What is "The Forge?"

I'll say this: I am influenced heavily by Robin Laws, myself. When reading his book, "Robin's Laws to good gmemastering", it was one of those things where I just "got it," and realized his ideas were what I was using all along and never had it written down anywhere, and plus gave me even more things to chew on, besides. His ideas (I won't call them "theories") are more about as a GM what to give your players at game-time, rather than any sort of design theory (his ideas are that you can apply these things to almost ANY game, rather than designing one from scratch). His work in the first chapter of the DMG2 are a continuation of this, and is very good reading.

Now, if the Forge Big Model or GNS influenced Robin Laws, they've influenced me, for sure. If they haven't, then they haven't influenced ME, either, no matter how much a proponent tells me they have.

Of the times I've gone there, their ideas are clouded in terminology, very high-concept, and in no way speak to how I can get the most out of my weekly RPG games. I'm not playing Burning Wheel, or Kayfabe, or Sorcerer, or any such thing - I'm playing whatever strikes my fancy, and my players' fancy, is fun, and is easy to learn. None of the product turned out at the Forge has interested me in any way. As game designers, they don't have a TERRIBLE P.R. engine, in my opinion.

If I want to play westerns, I play Boot Hill, or Sidewinder.
If I want fantasy, I play D&D.
If I want far future, I play gamma world, or GURPS, or lately Grim Tales.
If I want gritty fantasy, I play Black Company.

What does "Burning Wheel" do? What's it's concept? What does the name tell me?
What is the hook for "Sorcerer"? Why would I play it over, say, Ars Magica?
I only knew what "Kayfabe" was by looking it up - but its name evokes no interest, no desire to find out more, it's just... there. (Then again, I'm not a Wrestling buff).

If you're niche, you try to make your product appealing on more than just a design level, and nothing ever hyped by the site's proponents has ever driven me to check it out. When I hear people talk about D&D or Exalted, they talk about their characters, what they did, what a bastard the GM was, etc. When I see someone mention Sorcerer, or Burning Wheel, the one thing missing - are the "war stories." The signs that they've done something more than just read it and praised concept. That's what leaves me flat with the things the Forge's proponents praise.

Teflon Billy said:

I went there a few times, but when I watched Fusangite try and pry information out of them as to what the hell they were talking about (and he is a smart, smart guy) only to get told tht he "simply wasn't able to grasp the fullness of what it all meant" etc. I was stunned.

The fact that their position was that Fusangite wasn't smart enough to understand their precious theory was my biggest clue that they were full of it.

Like, full right to the top.

I mean, they guy is pretty much the smartest person any of us in Vancouver have ever met, he's approaching his PhD, he can speak knowedgeably on most any subject you care to name...

I did take a certain joy in watching him dismantle the theory (getting no fewer than 3 people to claim that the "Gamist" element in GNS theory had nothing to do with Game Elements, and 3 others to claim it did) before he wandered off.

As near as I could figure, the whole thing was a huge circle jerk by a group of people who really, really wanted to matter in the grand scheme of (RPG) things.

That said, I loved Burning Wheel and Kayfabe.

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Just wanted to back up TB here. I went to dinner with Crothian, Fusangite, and Ironwolf one night at Gen Con this year and we spoke at length about the Forge and Fusangite's attempts to understand what they were talking about. It sounded to me as if they have a small circle of people that they say "get IT" and everyone else is dumb.

I would also like to add that Fusangite is a pretty brilliant guy and if he doesn't "get IT" then there are few on this earth that would.

-Shay

I poked my head in at the Forge just to see what a few people here and (mostly) on RPG.net were talking about. It appeared to me that it was a bunch of failed game designers using obscure references and intelligent sounding theories to describe why their pet system is better than any successful system.

Personally, I think the whole GNS theory is a load of crap. I play games because their fun, not because I'm a Gamist, Narativist, or Simulationist. I really got the idea that most of the people that frequent the Forge have forgotten totally about the GAME aspect of rpG's to instead look for some "higher meaning" in their roleplaying. Bah. What a bunch of claptrap!

jdrakeh said:

That's because you don't get it! (joking!)

Seriously, that's the magic of communicating almost entirely in an invented language (i.e., jargon) - only the people who invented it 'get it' and, thus, can use the failure of an uninitiated individual to understand it as an excuse to dismiss them as inferior. Jargon has never been coined to inform or convey thought, but to foster an appearance of importance and facilitate the illusion of social superiority. This is one of several reasons why I openly oppose the use of jargon where plain language will suffice.

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That's not true. Jargon exists to facilitate discussion of difficult concepts. If I didn't have jargon, I could not easily communicate meaningfully with other biologists. If my wife didn't have jargon, she could not easily communicate meaningfully with other philosophers. If my friend didn't have jargon, he could not easily communicate meaningfully with other engineers.

The thing about jargon and designing RPGs is that there are a lot of times when you want meta-terminology that helps you talk about things like structure, orientation, and effect of the various game elements. Like the word "traction" that they've mentioned in the WotC design threads. It describes a phenomenon that it's useful for them to know about, and something they don't want to have to explain every time they talk about it. Multiply that by a hundred such phenomena, and you have a lexicon of game design jargon.

Now, that's not to say that jargon can't be used in an exclusive fashion. My wife and I could have a conversation about philosophy that completely goes over the heads of anyone not familiar with the jargon, without even getting into the issue of being unfamiliar with the various authors involved. But it's not the purpose of jargon, it's just an effect. The thing is, if you do it on purpose to confuse or obfuscate, you're being a jerk. It doesn't prove that you're smarter than the other person to use jargon, only that you're familiar with a technical language that they don't know. I'm sure that computer programmers could totally lose me in ten seconds if they start "talking shop," but I'd lose them as soon as I start talking about gene replication.

