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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6242033" data-attributes="member: 42582">It doesn't promise story either, at least until Dragonlance and then AD&D 2nd ed, and so isn't guilty of the distorting effect on the understanding of story creation that Edwards is railing against.I agree with the first para, and am intrigued by the 2nd: that's a pretty bad misunderstanding of what The Forge is on about.Runequest would be one clear example, yes: moreso than Traveller, I think - not to say that Traveller couldn't also be an example - because of its literary and mythological pretensions.Edwards also has an apparent interest in drifted Tunnels and Trolls from that period, which might be another example. Chivalry and Sorcery, perhaps, also.Also, the fact that Runequest is in there shows there is no particular connection between being a source of brain damage and being an admired game: Edwards clearly admires Runequest and its impact. Its just that he also has views about its limitations as a story-telling vehicle.That The Forge hates AD&D 2nd ed was already established upthread. But AD&D 2nd ed is not exhaustive - thankfully, in my view, not even paradigmatic - of what D&D is or can be. And it certainly isn't a game from the 70s.Edwards's attitude to Champions (first published 1981) is similar to his attitude to Runequest: admiration as well as critical awareness of what he sees as its limitations.I give a toss what Ron Edwards says. Reading his essays and reviews has been the single most useful thing I've read to support my RPGing. (Second best would be Luke Crane's Burning Wheel books.)I don't own and have never played Sorcerer (his best known game) but plenty of people (including posters on ENworld) have played and admired it. Ken Hite - hardly an RPG ignoramus - lauded it. A <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/847190685/sorcerer-upgrade" target="_blank">Sorcerer upgrade kickstarter</a> around a year ago, with a $5,000 goal, raised $26,792 - I personally wouldn't regard that as a failure. Not to mention, commercial success is not the only - not even the usual - measure for cultural importance and impact. Besides the impact I already mentioned upthread, [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION] has reminded me that I left out Dungeon World, and has also pointed to a Fate-Forge connection of which I was unaware (and apparently [MENTION=6688937]Ratskinner[/MENTION] also).Frankly, the only RPGers who have anything to fear from the wrath of the Forge are those who like AD&D 2nd ed and White Wolf et al-style "storytelling" play based around illusionist GMing that creates (in Edward's opinion, at least) a distorted experience of protagonism. Those who are playing classic Gygaxian gamism, or who are playing "indie" style, aren't in the cross hairs at all: rather, they're the gamist and narrativist vanguard. Those playing up-front GM force Call of Cthulhu are likewise free from criticism: The Forge calls this "participationism" and puts it into roughly the same entertainment category as theatre (ie the players are pure audience, not creators at all). I think Edwards's attitude to process sim of the classic Traveller or Rolemaster variety is a bit more ambiguous - he (in my view not unreasonably) thinks it's pretty hard to pull off, and very highly vulnerable to drift - but because there is also there no false or distorted promise of story I don't think there's anything to fear from him either for lovers of this style of RPGing.Yes, I have accused Moldvay of being misleading - of not being able to deliver on its promise. That doesn't mean it distorted anyone's understanding of story creationg via RPGing.In other words, this.Yes, but that has nothing to do with brain damage. You can see an example of this mismatch issue if you read the thread I linked to above about LotFP. Whereas Vincent Baker is lauding the "lies" he found in LotFP, Edwards is sceptical of their virtue precisely because of the mismatch issue. But he doesn't think that the mismatch is destroying anyone's ability to create stories (which is what "brain damage" is about). He just thinks it is a recipe for social contract breakdown and for dissapointing play experiences more generally.</blockquote>

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