Airk
Game is moving along briskly to critical (or at least, player) acclaim. 
Generally doing well. Saying hello to the first hints of New England winter.
Generally doing well. Saying hello to the first hints of New England winter.Comments
-
On the other hand all you need to railroad is a single guy/gal who wants to do a 'plot', and pretty much any old rule set is good enough for that. I thought we were talking about what was necessary to make it GOOD.
-
Agreement with Komradebob -- being a GM isn't easy, and being an improv GM can actually be EASIER than doing huge amounts of prep and trying to cover every angle in advance (I mean, yes, you can quatum ogre it to hell and back if you want to avoid h…
-
I basically agree with Paul, except that rather than mining "traditional" RPGs, I look for the games that do something really different. Masks and its "your stats are your self image" schtick, for example, is a RADICAL departure from anything I'd s…
-
I don't think it's really true that character advancement is a form of narrative authority. Certainly, I don't think most people playing D&D think anything along the lines of "Oh good, I've gained a level, I can have a bigger impact on the stor…
-
That's odd, because that's not the feeling I came away with at all; Most of the miracles and stuff were pretty firmly defined. I just think that the whole thing boils down to a "points management game" in a not especially exciting way. Yes, it's …
-
Tangential anecdote, and I don't know if this has changed since fifteen or twenty years ago when i was still a neophyte roleplayer, but I feel like back then I kept getting presented with the factoid that "most gamers only play one game." Your D&…
-
What's the draw for Godbound? I read it, and it felt like pure oldschool D&D heartbreaker -- trying to make D&D do something cool in a cool setting by buckling on tons of additional awkward subsystems. I dig the setting, and thought it was…
-
Sadly, I don't have anything else to suggest; I've mostly fallen out of love with mainstream titles because they feel very samey to me at this point. ToR has enough unique elements to stand out.
-
Airk, it's my experience that humans tend to be pretty awful at actually understanding/explaining why we do things; there's a lot of ideological garbage that can get in the way (for better and for worse, depending on one's objectives). I've seen som…
-
The thought that always pops up in my head is "Yeah, but... how do we find out who was really the best", like, I somehow don't trust the process of the judging as I would a die roll or a rule application. I am confused. You think that having everyo…
-
The One Ring is relatively "mainstream" and definitely my favorite in that space. It is a fine, fine choice for the money wasting collectable angle, since the art is gorgeous and there are lots of books.
-
I've played a couple of games with some players where it just wasn't fun anymore because their relationship outside the game allowed one to boss the other around. Essentially, only one of the two ever had authority. Judgement risks stagnating the …
-
@Airk totally agreed! I just meant "very methodical" about stuff that is knowable, just that most people wouldn't think of, like calculating necessary food and travel times and budgeting for bad weather etc. Ah, cool, I guess I misunderstood since …
-
But if the players are playing very methodical ignorant peasants, then never mind. Hmm. I disagree with this statement. I don't care how "methodical" they are, if they don't know that there are poison herbs that look just like clover, they're goi…
-
I still really think you are being shortsighted here Brendan; It's not that people are "blaming D&D" in some specific sense, but that people are realizing how hard it is to get past that 900lb gorilla far enough for people to even weigh in on w…
-
I was half kidding. I said ‘products’ not ‘games’. My point was if there really is a market for something, then it should be possible to reach an audience without attaching it to a widely known brand. "Should be" seems like a weird thing to say. …
-
Plenty of products attract popular attention without relying on D&D to gain notice. Cite please. That's not a joke. The last game I can think of that attracted "popular attention without relying on D&D" launched in 1991. If anything, you s…
-
Unfortunately, I feel like the RPG industry is basically trapped. Stuff "only catches on with people who played RPGs anyways" because the only RPG people outside of that space EVER hear about is D&D. Which is not particularly accessible, to b…
-
I think you are oversimplifying that last point, Brendan; Yes, lots of stories feature teams or groups of characters, but most of those stories don't involve those characters being together the vast majority of the time. There is definitely someth…
-
Thanks Eero; I don't really agree with your first bullet point at all (I find most mainstream RPGs to be a struggle to read and feel that the instructions contained therein are often poor in terms of how to actually use the game), and "Ecosystem of …
-
I'm really not sure about this part: The consequence is that while there are more excellent, beautiful, humanity-advancing indie games out there than you can swing a stick at, most roleplayers have never heard of them, and even if they have they can…
-
"We have too many people who want to GM and not enough who are willing to play." This is just not a thing that happens, in my experience Oh so another reason why we sometimes misunderstand each other is because our experiences are so drastically di…
-
I have some experience with the fandom/fiction freeform space myself, and my experience is that oftentimes, someone is, as the trite saying goes "more equal than others." It might or might not be 'official' but it's often true. Regardless though, I…
-
Everyone is an equal participant: Jazz (and I like it if my games are jazzy). But to be true: There is more great music than jazz! Equal isn't "undefined by roles" though. You're still ONLY playing Saxophone that song.
