Theory The Forge - Essays on RPG Theory 2023-07-29

[Turkey Lurkie]

I don't think any of this theorizing has done anything noteworthy for the hobby. At least nothing that has been proven

 

[Fenris-77]

I don't think any of this theorizing has done anything noteworthy for the hobby. At least nothing that has been proven

So people trying to figure out how to design better games hasn't resulted in any better games being produced? I guess that's a theory. Not that I love the Forge or Forge theory, far from it, but the place did lead to lots of interesting new ideas in game design. A fact that has been examined and outlined multiple times in multiple books on RPG history (should one be looking for proof, say).

 

[xanther]

...

The only criteria should be whether everyone at the table is having fun.

Different people have different ideas of what is fun. If someone else's idea is completely different than mine, it is okay.
....

You do know the classic Forge response to such? The response is not that reasonable minds can differ or different strokes for different folks. Not that such thinking is exclusive (sadly) to the Forge when talking about the RPG space.

 

[Urdlen's best boy]

The most important RPG Theory EVER FOREVER AND EVER

by unspoken genius UBB

It has been so noted by the foremost experts of our time that RPG, also pronounced as AÂÂRHPEEGEE, is phoneticaly similar to "harpy jizz". IT IS IMPORTANT because it INDICATES A SUBCONSCIOUS UNDERSTANDING BY ALL PARTICIPANTS OF THE FOLLOWING DICHOTOMY :

-The harpy, flopping in the air, tits bouncing up and down, represents adventure as well as the motherly bosom, which are recombined in the quasi-amniotic experience called "escapism" and "immersion - two terms with a liquid, maritime connotation!

-The jizz represents the tyranical father PUNISHING the child that refuses, like Peter Pan, to grow up and away from infantile pursuits such as elves and gold pieces - themselves a subconscious representation of those chocolate treats wrapped in golden aluminum and an infantile regression from the adult's understanding of economic matters.

As a consequence, most RPGs are OK and not worth talking about. Unless you like them or they make you mad. Why not.

The end.

 

[thebigh]

So people trying to figure out how to design better games hasn't resulted in any better games being produced? I guess that's a theory. Not that I love the Forge or Forge theory, far from it, but the place did lead to lots of interesting new ideas in game design. A fact that has been examined and outlined multiple times in multiple books on RPG history (should one be looking for proof, say).

That may be true, but I'll bet it also led to a lot of really crappy games. I'd also bet that more than a few people with cool game concepts got turned off by the Forgesters' theorywank and gave up on their projects because they didn't want to subject themselves to the inevitable conceited snarfling. I wonder how many really awesome and unique systems we lost because of it.

 

[Fenris-77]

That may be true, but I'll bet it also led to a lot of really crappy games. I'd also bet that more than a few people with cool game concepts got turned off by the Forgesters' theorywank and gave up on their projects because they didn't want to subject themselves to the inevitable conceited snarfling. I wonder how many really awesome and unique systems we lost because of it.

I would suspect close to none. Lots of games got released that weren't Forge related. I think that you might be overestimating the fucks given about the Forge by people who weren't part of it.

 

[thebigh]

I think that you might be overestimating the fucks given about the Forge by people who weren't part of it.

People are still talking about the Froge a decade after Ron Edwards shuttered it, aren't they? Its echoes have seemed to linger. It wasn't really part of my consciousness while it was open, but I've recently done some poking around in its ashes, and I have to conclude that some of the Forgesters were insufferably arrogant smug pedants with delusions of being the hobby's gatekeepers. I don't think it's a stretch to suspect there'd be people following along at the time who decided to drop their games because they knew they'd only get sneered at and chortled out of town if they released it.

 

[Voros]

The Forge was hardly the only rpg space online suffering from groupthink and onewaytruism, so I doubt it turned off anyone from designing a game anymore than the more reactionary elements on forums like Knights & Knaves Alehouse did.

