Weekly Review May 13th to May 19th

This week has seen several careful examinations of RPG theory and how it may be applied elsewhere.

Center of Play

Over at I would knife fight a man, Vincent Baker started a thread on the center of the Big Model theory of RPGs. Specifically, he describes the core of roleplaying as the shared consensus of the players of what happens in the game. Also at I would knife fight a man, Ben Lehman started a counter-point thread, focusing more on the social aspects of RPGs as central, and moving away from the specific Big Model perspective.

State of Design

Jonathon Walton discusses what it means for design to be on the "bleeding edge". He suggests that the state of design could be improved by an archiving of new developments and ideas. Relating such a project to this site, he argues that the practice of RPG design should be treated more seriously.