Thank God. Ron's move to make theory more pragmatic is something that I've supported before I even knew about The Forge. With all that traffic in Actual Play and Indie Design and Publishing... things are looking up.
Plus, the days of The Forge being judged as a wanker community where people just talk highfalutin about roleplaying games instead of actually playing them (It's not true at all for the majority as we fucking play RPGs like nobodys business, but it is true for 3-5 vocal folks on those forums who are kind of the black sheeps of the community) will come to a sharp close.
Theory hits the blogverse. Discussion becomes imminently practical and pragmatic.
You can probably see my hard-on from where you sit.
Oh, one thing, though, I hope that with all that redirected traffic on the other forums, that they open each forum to more than 20 fucking threads per page.
Like it or not, out of sight IS out of mind. And with the excess traffic being directed to the other forums, I think it's about time to open up more threads per page so that forums like Indie Game Design don't scroll so gorram fast.
That's my current soapbox. But that's pretty much the only change I see as a need for the Forge community at this time. That indicates that everything else is going pretty darn well.
You can probably see my hard-on from where you sit.
Thank you for that image, Andy, thank you to hell ... now I have to wash out my brain with lye.
I'm liking the idea of putting every theory discussion in context with Actual Play. I think it will do two things:
Some items of blue-sky theory (fictional (I hope) example: "Does forensic chemical analysis share traits with the process of a GM preparing an adventure?") will simply vanish, because nobody will be able to think up any actual play referents for them.
People wanting to talk theory will have to place their construct in the context of at least one of their past experiences
Both of those strike me as very good things.
In fact, I've had a little theory-esque wankery that I'd been holding off on asking about, and I'm going to trot on over to the Forge's actual play forum right now and post about it!
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So basically "look, we here at the Forge have already decided how rpgs should be constructed so there's no more need for anyone to discuss this" ??
More like those discussions have moved beyond the Forge to the many gaming blogs maintained by Forge participants. The Forge will now concern itself with Actual Play and more hands-on practical theory stemming from Actual Play.
EDITED to ADD: GNS itself has been antiquated for a while now. The Forge discussions have been much more about The Big Model.
So basically "look, we here at the Forge have already decided how rpgs should be constructed so there's no more need for anyone to discuss this" ??
I don't think that's what's being said. I think they're saying "On this forum, theory is appropriate for discussion only within the context of actual play."
On this forum: Ain't nobody saying that there isn't a need to discuss it. But the mods have a right to determine what their board is about. It's not about Louisiana disaster relief (though that's a hella worthy topic) and it's not (now) about pure unapplied theory.
Within the context: Also, I don't think this is intended to reduce discussions of theory. I think it's intended to constrain them to (IMHO) a more productive context.
Make sense?
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Superhero roleplaying with heart: Capes!
Founding Member: Cabal of the Big Agenda
Show your gaming love: Go-Play Keychains
So basically "look, we here at the Forge have already decided how rpgs should be constructed so there's no more need for anyone to discuss this" ??
Uh... no?
It's more like, "This crap served its purpose, it's distracting from the goals of the site (which is the production of games), and is thus relegated to elsewhere".
Lots of people come to the Forge to hammer out ideas for games they want to produce.
Some people come to the Forge to debate, in great detal, aspects of roleplaying or games that have little to do with the actual production of games. In other words, both critical discussion AND wankery. But lots of wankery.
The admins are simply flushing a little baby out with a lot of bathwater. To get back to the site's main goal: MAKING games, not TALKING about games.
Kinda like they should do with Tangency here, but that's another topic.
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