Some interesting experimental games followed from The Forge and some of its participants, like the Bakers and Emily Care Boss, J.V. West, etc. went on to do good work.

Think of it like SNL, most of those involved went on to do their best work elsewhere!

 

[Voros]

People are still talking about the Froge a decade after Ron Edwards shuttered it, aren't they? Its echoes have seemed to linger. It wasn't really part of my consciousness while it was open, but I've recently done some poking around in its ashes, and I have to conclude that some of the Forgesters were insufferably arrogant smug pedants with delusions of being the hobby's gatekeepers. I don't think it's a stretch to suspect there'd be people following along at the time who decided to drop their games because they knew they'd only get sneered at and chortled out of town if they released it.

The memory of The Forge is more sustained by its haters than anything else. That's where I first heard of it, from people complaining about it even though it was nearly 5+ years after it had shut down.

It is honestly more discussed and brought up on more 'trad' forums than forums dedicated to modern and storygames, in my experience.

I also suspect it is still brought up because it remains the last popular site almost exclusively dedicated to discussions of rpg design. With the rise of social media its harder to get that townhall (or Pub?) feeling, G+ had it for a while but then was shutdown

On most of the extant forums the design forums tend to be pretty sleepy, including sites even as big as TBP.

I think its quite possible that the Pub's design forum is one of the most active of any of the current rpg forum sites!

 

[soltakss]

I think its quite possible that the Pub's design forum is one of the most active of any of the current rpg forum sites!

There's a Design Forum? I only look at New Threads and don't visit the forums.

 

[Acmegamer]

The best way to suck the fun out of something is to analyse it to death. The Forge analysed RPGs to death and sucked the fun out of them. I prefer to know of the theories and then blatantly disregard them when playing, GMing and writing RPGs.

When I look at places like the Forge. My strong gut reaction is this. Quit with all the fucking mental masturbation posturing and wannabe philosophy and...



You all sucking all the fun out of gaming.

Edit: Not to say that some productive results aren't possible from discussions about game mechanics and game design. It just that by and large I end up feeling what I posted above when I run across it. The Pub actually has some interesting conversations that off and on I'll deep dive into, which is refreshing from the pontification I have seen elsewhere.

 

[JAMUMU]

So people trying to figure out how to design better games hasn't resulted in any better games being produced? I guess that's a theory. Not that I love the Forge or Forge theory, far from it, but the place did lead to lots of interesting new ideas in game design. A fact that has been examined and outlined multiple times in multiple books on RPG history (should one be looking for proof, say).

PbtA and FitD and BW came out of the Forge, which is really enough innovation for one single website dedicated to RPGs. RPG.Site? I guess Jennifer's OSR games count, in a sense, as they are pretty good, though very few wheels are being reinvented there. RPG.net? The Pub? Not so much.

 

[Fenris-77]

PbtA and FitD and BW came out of the Forge, which is really enough innovation for one single website dedicated to RPGs. RPG.Site? I guess Jennifer's OSR games count, in a sense, as they are pretty good, though very few wheels are being reinvented there. RPG.net? The Pub? Not so much.

We do ok on the design side for a site that isn't specifically a design site. We have a bunch of published game authors the posts here, although I'd stop short of saying that their publishing efforts and the Pub are specifically connected.

 

[Paragon]

A lot of RPG theory is, functionally, trying to develop language to talk to other people about what works for some people and not for others and problem areas. The big problem is it only tends to survive a limited time; I saw this years ago with r.g.f.a.

 

[Acmegamer]

So, as I've mentioned, from 2000 to 2010 I basically ignored ttrpgs, casting a distant glance off and on and maybe snagging a book that caught my attention. I think, at best that I might have snagged three or four books during that ten year period when one would really catch my attention.

At the same time since I truly did think the hobby was dying, I'd spent that last three years of 1997-2000 coming to that conclusion. I was becoming more focused on what I thought the future of gaming was, online. Since that was the case I didn't pay any attention at all to the online forums for our hobby during that time period.

