Recent content by SableWyvern

It's just not that complicated. You already know you don't like it, and talking about it isn't going to change that. Conversely, while I talk at length with my players about what an upcoming campaign will be like, we have never needed to have an extended conversation about "power dynamics"...

These are some of the things I do for my group: Host. Provide beer and espresso coffee. Clean up. Prep and run games, offering 20 - 25 sessions (6-8 hours per session) per year consistently for the past two-and-a-half decades. Run campaigns lasting years, maintaining coherency, tying things...

In my games, the things I decide are canon tend to be important. The things game authors, publishers and the like decide are canon hold no special weight or importance.

Indeed. Not according to me! Or, more exactly, they're as connected as you want them to be. Generally, I don't want them connected. If you're playing a Dark Sun game I'm running, Athas is not connected in any way to the standard D&D multiverse. If I run Al Qadim, it's not even going to be part...

GM's don't have the power to do whatever they like irrespective of the players, so the fact that they lack the right is a moot point. Who disagrees with this? Maybe @EzekielRaiden with his unique ideas about absolute power. All the curating GMs in the thread agree. In many cases, the good...

My players actively support "supremacy of the GM" in these world-building decisions because they want a curated game, because they trust my judgement, because they're not especially invested in world-building themselves and because they feel that the more invested that I am in the game, the more...

And @AlViking knows that there is no realistic scenario where his preference not to include them is going to damage his game or the fun of anyone at his table so, in this hypothetical scenario, there's no harm in saying to the player, "Not in this campaign, please stick to the curated list."...

I'm pretty sure certain @AlViking is aware they can introduce things into the game, so I'm genuinely not sure what this line of questioning is meant to achieve. For whatever reason, in this hypothetical scenario, they aren't comfortable with tortles in the campaign. That maybe because it's a...

Everyone is, of course, entitled to do whatever they wish, but my general feeling is: If your aim is to make great games, make the games you're passionate about and believe in, not the games you think the market wants. If your aim is to make a meaningful amount of money, you assess the RPG...

I think the bigger point is that simplifying almost always means you are giving up something. In your hypothetical example of simplification without any loss, there will be a vanishingly small number of people who will prefer the complex version for the sheer love of complexity and I'll agree...

Specifically, the claim was that the tropes they emulate are those of "D&D-derived fantasy". They can't have been designed to emulate something that would only come into being once it was derived from their existence.

Even if that's the case, it's not the existence of mechanics that have been around since the 1970s (eg, classes, levels and hit points, which are the examples that were given for genre reinforcing rules) that are the result of recent pop culture.

Yes, when I chose the word recursive, I was thinking of a conversation like this; - D&D mechanics are designed to emulate a genre. - Oh, what, genre? - The genre of games that use D&D mechanics. I probably should have just said circular, rather than recursive because, as you point out, there...

For the record, I agree with the sentiment behind @Fenris-77's comment, even if I'd use a different term.

Recursive is the word I'd use.