What is "The Forge?"

[jgbrowning]

For your cataracts, right?

All four of them, I believe.

joe b.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

I can get behind that - the problem with jargon at The Forge is that it isn't used to faciliatate the discussion of difficult concepts, but to 'dress up' rather mundane concepts to make them sound more intellectual than they really are. I've seen dozens of non-Forge designers discuss Forge concepts using plain Enlglish and not lose anything in the translation (except, perhaps, for the pretension). In some cases, an antire lexicon of jargon isn't necessary - game design seems to be one of those cases.

This is somewhat true - as I state above, however, jargon is part of the problem. A lexicon of invented terminology and/or re-definition of existing words isn't necessary to elucidate the things that The Forge espouses. Plain language will work just fine, but it is passed over specifically in favor of more complex, invented, jargon (much of which lacks objective definition). There is no doubt in my mind that this choice was made to 'sound important' - why else would you invent new terminology when words already existed that could easily explain your ideas without confusion? Jargon is part of the problem, but not the whole problem.

From the sound of it, it's not jargon that's the problem. It's Humpty-Dumptyism.

"There's glory for you!"
"I don't know what you mean by 'glory'," Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't--till I tell you. I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!'"
"But 'glory' doesn't mean 'a nice knock-down argument'," Alice objected.
"When I use a word", Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean--neither more nor less."

 

[Samuel Leming]

A Thimble, a Bucket & a Barrel

Imagine this. A group sits down to play and in addition to playing their characters they add and/or subtract elements such as locations or locations from the campaign setting using a system of rules designed for this purpose. Since characters are being played, this is more than just collaborative world building.

So, how would one classify these players and their system in GNS terms? It’s not Narativist, since setting is being addressed rather than the thematic aspects of situation. It’s not Gamist, since the player performance & risk aren’t being brought to the forefront. It must be Simulationist then, since that’s the catch all category for everything that’s not Narativist or Gamist and it has to fit somewhere.

This is a problem though, since the games that typically get pegged as Simulationist don’t support this style of play any better than they support Narativistic play. Really this game has more in common with Narativism, with it’s co-GMs and direct addressing of setting elements, not to mention the meta-gaming elements.

So, this game doesn’t qualify as Narativism and it’s certainly not Gamism. Since all the typical simulationist styles are a poor fit, so maybe an entirely new category should be created for it. I’ll call it Milieuism, since that has the proper pretentious and pompous ring such categories require.

Adding Milieuism, we now have GNMS theory. Why should the way Ron Edwards plays get top billing and Milieuism is relegated to the Simulationist ghetto?

I don’t think it would take much effort to come up with yet another style that doesn’t qualify as N or G and doesn’t fit S very well. We’d soon have the Alphabet Soup Theory.

This is one of the main problems I have with GNS theory. These categories are like a thimble, a bucket, and a barrel. Anything that doesn’t qualify for the extremely tight and narrow Narativist thimble and doesn’t obviously belong in the overflowing 00Gamist bucket is dumped into the Simulationist barrel. If you were to instead give gaming styles with overt metagaming(Gamism, Narativism, Milieuism, etc.) their own top-level titles you’d soon run out of letters.

If you could fit Milieuism and other Xisms into Simulationism, than you can certainly fit Narativism in there too. Milieuism uses metagame to address setting, but doesn’t Narativism just use metagame to address the theme aspects of situation?

Perhaps it would be better to look at the situation using the old Game/Toy divide. From those two you could look at how much metagaming is being used to address the various elements such as Character, Setting, Situation, System and Color. This would cover more GNS does now, but would it cover everything. I don’t know, I’m not a theory wonk.

Narativism as a separate high level category is a fatal flaw to the theory right from the start.

Sam

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

I tend to look a bit sideways at this approach to gaming for exactly the following reason:Versatility and what Dr. Awkward terms replay value are very high on my list of important system attributes - I would rather muddle along with a more generic system and tweak it to get the feel that I want to create than have such a finely-tuned game that only takes you a handful of places. Put another way, I'd rather have a Maglite than a laser pointer.

Yeah, they'll get my d20 when they pry it from my cold, dead hands. But for those days when I just want something different, MLWM only cost me what, like $10? Come on, I spend more than that on coffee in a week. I can afford to keep it around for when my meat-and-potatoes system needs some gravy.

 

[jdrakeh]

From the sound of it, it's not jargon that's the problem. It's Humpty-Dumptyism.

I rather like that comparison. It both illustrates the point that I've been trying to make in fewer words and does so in a manner that makes me smile. Hooray for Doc Awk and Lewis Carroll!

 

[eyebeams]

I don't support everything that comes out of the Forge, but I do support many of the key points, or at least twist them to meet my own ends.

Hm.

1. Simulation As Tool, Not Goal.
This is the big one for me, and the example that The Shaman pulled from the RPG.net thread is what I'm talking about. There's a vast world of difference between trying to simulate a reality in an RPG because that's what you think you're supposed to do, and doing that because you know it's what you're supposed to do.

To take the starship fuel example, I might want a tightly focused game where the players spend 90% of their time talking to aliens, negotiating treaties, and so on. I don't really care about running scenes where the PCs fly their ship around.

