mattrick16 To expand a bit on Franz's answer:
It is possible to set up the forum so the Tags page is the first thing users see when they visit the site. That gets it a bit closer in appearance to a traditional forum.
Of course, the big difference lies in the fact that in the traditional style, you generally have to navigate to a category before you can create a thread in it, whereas in Flarum, you start by clicking the New Discussion button, then you select a category ... so it's a bit more flexible. And as Franz said, the traditional behavior could be achieved by replacing the Tags extension with something more to your liking.
We've discussed this possibility a number of times, such as here. Some food for thought, perhaps.
