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Liking it so far Bill. I'm up to Chapter 4, just started the GNS stuff. I've no knowledge of this stuff so I've learned a good bit so far.Hey, don't take me the wrong way! I just meant I tried to write it so that the reader didn't need a Ph.D. in rhetoric to make sense of it. Maybe it worked, maybe it didn't, but at least I made the effort.
I just wonder whether you got the POV from people who were skeptical of the direction that The Forge took. I was active for a little while and my experience mirrored that of more prominent dissenters. (By whom I don't mean trolls or crazies, but people like Balbinus and Marco Chacon.)
Right...isn't that texture what happens when you have a community oriented around productive activities, all doing variations and extrapolations and articulations around a core idea? I'm thinking of back in the day APAzines like Alarums & Excursions as well as modern-day Internet-enabled communities of play like the OSR and pbtA games. Or are you talking about something else?I've been having some thoughts about texture and complexity in games just lately. Rolemaster is a game with a fair bit of both, but so is AD&D with a stack of articles from Dragon magazine. Texture is something that seems to have gone out of fashion in game design or maybe game design actually destroys it I don't know. My own games always feel a bit, well, flat. There isn't that meandering coarseness that comes with many layers of design and designers.
I actually talk about it quite a lot. At the end of the second chapter is a rhetorical analysis of an RPG.net thread called "What Happened to the Forge?" that presents skeptical views of the Forge's contribution to RPGs, and I present the experience of people who felt marginalized by the Forge for a variety of reasons. I am not terribly critical of "Forge theory," however; instead, I try to reconstruct it from an internal perspective and show how it overlaps with the sort of frame-theoretic approaches to understanding RPGs that have been discussed upthread.
Yes, of course! At some length!I assume you speak with Emily Care Boss?
Maybe, I don't know, something like Rolemaster Standard System is very well integrated but the layers of complexity produce texture or whatever it is I'm talking about, "character" maybe? I wouldn't say GURPS has it, no matter what you do with it GURPS will always be GURPS. So, a lot of people contributing might get you there but it might also just get you something diffuse with lots of spin offs. Much like you see in the OSR where everyone and their dog has their own retro clone. It's a notion that is just bumping around in my head. Sometimes the inefficiencies and weaknesses of a game give it a character or texture that is unique and appealing. I think Mark Rein Hagen was trying to achieve something like that with his science fiction game Exile.Right...isn't that texture what happens when you have a community oriented around productive activities, all doing variations and extrapolations and articulations around a core idea? I'm thinking of back in the day APAzines like Alarums & Excursions as well as modern-day Internet-enabled communities of play like the OSR and pbtA games. Or are you talking about something else?
Looking forward to it Bill, I see it is priced as an academic book so I'll have to try and get it via an interlibrary loan.
Sometimes Palgrave Macmillan puts books on sale; I will keep an eye on that and post here if it happens.
As promised, I'm letting you know that the e-book of Tabletop RPG Design in Theory and Practice at the Forge, 2001-2012: Designs & Discussions is on sale from the publisher Palgrave Macmillan for $12. A steal! You may need this coupon code: CYBER20PAL.
Wow that looks really interesting! I'm sure there will be plenty of surprising facts in there.Jon Peterson has a new book coming out, as a follow-up to his impressive Playing at the World, probably deserves its own thread:
The Elusive Shift, My New Book
Since Playing at the World came out, I've been asked now and again about extending its historical timeline for just a few more years. After...playingattheworld.blogspot.com
It is great and was originally published in Interactive Fantasy #2, all of the issues which are now on Drivethru for PWYW.
Costikyan also wrote a short book for MIT Press that expand on some of the ideas in that essay. It is also a worthwhile read although only partially references rpgs.
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I bought this !! its a good buy. Thanks for the recommendation
As promised, I'm letting you know that the e-book of Tabletop RPG Design in Theory and Practice at the Forge, 2001-2012: Designs & Discussions is on sale from the publisher Palgrave Macmillan for $12. A steal! You may need this coupon code: CYBER20PAL.
In the defense of Gygax, keep in mind that the early RPGs were somewhat different than modern RPGs. In the earliest campaigns, if a wizard wanted to make a magic item and the rules said it would take four weeks, the player would be unable to use that character for four weeks of real time as it was assumed that this character was spending his time making that item. Real-world time thus interacted with campaign-world time in a way which was more significant than it is today."YOU CAN NOT HAVE A MEANINGFUL CAMPAIGN IF STRICT TIME RECORDS ARE NOT KEPT."
In the defense of Gygax, keep in mind that the early RPGs were somewhat different than modern RPGs. In the earliest campaigns, if a wizard wanted to make a magic item and the rules said it would take four weeks, the player would be unable to use that character for four weeks of real time as it was assumed that this character was spending his time making that item. Real-world time thus interacted with campaign-world time in a way which was more significant than it is today.
Mentzer has said it isn't the case but the response has been that they know better than he does. So I don't think OG would be able to put it to rest. They've simply invested too much into it being true for marketing reasons.That is a recent claim made by a particularly fanatical group of 1e purists but I very, very much doubt that is how Gygax ran his games.
I do believe Gygax may have played around with the idea that each day between games was a day in game time but I doubt they stuck with it and the example you provided explains why.
Too bad we don't have Geezer around to confirm it is the horseshit I very much suspect it is.
I mean, it's only explicitly stated in the rulebook as at least the best practice:That is a recent claim made by a particularly fanatical group of 1e purists but I very, very much doubt that is how Gygax ran his games.
I do believe Gygax may have played around with the idea that each day between games was a day in game time but I doubt they stuck with it and the example you provided explains why.
Ah yes, the infamous, "No, we didn't use 1:1 time, we just had to stop using characters who became indisposed in-game until they were available again" incident.Mentzer has said it isn't the case but the response has been that they know better than he does. So I don't think OG would be able to put it to rest. They've simply invested too much into it being true for marketing reasons.
I mean, it's only explicitly stated in the rulebook as at least the best practice:
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I'm sure I've seen a chart from the 1E DMG that spells this out, too, but I'm having trouble coming up with that image.
Ah yes, the infamous, "No, we didn't use 1:1 time, we just had to stop using characters who became indisposed in-game until they were available again" incident.
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I wonder what he would say if someone had followed up by asking how the length of Training Jail time was determined.
Anyway, finarvyn, did you have a specific incident in mind when you framed your example?
I'm sure we would all be interested in more firsthand accounts of this sort.
Just because Gygax did it, or said he did it, or said others should do it, doesn't mean it's a good idea.
In this case (1:1 time in a restrictive way) I don't think it is.
Of course not! An elaborate dungeon filled with really cheap traps is much better.Wait are you suggesting that dealing with problem players by killing their PCs with an astral mummy is not good GM advice?!
Exactly, takes less real world time to set upOf course not! An elaborate dungeon filled with really cheap traps is much better.