What is "The Forge?"

[d20Dwarf]

Show me the thread where a Forge member told another gamer that their game sucked.

Show it to me.

For the sake of brevity, I'm willing to amend my statement to "your game is limited and weak." Then we have a built-in example and won't get caught up in semantic traps.

 

[Samuel Leming]

Edit:

I think what makes me care about GNS is that I can sit back and think about my fellow players, and I can peg them with it. And whether or not my definitions are the same as someone else's definitions, I can still peg my players. I can put them on the GNS triangular continuum and it will tell me information about their preferred play style. I can use this information both as a player and as a GM to help facilitate the game so that it goes in directions that all of us can agree on. And I can use it to talk them into doing the same. So the game is more enjoyable for all. Which, again, is not simulationist, but metagame. Enjoyment is the point of the game, not one of several goals that could be realized. GNS just describes three non-exclusive ways to enjoy a game.

Yep, that's exactly what I wanted to know.

I'm glad I didn't respond before your edit.

Sam

 

[LostSoul]

I drove him up to the edge of sanity because I thought it would work well for his character. He was neurotic to start with, but I made him obsessive. It made his life hell, and he totally lost all his credibility as a commanding officer. Then he let loose with the death robots as a last play at regaining control of a completely out-of-control situation.

Dude, that's awesome! I want to play in your games. However they're defined.

 

[LostSoul]

Even if their creative agenda is "Story Now"? As far as I can tell, neither the word "story" nor the word "now" connote the resolution of ethical issues.

Wait, I'm lost. "Story Now" or "story now"? You see how I define "Story Now" - addressing moral and ethical issues. If the goal isn't to address those issues, it's not "Story Now." (Using my own definition.) The desire to be part of/create a story isn't necessarily part of that.

For instance, playing through the saga of Beowulf with the intent of creating a story that mirrors Beowulf's. (Let me clear that up - where the goal of play is to stay as true to the story of Beowulf as possible, and avoiding making your own, personal choices about the issues brought up in that saga; instead, you want to follow Beowulf's lead, and make the choices that he made.) Since you aren't addressing moral and ethical issues, it's not "Story Now".

The players want a story, but they avoid making personal choices about moral and ethical issues via gameplay - it doesn't fit my definition of "Story Now". It might be "story now", however.

Maybe that means that "Story Now" is a bad label.

 

[Samuel Leming]

For instance, playing through the saga of Beowulf with the intent of creating a story that mirrors Beowulf's. (Let me clear that up - where the goal of play is to stay as true to the story of Beowulf as possible, and avoiding making your own, personal choices about the issues brought up in that saga; instead, you want to follow Beowulf's lead, and make the choices that he made.) Since you aren't addressing moral and ethical issues, it's not "Story Now".

I seem to remember that one of the essays addresses this kind of scenario directly. I believe these kinds of games were classified as a subcategory of Sim called "Pastiche". :\

Yeah, "Story Now" is a bad label.

Sam

 

[Wil]

I didn't take what eyebeams said as a slam on the Forge. I just wanted to know what commercial designers know that other people don't. I'm curious about the influences and the journey that he speaks of.

I'M HONESTLY CURIOUS. I'm asking an honest question here.

Lemme give an example that might illustrate what one of the differences might be.

For years, the company that bought out the outfit I work for developed standardized testing, along with other solutions, for the education industry. It is an old company, based near Princeton, with a lot of academic types - complete with an ivory-tower syndrome. They'd spend all kinds of time devising all kinds of new and interesting products, and then proceed to tell potential customers that this is what they need, because a panel of pipe-smoking, tweed-jacket wearing professor types told them so. They, as might be expected, were not bringing in a lot of revenue - they didn't understand the culture, or the mindset, of the people they were trying to sell to.

Within the first year of being under that company's umbrella, my company was the only profitable section, beating out divisions that had been around magnitudes longer and were headed by professors. Our company was headed by former school superintendents who knew the culture inside and out, and knew how to sell to them - find out what the client wants, sell it to them, and then develop it. Sure, it's hell on the development and technical staff - when someone comes back from negotiations with a school district and says, "We told them it would be no problem if we do this...we can, right?" it usually makes us want to hit the bar for a few hours to see if the problem goes away.

