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<blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6730771" data-attributes="member: 6696971">No I got you.&nbsp; I was mostly just using your post as a springboard to respond generally to the &quot;revise the history of RPGs to remove/discount the Forge's influence on theory and analysis&quot; theme I've seen in the gaming community (definitely on these boards) or by specific commenters.&nbsp; Were the Simulationist essays incomplete or unfair?&nbsp; I have an opinion (for when I put my sim GM hat on for Classic Traveller), but I'll leave it to ardent process-sim folks as an uncertain number of them have strong opinions on the subject.Was the moderation heavy-handed?&nbsp; Edwards had severe disdain for threadcrapping, coat-racking, or topic drift and inserted himself rather prolifically when this occurred.&nbsp; There are a lot of forums I've followed, or engaged with, over the years where the moderation approach is similar.&nbsp; They tend to have pretty focused, technical discourse.And the &quot;brain-damaged&quot; stuff?&nbsp; I do have an opinion on this.&nbsp; &quot;You can't teach an old dog new tricks&quot; is a pretty well established cultural meme for a reason.&nbsp; With considerable time, practice, and emotional investment, it is an inevitability that mental frameworks ossify, cognitive biases develop and regiment behavior (eg &quot;put on blinders&quot;), and muscle memory causes a subject to resort to prior fundamentals in times of acute stress.&nbsp; This is a very real, very uniform aspect of human cognition.&nbsp; We are all subject to this and manage our own battles with it.&nbsp; Unlearning a tenured paradigm (whether it be martial, mental, or emotional) and learning and applying a new one in its stead is extraordinarily difficult.&nbsp; Something as &quot;simple&quot; (eg lacking a certain quality of emotional investment/backing) as a golf swing or sleep behavior is amazingly difficult to unlearn and retool.&nbsp; And it runs both ways regarding TTRPGs (eg not just the inability to run games alternative to D&amp;D).&nbsp; Folks who grew up solely on White Wolf games (without exposure to D&amp;D) would have a difficult time internalizing the GMing principles and techniques inherent to running a pure D&amp;D Basic dungeon crawl.&nbsp; Same thing goes for folks who only ran Story Now engines like Dogs and then were forced to run a game like Classic Traveller.&nbsp; Instead of recognizing that utterly obvious reality, people freak out about brain-damaged (certainly detractors because it was a very expedient way to brand their hated enemy as a monster!).&nbsp; The Forge existed.&nbsp; It wasn't some weird revolution attempting to infect the cultural bloodstream of TTRPGs with a Story Now pathogen.&nbsp; Edwards was just some dude on the internet, not a GNS bogeyman imposing a YOU WILL ONLY RUN NARRATIVE GAMES OR YOU WILL FACE THE WRATH OF OUR GNS JACKBOOTS directive.&nbsp; Follks explored and analyzed past and present systems, techniques, play priorities and posited some alternative approaches.&nbsp; Done.&nbsp; Oh and I guess they stirred up the natives something fierce in the doing.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Manbearcat, post: 6730771, member: 6696971"] No I got you. I was mostly just using your post as a springboard to respond generally to the "revise the history of RPGs to remove/discount the Forge's influence on theory and analysis" theme I've seen in the gaming community (definitely on these boards) or by specific commenters. Were the Simulationist essays incomplete or unfair? I have an opinion (for when I put my sim GM hat on for Classic Traveller), but I'll leave it to ardent process-sim folks as an uncertain number of them have strong opinions on the subject. Was the moderation heavy-handed? Edwards had severe disdain for threadcrapping, coat-racking, or topic drift and inserted himself rather prolifically when this occurred. There are a lot of forums I've followed, or engaged with, over the years where the moderation approach is similar. They tend to have pretty focused, technical discourse. And the "brain-damaged" stuff? I do have an opinion on this. "You can't teach an old dog new tricks" is a pretty well established cultural meme for a reason. With considerable time, practice, and emotional investment, it is an inevitability that mental frameworks ossify, cognitive biases develop and regiment behavior (eg "put on blinders"), and muscle memory causes a subject to resort to prior fundamentals in times of acute stress. This is a very real, very uniform aspect of human cognition. We are all subject to this and manage our own battles with it. Unlearning a tenured paradigm (whether it be martial, mental, or emotional) and learning and [u]applying[/u] a new one in its stead is extraordinarily difficult. Something as "simple" (eg lacking a certain quality of emotional investment/backing) as a golf swing or sleep behavior is amazingly difficult to unlearn and retool. And it runs both ways regarding TTRPGs (eg not just the inability to run games alternative to D&D). Folks who grew up solely on White Wolf games (without exposure to D&D) would have a difficult time internalizing the GMing principles and techniques inherent to running a pure D&D Basic dungeon crawl. Same thing goes for folks who only ran Story Now engines like Dogs and then were forced to run a game like Classic Traveller. Instead of recognizing that utterly obvious reality, people freak out about brain-damaged (certainly detractors because it was a very expedient way to brand their hated enemy as a monster!). The Forge existed. It wasn't some weird revolution attempting to infect the cultural bloodstream of TTRPGs with a Story Now pathogen. Edwards was just some dude on the internet, not a GNS bogeyman imposing a YOU WILL ONLY RUN NARRATIVE GAMES OR YOU WILL FACE THE WRATH OF OUR GNS JACKBOOTS directive. Follks explored and analyzed past and present systems, techniques, play priorities and posited some alternative approaches. Done. Oh and I guess they stirred up the natives something fierce in the doing. [/QUOTE]

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