anyway.

Hell, I know my gaming table is a better place for it. Though there are times when looking back over the wasted, desolate years of dysfunction I do want to cry for all the time and energy I pissed down a hole.

Now if we can just kill the three tier system!

(I'm an empty headed newb who hasn't fought yet, can you tell?)

Smells like progress.

As though there were a space somewhere wherein your character was really walking around and doing things

There's the common usage of one word which really demonstrates this attitude:  Exploration.

You'll notice I don't use "exploration" except in technical circumstances either.

Maybe the S in GNS really stands for Spaceism!

Cue the voice of Big Daddy Kane: "E-R-A-S-E the spaceism..."

You have no idea how many times I've been like: "ooh!  I had this great new RPG theory idea!  Oooh!  I can't wait to tell the guys at the Forge.  It'll be awesome!"

Then, I work out all the details and, would you look at that, it comes down to a simple restatement of the Lumpley Principle.

Back to the drawing board.

This isn't a bad thing.  A lot of physics boils down to F=mA, too.

yrs—
—Ben

In Ron Edwards' recent war story parables, he portrays you Forge guys as a buncha grizzled burn-outs. Like PTSD characters in a Bruce Springsteen song.  Triumphant burn-outs, but still.

Even victors can 'bring the war back home' in their skulls; and have trouble adjusting to peace & prosperity.

From my Johnny-come-lately perspective; you guys are -jumpy-.

And rightly so. The internet is a hell of a place to expose your generosity & passion to every contemptous nay-sayer/ fatuous poseur/ pedant / and well-intentioned bumbler who comes down the pike.

But, still: jumpy.  It makes me jumpy just to make contact with y'all. Gotta be careful that sudden movements or loose remarks don't set you off. I end up posting 3x as much as I intended, just to clarify that I'm not hostile.

Is there a designated spot on the Forge or elsewhere, for players & designers who feel FRIED to talk about it?  Is anyway. the VA hospital for the Forge, so to speak? It seems to be serving that function at this moment.

Better games and good actual play will prevent additional battle scars.  But is that enough, to undo hair-trigger jumpyness already acquired?

Maybe games explicitly designed to address & soothe the players' neuroses—could help.
That's what I was getting-at, here.
When I said 'this self-examination' in that post, I meant the Closeted thread in particular.

Otherwise, time heals all wounds, I guess.

Either that, or a well-adjusted next generation will swoop in and exploit your innovations, minus the Marvin The Paranoid Android baggage.  Probably leaving you feeling robbed.  I know you guys ARE the happy future people, compared the bad old days. But still, but still, but still.

I've been presumptuous as hell, to stride in here & armchair diagnose like this. I don't regret it yet, tho. So here goes... Submit, Monkey!

The stuff on your "character" sheet isn't about your character at all - it's stuff that you, the real live player, have at your disposal when it comes time to decide how the game's going to go.

That's a problem I have with many "modern" games (gee, they look so 1977ish to me, but that is a whole 'nother story).

In many "modern" games (meaning a game where the flow of the game is more determined by player force of character, charisma and imagination than rules boundaries) the metagame is the one you play in order to control the rules.  It is a lot like watching five year olds play Monopoly where those with the strongest force of personality get to change the rules from time to time.

Kind of like guys, in the old days (err, 74-75) who discovered the idea of writing stuff on their character sheets.  You know, "oh, that +25 vorpal holy avenger?  I got that in Jake's game last week.  Specially atuned so my chaotic neutral character can use it when backstabbing."

Good players are just more subtle, but it seems similar to me, has for thirty years.

Now, what has changed, is the introduction of d20.  Which I abandoned about ten-fifteen years before it saw print (and I'm sure that there was no continuity between my version which I passed along to guys at TSR and the one used—many ideas come up over and over again).

Instead of the model of D&D as a gateway, with migrations to other systems (for a long time, before the haze of smoke obscured them, Chaosium's place in the ecosystem was to use D&D as a gateway and to trail in the market, picking up players as they evolved.  It was a great niche.  Now, those same players move on to other d20 products).

The fascinating thing is that Diablo/Guild Wars/World of Warcraft have absorbed the D&D play experience into a social on-line version that is pretty solid.  And that allows for scenario design that executes easily.

Which is always the heel.

Not to mention, those characters exist somewhere besides your head, and force of personality only allows you to gain social advantages, not rules advantages.  (Hey, I got my first occulus in ladder play through social advantages, I'm not knocking it, just don't want it as the primary requisit for players).

My two bits.