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<blockquote data-quote="innerdude" data-source="post: 8655002" data-attributes="member: 85870">The thing you're forgetting in all this is that the principle of the innovation adoption curve is a very real thing. And that exposure to any fraction of the principles surrounding RPG theory is something that only a small percentage of the player base ever experiences.And why is this important? Because the dominant, normative styles of RPG play remain, to this day, based in &quot;traditional&quot;, &quot;neo-traditional,&quot; and OSR / &quot;classic&quot; play. (See descriptions in the 6 Cultures of Play article here: <a href="https://retiredadventurer.blogspot.com/2021/04/six-cultures-of-play.html" target="_blank">Six Cultures of Play</a>)For players like me, when you eventually come to the point where you begin to question the radically dominant lines of thought of &quot;how RPGs are supposed to work&quot;, you're faced with a massive, difficult process to even begin to conceive of new ways of playing. The process becomes even more difficult if you've been entrenched in the dominance of &quot;traditional&quot; Dungeons and Dragons ways of playing.There are many, many RPG hobbyists that will never look outside &quot;traditional&quot; D&amp;D play, and more to the point, will never care if they don't.So consider --- it's now 20+ years since the Forge was really active. Yet you're asking the question, why does RPG theory still seem like it's stuck on addressing principles from this now &quot;antiquated&quot; set of Forge musings?The problem is that even now, unless anyone cares to specifically look for them, getting cogent perspectives outside the &quot;privileged&quot; (your term) viewpoints of &quot;trad&quot; and &quot;neo-trad&quot; that dominate D&amp;D-focused gameplay is a difficult undertaking. And furthermore, getting access to those viewpoints in any concrete, organized way is even more difficult.In this regard, I very much appreciate your attempt to organize a coherent set of material that talks through a multitude of RPG theory perspectives.But the fact of the matter is, &quot;narrativism&quot; as proposed by the Forge, remains perhaps the most radical departure and re-envisioning of what &quot;RPG play can be&quot; of the past 20+ years. There's a reason it remains a touchstone point in the evolution of RPG theory. And isn't it interesting that the RPG market clearly, CLEARLY bears this out, with the success of the Powered by the Apocalypse and Blades in the Dark engines over the past decade?If we're fighting over the same issues over and over, it's because the battle remains the same. The battle remains getting anyone, anywhere, to look at RPG play from outside the &quot;privileged,&quot; &quot;trad,&quot; radically-D&amp;D-centric viewpoint.It took me 20+ years, from age 9 to age 32, to even begin to question what I was getting out of &quot;traditional&quot; D&amp;D gameplay, and took another 7 or 8 years of experimentation to even consider looking at PbtA as a &quot;valid&quot; style of play.Until 2017, when I finally took a deep breath and gave Dungeon World a try, you'd never have heard me give even an ounce of credence to &quot;GNS&quot; and &quot;narrativist&quot; theory.But once I took the plunge and gave Dungeon World a try, even though it didn't go perfectly, it gave me key glimpses and hints and takeaways of how that type of game could possibly work.And boy am I glad it did, because I would absolutely never have discovered the awesomeness of Ironsworn if I hadn't taken that initial risk 5 years ago.If the same theories keep cropping up in conversations, it's not a failing of the community to &quot;open their eyes to new things&quot;. It's because the same problems continue to present themselves, and GNS's &quot;narrativism&quot; continues to provide a touchstone perspective that is largely unaddressed elsewhere.GNS and its proposal of narrativism remains a topic of conversation because it is the most immediate and obvious counter-narrative to the &quot;privileged&quot;, dominant mindsets of &quot;trad&quot; and &quot;neo-trad&quot; play. If you want to have RPG theory evolve past this point, then maybe its time to chat with the &quot;trad&quot; and &quot;neo-trad&quot; player base and ask them to, you know, look outside their &quot;privileged&quot; box occasionally.Because from what I observe from conversations on these discussion boards---and my own experience bears it out---is that when someone does finally, perhaps gingerly, try to look outside the &quot;trad&quot; box, the very first thing they bump up against is the flashing neon sign of Forge-ist narrativism. So of course it's going to be a topic of ongoing conversation.