anyway.

(You can tell about the productivity of my day based on the number and frequency of my posts to other folks' blogs.  Hint: Inverse proportionality.)

I just wanted to say that, as far as I am concerned, this applies to This is my Blog as well.  Even the parts like the one I am about to post, where I talk about my issues with the site.

Especially entries like the one that I am about to post.

yrs—
—Ben

Vincent:

I know you addressed this to everyone, but I'll reply as though it was addressed to me: I assumed (and now know, 'cause you said so) that you and Ron were on the same page from a Theory perspective, relative to roleplaying.

I'll say this though, Vincent, you do a much better job of putting it together in accessible language, with practical examples to boot.

I agree that learning here, vs. learning on the Forge is my issue, that it's about my ability to process the stuff I'm presented with.

My issues with the Forge, and with GNS, are my issues.  Like Ben, the extent to wich I give a crap about what goes on there is precisely because it can be a useful place to have a thoughtful discussion about roleplaying.

Cheers,

Jason
"Oh, it's you...
deadpanbob"

Vincent:

Oops, forgot to write that I wholeheartedly endorse your suggestion to read the essays on the Forge, and to dig around in the threads for all the fun (and sometimes explosive) conversations related to all things GNS.  It's good stuff - it just wasn't the stuff I needed to help me as a game designer.

Cheers,

Jason
"Oh, it's you...
deadpanbob"

Jason wrote:

...I wholeheartedly endorse your suggestion to read the essays on the Forge, and to dig around in the threads for all the fun (and sometimes explosive) conversations related to all things GNS. It's good stuff - it just wasn't the stuff I needed to help me as a game designer.

When I'm in a mood, I often say something like this to Vincent. What I usually say, though, is more like "if people would stop yakking about GNS and just go design, we'd all be so much better off".  (Though when I say it, I do mean literally GN&S, not the big model, that's all good in my book. It's the three big words have so much baggage I see them as stumbling blocks quite often these days, but that's probably not very controversial).  Anyway, what V. says is: "that is why we can design these games!"

So, we may not want to read the theory, may not even feel like we need to—we don't have to—but it's still there, running in the background informing all this innovation & design.

Emily:

Yep, this is me nodding my head.  I'm not denying that the theory is there, running in the background.  Only talking about personal experience here.  For me, the Forge theory, and I'm only claiming this for me, wasn't practical enough to help with my design.

That didn't happen until I found anyway.

So there, Vincent, take the damn compliment!

Cheers,

Jason
"Oh, it's you...
deadpanbob"

P.S. - If you want the longer explanation, check this out.

I love the Forge. 95% of the people I've interacted with on that site are very friendly and helpful. Some others are more debaters than discussers, which makes it more difficult to learn from/with them.

That said, I come from a strong theory background (my MA is basically a philosophy degree). And I know that many people sometimes lose sight of the applicability of a theory and get lost in disputes about specific definitions. Once people reach a certain degree of familiarity with the material, they become defensive. It's no longer about learning; it's about being right.

I am NOT talking about Ron here, who has been instrumental in my understanding of my own gaming. I am not even talking about any particular person(s) all of the time, just about some people some of the time. Hell, I fall into that same hole at times.

I think that's what turns people off to the big theory places; the really useful discussion pieces and design work often are overshadowed by the debates that focus on semantics, abstract categories, and being right or wrong.

But then there are always designs at work, like Eric's FH8, that I see develop on there and try to help grow, and that makes me see the great effect of the Forge. When people put their designs out there, others help, and great things come out of it.

- Christian

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.

Charles, there's substantial concern over the actual play and experience at the Forge; without it, no one would know how well anything works.

Are you talking about refining the art of role-playing, though? How to play as a player? Cuz that's interesting, at least in theory.

Yes, exactly. The art of role-playing, how to play, how people immerse, what immersion is, the essential ephemera of gaming.

Of course, all these things get touched on at the Forge, and here, but mostly from the point of view of testing "how well anything works." Or else from a "I think I could induce that with a particular mechanic angle." Which I find interesting, but also vaguely frustrating.

