D&D General Mike Mearls' blog post about RPG generations

[Nikosandros]

I suspect that shock was in fact fear and apprehension that you were about to pronounce the dread name!

Nah... I would never be so careless as to pronounce the full name of Thar.... [Nikosandros is carried away screaming by unseen forces moving along the dimension of nonconceivability]

 

[Charlaquin]

I'm apparently completely ignorant of The Forge that folk are referencing (I only know of the FoundryVTT The Forge )... Is it that the terms were originated by TF and TF is poison, or that the terms were afterwards poisoned by TF?
I'll have to google what TF is in the first place...

The terms did originate on the forge, and personally, I think the forge was a net positive for the hobby. But, there was a lot of positive and a lot of negative there, and again, people have strong opinions about it, and about Ron Edwards that tend to overshadow more productive discussions of the model he devised.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

This gets to the heart of my gripes with the Forge. At best the GNS are axes of a scatter plot with each player a point of in 3d space with some g, some n and some s.
The agendas of play oversimplifies and obscures that most people come at the thing with multiple of agendas in mind and may actually respond to different rules systems with different agenda priorities.

Very briefly- I think that the Forge did one very incredible and useful thing, and the rest of it .... I'll pass over in silence.

Let's start with the basics. At its core, the Forge followed the Evan Torner model. Here's my summary as I described it previously:

First, however, I'd like to start by summarizing Evan Torner's work in the book Role-Playing Game Studies- in describing another attempt to provide a coherent RPG theory, Torner correctly notes that the same rhetorical tropes are consistently used every single time someone proposes a grand unified RPG theory- first, the person provides it in a semi-professional form (zine, on-line BBS, personal blog, forum, wiki, etc.). Second, it continues the same debates we are all familiar with (e.g., realism versus playability; task resolution; game design and play advice etc.). It will almost always do so through the utilization of player and system typologies (what players enjoy about different games and how different games accommodate those preferences). Third, the author will almost always claim to be a "big tent" and unbiased observer of the typologies seeking only to end the prior debates, while actually looking to continue the debate and, more often than not, delegitimatize other methods of play through the seemingly-neutral goal of helping people design and play 'better.' Fourth, and finally, the author will inevitably make the same points that were made years or decades ago.

While Torner was discussing something that was after the Forge, it works for the Forge as well.

First, it was presented in a semi-professional form (on-line forum using professional-seeming terms).
Second, it continued the same debates we were all familiar with through utilization of player and system typologies.
Third, it claimed to be a "big tent" and was just saying that it was as unbiased observer of the field, seeking to end the prior GDS debate by using the GNS framework to end all prior debates (and claiming to have ended it so successfully that the Forge discontinued operation).
But while it was ostensibly about ending debates and helping people design and play "better," it really was delegitimatizing non-Forge methods of play (in other words, it's real cute that you play G or S, but why aren't you playing N?).
Finally, the Forge wasn't really new, but was recycling arguments that existed since the late '70s.


I believe all of this to be true, and it's why I am not a huge fan of seeing that argument continue to this day. But I also simultaneously subscribe to a more charitable view of what the Forge did- in other words, if we don't view it as an attempt to create a grand unified typology of RPGs, but to instead look at it as a critique of the current modality of play. Viewed in that way, I think that one could state the following:

The Forge pointed out that there were people who wanted to play TTRPGs that prioritized a certain style of play (we will call that the N style).
The games that were being made did not have mechanics that supported the N style, and you really had to twist the games and the mechanics around in order to make the N style work.
So how can we design N style games?

And from that, you had people start focusing on creating N style games, and I would argue that this insight led to a revolution in TTRPGs and a flowering of new game types- most of them weren't completely new (we stand on the shoulders of giants) but it was remarkable. Eventually, the games began to move afield from what the Forge said (Baker went one way, storygames another, rules lite games went another way still) but it did create a lot of intellectual ferment that led to a really healthy, if small, branch of awesome and cool games that better support a different modality of play.

But that's, like, my opinion man.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

This is Fiend Folio erasure. I will be sending a death knight over to discuss the issue with you.

I apologize wholeheartedly for the oversight, and I agree with you. FIend Folio is a MILLION TIMES BETTER than MM2.

But I appreciate that you will be sending a Death Knight, and not a bard, so there's that.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Very briefly- I think that the Forge did one very incredible and useful thing, and the rest of it .... I'll pass over in silence.

