The Forge has wandered off on a path of its own for a while. When I first got to it almost six years ago, it had already formalised its theories on game design. Any further posts had to be backed up with actual play material, and in most cases the actual play posts had to be filtered through the lenses on GNS and "the big theory" before any discussion could commence...by that stage, any development of theory is seriously constrained.
Story Games is pretty insular, with a specific crowd of people talking about specific games and how good they are...rather than discussing how the hobby could be transformed, improved or generally looking at the nitty-gritty of how it works. There are a few good threads every now and then, but they are rare.
Don't even get me started on RPGNet.
But I'm starting to see some great threads about game design here...from the development of game mechanisms, through to aspects like play experience, and even publishing.
It's great to see somewhere that this sort of stuff is discussed again.
So I just wanted to say thanks.
I've been reading through quite a few of the threads, and will hopefully be contributing a bit more soon.