Whine, Whine, Whine.

So Charles, are you volunteering? You can be a guest blogger here if you are.

I think it only makes sense to be concerned with the people who are the users of the products we design.

Here are some questions I'd like Charles to answer:

- What are the separate parts of a GM's job? Which parts are inseparable and which parts could conceivably be done by different people?
- How can players best communicate what they want to do and give input to other players without trodding upon their toes?
- What does immersion mean?
- How much, when, and why do players care about the rules of the game?

I look at these from a design perspective, but that's because I lost all hope of finding a functional system when I was 15 or so, and have been building my own ever since.

Holy Crow, I'd like to see some discussion of those topics too. And is Anyway taking guest bloggers, now? Good times, indeed.

Vincent wrote: " The theory here is the same as the theory at the Forge. If you can learn it from me but not from the Forge, that's about the circumstances under which you yourself can learn, not about any differences in the theory."

Vincent, this is flat-out wrong, since there is no such thing as "the theory" on the Forge.  The Forge is a discussion group, and there are many different views which do not all agree with each other.  When you ask even a simple question, like "What is Conflict Resolution?" on the Forge, you will get many different answers even among the top posters.  i.e. Ralphs's answer differs from Tony's answer, which differs from Marco's or my own or Paul's answers.  As far as I can see, you and Ron are closer together in opinion than some of the other posters, but you still have differences.

I think you need to give yourself some credit here.  You are not simply preaching some fixed canon in your postings here.  You are making new theory.  For example, your post on immersion is new theory and different than Ron's (which is non-commital on what immersion is).

Oops.  That was me, John Kim.

John, I'm not going to answer you right now because there's some serious shitstorm potential there and I'd like to approach it cautiously. I'm not ignoring you, this is to say; I'm composing.

Thank you for the offer of guest posting!

No, not really volunteering, just wondering. It isn't exactly a question of raising topics (most of those topics do get raised either here or on the Forge), and I don't have any delusions that I have something brilliant to say about the nature of immersion or what makes people care about rules that has never been thought of before.

Of course, there are communities that are mostly devoted to the concerns of players rather than designers, but they don't seem as theoretically inclined as the designer community. There are certainly non-designer theorists, but there don't really seem to be any non-designer theorist communities.

Is this just history (rgfa was a largely non-designer theory community, so they have existed in the past), or is it that designers get more out of cooperative efforts in some way (perhaps in that someone can come up with practical theory ideas, and then see those ideas turned into visible game texts, rather than coming up with a practical theory idea and getting back reports of how it went in play for others)?

Okay, maybe I'll try to make up for these completely tangential and somewhat whiney comments by trying to write up a short piece on one of those topics. I haven't had much free time lately, but I'll see what I can do.

Hi Charles,

I think the reason we have a designers' forum (as opposed to a non-designers' forum) at the Forge is, in part, because of the following hypothesis:

it is better to make a new game than to revamp an old one.

given my encounters with the Bottom Line ("did you have fun?"), there's definitely a lot said on the Forge that undermines this hypothesis, to the extent that folks fully appreciate both making new games and reinventing old ones. however, i think that the relationship of A) game design forum and B) radical roleplaying game ideas work together in such a manner so that folks sometimes encourage one another to play games *as written*.

i think that such a distinction makes the difference between designer and non-designer-player (NDP?). i totally agree with the idea that designers should be all about actual play; i for one have gotten my head partway around Narr. only because of *actually playing*. i think that maybe the above hypothesis/attitude/assumption/whatever-it-is could be a contributing factor to why we're a community of designers.

Okay John, here's my composed response:

1) I know you aren't into it, but of course the Forge has a "the theory." There's a real body of genuine conclusions that we've drawn, despite the various disagreements, misunderstandings and ignorances among the Forge's users. Here's the potential shitstorm: the recurring disagreements in the Forge forums reveal a problem with the open forum medium, not genuine competing theories.