So, once I did start paying attention to the online mediums out there, I often found what I read was a lot of shit. A lot of combative, ego driven, your doing it wrong nastiness. Often from people who weren't even around back in the early days of the hobby. Worse were the ones who were around for those early days who spouted a bunch of nasty crap.

So yeah a lot of places I found were quite counter productive to just talking about our shared hobby. Accepting that there was no wrong way of doing something as long as everyone was having fun and playing. So I tend to be highly critical and dubious of the usefulness of a lot of supposed theorycraft discussions elsewhere. Even here it's iffy at times though overall the threads I've read here have been the best over all.

Which is why I posted my "just roll the damn nice" meme. I feel that often theorycraft and mechanics discussions suck the fun out of gaming if not handled carefully or if you have those who are really just there to be agents of chaos.

 

[Fenris-77]

We all have different kinds of things we enjoy. Personally, I enjoy talking theory, but I have the same response as you to one-way-ist amateur-hour idiots when they start to sound off. One the of the perils of the internet, and of this hobby, is that every fucking idiot with a keyboard thinks they are an expert on every aspect of the hobby. C'est la vie.

 

[Acmegamer]

We all have different kinds of things we enjoy. Personally, I enjoy talking theory, but I have the same response as you to one-way-ist amateur-hour idiots when they start to sound off. One the of the perils of the internet, and of this hobby, is that every fucking idiot with a keyboard thinks they are an expert on every aspect of the hobby. C'est la vie.

One thing I've found fascinating off an on and of course a complete time waster, is when I start roaming around and doing deep dives on various forums and sites. It's my version of doing a wiki walk, where you spend hours reading articles on Wikipedia.

I've done this with a few of the older sites and forums off and on in the last three or four years. Some really eye opening and quite WTF stuff out there to be sure.

 

[Turkey Lurkie]

So people trying to figure out how to design better games hasn't resulted in any better games being produced?

At least nothing that has been proven

 

[Fenris-77]

At least nothing that has been proven

Did you read the listed games that were a direct result of the Forge? Real games that are actually very popular that came directly out of theory talk at the Forge. So yeah, lots of proof, thanks. It doesn't matter whether you like those games btw, only that they are very popular, and they are.

 

[Turkey Lurkie]

Did you read the listed games that were a direct result of the Forge

Yes. I don't think they improved the state of RPGs in general

 

[Fenris-77]

Yes. I don't think they improved the state of RPGs in general

Um, yeah, ok. This isn't about your opinion. I mean sure, your get to have one, but your opinion of the Forge and something factual about the Forge are two very different things. I just assumed that your repeated use of the word proof meant you were talking about facts.

 

[Urdlen's best boy]

I don't think any of this theorizing has done anything noteworthy for the hobby. At least nothing that has been proven

I agree, that's why Gary should never have used notions like balance or include an entire page of explaining statistical distributions and how they relate to his design theory. In fact there is no proof inventing the hobby was good for the hobby.

I'm kidding Turkey bro but you're being partial. Designers talking instead of being isolated is good. Sharpening this or that idea can't make systemic revolution of the hobby. It can only help this or that RPG being published - which is good enough.

Anyway, honest question, what would you (or anyone reading) consider "objective improvement to the state of the hobby"?

 

[Urdlen's best boy]

just there to be agents of chaos.

 

[robertsconley]

So people trying to figure out how to design better games hasn't resulted in any better games being produced? I guess that's a theory. Not that I love the Forge or Forge theory, far from it, but the place did lead to lots of interesting new ideas in game design. A fact that has been examined and outlined multiple times in multiple books on RPG history (should one be looking for proof, say).

I submit those interesting new ideas in game design resulted more from talking about game designs than the theory itself. In other words, if you get a bunch of folks gathering in one place to talk game theory and design you will get

Spoiler

more types of designs and games

The worst thing Edwards did wasn't the theory but to shut down the Forge Forums which destroyed the social fulcrum around which indie game designers could meet, talk, and discuss. The same when the storygame forums shut down.

