Recent content by Campbell

So, Burning Wheel is not particularly narrow in terms of premise. As long as characters have beliefs they are willing to fight for you're golden. In terms of playstyle running a trad game in the way you are intended to run Burning Wheel means ignoring basically all the instructions on how to...

No one is arguing that they should. Some people have expressed a preference for games where the internal state of the characters is part of the shared fiction and influenced by both the mechanics and GM situation framing. Also, that there is agency involving managing your character's internal...

One of the things I am really appreciative in the dungeons so far is how healer centric they are. Loads of different healer checks, different sorts of damage patterns, absorbs to heal through, ticking damage, effects that reduce maximum health, etc. It feels like it's been a very long time since...

I have to say as someone who has flipped back and forth between a Blood Elf Priest and Blood Elf Paladin as mains since Burning Crusade the lore in this expansion so far really hits. The end of Arator's journey in particular. It's also just really nice to see the world move forward and Blood...

Speaking personally having to have an internal model of a character that includes things like unwanted feelings, intrusive thoughts and intuition about what is happening rather than having those things be part of the shared fiction and prompted by a skilled GM provides a level of emotional...

I personally have found Valeera mostly fine as a healer and a tank. I have not used her as DPS though. She did struggle a little bit as a tank doing some 6s and 7s (I was playing holy paladin), although some of that might have been how low-geared I was when I made the attempt. Way better than...

As an aside for what it's worth I personally do not have an issue with setting group standards for roleplaying choices, and I actually adore games like Pendragon where the GM is expected to call for rolls that block on the level of intent. I just do not think that applying the standards of one...

It's not up to you to accept the way other people and designers choose to design/play. You can handle your table however you want to, but like insisting people who handle things differently are not playing roleplaying games the right way is a bizarre choice for someone who spends most of the...

It's not about what's allowed and what is not allowed. For some groups and players, it would be acceptable, others would set boundaries and might opt out. I don't think we should be setting a normative standard for which boundaries are acceptable or not.

Every edition of Exalted Every edition of Legend of the Five Rings Every edition of Shadowrun Every edition of Earthdawn Every edition of Mutants and Masterminds Dark Heresy Second Edition Second Edition of Apocalypse World Second edition of Monsterhearts The New World of Darkness Chronicles of...

I guess what is the point of defining what "railroading" is? Is it about setting a standard for when players setting boundaries is socially acceptable? If it's not railroading are players allowed to object anyway? What are the stakes here? Is there genuine concern over if players have enough...

I mean if a player isn't giving me enough information I'm going to ask for more clarification. Just "what does that look like?" and if that is too much the other demands of play are going to be way too much. But I have never really encountered someone who isn't capable of that much. I think...

I embrace the power of "and" here. Of course, it's subjective which is why I find addressing which tools we opt to use solely through the lens of necessity silly.

There is a ton of GM judgement involved. If there wasn't we would not need principles about how to apply that judgement. What it is true is that is that it is all there out in the open. Of course, there are levels of GM skill and group chemistry that have a massive impact on play. No one is...

It's important, contextually, that "play to find out what happens" is in the MC Playbook. That being said I think Monsterhearts' "Keep the story feral" and Blades in the Dark's "be a curious explorer of the fiction" do a better job of laying out the mentality Vincent Baker is expecting...