2) When I declare that my ongoing work is within the Forge's theory, it's out of pride and ownership, not out of self-deprecation. I read you thusly: "Vincent, you don't give yourself enough credit, you should declare independence from the body of theory that you've contributed so much to and worked so hard to create and fully co-own, and from which you draw such ongoing inspiration." I'm like, "I should huh?"

Vincent: ... the recurring disagreements in the Forge forums reveal a problem with the open forum medium, not genuine competing theories.

Yes, yes, YES!

Thank you for saying that. The Forge has become such a weird place for me, 'cause I run it, but can't stand it. It's the forum medium, completely.

Yet it wasn't always so. What changed at the Forge? Is it simply that there are so many voices that it's become cacophonous, or is it something else?

Vincent:

I understand.  Just so I'm clear - I'm cool with your work arising out of "the theory" (by which I mean the genuine conclusions you talk about) from the Forge.

My issue was, the way you present advice, the actions you descirbe re: Game Design, I find, on the whole, more useful than such information from the Forge.  I think it's okay for you to take credit for that.

Sure, "the theory" informs what you're saying, but you're saying it in a way that's qualitatively different for me than the way it's presented (typically) on the Forge.

The above says nothing about whether or not "the theory" exists on the Forge, or whether you are breaking new theory ground outside the context of the Forge, whehter or not "the theory" is useful or not, etc.

Cheers,

Jason
"Oh, it's you...
deadpanbob"

Ethan: "Yet it wasn't always so. What changed at the Forge? Is it simply that there are so many voices that it's become cacophonous, or is it something else?"

Hoo boy.

Here's my most generous and understanding possible take:

As the Forge has grown, its uninformed membership has grown faster than its informed membership, of course. This means that the number of people with questions on the forums has increased faster than the number of people qualified to answer them. Sooner or later, the questions were bound to outstrip the answers - and indeed they have.

Furthermore, everybody's allowed to answer every question, even people who aren't qualified to. The longer a question thread goes without a good answer, the more likely somebody's going to jump into it with a bad answer. As the number of questions has outstripped the number of answers, the number of bad answers has grown, accordingly. For a while it didn't matter much, because someone qualified would get to the thread eventually and correct the bad answers. Sooner or later, though, the bad answers were bound to outstrip the qualified answerers' ability to correct them - and indeed they have.

That's where we are now, according to my most generous reading of the poor Forge. I could spend all day every day there telling people they're wrong. I read threads and I'm like, if I were a good Forge citizen I'd be GNS cop and club some heads, but shit man, it'll just be more heads tomorrow, and still more the day after that...

Then, ask me what I really think and I'll throw in some badly entrenched identity-politics-based and grudge-based bullshit that wouldn't go away even if we were all theory-heads. As the number of members has grown, the number of pairs of members has grown way, way faster, and every pair is a potential crisis. It's to Ron's extreme credit that the forums haven't exploded in interpersonal flames.

I'm totally open to better analysis, by the way. I'm just winging it.

Jason: oh no, seriously, like I said: "But really it's totally legit, being able to learn the theory here but not in the Forge forums. I don't blame you."

JasonL (and others)
I don't hang out on the Forge much at all. Too much, too many, and too confusing threads, 'jargon', and people. Plus, the recurring problem of having to have things constantly re-explained to late-comers to the conversation. Have you ever tried actually learning anything from a chat-log? It's a morass of "Hi, I'm late, can someone re-cap the last 20 mins of the training?" intercut with "..So then you take slot Q and apply routine 12. Everybody with me so far? Ok, next talk to the Supervisor in charge, and get them to sign the[continues]"

There are a couple of reasons why it's all so clear around here, as I see it. First, it's lots quieter here. Second, the body of essays is smaller and more consis, and they include graphics, which help pass info into multiple sections of the brain, which makes for better comprehension. Third, Vincent's a really good teacher.

Hmm. I agree with what you're saying, Vincent. And you've got me thinking.

Once, a Forge member could easily read or at least skim every single thread. Now with the volume of posts it's just not possible. As a result, saying something in a single thread will only reach a small percentage of the membership, where once it could be expected to be read by the majority of the community. A single post can't reach enough of the membership to have a Forge-wide impact. As a result, building theory and concensus over time is no longer possible; the whole process is too fragmented to bear cohesive fruit. Furthermore, when one is less able to "make a difference" if you will, the incentive to participate decreases.