Let's start with the basics. At its core, the Forge followed the Evan Torner model. Here's my summary as I described it previously:

First, however, I'd like to start by summarizing Evan Torner's work in the book Role-Playing Game Studies- in describing another attempt to provide a coherent RPG theory, Torner correctly notes that the same rhetorical tropes are consistently used every single time someone proposes a grand unified RPG theory- first, the person provides it in a semi-professional form (zine, on-line BBS, personal blog, forum, wiki, etc.). Second, it continues the same debates we are all familiar with (e.g., realism versus playability; task resolution; game design and play advice etc.). It will almost always do so through the utilization of player and system typologies (what players enjoy about different games and how different games accommodate those preferences). Third, the author will almost always claim to be a "big tent" and unbiased observer of the typologies seeking only to end the prior debates, while actually looking to continue the debate and, more often than not, delegitimatize other methods of play through the seemingly-neutral goal of helping people design and play 'better.' Fourth, and finally, the author will inevitably make the same points that were made years or decades ago.

While Torner was discussing something that was after the Forge, it works for the Forge as well.

First, it was presented in a semi-professional form (on-line forum using professional-seeming terms).
Second, it continued the same debates we were all familiar with through utilization of player and system typologies.
Third, it claimed to be a "big tent" and was just saying that it was as unbiased observer of the field, seeking to end the prior GDS debate by using the GNS framework to end all prior debates (and claiming to have ended it so successfully that the Forge discontinued operation).
But while it was ostensibly about ending debates and helping people design and play "better," it really was delegitimatizing non-Forge methods of play (in other words, it's real cute that you play G or S, but why aren't you playing N?).
Finally, the Forge wasn't really new, but was recycling arguments that existed since the late '70s.


I believe all of this to be true, and it's why I am not a huge fan of seeing that argument continue to this day. But I also simultaneously subscribe to a more charitable view of what the Forge did- in other words, if we don't view it as an attempt to create a grand unified typology of RPGs, but to instead look at it as a critique of the current modality of play. Viewed in that way, I think that one could state the following:

The Forge pointed out that there were people who wanted to play TTRPGs that prioritized a certain style of play (we will call that the N style).
The games that were being made did not have mechanics that supported the N style, and you really had to twist the games and the mechanics around in order to make the N style work.
So how can we design N style games?

And from that, you had people start focusing on creating N style games, and I would argue that this insight led to a revolution in TTRPGs and a flowering of new game types- most of them weren't completely new (we stand on the shoulders of giants) but it was remarkable. Eventually, the games began to move afield from what the Forge said (Baker went one way, storygames another, rules lite games went another way still) but it did create a lot of intellectual ferment that led to a really healthy, if small, branch of awesome and cool games that better support a different modality of play.

But that's, like, my opinion man.

This I can get behind and largely agree that in its time and place it was a useful exercise. I never considered it as a dialectical process before, but yes, if one is not being well serves by the current offering (or dominant offerings) finding and promoting something that suits (or inventing it) is fruitful and expands on the range and capabilities of future rpg games as some of those ideas get incorporated in to newer games.

 

[Micah Sweet]

No, thats absolutely false, and I flat out reject that its needed in any way. That abomination of a thread sure doesnt seem to reflect how 'labels' aid in communication at all here.

Fair enough. Do you have an alternative?

 

[TwoSix]

And from that, you had people start focusing on creating N style games, and I would argue that this insight led to a revolution in TTRPGs and a flowering of new game types- most of them weren't completely new (we stand on the shoulders of giants) but it was remarkable. Eventually, the games began to move afield from what the Forge said (Baker went one way, storygames another, rules lite games went another way still) but it did create a lot of intellectual ferment that led to a really healthy, if small, branch of awesome and cool games that better support a different modality of play.

The timing also mattered quite a bit too. The time period for the bulk of the Forge discussions was the early '00s. This was just after the release of 3e, which saw a not-large but not negligible portion of the D&D playerbase decide they didn't want to move on to another system. At the same time, the other '90s era tentpole of White Wolf/WOD ended their game lines and started a revised, not particularly well-accepted new branch of games.

Combine that erosion of gaming monoliths with that the internet quickly becoming mainstream, and doing its typical "bring in everyone, sort them, and then let them fracture into new subgroups", and you had a situation where a type of discourse that would usually only be of interest to the grossly nerdy (raises hand) was much more impactful than would be otherwise expected.

 

[Scribe]

Fair enough. Do you have an alternative?

Yeah, discuss what you like, the motivations behind it, without appealing to a label which is just another thing people argue about like in that thread over yonder.

 

[dbolack]

But I appreciate that you will be sending a Death Knight, and not a bard, so there's that.

I think you've earned that measure of respect, at least.

 

[AlViking]

I apologize wholeheartedly for the oversight, and I agree with you. FIend Folio is a MILLION TIMES BETTER than MM2.

But I appreciate that you will be sending a Death Knight, and not a bard, so there's that.

Don't sell yourself short, man. I think you deserve a Death Knight bard, only the best for you!