About all I could tell from Zach's link was that Edwards claims victory in his battle (whatever that was) and... ...some forum reorg ....plus an implied statement that it's not going to be around much longer. But those type of claims should always be taken with a grain of salt and believed only when the site actually disappears or stops updating.
There's been some blogging wasted on this non-event (including this post of course). For example this one, that says RPGPundit immediately claimed victory for himself. I swear, one of those two just has to be a sock puppet for the other or maybe they're twins split at birth.
But it does raise a briefly interesting question- who did win in Pundit's "Swine Wars"? In a small completely unimportant way, that can be answered no matter if the Forge is shutting down or not.
RPGPundit was the self-declared defender of traditional gaming, which for most of his rant time online meant D20, Ryan Dancey, and WotC. For him to win, those elements would have to be standing tall and Forge ideas must remain unnoticed. Let's see how that went shall we:
- WotC replaced D20 with 4th Edition D&D
- WotC replaced Dancey
- 4th Edition D&D was penned by Mearls
- Mearls openly stated that he agreed with at least some of the GNS Model
- 4th Edition D&D seems to show that GNS influenced design
- Dancey publically declared traditional gaming dead, and called GNS influenced 'story-gaming' the future of rpgs.
If this be victory, defeat must be a real bitch.
Edward's crowing is a little better founded- but far from roses. Sure he can point to the above points, but he gets no real credit for it. Mearls isn't exactly singing his praises and didn't use anything like the full model. Meanwhile Dancey is no longer even a player in the table-top rpg world. Various people took parts of his ideas and ran with them- but the parts they took were only those he stole from rec.game.frp.advocacy in the first place. Now even most of those who praise parts (and only parts) of GNS, mock the man who wanted to own RPG Theory.
Finally burning out (which is everyone's right, indeed- everyone's future) , and basicially forgotten- Edwards is ready to slowly phase out his last connection to the rpg world. Like the UK after WWII, his empire is gone and his time as a overshadowing presence even on his own board a thing of the past.
If this be victory, defeat must be a real bitch.
It's almost difficult for me to decide which of the two which I pity more. Almost difficult because I'm not going to waste the effort- neither is worth the time. They are what they made themselves to be, which is smaller than they could have been.
In the end, they are nothing more than something to waste a blog entry on. For God only knows, it's difficult some days to come up with a subject.
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As far as I'm concerned the jury is still out. Traditional Gaming is in an state of unknowable uncertainty since it is entirely possible that many players did not migrate to 4E, just as many did not migrate to 3.5, or 3.0, or 2.0 (myself included), and some few who homebrewed a traditionalist style game since 1978 (myself included) and opted out of the "never ending (and highly disruptive) Upgrade Cycle" to begin with. As for Edwards ... had his rhetoric not been so mean spirited, and his jargon so obtuse, he might have made a more certain contribution. That said, he did get people to think about how and why they design their RPGs the way they do, and initiated at the very least an alternative that at least some people enjoy. That's not too bad, overall, despite the fact it might have been better. Bad rhetoric kills. That's my opinion.
He was incoherent then, and he's incoherent now.
The shame, Gleichman, as you've pointed out in your discussions on the topic, is that his approach to theory, and his continual obfuscation and off-putting behavior contributed to gaming theory being dismissed or lightly regarded by gamers who may otherwise have been interested in the field. If he has any sort of legacy, that's what it is, IMO.
Unfortunately Pundit isn't incoherent, just calling anyone who likes to game a different way than him "Swine". It's as if the two views cannot coexist...
This is a tempest in a teapot I would rather just throw away.
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