Yeah. Maybe even worse.

"[W]hen one is less able to 'make a difference' if you will, the incentive to participate decreases" ... if your goal is to make a difference.

But the incentive to participate increases if your goal is to win peer acclaim by seeming a free thinker, or to police public discourse and make sure that your tastes are never denigrated, or to feel smart by catching people in misstatements, or to...

Vincent,

I'm so totally hijacking your weblog to ask a question, but it's related. Anyway, if it's un-kosher, club me.

What if I found a way to provide the community that the Forge does, but in a format that didn't completely blow? Would people use that, or is the explosion into weblogs complete?

Once again Vincent cuts through the reams of BS right to the heart of the matter.

The Forge suffers from the exact same problem that all open-to-anyone places suffer from whether you're talking about the local YMCA, the public golf course across town, or your neighborhood park.

Being accessible to everyone is a great ideal...one I fully endorse.  But it has a darkside too.  And that darkside is that "everyone" by definition includes people who don't have a vested interest in the place being successful / warm and inviting / or even functional.

People don't take care of things that they don't give a hoot about.  But when you let in everyone you wind up with a lot of people who don't give a hoot.  Or rather they DO give a hoot but its about their own agenda.

There are LOTS of regularly posting folks who frequent the Forge who don't really care about the Forge's purpose.  They, may be dedicated, they may be active, but they aren't ABOUT what the Forge is about.  They are dedicated to their own personal agendas and the Forge becomes just a place where they can pursue that agenda.  Just like the Y becomes just a place where you can dump your rowdy kids in the summer because you're tired of them.  Or the local public golf course becomes just a place where you can get in a dirt cheap 18 holes.  Or the local park becomes just a short cut you can cut across and you don't feel bad about littering because you don't really care all that much about the park anyway.

The Forge has become like the public golf course.  Everybody loved it when it was new and shiny, but because its a public course eventually the masses of people who don't really care overpower those dedicated to it and the facilities get run down and poorly maintained.

Why are there so many people who are in love with Anyway?  Because Anyway is like the country club.  They don't just let in anybody off the street.  People are on their best behavior here because this is Vincent's private club and we are his guests.  And so we behave like guests.  Unlike the Forge where everybody behaves like they're entitled.

Clinton: "What if I found a way to provide the community that the Forge does, but in a format that didn't completely blow? Would people use that, or is the explosion into weblogs complete?"

The explosion into weblogs seems like only a functional minimum to me. Find something better, and I know I'd be there.

Clinton:

I'd be interested to see what you come up with.  Not sure how you'd do it without making it exclusive in the same way that blogs can be...

Cheers,

Jason
"Oh, it's you...
deadpanbob"

Clinton—The weblog is also a frustrating and imperfect medium.  Please!  Let's see some new space for discussion.  Experimentation is the word of the day!

I don't think weblogs are like private clubs, though.  We don't seal off who can read, or who can comment.  They are more like... a lecture as opposed to a party.

yrs—
—Ben

I'm with Ben - blogs have their own set of issues. Clinton, I'd love to see your vision of a non-blowing Forge.

"Find something better, and I know I'd be there."

Me too. But...be careful of buying a solution (something an evangelist or community of evangelists is selling) without an analysis of what you want to achieve. You don't want to jump right to solution without an analysis of the needed features (relative to current features). It's easy to get geeked about what Everything offers, for instance, or what PhpWiki offers, especially when confronted by a dedicated evangelist, but the reality is that all online communities struggle with the social equivalent of the second law of thermodynamics (they make mud, and they lose energy); if there were an off-the-shelf software solution, it would be the most significant and revolutionary piece of software architecture of our lives. So...you may have to build something from parts. And you can't do that without a prioritized list of needed features.

