Not a convincing argument about what? If an intellectual movement produces the most influential innovation in its field in the past 30-odd years, I don't see how you can maintain the movement was unsuccessful or irrelevant.
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- Thread starter Whizbang Dustyboots
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Basically. Having a reliable group of people you get along with is more important than 1 campaign idea IMO, especially considering at any point in time there's at least a dozen things I'd love to run. I'll always pitch the thing I want to run most first, but am perfectly happy moving on to plan B, C, or D.
Aldarc
Legend
IMHO, regardless of how anyone may feel about the Forge or its ideas, I think that the present day landscape of the TTRPG scene would not be as rich without the Forge. Many fantastic and influential games came out from people involved in the Forge community discussions. It had a massive (positive) influence even on the OSR scene.
IMO, GNS is probably one of the least interesting or useful ideas that came out of the Forge, and GNS mostly revisits the even worse Threefold Model.
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I would (and have) argue that the hobby hasn't actually become all that diverse at all, and that it's currently in a rather big rut that, IMO, is rooted in the obsession with modularity and self-contained design.
That is evidenced by my visiting of TTRPG design spaces and finding a lot of very close-minded and conservative (not in the political sense) attitudes, even amongst the ostensible authorities on the subject.
I recently perused a book called Design Patterns of Successful RPGs, and in it they state very plainly that attempting to resolve a given design problem in a way different from whats already succeeded is bad, essentially saying that innovation in of itself is bad.
And this is a book that Ive seen a number of groups and spaces hold up as a proverbial Bible.
But ultimately, looking beyond those admittedly hobbyist spaces, I still find the hobby rather lacking.
In the past year Ive read through probably close to 300ish TTRPGs, and actively played (to the extent I could either by myself or with some interested friends) about 10% of them, and Ive actually tried out different procedures and mechanics from most of them just to get a sense of how they work.
And what Ive found is that there is a lot of sameyness in these games, with the worst offenders being so plainly derivative that they could have had the same value as one page supplements to whatever they copied.
But between both of these problems, I ended up having to start diving into video game design spaces to really get the kind of info I needed to keep pursuing my game.
And it has in fact worked; Ive learned quite a lot thats smoothed out the things Im developing, and helped me to better define not just my design philosophy but also an answer to that overhyped question of what the game is about, and has helped to instill confidence in the ideas that I was intuiting, as Im able to trace my ideas to design practices that have been proven and actually work without gatekeeping innovation.
I for instance, don't think its a coincidence that I ended up reinventing Tears of the Kingdom's take on Fusion in Durability mechanics when I sat and thought my way through how to best resolve the drawbacks of the idea while maintaining its upsides.
I personally arrived there by breaking down the idea and stripping away its aesthetics, which lead to me treating the idea as a question of how to best make whats essentially an HP bar feel more interesting to have be lowered.
This in turn lead me to realize that I had already solved the problem when I looked at my games normal HP mechanics, and looked at how I sought to resolve the issue of yo-yo healing, ie, preventing people from ignoring healing until you're already dead. In that system, I tied HP (and the other Energies) to Saving Throw mechanics, and whether you're making a Save or making someone else make one, your HP influences the chances of success.
But, for Durability, that solution doesn't go quite far enough, as there wasn't an equivalent to the saving throw mechanics. I did have an equivalent already incentivizing keeping the value up (Weapons/Armor losing strength), but there was nothing that makes restoring those develop more interesting choices, unlike Saving Throws which open up to endless choices.
So, that eventually lead to me figuring that I could leverage the crafting system I was already developing to also foster an interesting Repair system, that made losing Durability an opportunity to make more positive choices rather than a just a punishment for playing, your penance to trudge through rote minutia.
Instead, by introducing different materials into your Repairs, you can diversify what your Equipment can do, allowing not just for more mechanical flexibility but more expressive qualities; even if the player finds themselves in a situation where what they have to repair with isn't ideal, the aesthetics that arise out of using the less ideal is desirable, and with careful balance this will never be something that punishes the player, and at worst will simply not reward them.
This whole idea incidentally was also something I had already intuited by another road, as I had inadvertently already created the underlying system when I codified how my magic systen works. Corruptions are essentially magical Durability, and critical for balancing out the high octane nature of my systems Magic, and Mage classes are able to take them and convert them into a wider array of interesting choices, turning the system from punishment fir playing to opportunity generation to play more.
And lo and behold just as I started bringing my thoughts together on this someone gifted me Breath of the Wild and Tears and there I was cussing up a storm the moment I realized my idea was sitting there, fully realized and successful.
I might never have gotten to that point if I was willing to defer to the conventional "wisdom" of TTRPG design that innovation = bad.
That is evidenced by my visiting of TTRPG design spaces and finding a lot of very close-minded and conservative (not in the political sense) attitudes, even amongst the ostensible authorities on the subject.
I recently perused a book called Design Patterns of Successful RPGs, and in it they state very plainly that attempting to resolve a given design problem in a way different from whats already succeeded is bad, essentially saying that innovation in of itself is bad.
And this is a book that Ive seen a number of groups and spaces hold up as a proverbial Bible.
But ultimately, looking beyond those admittedly hobbyist spaces, I still find the hobby rather lacking.
In the past year Ive read through probably close to 300ish TTRPGs, and actively played (to the extent I could either by myself or with some interested friends) about 10% of them, and Ive actually tried out different procedures and mechanics from most of them just to get a sense of how they work.
And what Ive found is that there is a lot of sameyness in these games, with the worst offenders being so plainly derivative that they could have had the same value as one page supplements to whatever they copied.
But between both of these problems, I ended up having to start diving into video game design spaces to really get the kind of info I needed to keep pursuing my game.
