applied GNS theory on a massive scale it would be tremendous.

So WoTC did it; and it went just as I predicted (not that this makes me a genius, any idiot could see how obvious it is): by becoming 1/3rd the game it once was it lost 2/3rds of its customers.

I would agree that Edwards made this claim in his GNS essays, and I'd agree that it is wrong (although I don't think sales of self-produced games over a few years is proof).  However,

1) I am doubtful that WotC's choice was based to any significant degree on listening to Ron Edwards.

2) If they did do so, then the blame for this is not on Edwards.  

It is the god-given right of gamers to spout off ill-informed opinions about what RPGs should be like.  Everyone does it - or at least a very large number do.  I'll argue with them about it, but I don't think it is bad or unethical behavior.  Ron Edwards is hardly uniquely culpable for spouting off like this.  If WotC really did follow their 4E strategy because he said so, then they were fucking stupid and the blame is entirely on them, IMO.  

By parallel, I might argue with Gleichman regularly - but if WotC were to publish a new D&D that followed along with his ideas of what RPGs should be, I wouldn't blame him.  I would blame WotC.

Quote from: jhkim;626381By parallel, I might argue with Gleichman regularly - but if WotC were to publish a new D&D that followed along with his ideas of what RPGs should be, I wouldn't blame him.  I would blame WotC.

HERO Games did that back in the 80s (not that I had anything to do with it mind).

And if the Forge did influence 4E, it sadly did so with the add of a preverse view of some my materials. No idea how true that concept is, but I recall Mearl being on record as stating that he believed in at least the core concepts behind GNS.

Quote from: gleichman;626386And if the Forge did influence 4E, it sadly did so with the add of a preverse view of some my materials. No idea how true that concept is, but I recall Mearl being on record as stating that he believed in at least the core concepts behind GNS.

One thing I will say about mearls though, early on he seemed to be the one person at wotc who understand where many of us who didn't like 4E were coming from. I don't know if he buys into, bought into or rejected GNS but when I have read interviews with him, it looks to me like he does know how to listen to criticism and I feel like he must sense that sort of over focused design just can't make a successful edition of D&D.