Heya,

I don't think The Forge has descended to the sewer to the extent that perhaps RPG.net has, and I firmly believe that it is an excellent site for newer designers to come and learn from both posts and Ron's essays.  That said, one could never oppose an improved version, so go for it Clinton.  I have learned much from the Forge and from Anyway, and very much need to learn more.  So I know I'd be very grateful for an improved medium.

Peace,

-Troy

I see a number of problems, a gap, and a solution.

Problem: Many people are not clear what "The Theory" is on the Forge.

Problem: There are just too many posts on the Forge to figure out what "The Theory" is by reading post archives.

Problem: The rate of posting by uninformed readers outstrips the rate of posting by informed readers who can correct them.

Problem: The open web forum medium only makes the previously stated problems worse, though it's a great forum for chatting and finding likeminded people.

Gap: Web forums are not how the scientific community establishes theory. It might be, in some limited capacity, how theories (like sausages) are made but it's not how they're established.

Solution: Create a refereed game design journal, published on the web once every 3 months.

The informed Forgeites (really, aren't they Gamesmiths?) can review submitted material. Yeah, people who don't get selected will get pissed off and they'll make all the claims about elitism that people make today anyway. Because this is a web journal, however, there's not much limit on page count. We can publish anything that has merit.

The body of letters and articles will become "The Theory." Yes, we have a process that is very similar with the Forge Articles section but we can do more with this.

We can even use a moderated forum for the publication. In other words, only reviewers can post but anyone can comment. It focuses attention about "The Theory" on a small number of posts. People can still make sausage in the other forums but the finished sausages are showcased in the Reviewed Articles forum.

The biggest problem is getting informed posters to contribute their time (and political capital) to an endeavor and suffer the slings and arrows that come with wielding authority.

adam@legendary.org

What if I found a way to provide the community that the Forge does, but in a format that didn't completely blow? Would people use that, or is the explosion into weblogs complete?

One possibility which might work would be to allow the initial poster of a thread the opportunity to limit who can post to it- sort of like a discussion that's happening in public, that everyone else can watch go down, but can't necessarily hop in and disrupt.  It would make sense for folks to PM or email someone if they have some really neat thoughts and want to be included into the conversation- or they can set up a secondary one...

In other words- it would work somewhat like a big get together or a party, except instead of people moving away from the crazy dude who jumps in conversations, he gets politeness forced upon him- "May I join you?"

Two things.

1) Adam is right.

2) I'm thinking more about what Charles said.  I'm glad this is anyway, so I can say mean things about pre-existing games and no one will roast me.

I think that, in the ideal world, the concerns of the good player are totally different from the concerns of the good desiger (or, rather, the concerns of the player are a very small subset of the concerns of the designer.)  And I think it is an important issue to talk about—what do you need to know to play, what is mainly a design issue?

But this isn't an ideal world.  Frankly, any game that you are playing is highly likely to suck.  In order to make your play experience not suck, you are essentially forced to redesign the game—taking some rules, destroying others, importing new rules from your prior experience in their place, etc.  This essentially requires you to have the skills of a designer, simply to be a good player!  Which sucks!  But also explains why so many RPG players are also designers of some stripe.

yrs—
—Ben

I see something like this:

Imagine to unified blogging system like Lj or Blogger, where the entire community is explicitly about RPG design.

You have people whose opinions you respect. They write articles, post diagrams, and so forth. Other people can comment.

There are also people who write articles you don't care about. If they don't algorithmically line up with what you care about, aren't your friend, and don't make the Headlines (see below) then you won't see their articles.

There's a headline page. What goes on that headline page is two things: What's New and Editor's Choice. The Editors, of course, are multiple (if not many) and direct the publication.

This is what I see:

1: There's some sort of peer review (Editor's Choice) of articles that are along the lines of what people are trying to make. Clinton, Vincent, and anyone else who can write this stuff, you're writing the code, you're setting up the theory, make sure those peers are the right people.

2: It takes effort to write an article that it doesn't take to write "YUO AER TEH STUPOD I MA TEH SIMMULATONAST ADN YUO AER TEH SUCK GAMEIST". Don't build in spellcheck, but have spellcheck be a marker of stupid posts. Seriously, it's amazing how ill-spelled posts correllate with "I don't know what I'm talking about".