The OSR lost some cohesion as a result of the Google Plus shutdown is another example.

As for the Forge theory it is bullshit as an oversimplification of how hobbyists are with their interests and biased towards a particular type of gaming interests. My alternative is to build a recipe book of RPG design patterns each saying why the pattern was attempted, how it was implemented, what happened, what was positive, and what was negative. Rather than holistic oversimplified theories of the art of RPG game design.

My How to Make a Fantasy Sandbox is about one such pattern, making hex crawl formatted settings and how that particular format is useful for a fantasy sandbox campaign.

 

[Fenris-77]

When I talk about the Forge as an online space I was certainly talking about the forums as well. Not just for the social aspect, which was important, but also because a lot of 'design' starts with a casual hey, wouldn't it be cool if... that then gets batted around for a while. That's a job forums are pretty good at.

 

[soltakss]

So people trying to figure out how to design better games hasn't resulted in any better games being produced?

"Better" is very subjective.

PbtA and FitD and BW came out of the Forge,

I have played PbtA and it is OK but very limited, I thought it was like HeroQuest (QuestWorlds) for Dummies, with pre-made templated and moves. However, I haven't played FitD (Forged in the Dark?) or BW (Burning Wheel?) so I don't know what they are like. I only get the chance to play that kind of game at Conventions and time is limited.

 

[Fenris-77]

Individual opinions about the games in question are really not the topic here. It doesn't matter if you like them or not, they are all very popular and each has lead to a small explosion of hacks and supplements and game design generally (good and bad, but that's how it goes). I love it when people think their person opinion of something is the same as 'good' or 'popular' in a broader sense.

 

[Acmegamer]

Individual opinions about the games in question are really not the topic here. It doesn't matter if you like them or not, they are all very popular and each has lead to a small explosion of hacks and supplements and game design generally (good and bad, but that's how it goes). I love it when people think their person opinion of something is the same as 'good' or 'popular' in a broader sense.

That's a good point. I think we've muddied up the waters here with our discussion. I can respect your point about this thead and will definitely bow out since I really don't have a horse in the race and have shared my opinions about sites like the Forge already.

 

[Fenris-77]

That's a good point. I think we've muddied up the waters here with our discussion. I can respect your point about this thead and will definitely bow out since I really don't have a horse in the race and have shared my opinions about sites like the Forge already.

I'm really not after anyone to stop talking at all. What I wanted was for people to stop denying that the Forge, and the theory and discussion that went on there, actually produced/lead to/inspired/whatever really popular and (to many people) brilliantly designed games when it obviously has. People that want to post in thread about design theory with opinions like talking about design theory has never helped anyone produce a better game are going get responses that they don't like and probably deserve. Its perfectly all right to not like jawing about RPG design theory of course, many people can't stand it, but that doesn't mean it's not both useful and enjoyable for some people (kind of like HERO system ).

 

[robertsconley]

I'm really not after anyone to stop talking at all. What I wanted was for people to stop denying that the Forge, and the theory and discussion that went on there, actually produced/lead to/inspired/whatever really popular and (to many people) brilliantly designed games when it obviously has.

The theory was shit, the discussion was not. That is my disagreement with your thesis.

People that want to post in thread about design theory with opinions like talking about design theory has never helped anyone produce a better game are going get responses that they don't like and probably deserve. Its perfectly all right to not like jawing about RPG design theory of course, many people can't stand it, but that doesn't mean it's not both useful and enjoyable for some people (kind of like HERO system ).

There is a difference between saying a theory is useful and discussion about RPG theories is useful. Again my opinion is that those who were inspired the Forge did not do so because the Theory helped. But rather the social atmosphere that surrounded the Forge is what helped. Being able to discuss with other folks how to design RPG and to get feedback on their project was the most valuable part of the Forge.

