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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6732069" data-attributes="member: 4937">I don't agree with everything you say, but I do agree with that.&nbsp; Forge's grand theory of RPGs wasn't intended to describe what people had experienced inclusively, but rather defined from the basis of theory the limits of what people could experience.&nbsp; A succession of bad words were invented to then belittle and slander anyone that claimed to experience anything other than what they were supposed to experience, and in essence anyone that claimed to be running (for example) process simulation and to have story goals that were being successfully met by that system was mocked as being self-deluded.&nbsp; System mattered, thus how you approached play or how you thought about play didn't matter but instead was limited by the system.&nbsp; If something didn't fit the theory, it had to be deconstructed, diminished, and ultimately denigrated.&nbsp; No one in the history of gaming of any prominence has developed more synonyms for 'badwrongfun', nor been considered a credible commentator despite the games he was producing and not because of them, than Ron Edwards.&nbsp; That was the bad side of the Forge culture and it should not be overlooked just how corrosive it was when it was at full bore.But, for all of that, I do think that some good things came out of the Forge's work.&nbsp; They did either invent or introduce me to a lot of useful terminology that they'd coopted for talking about games - agency for example - that I otherwise didn't have.&nbsp;&nbsp; I think it's possible to employ at least some Forge speak in a constructive manner, without endorsing the larger theory or its specifics.&nbsp; And some of the Indy games that came out of that dialogue did invent or formalize new techniques and methods of play resolution that are really valuable in some cases and for some purposes.&nbsp; And while I don't strictly believe in &quot;System Matters&quot; the way Forge defined it, I think it did cause people to take harder looks at what there system was actually achieving and thinking about what it was intended to achieve in a way that was rare and more sporadic in the first 10-15 years of game design.&nbsp; I'm not sure that the degree to which all of that is positive can be appreciated unless you go back and look and older designs and also how people talked about older design.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 6732069, member: 4937"] I don't agree with everything you say, but I do agree with that. Forge's grand theory of RPGs wasn't intended to describe what people had experienced inclusively, but rather defined from the basis of theory the limits of what people could experience. A succession of bad words were invented to then belittle and slander anyone that claimed to experience anything other than what they were supposed to experience, and in essence anyone that claimed to be running (for example) process simulation and to have story goals that were being successfully met by that system was mocked as being self-deluded. System mattered, thus how you approached play or how you thought about play didn't matter but instead was limited by the system. If something didn't fit the theory, it had to be deconstructed, diminished, and ultimately denigrated. No one in the history of gaming of any prominence has developed more synonyms for 'badwrongfun', nor been considered a credible commentator despite the games he was producing and not because of them, than Ron Edwards. That was the bad side of the Forge culture and it should not be overlooked just how corrosive it was when it was at full bore. But, for all of that, I do think that some good things came out of the Forge's work. They did either invent or introduce me to a lot of useful terminology that they'd coopted for talking about games - agency for example - that I otherwise didn't have. I think it's possible to employ at least some Forge speak in a constructive manner, without endorsing the larger theory or its specifics. And some of the Indy games that came out of that dialogue did invent or formalize new techniques and methods of play resolution that are really valuable in some cases and for some purposes. And while I don't strictly believe in "System Matters" the way Forge defined it, I think it did cause people to take harder looks at what there system was actually achieving and thinking about what it was intended to achieve in a way that was rare and more sporadic in the first 10-15 years of game design. I'm not sure that the degree to which all of that is positive can be appreciated unless you go back and look and older designs and also how people talked about older design. [/QUOTE]

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