3: Threaded comments on articles are probably a good idea so you can weed through for the part you're interested in; linearity is only so scalable. After all, the comment threads on blogs are where I get a lot of ideas, and if I write an article that others comment on, I'm gonna want to know what they're talking about.

4: Have a built-in facility for "me too"ing. When someone says something smart, other people will make posts that say "This guy said something smart! [link]". If, instead, that's not listed as an article, but boosts the article up toward the top of What's New, it'll be a flag for people, Editors included, to read it and maybe make it a headline article.

5: Have an extensive list of questions about what games you like and don't like, services you can offer the community, your company label if you've got one, and your real name (hideable, of course, viewable only to "friends" or whatever). Don't publish someone's articles until they've filled them out. Use the data for an Amazon-like "If you like x, statistically, you're probably interested in y" thing. Also, if you can, pull a Political Compass thing, where you're asked a bunch of questions about what you would do in a given situation. That'll line you up with like-minded individuals, irrespective of GNS (or other) identity politics.

6: Build in facilities for a library, like the Forge does, where particularly good posts get put for future reading. They could be put there by GM - er, editorial fiat, or voting, or whatever. The important thing is that there be an evolving library of canon.

7: Instead of merely responding to a post, you can click "write response article". That gives a certain provenance to articles so you can see how ideas evolved. Whenever you write an article, you can type a URL for the inspiration for the article if it's out of the system.

8: Every article has the same graphic identity, unlike other blog systems. We're all writing for a magazine, not writing our own magazines. That's brand identity, and it's a powerful thing.

9: Sell advertizing if we must, but keep a tight rein on how it looks and what it sells, like Penny Arcade does

Something like that.

I see this as potentially solving the following problems:

- Disallowing those whose ideas are unpopular, ill-formed, or stupid is a good way to validate those calling "Elitist!" This way, they've got a place to write like idiots, and maybe they'll form a good idea eventually. When assembling metadata about a user, don't look further than the last 5 posts or something; if they've stopped misspelling, typing in all caps, and their readership is increasing, they shouldn't be penalized for the dumb crap they wrote last month.

- Leaving out editorial moderation leads to noise. Putting something on the front page of a newspaper is an editorial decision, and an important one.

- Looking like amateurs does none of us any good. This gives graphical cachet to those of us who don't have it.

I've got server space, but don't know crap about coding. The server's soon moving to another high-bandwidth locale and getting some newer, snazzier processors. If no one else wants to run the thing, I could, but someone else is gonna have to be responsible for the code.

Whoa, long post.

1) Adam is right.

Adam's solution isn't broad enough. The Forge is not just a theory house. In fact, I'd argue, that it is not even primarily a theory house. It's about getting better at having fun as a gamer. Our solution should consider more than just the theory business.

Not enough of the community makes a commitment to reading, commenting, and playtesting. Our solution should consider why, and how it might effect a change.

The Forge has lots of publisher-specific forums. They are, in general, quite fallow. Our solution should consider the issue. And try to deliver on users wanting to find content by publisher, but without the downside of a whole page of isolated and largely fallow forums.

The private forum for designing My Life with Master proved incredibly valuable to the design of the game. I'd like our solution to consider how private discussions specific to games in development can remain one of the Forge's services.

(And honestly, I think a peer-review journal scheme would kill The Forge quicker than you can say "Jack Robinson". The gaming community isn't full of folks looking for more work to do. It's full of folks looking to figure out how come their gaming isn't any damn fun, and what they might do about it. Our solution needs to leverage the energy and enthusiasm of these folks, not put everyone else into a service relationship to them.)

RE: '1) I know you aren't into it, but of course the Forge has a "the theory." There's a real body of genuine conclusions that we've drawn, despite the various disagreements, misunderstandings and ignorances among the Forge's users. Here's the potential shitstorm: the recurring disagreements in the Forge forums reveal a problem with the open forum medium, not genuine competing theories.'