What adherence to Forge Theory led to was a series of products that would be considered scenarios and adventures in more traditional RPGs. Their design only worked by narrowing the focus to a specific set of circumstances with a specific set of character types. This narrow focus hobble not advance RPG design.

This is not specific to Forge either. D&D 4e likewise is hobbled by its myopic focus on fantasy superheroics 24/7.

 

[Fenris-77]

The theory was shit, the discussion was not. That is my disagreement with your thesis.


There is a difference between saying a theory is useful and discussion about RPG theories is useful.

What adherence to Forge Theory led to was a series of products that would be considered scenarios and adventures in more traditional RPGs. Their design only worked by narrowing the focus to a specific set of circumstances with a specific set of character types. This narrow focus hobble not advance RPG design.

This is not specific to Forge either. D&D 4e likewise is hobbled by its myopic focus on fantasy superheroics 24/7.

You and I are in agreement that the actual theory, or the set of theory called Forge Theory, was utter tripe for the most part. It is often the case with design that talking or ripping apart one theory or idea all of sudden gives into insight into another, or an idea for something new. I wasn't advocating for the actual theory set but rather the whole process that went into developing and analyzing and refining it (which you are terming the discussion). Without the meting pot of the Forge you probably don't get all those games that so many people like, that's my thesis if you want to identify one here.

 

[Voros]

The theory was shit, the discussion was not. That is my disagreement with your thesis.


There is a difference between saying a theory is useful and discussion about RPG theories is useful.

What adherence to Forge Theory led to was a series of products that would be considered scenarios and adventures in more traditional RPGs. Their design only worked by narrowing the focus to a specific set of circumstances with a specific set of character types. This narrow focus hobble not advance RPG design.

This is not specific to Forge either. D&D 4e likewise is hobbled by its myopic focus on fantasy superheroics 24/7.

That's like saying a short story doesn't 'advance' fiction because it is more narrow than a novel. It is a nonsensical stance in literature and a nonsensical stance in rpgs.

It is fine to have games that do different things, one approach is not superior or more advanced than another.

It is this kind of fannish politicing that derails so many attempts to discuss rpgs beyond 'what I like is the best way.'

It's also extremely boring and seems largely predicated on the silly idea that the only way to play rpgs is to play them all as if they were D&D.

Sandbox play is a fun way to play but I managed to figure out how to do it and GM it in my late teens, it isn't some complex or difficult lost technique it is often made out to be or the Rosetta Stone of how to play all rpgs.

 

[Fenris-77]

robertsconley - perhaps a moment of clarity here, when you talk about 'products' that are more like adventures or scenarios, what precisely are you talking about? I'm not digging for disagreement, although that may result, I'm just not sure what games you're describing as overly narrow and not advancing RPG design.

 

[thebigh]

And my thesis is that if the Forge hadn't been so wanky it probably would have produced very different types of games and those would likely have been more to my tastes than PbtA and its descendants.

 

[Fenris-77]

And my thesis is that if the Forge hadn't been so wanky it probably would have produced very different types of games and those would likely have been more to my tastes than PbtA and its descendants.

Perhaps, but there's no knowing or guarantee. Thankfully there are lots of other people thinking about game design and making lots of other kinds of games that might be more to your taste. That said, your conflation of the 'wankiness' and your dislike for the resulting games is somewhat suspect. As we've been discussing, a lot of those games were not actually a product of specific forge theory, but rather a product of the social side of things at the Forge, of the discussions that spun out of having so many like-minded people discussing things at the same time. The connection you are trying to make there seems tenuous.

 

[thebigh]

The connection you are trying to make there seems tenuous.

It's based on consistency of tone, so maybe it is a bit tenuous.

 

[Voros]

And my thesis is that if the Forge hadn't been so wanky it probably would have produced very different types of games and those would likely have been more to my tastes than PbtA and its descendants.

One person's wankery is another's experimentation. Without some wankery, imo, there is no room for experimentation, and that leads to stagnation.