It's not jargon that's the problem, it's people who use jargon to try to indicate that they are superior to others.

Ah, the Forge. Where to begin?

The Forge is largely the result of Ron Edwards advocating two things:

1) Selling games outside of the traditional distribution model.

2) Analyzing games according to his modified version of the GNS model original developed in the Usenet RPG community.

What Ron did was showcase his game, Sorceror, as an example of both, while being the first to really bring discussion about either to an organized web community. He got there first and was rewarded accordingly.

But as you might have noticed, the Forge is not without its detractors. First of all, it is worth noting that not only does most game design not really pay attention to the Big Model and its ilk, but that many Forge people -- including Ron -- do not really have a good grasp on the creative process used by commercial game writers and designers. Their criticism falls short because they don't know how we got there, why we got there or what's influencing us, but the comfort themselves that the answer must be found in the totalizing Big Model.

Functional game design either proceeds from craft (this is the position of Robin D. Laws) or theory that has commonalities with movements in other fields. Both Bruce Baugh and myself have some interest in post-structuralism, for instance, which does come from a bucnh of dudes who wrote 20 page games for each other on the web.

Incidentally, my post-structuralist bent leads me to a second critique, which is the way that Forge terminology inevitably either breaks down or divorces itself from key practical concerns. For instance, people on the Forge do not generally like to talk about the effect of real world social inequality (ethnicity, religion, economic differences) in game design, even though this is a hot topic in the mainstream arts community. They pretend its a subset of the abstract "play contract." Other terms break down when tested against real standards. Even the definition of "indie," is questionable, since Ron saw fit to include Heroquest, an RPG that uses all the things he sees fot to exclude from "indie"-ness otherwise (it is not designed by the IP-holder, the IP was collaboratively created and it sells through a distributor), simply because he fancied it.

But Ron was the first to take such discussion to web fora in a big way, and that's a pretty big deal.

Those times I've been to The Forge the more outspoken denizens struck me as academic types. Lots of high-falutin speechifyin' with little sense to back it up.

Consider the prevalent misunderstanding of 'theory'. Properly speaking a theory is the best description for a phenomenon we've been able to come up with so far. What academics refer to as a theory is better known as an hypothesis. Basically, a guess. It might be an educated guess, it might be a wild ass guess, but it remains a guess.

They also struck me as trying to pass themselves off as members of a secret club. Complete with secret pass signs and vocabulary, and so on and so forth. The sort of thing Steve Jackson Games parodies in the card game Illuminati. (Illuminati RPG, the card game of the conspiratorial world of the RPG industry. That has possibilties. )

Ran across an essay on a '3rd culture'. People from the academic world who are starting to use science with academic subjects. I'll look for the essay and put up a link to it.

Dr. Awkward said:

That's not true. Jargon exists to facilitate discussion of difficult concepts. If I didn't have jargon, I could not easily communicate meaningfully with other biologists. If my wife didn't have jargon, she could not easily communicate meaningfully with other philosophers. If my friend didn't have jargon, he could not easily communicate meaningfully with other engineers.

. . .

It's not jargon that's the problem, it's people who use jargon to try to indicate that they are superior to others.

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I'd more say that the problem is when the jargon doesn't actually equate to a defensible idea. In the context of the Forge, you get these baroque semantic games thet go like this:

A: "Because of the principle of Frugab, we have apples."

B: "Frugab giving you apples does work. You also need apple trees."

A: "Obviously you don't understand what Frugab is, because it has nothing to do with getting apples."

B: "You just talked abnout Frugab in that context, didn't you?"

A: "Obviously, you don't know what apples are when we talk about them."

B: "What are they, then, if not the apples I see every day?"

A: "The product of Frugab!"

Kanegrundar said:

Personally, I think the whole GNS theory is a load of crap. I play games because their fun, not because I'm a Gamist, Narativist, or Simulationist. I really got the idea that most of the people that frequent the Forge have forgotten totally about the GAME aspect of rpG's to instead look for some "higher meaning" in their roleplaying. Bah. What a bunch of claptrap!

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I didn't get that impression; but I was more interested in seeing how Narrativism looked in play. (So I read Actual Play threads, for the most part, the RPG/GNS Theory not having great worth to me.)

I think the GNS theory is about taking a look at why you have fun. For times when the fun dries up (like it did for me).

mythusmage said:

Those times I've been to The Forge the more outspoken denizens struck me as academic types. Lots of high-falutin speechifyin' with little sense to back it up.

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No. Ron is an engineer. In fact, the Forge community doesn't really know much about intellectual trends in the wider world. In fact, I'd say Forge theory is specifically designed to appeal to people who feel alienated by more relevant intellectual trends.

Ran across an essay on a '3rd culture'. People from the academic world who are starting to use science with academic subjects. I'll look for the essay and put up a link to it.

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Those people are usually fools when they think outside their own disciplines, and appeal to people who feel that surely, the Nerds shall have their revenge over the art-school types who still get hired to write adcopy and Star Trek episodes instead of them. Jaron Lanier is a notable exception, but he's there to give some pretense of a broad movement for what is essentially a promotional tool by one literary agent.

Oh yeah -- I hear strong AI is just around the corner! *chortle*

LostSoul said:

I didn't get that impression; but I was more interested in seeing how Narrativism looked in play. (So I read Actual Play threads, for the most part, the RPG/GNS Theory not having great worth to me.)

I think the GNS theory is about taking a look at why you have fun. For times when the fun dries up (like it did for me).

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I'm glad you got some use out of what they have to say over there. I found it to be a bunch of self-important blowhards trying to show how smart they were. Not my idea of fun reading. I understand the premise behind what they have to say, I just think it's silly.