So there is only one theory at the Forge, and everyone of any consequence (e.g. John Kim) agrees with it, whether they think they do or not?  This theory consists of "conclusions we've drawn," where "we" is the "informed" people at the Forge?

That does sound kind of shitstormy, if I've summarized it correctly.  Have I?

I admit that I'm only solving one set of problems without considering other issues. A peer-reviewed journal may or may not kill the Forge as we know it. I don't know. I just wanted to get an idea out there to discuss.

It may be that someone wants to do a theory journal away from the Forge. People are coming here and other blogs for different reasons than they go to the Forge. People are hungry for new ways to learn about design. Not everyone who learns about game design theory wants to contribute to that theory.

I've summarized my own problems with the Forge in two "shitstorm" posts, Forge pedagogy and Jargon and legacy, and whined a bit in Perceptions of Civility at the Forge.

To be clear, though, I never said the Forge was just a theory house. In fact, I said that it's a great forum for chatting and finding like-minded people, and I curbed myself from expounding about all the other virtues of the Forge. They distracted from the topic of that message, but I get it.

I think the most valuable forum is Actual Play, and it took me three and a half years to figure that out.

How is it that my man Ninja Hunter nailed every last thing I was thinking about? Weird.

Anyway, believe it or not, the software exists to enact that very thing.

Ed: "So there is only one theory at the Forge, and everyone of any consequence (e.g. John Kim) agrees with it, whether they think they do or not? This theory consists of "conclusions we've drawn," where "we" is the "informed" people at the Forge?"

More like, the disagreement of anybody (of consequence or not) with any particular conclusion we've drawn doesn't invalidate the theory (yes, the conclusions we've drawn generally) as a whole, nor indeed that particular conclusion itself.

"We" is the people in authority over the theory. Really, at the Forge "we" is Ron, just like here "we" is me. But I've won enough disagreements with him, and confirmed my understanding fully enough with him - and a bunch of others of us have too - that I count us as shared authorities. Maybe that's self-aggrandizement.

Anyway, as far as disagreements go, it falls upon the disagreer to convince us. When I disagree, it falls on me to convince the rest! I've done that a couple of times, like I say that's how come I count myself a shared authority.

One day, having failed to convince us, a disagreer might go on to create a whole rival theory, with its own gang of authorities. It might be me, who knows! It hasn't happened yet, though, that I've seen.

Still shitstormy?

Paul—

Hi!  It's me.  Ben.  I designed a game at the Forge, too.  Yup.  I did.

I'm very well aware that the Forge is more than just a theory house.  I've made pretty liberal use of the Publishing, RPG design, Connections and Actual Play fora, plus a lot of the individual publisher fora.

I'm curious what you mean by "A peer-reviewed journal would kill the Forge dead."  If you mean "turning the Forge into a peer-reviewed journal would kill it dead," then you are correct, and that would be a shame.  I don't think that is what Adam was proposing, either.  If you mean "the existence of a peer-reviewed journal would kill the Forge," then I think that may well be a damned good thing—if it is that easy to kill something, it probably wanted to die.  I don't agree though.  What it might do is kill the Forge's function as a center for RPG theory, by providing a new center, but I gather that that's something that's been going on for a while.

Plus, and I am a dork for forgetting this, we already have a peer-reviewed journal.  So let's maybe contribute and see how that goes.

The gaming community isn't full of folks looking for more work to do. It's full of folks looking to figure out how come their gaming isn't any damn fun, and what they might do about it.

It isn't?  It isn't, say, full of folks who spend their free time writing essays about game design and game play?  Like, to pick some names at random, Brand, myself, Vincent, Ron, Chris and others?

Saying we need to centralize this is pretty much the opposite of bad, although it might be premature.

And, yes, it is full of frustrated players who are looking for a better way to play, and the Forge has its evangelical missions regarding that, but I think perhaps it might be the best to seperate that shit from theory development at this point.  We already know why their gaming isn't any damn fun, and we already know how to help them fix it.  Hanging a carrot of theory development in front of their nose both drives off those that don't like such things and also gives a false sense of hope to those that do, because our theories are pretty much developed.  It was a good way to operate 2 years ago.  It isn't now.  We need to seperate learning from research because, damn it, they are different things and they are, to some extent, poisoning each other.