I'd rather we had more attempts to do something different, even if the results don't always succeed. That's how one keeps a form fresh.

To me there wasn't enough experimentation in rpgs for too long. A shocking lack of imagination for a form supposedly dedicated to imagination. For too many years, far too many games kept trying to impose a D&D-frame onto settings and genres its ruleset was ill-suited for.

It wasn't until the mid-80s with Ghostbusters, Paranoia, Toon, Pendragon and Prince Valiant that we had great designers breaking away from that truly narrow paradigm.

When I returned to rpgs after many years away, having missed 3e and 4e D&D completely, I was pleased to find all these idiosyncratic, sometimes strange and personal games, like Emily Care Boss' romance games; the ingenious horror of Ten Candles; the clever and tightly focused Final Girl; the location-based A Quiet Year and world-building Microscope.

To me the tie between these games and the work of Costikyan, Wujcik and Stafford are pretty clear.

I suspect such 'experiments' existed to some degree in the hobby from the earliest days, one sees hints of it in Peterson's history of the APAs and they are where the likes of Amber, Prince Valiant and Ghostbusters came.

I think the streamlined nature, relative freedom from D&Disms and period settings of CoC were also a major inspiration. I know CoC and Pendragon opened my mind up to the possibilites of rpgs when I discovered them and from what I've read Australian freeform grew out of experiments with CoC.

But in my neck of the woods it was hard to find anything that wasn't D&D. Even Runequest and WFRP were hard to locate on the shelves. I discovered single copies of CoC and Pendragon by sheer luck.

I assume the financial demands of game publishing at the time probably made publishing niche games difficult to impossible. The mainstreaming of the net and desktop publishing changed all that, as it did for the OSR.

 

[sharps54]

there were game designers that broke away in the earliest days (Ken St. Andre with T&T, Starfaring) and in the early 1980’s (Herbie Brennan with Men, Myth, & Magic and Timeship) from the standard paradigm. Lack of creativity in RPGs wasn’t a thing, folks just didn’t know about them because Al Gore hadn’t created the Internet yet.

Edit of course Dallas is another great example of a game that isn’t D&D. If we look these ideas aren’t new.

 

[Voros]

there were game designers that broke away in the earliest days (Ken St. Andre with T&T, Starfaring) and in the early 1980’s (Herbie Brennan with Men, Myth, & Magic and Timeship) from the standard paradigm. Lack of creativity in RPGs wasn’t a thing, folks just didn’t know about them because Al Gore hadn’t created the Internet yet.

Edit of course Dallas is another great example of a game that isn’t D&D. If we look these ideas aren’t new.

Stormbringer! is also a pretty wild game within a fantasy framework.

 

[Patchwork Dragon]

Is there anything about good design that would be universal? In other words, something that people could all agree on made a game better regardless of their taste in role playing games.

For rules themselves, all I could think of were really basic things like have clear rules, give examples and have an index. I could also add to make it clear if you want to allow/encourage things outside the book. For example "GM may add new skills to the skill list."

For things like adventures and setting guides, I would suggest the following:

Add some descriptive words and details to rooms and objects. No generic rooms or inns.

Give a personality and appearance to NPCs. Things like motivation, loyalty and morale might be important depending on the NPC.

Sometimes less is better. I have read things that get bogged down with too much detail.

We do not need a detailed backstory for all NPCs. You can just say "the bartender is a high level retired adventurer." We don't need to know his life story.

In games with detailed stat blocks, you don't need a full stat block for non combat NPC. Just list relevant parts. For example, skills in sense motive and negotiation for a shopkeeper.

I read something once where someone statted out all the shopkeepers, bartenders and barmaids in the town. But none of these people had any personality traits or description of appearance. I think of that as a bad design choice.

I think those are all relatively noncontroversial suggestions that would fit any game and play style. Of course, I have been slammed online before for things I had thought we pretty noncontroversial.