OTOH, I might want the game to incorporate that because it makes for more interesting gaming. Do you press on to a primitive alien world knowing that you might not have enough fuel to make it there, but your rivals from the Klingon Empire have already sent a delegation? Do you risk being stranded at the cost of stopping the klingons from exploiting the planet?

The key is that, as a designer, I'm making a conscious choice. I add, or ignore, such rules with the intention of shaping how the game plays. I recognize that simulation is useful for extending the game and for making things easier for the players to cope with, but I also recognize that a game can't do everything. Ideally, if I choose to ignore rules for space travel, I make it very clear in the game that it doesn't support that style of play. OTOH, if I try to do a more thorough job of simulation, I don't write about how my game is designed purely to support storytelling. It isn't - there's a level of sim there that, unless you're willing to ignore rules, pushes drama behind it. The GM can't just say "You're low on fuel and have to land on this planet."

See, they lose me once they talk about a monolithic play style. The fact of the matter is that the play contract is a sham, and designs that assume one will be in force support a basically dysfunctional group dynamic.

You have startship fuel rules not because it will be more fun for everybody. You have it as an option for the bean-counting player. If no such bean-counting player exists you, as a halfway intelligent designer, ought to have an explanation for why the option need not be used higher up in the hierarchy that begins at the core mechanic and devolves into various individual manifestations.

This method is handy because it formalizes the way people actually play RPGs, which is by erratically ahering to specific mechanics but defaulting to core if they can't or won't bother with complex by-case system.

2. System Matters
This is another big one. The rules of the game shape how the game works. If a group has to make lots of house rules, then maybe the game doesn't fit what they want. They may have been better off with something else. This isn't always the case. Sometimes, only a homebrew does what you want. But, all in all, a designer should strive to build his game so that the closer the players stick to the rules, the more fun they have.

Ah, but doesn't this contradict the idea that the rules serve the player? This is part of the problem with the Forge -- the schizophrenic leap between "serving" a play group and ordering them to behave in a certain way, usually by simply removing the tools players could use to explore individual niches. Of course, this is awfully handy at letting Forge folks generally write far less than a commercial designer has to.

I truly and utterly hate the idea that if the game goes wrong, it's always the players fault. Could you imagine a car dealer telling you that it's always your fault if a car breaks down? Would you buy an XBox if it crashed every half-hour and Microsoft's tech support said, "It's your fault, you weren't playing the game the right way"?

But you see, Mike, this contradicts:

"But, all in all, a designer should strive to build his game so that the closer the players stick to the rules, the more fun they have."

There is an implicit punitive component to this. As the designer, you are now telling folks how to play instead of enabling different kinds of play. The best games present emergent modes of play that are not part of the intentional design --i.e, I can do this cool thing with this spell/power/skill.

You cannot simultaneously be saying that you are serving players while applying coercive tactics to create a rigid consensus on how to play.

It's not like a faulty XBox. It's like an XBox that's bought to serve the needs of the family PC. I want to word process, she wants to use the Net, little Billy wants to play RTS games -- but instead we have an XBox that does one thing decently and only does the rest if I pry open the case. The difference with the XBox is that I pay a discount *because* it comes crippled.

This is, of course, why rules light games often suck.

I hate the idea that rules get in the way of fun even more. If that's true, and if a GM can make any game system fun, why even bother buying an RPG? Why not just find a good GM and play in all the games he runs? What's the point of even designing games? The designer's efforts mean nothing if we accept that rules don't make any difference. I've played lots of RPGs, and I can categorically say that some games are more fun than others.

I think how the rules are framed by exposition is a significant factor. Few players understand the substance of the rules without some extended play. Look at Exalted: Its rules are framed by text that reminds you how cool your character is, but it is a game with a lot of discrete strictures on what you can actually do.

3. Many Game Play Problems are Relationship Problems
If Bob's the one who always plays the character who ruins plots, attacks other PCs, willfully tries to derail interesting scenes, and can't shut up when others are trying to talk, the problem is with Bob, not his character. If Bob says, "But that's what my character would do," he's just hiding behind the game. Kick him out of your game. Don't try to use game rules to "reform" him into playing the way you want him to play. The problem isn't with Bob's character. The problem is Bob. Game rules won't make Bob into a different person.

True, but IME Forge discussion talks about Bob's problem's with Capitalized Terms, not that Bob is a jerk for sensible, real-world reasons.

RPGs are collaborative exercises. Even in a pure hack n' slash game, everyone is there to have fun. If someone is doing things to prevent others from having fun, kick him out of the group. If you have a friend who hates bowling, who when you go bowling does everything he can to get you kicked out the alley, would you keep inviting him to go bowling? Of course not. Same applies to RPGs.

RPGs are *coercive* exercises. The idea of a magical creative sharing in the geek noosphere is one of the single most destructive folk ideas in gaming. There are people whose ideas about what happened in the game win, and those who lose. There are those who impose their will on the game and those who must mediate their vision with the coercive pressure of other members.

It's about time the community admitted that, in fact, that non-idealized power struggles determine how and how well RPG sessions fly. I've observed many, many groups where the dysfunction came from the group antagonizing an individual to the breaking point and then blaming him her for "trouble."

