thread: 2005-06-16 : The Forge and Me
On 2005-06-17, Charles wrote:
This is kind of tangential, but its something that has been bouncing around my brain for a while, and this post is what brought it to the surface.This blog, and the Forge, have explored and developed some very interesting aspects of theory of roleplaying, but they both are explicitly focused on the game designer's perspective.
While the game designer's perspective obviously includes some interest in the experiential aspects of roleplaying (what goes on in a roleplayer's head when they play?), it is largely interested in this question only to the degree that this is controllable by the mechanics of the game, since it is the mechanics and the formal system that is relevant to the designer.
So far as I know, there are no sites that have a comparable devotion to the experiential aspects of play. John Kim's site links to a number of essays exploring the experiential aspects, but that is not really the same as an active community. People do attempt to use the Forge to serve that purpose, but it is not ideal, given its different focus.
So I guess my questions are: 1) am I wrong? Is there a place I don't know of where such things are the focus of discussion? Does the Forge serve that purpose for other people? Does the game designer focus not seem to others to bias the discussion of such subjects? 2) If I'm not wrong, why is it that no such community exists? Just a matter of history? Difficulty in talking about experiential issues in such a forum? Tendency of such discussion to turn into either design questions or annecdotes? Overwhelming preference of gaming Theory Heads for game design as opposed to game practice?
Sorry to derail.
