thread: 2006-02-20 : Open House: Ask a Frequent Question, pt 2
On 2006-02-24, Clinton R. Nixon wrote:
What use is the Forge anymore? We've got amazing resources like your weblog and people are making games, probably more off it than on it.
Why should it keep going? Or even better, why should people keep going to it?
This makes TC go "One Reason..."
The Design forum is one big reason, Clinton. It's a great place, no the BEST place for newbie designers and veterans alike to congragate to explain, ask for feedback, and test their designs. IMO, no other online site comes close to the Forge than that. Not RPGnet and not Story Games (no offense intended at all, Andy).
This makes CRN go "I guess..."
But I don't see that as surviving in the acid sea of elitism, name-calling, and just plain nonsense that currently lives there.
This makes BL go "Game Design + Publishing + Connections + Conventions"
I mean, from what I can see, all of these fora are really productive right now. Of course, I don't read all of the threads in any of them, so maybe I'm just missing the acid sea.
This makes XP go "Yeah"
I think--surprise surprise--that closing down the theory forums was good, and the remaining ones that Ben mentions are still the best resource around, because of the veterans of the Forge.
This makes CRN go "Maybe it's just the end of winter"
But I was re-reading an e-mail from a friend last night that asked me this question, that laid it out flat about how we've betrayed our own goals, and I thought, yeah, that doesn't sound wrong.
This makes TC go "So what were they..."
What were your goals? :) Promoting design? I'm coming out with three games this year b/c of you guys. Providing a place for all the indie publishers to congragate and have their own forums for feedback and questions? There's like 20 of them now. The Forge has helped gobs of people :)
This makes BL go "Promotion, creation, and review of independent role-playing games"
It's really troubling to me that we may have betrayed these goals. How do you see it?
This makes CRN go "Dreamation and Dexcon"
C'mon, if there are two places where we can see the real world effect of the Forge and its games, there it is.
And that process is keepin' on.
This makes BL go "I think I see what you mean"
But I'm basically unmoved. As it happens, it doesn't matter if I'm unmoved or not, because it isn't up to me whether the Forge exists or not.
This makes Judd go "Woops"
The last CRN about Dexcon and Dreamation was me.
My bad. I was thinking of who I was writing to.
This makes JN go "The Forge Helped Me"
I spent like 24 months running a bad game; after a few months on the Forge, I corrected my mistakes and had the best games of my life. And I don't even read the stuff for Designers.
This makes NinJ go "Clinton, man, it's OK"
I think we may need some restatement of purpose, a reminder that we're here for mutual support.
The Forge has been tremendously valuable to me. Through it I met you, Ralph, Tony, Ben, Ron, Mike M., the Matts, Jared, Luke, Thor, Dro, Keith, and piles more people who I trust enough to consult about my work every day. There's a community there that the blogs don't really have. It's a place where we talk shop in neutral territory ??? not my blog and not yours.