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="innerdude, post: 8655002, member: 85870"] The thing you're forgetting in all this is that the principle of the innovation adoption curve is a very real thing. And that exposure to any fraction of the principles surrounding RPG theory is something that only a small percentage of the player base ever experiences. And why is this important? [I]Because the dominant, normative styles of RPG play remain, to this day, based in "traditional", "neo-traditional," and OSR / "classic" play. (See descriptions in the 6 Cultures of Play article here: [URL='https://retiredadventurer.blogspot.com/2021/04/six-cultures-of-play.html']Six Cultures of Play[/URL])[/I] For players like me, when you eventually come to the point where you begin to question the radically dominant lines of thought of "how RPGs are supposed to work", you're faced with a massive, difficult process to even begin to conceive of new ways of playing. The process becomes even more difficult if you've been entrenched in the dominance of "traditional" Dungeons and Dragons ways of playing. There are many, many RPG hobbyists that will never look outside "traditional" D&D play, and more to the point, [I]will never care if they don't[/I]. So consider --- it's now 20+ years since the Forge was really active. Yet you're asking the question, why does RPG theory still seem like it's stuck on addressing principles from this now "antiquated" set of Forge musings? The problem is that even now, unless anyone cares to specifically look for them, getting cogent perspectives outside the "privileged" (your term) viewpoints of "trad" and "neo-trad" that dominate D&D-focused gameplay is a difficult undertaking. And furthermore, getting access to those viewpoints in any concrete, organized way is even more difficult. In this regard, I very much appreciate your attempt to organize a coherent set of material that talks through a multitude of RPG theory perspectives. But the fact of the matter is, "narrativism" as proposed by the Forge, remains perhaps the most radical departure and re-envisioning of what "RPG play can be" of the past 20+ years. There's a reason it remains a touchstone point in the evolution of RPG theory. And isn't it interesting that the RPG market clearly, CLEARLY bears this out, with the success of the Powered by the Apocalypse and Blades in the Dark engines over the past decade? If we're fighting over the same issues over and over, it's because the battle remains the same. The battle remains getting anyone, anywhere, to look at RPG play from outside the "privileged," "trad," radically-D&D-centric viewpoint. It took me 20+ years, from age 9 to age 32, to even begin to question what I was getting out of "traditional" D&D gameplay, and took another 7 or 8 years of experimentation to even consider looking at PbtA as a "valid" style of play. Until 2017, when I finally took a deep breath and gave Dungeon World a try, you'd never have heard me give even an ounce of credence to "GNS" and "narrativist" theory. But once I took the plunge and gave Dungeon World a try, even though it didn't go perfectly, it gave me key glimpses and hints and takeaways of how that type of game could possibly work. And boy am I glad it did, because I would absolutely never have discovered the awesomeness of Ironsworn if I hadn't taken that initial risk 5 years ago. If the same theories keep cropping up in conversations, it's not a failing of the community to "open their eyes to new things". It's because the same problems continue to present themselves, and GNS's "narrativism" continues to provide a touchstone perspective that is largely unaddressed elsewhere. GNS and its proposal of narrativism remains a topic of conversation because it is the most immediate and obvious counter-narrative to the "privileged", dominant mindsets of "trad" and "neo-trad" play. If you want to have RPG theory evolve past this point, then maybe its time to chat with the "trad" and "neo-trad" player base and ask them to, you know, look outside their "privileged" box occasionally. Because from what I observe from conversations on these discussion boards---and my own experience bears it out---is that when someone does finally, perhaps gingerly, try to look outside the "trad" box, the very first thing they bump up against is the flashing neon sign of Forge-ist narrativism. So of course it's going to be a topic of ongoing conversation. [/QUOTE]

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