So, the Forge is like my company's Princeton office - they're trying to tell us what's innovative, what we should like, what is the best game to do x with - and they've distanced themselves enough to not quite understand why most gamers don't care. Most commercial publishers are like the Redlands office - they try to deliver what the public wants, and the really big publishers actually ask before doing it. It may not be innovative, or artsy, or cheap - but time and again the game buying public has proven that they don't want innovative, or artsy, or cheap. It doesn't mean that either side is 100% right or wrong though - to paraphrase my company president, "We have a lot to learn from each other

 

[eyebeams]

Is this really the case, or is it what you would like things to be? Have you considered the possibilty others may not have your motivations? A survey of one is a poor predictor of group behavior.

No, it's one of the things that has come up in coversation with real live designers, including those I have worked with freelancing and playtesting.

 

[Paka]

Wil, I disagree with almost every word you said but I'll accentuate the positive:

"We have a lot to learn from each other

And amen.

 

[mythusmage]

No, it's one of the things that has come up in coversation with real live designers, including those I have worked with freelancing and playtesting.

What of those who disagree? Do you consider viewpoints and insights that contradict yours, or only those that support them?

 

[eyebeams]

Woops. Vanity publishers don't make money. Everyone I know who publishes at the Forge is in the black.

Self-publishers, Wil, self-publishers.

Just because I sell you my old Monster Manual doesn't make me a used book propietor who should be given props in the booksellers community.

I didn't take what eyebeams said as a slam on the Forge. I just wanted to know what commercial designers know that other people don't. I'm curious about the influences and the journey that he speaks of.

I'M HONESTLY CURIOUS. I'm asking an honest question here.

I am not waiting with bated breath so I can slam him in public.

I'm really nice.

Really.

Now I might challenge his ideas but I think I can do so without attacking him.

Funnily, when I actually explained what commercial game folks do from my PoV at the Forge they really, really didn't like hearing it.

There are three things people at the Forge do not, as a general rule, understand about how RPG stuff gets made:

1) The Forge assumes a collaborative process where some soulless business meeting determines the game and we follow a rigid outline to produce said game/book. The truth is that development exists mostly to vet ideas, not to impose them. For example, much of the conclusion of Mage: The Ascension came from my creative input above and beyond developer direction. Talking for Forgites, these guys assume that development is like Marvel Comics editorial direction c. 1993 or something. The problem now is that some companies are actually going in that direction and losing creative vitality, calming the brainstorm before it even starts.

The developer/freelancer relationship is a lot like the GM/player relationship, actually. The developer is responsible for a coherent line just as the GM is responsible for a coherent experience. Like players, freelancers don't just sit there. They must engage the subject and cooperate.

Now there are some extremely authorial developers out there, but they're generally folks who really don't want a certain vision to get lost. Or they suck.

Outside of this, the Forge seems to believe that we work in isolation and never play our games. I was once told right out that some dude who did his 10 page "game" was more in tune with me because I was writing by myself with no players. In fact, I talk to other writers all the time, we have many informal communities, and we're playing all the time.

Mind you, the "never play the games," thing has to do with Ron's bizarre assertion that nobody plays Vampire, but that's a different humdinger.

2) We look at players as autonomous individuals joined by an out of game relationship, who use that as the basis for game play. There is nothing bonding players to a shared vision. Instead, there is a relationship between the interests of players that negotiates itself before, during and after play. Sometimes we think of "types" of gamers (powergamers, social gamers, etc) and sometimes we think of game features that some like and some don't.

The result is a much less "focused" design and one that thinks of a multitude of interests. There is no contract or design driven auteur who is assumed to be in control of the game's vision. The game supports those varied interests. The trick is to link them to a bigger idea and creative play.

The illusion of "shared imagination," or a "play contract" don't come up and are actually pretty dangerous to the production of a viable game. The exception is a play contract that establishes minimum common standards (no sexual violence in a game; no PC backstabbing).

3) We look at things outside of gaming a whole lot and ask how we can apply it to games. This is individual and varied, but at its heart, it means that we are interested in linking RPG play and design to other ideas in popular (or academic) culture. It is not enough to be innovative inside the RPG community. We have to look at what's going on everywhere else. There's a commercial interest, but also one of relevance outside the hobby.