Summary: It takes 2-3 years to get up to speed on Forge theory, given a few hours a day here and there sort of learning style.  This isn't a long time by the basis of, say, an academic discipline, but it is a fair chunk of time.  Confounding that learning with expectations of theory *development* is appalling, in terms of what we are asking.

Ed—I think it is pretty clear that there are some folks at the Forge who perceive themselves as strongly aligned "against" the theory of the place.  It seems really odd to insult them by saying that they are part of our mainstream theory development.

yrs—
—Ben

Hey Adam. Ugh, upon re-reading my post seems as a personal slap to you. It was not intended to be. I was just jumping on the opportunity to stress my point about the need to assess the scope of the concerns you want to address before choosing a solution. I apologize.

Actually, I think the right solution is a lot closer to something like Everything, but with publicly applied del.icio.us style tags for organizing and presenting content, some hierarchy of control over the creation of some tags and who can apply them to content (and maybe an algorithm for assessing the reliability of a thread based on the applied tagging). Consider the community ramifications of users requesting the ability to tag their personal actual play threads as a chronicle of their getting better at having fun gaming.

That post is mine.

Ben sez: "Ed—I think it is pretty clear that there are some folks at the Forge who perceive themselves as strongly aligned "against" the theory of the place. It seems really odd to insult them by saying that they are part of our mainstream theory development."

Well, I was just trying to understand what Vincent was getting at—trying to interpret his statement, not make one of my own.

Vincent—

""We" is the people in authority over the theory. Really, at the Forge "we" is Ron, just like here "we" is me. But I've won enough disagreements with him, and confirmed my understanding fully enough with him - and a bunch of others of us have too - that I count us as shared authorities. Maybe that's self-aggrandizement."

Heh.  So "we" is Ron and the people who agree sufficiently with Ron.  OK.  Is John Kim "we"?

BTW, I realize I might be sounding a bit snarky.  If you ever read the disclaimer over at Esoteric Murmurs about how despite the fact that I come across as this total snarkbeast, I totally dig and am grateful for the games the Forge has produced and deeply respect the people who are associated with it, please remember it is still in force!

Prolegomena to Any Future Snark

Clinton: Fucking sweet. Email me about it at joshua at swingpad! This is broadly applicable and if it comes right off the shelf, then fucking sweeter.

Something like this could be huge for us indie media boom.

(Also, there's something I want to ask you but I can't find your email address)

Re my: "Heh. So "we" is Ron and the people who agree sufficiently with Ron. "

I should of course have added: "Ron and the people who agree sufficiently with Ron, and conversely, the people with whom Ron has come to agree sufficiently with." :)

Of course there is a "Forge Theory"

You have a fairly stable, broad, and largely complete core that a fairly sizeable circle of folks can agree to.  You have a larger ring of fuzzier material where the broad concepts are down but the details shift about a bit.  You have a larger ring of under development material which is likely still a bit all over the place.

Who is the gatekeeper for what is what in the theory?  Of course its Ron.  Its his bloody site fer cryin out loud (content speaking).

The fact that there may be 10, 20, or 10000 people who disagree with bits and pieces here and there means absolutely bupkiss.  If those people want to codify their thoughts on some other site and call it

Theory, great.  "Forge Theory" doesn't require their seal of approval.  Nor does it require 100% acceptance from even its adherants.

My own ranty soap box on this topic is primarily aimed at people who just because they are valued participants wind up feeling entitled to some kind of ownership privilege.  That "The Forge Theory" can't be considered "complete" until they agree with all of its positions.  That kind of thing really gets me tweaked.

"Yeah, you know, the Forge, it was a good try and all, and they had some decent ideas, but ultimately it didn't amount to anything because even they can't agree on half the stuff..."  brrrr...it really burns me when I see posts that essentially translate to that.

Clinton, Ninja J: I don't have anything to really say, except: cool!