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If somebody doesn't understand how to play your game, it's your fault.

If somebody can't extract basic principles from the rules, it's really your fault.

As long as they can read, and are trying to understand, they are absolved of any blame.

Period.

You can make all sorts of excuses, but that's all they are - excuses. Some are good excuses ("this game is pretty complex", "space/financial/time constraints limit the size of the rulebook"), some are really bad ones. ("This game contains radical ideas that are beyond the comprehension of the unwashed masses.") They don't absolve you of the responsibility.

The bottom line is that it is your job to make them understand.

And yes, it's bloody hard. It's probably impossible.

But you have to try as best you can.

And if your efforts leave a significant fraction of the audience scratching their heads and getting it wrong, then your product is defective. You can do a lot to mitigate the problems after the fact, but it is less than ideal.

Just don't insult people for not understanding. Don't tell people that the game you're selling is not designed for them. If it's not for them, don't sell it to them. Don't say they don't understand because there's something wrong with them.

(And yes, I freely admit that the rules of Shadowfist are not as clear as they should be. I have excuses, but it's still my fault. I can duck any blame on Angband's documentation for now, but only for now.)

Ok, there's this web site called The Forge. It's devoted to the discussion of and encouraging the creation of creator-owned role-playing games. (Real pen and paper RPGs, not computer games.)

There's also been a big focus on the theory of RPGs, and experimenting with new or non-traditional concepts (GM-less play, distribution of narration rights, etc.)

There's a bunch of interesting stuff there, and a number of interesting-looking games have come out of it. (I've only read or played a couple, so won't make any recommendations, though Dogs in the Vineyard looks very interesting, despite the fact that I find its setting fairly uninteresting.)

In future posts, I'm likely to muse on various RPG theory subjects, so if you find yourself wondering "What's this GNS thing he's foaming at the mouth about?", you might visit the Forge to attempt to satisfy your curiosity.

However, just as I wouldn't suggest somebody read rec.games.roguelike.angband without warning them about Neo, (if you don't know, don't ask - your life will be much richer) I can't send people off to the Forge without letting them know about my reservations about the place.

(It also gives me a place to get it off my chest without going over to the Forge and starting a thread that might as well be entitled "Why You Guys Suck".)

In short, I find the prevailing attitude at the Forge distinctly unwelcoming, and counterproductive to its stated goals.

Now, this may just be me, and in part it probably is. I'm aware enough of my personality flaws to recognize this.

But I'm going to lay a lot of the blame at the feet of Ron Edwards.

(The Forge is not just Ron's site, but, at least from where I stand, he's by far the dominant personality among the powers that be.)

Ron is the general moderator of the Forge. The kindest thing I can say about his moderation style is that it's somewhat autocratic.

Ron wrote most of the articles on RPG theory available on the Forge.

In general, Ron seems to set the tone.

And I find that tone to be kind of ugly. Other posters are not generally as bad, but I see a lot of reflections of Ron's attitude in the overall Forge mindset.

There's a strong sense of elitism. Not only does this attitude state that are Forge-style games better than more traditional ones, but that the traditional ones are actively bad, sometimes to the point of people stating that those playing "traditional" games cannot actually be having fun. (Actually, far worse has been stated, but I'm not willing to attribute that to more than a relatively small subset of the population.)

Ron's theories are generally treated as received wisdom. (I disagree with them a lot, frequently fairly vehemently. I cannot say whether most others find them more persuasive, or whether those who didn't eventually gave up and left.)

When people come to the Forge with their ideas for a game, I see people attempting to push the author to fit it into the Forge's mold, whether or not that's what the author seems to be looking for.

There used to be a couple of forums for discussing RPG theory, but they were shut down around the time I started reading the site.

(There's discussion still ongoing in the blogs of various people, but in my hierarchy of useful internet discussion fora, blogs are basically at the bottom. You can't find anything, the interfaces generally suck, and the only way to start a topic of discussion is to start your own blog, and hope somebody reads it.)

I could probably go on at length, but I think I've covered the basics, which is kind of the point of this. Interesting place, but it could be a lot better than it is.