4. Put Up or Shut Up
This ties into system matters. If your game has the same basic design paradigm as D&D, and if it features heavy sim, don't slap some prattle in the intro about how it's the "true inheritor of the shamanic story telling tradition," or some other bunk. It's a game designed to simulate something, or it's built to provide interesting challenges to the players. If it's all about storytelling, then that's what the rules should talk about. Don't just tack on some grad school reject essay about theme and expect that your game is now about storytelling, and people who play it are suddenly Real Roleplayers.

My objection ties into the objection about system, too. A game that provides a central mechanic and a devolving hierarchy of specialized rules by case is ten times the Storytelling game that tells you to spend Dilemma points to create a pickle or make a Hate roll or something like that. The essays are a framework for tuning the resolution of a hierarchical system, so you know when spaceship fuel points ought to matter and when they ought not to matter. Forge darlings replace this with rules that remove most of the options for players outside of what the designer wants. This isn't really "serving players."

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

It's not really complicated....

Gamists want to Prove Themselves.
Simulationists want to Be There.
Narrativists want to Say Something (in a lit 101 sense).

http://www.lumpley.com/hardcore.html#3

I guess I'm about half gamist and half narrativist with the merest dash of simulationist then. I really couldn't care less about realism so long as the game is fun, engaging, and rife with conflict. I love the min/maxing D&D has available to it, but I can totally cast that aside and play a rules-light game that focuses on characterization, because these are the two ends of the conflict spectrum. And I crave conflict. I can see how some people want to have a realistic experience with lots of attention to detail and whatnot, but that's not my bag, baby. I play my GURPS with the cinematic turned all the way up.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

For instance, what does 'Saying Something (in a Lit 101 sense)' actually mean? That phrase can mean any number of things depending upon who is reading it. It isn't a definition at all, but a cleverly constructed bit of obfuscation that hides the fact that there is no definition. It's my contention that this is deliberate, as it provides a built-in strawman defense for any possible criticism that may be leveled at Forge design philosophy.

I think something can be said for allowing a certain kind of theoretical discussion in which terms are partially undefined, or defined only by analogy (e.g. Saying Something), because it allows a certain amount of fluidity to meaning, and can make for an increased breadth of expression. I have experience with this sort of thing, and it can be really useful and enlightening. IF everyone understands that the terms being used are undefined and uses them with this in mind. Which I take it was not happening at The Forge. Rather, it seems everyone had a concrete definition which only they knew, and everyone's definition was something else. Or definitions kept changing but nobody noticed or was able to follow.

You'll notice that GNS theory, despite the lack of well-defined terms, does provide a way of talking about gaming that is both useful and interesting. I don't know that nailing down definitions would improve that. Maybe the theory does all it can already (in its messy way), and more specifics won't add anything.

 

[Samuel Leming]

I guess I'm about half gamist and half narrativist with the merest dash of simulationist then. I really couldn't care less about realism so long as the game is fun, engaging, and rife with conflict. I love the min/maxing D&D has available to it, but I can totally cast that aside and play a rules-light game that focuses on characterization, because these are the two ends of the conflict spectrum. And I crave conflict. I can see how some people want to have a realistic experience with lots of attention to detail and whatnot, but that's not my bag, baby. I play my GURPS with the cinematic turned all the way up.

This illustrates my second big problem with GNS theory, the terms don't always match up with the meanings most people would associate with them.

Consider these three players:
1). The guy who enjoys playing in deep character.
2). The guy that wants as much realism in the game as posible.
3). The guy who just wants to sit around with his friends, roll dice and drink a few beers.

In GNS theory ALL THREE of these guys have a simulationist agenda.

You say you're a narativist at least partially. Would you disadvantage your character or even cause your character to fail to strenghten the story's theme? If not, then you're not what Edwards considers a narativist.

Sam

 

[Paka]

Or we could just quote the Forge's ABout the Forge page (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/about/):

About the Forge
This site is dedicated to the promotion, creation, and review of independent role-playing games. What is an independent role-playing game? Our main criterion is that the game is owned by its author, or creator-owned. We don't care what its physical format is - it can be:

* a book in the game store
* a PDF or HTML download from the Internet
* a direct mail-order only
* or anything else that is readily available

The Forge is not only a place for role-playing game authors, though. It's here for anyone interested in discovering new games, having better role-playing experiences, or discussing role-playing game theory.

And a question concerning eyebeams' post:

First of all, it is worth noting that not only does most game design not really pay attention to the Big Model and its ilk, but that many Forge people -- including Ron -- do not really have a good grasp on the creative process used by commercial game writers and designers. Their criticism falls short because they don't know how we got there, why we got there or what's influencing us, but the comfort themselves that the answer must be found in the totalizing Big Model.

I'm intrigued. Are you going to tell us or is it a big secret?

I'm sure the two sentences above come off as sarcastic but they are really not trying to mock you out in any way. But if there is something indie game designers trying their best are missing and you think commerical game designers and writers have a secret, why not share?

What's the secret, the influence? What is the journey? As I said, I'm intrigued.