-
I do think that Eero has a point though. Emma, can you cite other creative media that allow for multiple contributors that DON'T restrict them to roles? Because when I think about it: Movie creation CLEARLY does this. There are script writers, …
-
I think most of Sandra's list can actually happen just fine (as in "pretty unpleasantly") in a game without a GM, and that a group that is capable of avoiding them without a GM is probably just as capable of avoiding them with a GM. I don't think t…
-
5e system actually seems kinda wonky. It seems like you can not eat for three days (assuming no CON penalty) eat for a day, Exactly the sort of tightening your belts, parceling the last crumbs out game play you were advocating for, instead of the …
-
5e system actually seems kinda wonky. It seems like you can not eat for three days (assuming no CON penalty) eat for a day, repeat indefinitely and take no penalties.
-
An interesting thing that's tangentially related to this that I just thought of while contemplating The One Ring and the stories it emulates. Food in RPGs tends to be very... binary. "Do we have food today? Y/N" Either you've got yourself your Iro…
-
I don't have any super great examples of The One Ring's rules creating moments, because it's not really there to create "And you've run out of food in the wilderness, and now you are all starving, what do you do?" moments, but rather to drive home a…
-
The One Ring hits my sweet spot for this; It doesn't track food/water specifically, but it does track "how much junk are you carrying." and the fatigue mechanic does a good job of folding all the inconveniences of a long, hard journey into a comfort…
-
I think you're just trading one kind of "brokenness" for another there. OD&D just shifts "system mastery" to "OSR procedure mastery" as the "right way to play" and still does nothing for anyone who wants to make decisions based on what sounds c…
-
First off, I think the discussion of mind control etc muddies the waters here. It's clear to me and I think to everyone that decisions a character makes while under the effect of a cursed cloak or whatever are not the decisions that either the play…
-
If the slope isn't slippery then there's no problem♥ Just hold on to your flashlight when it's really dangerous if that's the kind of adventurer you want to be, and ask your friends to do the same. This seems like it would undermine things, but mayb…
-
I disagree that the slope is that slippery. Also, if you start the game with a statement of trust instead of a presupposition of "this guy is likely to drop the torch on me at any minute" then I like to think that it's more likely people will work …
-
I guess I'm explaining poorly, because that doesn't help me grasp why it works for you at all. I think you're getting hung up on the word "dungeon" here. Everything is a dungeon. The deadly wilderness is a dungeon. The Earl's dinner party is a du…
-
I think we are on the same page 2097, though I'm curious as to how you survive the whole "This is a game about dungeoneering together, but these characters could very easily give each other reasons to never dungeoneer with each other again." dilemma…
-
I was that person who tried to learn RPGs from the 90s game texts. I failed. I wasn’t part of an RPG community who could help me grok it, not until much later. I hold the position that a lot of YouTube / Stream fans don’t get the underlying idea o…
-
Also, not all uses of Traits, Ideals, Bonds and Flaws are as disruptive as the famous ghoul tunnel flashlight example (or whatever it was, lost in the sands of the old internet). Definitely, but at the same time, the less "disruptive" these things a…
-
I don't think affordance markers solve the problems you think they solve. While they can point out that "X is a thing you can do", an affordance marker, by itself, does not answer the question "Why would I want to do that?" which is likely to be th…
-
I assumed it was clear that all the numbers in my post were for purposes of example only. And I disagree with you assertion, Sandra, that this represents "leaving the cobra in the back room" (I don't really like this analogy, but here we go.) -- or…
-
To me that last statement wanders into dangerous territory. If you are a slave to the dice, then you're not really necessary. You could be cut out of the picture entirely and other people could listen to the dice. But that's probably not true is…
-
the gloracle is 100% pure sacred magic♥♥♥♥♥ That makes you sacred magic too!
-
A third type of problem are emergent problems. Problems that just are created on their own when processes interact. Those are my faves Well, clearly not always, or we wouldn't be having this discussion, right? Or maybe the problem is that these ar…
-
I'd avoid D&D; It doesn't seem to serve any of your purposes. Unfortunately, most of the games I can think of that fill this wheelhouse are pretty setting coupled, and don't tend to feature generic "There are elves" settings. I think Sandra'…
-
Another option would be to charge them time. "You search all the cells along the corridor? That takes 30 minutes." (Because time will lead to encounter checks — a type of uncertainty I can understand.) Speaking of "Search all the cells along the c…
-
Make sure to post when it actually goes live. ;P
-
I am not 100% sure what you mean by this, but one thing I've noted with the issue of 'what is roleplaying' at the table, is a huge gulf between the theorizing you see all around online, and what typical players want. You may have whiffed the intent…
-
A lack of ‘properly expressed player goals’ is a feature of classic RPGs, not a flaw. I think if that isn’t well understood, any analysis that treats an absence of forge theory in traditional RPGs as design flaw will continue to fall flat and miss t…