anyway.

I am in awe of this man.

I am in an odd position with regards to the Forge. I am glad that it exists and that it creates the thought and games that it does, but a lot of what it generates is not necessarily for me. And, there are times when one or more of the people on the Forge strike me as behaving like jackasses, Ron most definitely included.

And, then, Ron does something like what he just did. And my jaw just drops in awe.

I'm so happy right now. If you love something, set it free and all that.

Yeah, this seems like a good time for this. I never really participated in either of those fora, because it seemed to me even a year or two ago that most of the productive discussion was already complete. I am interested to see how this changes things over at the Forge.

It really does seem like a great next step. I agree with Brennan that we've gone as far as we can in this incarnation.

I'm happy for you & Ron, Clinton, & I bet this means good things for us all. Thank you! Thank you!

The Forge is nothing more or less than the sovereign territory of Ron Edwards.

It took me a little while to realize that, but it retrospect, it's blindingly obvious.  Within this context, these sorts of announcements are not only not surprising, but inevitable.

Whether anyway is the sovereign territory of Vincent Baker is perhaps not quite as clear.

Roger: "Whether anyway is the sovereign territory of Vincent Baker is perhaps not quite as clear."

Oh?

Care to test it?

Vincent rules with more subtlety than Ron, but its a mistake to think he doesn't rule.

As for the topic of the orriginal post: I'm all for it, and think it is a great idea. Less yackin, more smackin.

This will be important, for I know that Ron needs my approval in all things he does.

I started a flamewar on rpg.net
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?p=4973949&posted=1#post4973949

it had to be done.

Look at me!  I'm staging a coup d'??tat over here!  Because we haven't quite reached our quota on military metaphors for the year.

Vincent, all I mean is that, in my observations, there have been numerous times when you've tried to gently guide the course of a conversation in a comment thread towards a particular direction.  And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

The guests are jumping on his furniture, and Vincent is politely asking them to please stop.  Some do, some don't.  I've generally tried to heed his words, and if that makes me a slavering fanboy, then I guess I'll live with it.

I would suggest this is a contrast to Ron's style of hosting.  I'm not trying to condemn either style, though that's really besides the point—the whole great thing about sovereignty is that you don't need to give a rat's ass about anyone else.

I answered in marginalia but come to think of it I should answer here: 'Scool. I'm comfy with my moderatorial style and so far things have worked out. I can't think of a time when I've tried to gently guide a conversation and a) it didn't work out, but b) I didn't put an end to it on that account.

The format makes a huge heaping deal of difference. Only Vincent can begin a topic. That means he can much more easily keep track of discussions & moderate them. If he wants. : )

Declare victory, pull out of the quagmire.

Timely.

It will be interesting to see what new kinds of threads creep into Play, Design, and Site Discussion.  I look forward to a more practical method of discussion.  I'm a big hands-on kind of learner anyway.  This is good :)

Peace,

-Troy

Curly, explain please.

What quagmire?

Thanks Curly! I'm happy to leave that quagmire behind too, if indeed we get to leave it behind.

My brusque tone was on account of: better NOBODY be shitting on the Forge here just now.

I can see why this is a Good Thing, but I avoided those fora like the plague anyway.

It sure feels right, though, to excise them.

Ooh, careful now with the "plague" and the "excise," I might think you're shitting, and then lo with the sovereignity.

You don't "excise" fruit when it's ripe. What we do now with the GNS and Theory forums is ... make pie!

Definitely good. I never contributed to those fora, because anything I could care to discuss already had been discussed at some point in the past. When that ratio nears 100% for most people, or just for Ron, it's time to close the doors. But the forum isn't gone. Now, instead of talking, you just sit down and listen.

Jasper: Totally.  My theory-related stuff I wanted to discuss was always Actual-Play (or Publishing) directed anyway, and since the creation of that forum x years ago, I've been a happy camper.

But I still gotta say:
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=17491.0

Pretty please? With sugar on top?  Or maybe give it a thought and in a month do it if it looks like it'll help? :-)

-Andy

It's one of those days where I keep thinking that Slow Time would be the best super power.

Short version: Hell yeah!

Hopefully, my reaction will go up on This is my Blog pretty soon.

It's been a good four years.

I hope that the next four will be even better.

yrs—
—Ben

And everybody is happy about this?

I must be the total outsider.

Victor: And everybody is happy about this?

I must be the total outsider.

I expect that you have different goals than we do, that's all.

Partly, yes. I think good theory is valuable in its own right.

But I don't think the goal of creating good games is served by this manoeuver either, because of two reasons. First, even 'pure' theory will generallt impact applications after some time. Second, 'applied' theory is not always most easily discussed in conjunction with a particular example of play.

I agree with what John Kim has to say about this.

Oh well.

Greetings,
Victor

I had a bad experience with the Theory forum once. It was horrible...

That aside, I still agree with Vincent and Ron and all other yay!-sayers. It feels right, and over the past few years I think that the amount of useful theory that the forum was producing had been rapidly diminishing. The time was right. And as for GNS, well, it has already been said. Every thread came down to the same things, and they had already been dealt with. Its a good move I think. I look forwards to the more newbie friendly documents. I sure wish they had been around when I first showed up (but then I found anyway. and Vincent made it all make sense)