And it has in fact worked; Ive learned quite a lot thats smoothed out the things Im developing, and helped me to better define not just my design philosophy but also an answer to that overhyped question of what the game is about, and has helped to instill confidence in the ideas that I was intuiting, as Im able to trace my ideas to design practices that have been proven and actually work without gatekeeping innovation.
I for instance, don't think its a coincidence that I ended up reinventing Tears of the Kingdom's take on Fusion in Durability mechanics when I sat and thought my way through how to best resolve the drawbacks of the idea while maintaining its upsides.
I personally arrived there by breaking down the idea and stripping away its aesthetics, which lead to me treating the idea as a question of how to best make whats essentially an HP bar feel more interesting to have be lowered.
This in turn lead me to realize that I had already solved the problem when I looked at my games normal HP mechanics, and looked at how I sought to resolve the issue of yo-yo healing, ie, preventing people from ignoring healing until you're already dead. In that system, I tied HP (and the other Energies) to Saving Throw mechanics, and whether you're making a Save or making someone else make one, your HP influences the chances of success.
But, for Durability, that solution doesn't go quite far enough, as there wasn't an equivalent to the saving throw mechanics. I did have an equivalent already incentivizing keeping the value up (Weapons/Armor losing strength), but there was nothing that makes restoring those develop more interesting choices, unlike Saving Throws which open up to endless choices.
So, that eventually lead to me figuring that I could leverage the crafting system I was already developing to also foster an interesting Repair system, that made losing Durability an opportunity to make more positive choices rather than a just a punishment for playing, your penance to trudge through rote minutia.
Instead, by introducing different materials into your Repairs, you can diversify what your Equipment can do, allowing not just for more mechanical flexibility but more expressive qualities; even if the player finds themselves in a situation where what they have to repair with isn't ideal, the aesthetics that arise out of using the less ideal is desirable, and with careful balance this will never be something that punishes the player, and at worst will simply not reward them.
This whole idea incidentally was also something I had already intuited by another road, as I had inadvertently already created the underlying system when I codified how my magic systen works. Corruptions are essentially magical Durability, and critical for balancing out the high octane nature of my systems Magic, and Mage classes are able to take them and convert them into a wider array of interesting choices, turning the system from punishment fir playing to opportunity generation to play more.
And lo and behold just as I started bringing my thoughts together on this someone gifted me Breath of the Wild and Tears and there I was cussing up a storm the moment I realized my idea was sitting there, fully realized and successful.
I might never have gotten to that point if I was willing to defer to the conventional "wisdom" of TTRPG design that innovation = bad.
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
I never said it was unsuccessful or irrelevant. I said it has no value to me as an examination of gaming styles in general because it is unrelenting biased in favor of the narrative approach.
G
Guest 7042500
Guest
I've been gaming with the same friends since the 1970s.
If I want to run a no magic campaign (or whatever) and somebody doesn't like it, they say "no thanks I'll sit this one out" like grownups do. Not every one of us has to play in every game. And if I say I want to run a zero magic campaign and they say they want to be a magic user, the next words out of my mouth will be "what part of 'no magic' did I mispronounce?" Because that sounds rude as hell to me.
Tl;dr Geek social fallacy #5 needs to die in a fire.
If I want to run a no magic campaign (or whatever) and somebody doesn't like it, they say "no thanks I'll sit this one out" like grownups do. Not every one of us has to play in every game. And if I say I want to run a zero magic campaign and they say they want to be a magic user, the next words out of my mouth will be "what part of 'no magic' did I mispronounce?" Because that sounds rude as hell to me.
Tl;dr Geek social fallacy #5 needs to die in a fire.
Campbell
Relaxed Intensity
People who were floundering in the hobby now having a space of their own is not a net good even if you don't enjoy the games they enjoy? Would it be better for them to leave the hobby or conform to your desired playstyle (even if it means they were far less happy)?
I mean it's not exactly like there is a dearth of energy for OSR games or trad games.
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Lanefan
Victoria Rules
Change the 13 to 11, the 9 to 10, and then rearrange the order and you've got the starting stats for one of the best characters I've ever had. And this was a 3e character, in a game where most of the other characters totalled in the 72-75 range and a few were into the 80s.
We used total bonus as the re-roll cutoff. Her net bonus came to +2, which meant I had to keep her; had it been 0 or less I could have re-rolled - and would have missed out on the 7 years of joy and wonder I had playing her.
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
Perhaps a model that purports to cover all styles of gaming fairly should actually do so.
Campbell
Relaxed Intensity
This is not a response to what I said. It's a deflection. There are some flaws with the Big Model, but the Story Now portion (and its influence) are what you were decrying. I don't understand why a niche style of play seeing some support and energy in our hobby should be seen as a threatening influence by anyone. Why should we not celebrate the diversity of the hobby instead? I for one am excited that over the course of this year I have been able to enjoy multiple games in multiple styles of play.
This week I am playing in a short Mork Borg game after which we will play a 3-4 session game of Girl by Moonlight (a Forged in the Dark game about magical girls leaning on each other to deal with their inner darkness). We've just wrapped up a 6-month long game of Cyberpunk played in a more neotrad way. I don't expect everyone to enjoy multiple styles of play in the same way I do, but is it too much to ask to respect the craft of game designers and be happy that people have games they enjoy even if you do not enjoy them?
I'm certainly happy that Adventure Conqueror King exists. I prefer Worlds Without Number for my sandbox play, but I'm genuinely happy that people can find their bliss.
I mean 5e is pretty far from the sort of D&D I most enjoy, but I have Pathfinder Second Edition, D&D 4e and B/X (along with excellent OSR games like Worlds Without Number, Into the Odd and The Nightmares Underneath). I don't need 5e to suit my interests. The way I see it is we have an excellent menu of experiences to choose from.
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