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A key feature of free kriegsspiel is - as your post says - the expertise of the referee. The referee makes decisions about what happens, based on their knowledge of how things would actually work out in a real war. This means that, for the referee, the "game" is not a simulation. The referee is...

Classic Traveller Burning Wheel Wuthering Heights In A Wicked Age

I'm having trouble parsing your sentence.

I have never spent 3 hours coding, so I can't comment on that. I also don't think my RPGing has an "empty calories" quality, so I can't really comment on that either. On Thursday afternoon I spent about two hours with a colleague working on a paper that we are authoring together. We wrote...

An implication of this is, I think, that TB2e is (to a significant degree) a simulationist RPG. I can cope with that; but it seems to be controversial to many of the self-proclaimed "sim" RPGers.

I only ever played one session of TMNT. Along the lines that @Voadam describes, we all built PCs who couldn't talk (but could communicate with one another by very limited-range telepathy), in order to have points or slots or whatever to spend on other abilities. Then we started the scenario...

To me, it seems that some RPGers use immersion not to describe a psychological state, but a logical one. For instance, here: That's not a description of a mental state. It's a characterisation of a similarity relationship between processes taking place in the real world and imagined events...

The campaign went for around 11 years, from the beginning of 1998 (or thereabouts) to the end of 2008. My estimate is that we played for somewhere over 1000 hours. (In the neighbourhood of 300 sessions.) The player who prepared this chart joined in the second or third year (I can't remember...

Yes. I don't know why you think I (or anyone else) would think otherwise.

When I think of my experiences GMing Rolemaster (at first weekly, and then fortnightly, for 19 years), I don't think that avoidance of narrative contrivance was at the core of it. After all, I made decisions about situations and scenarios that were replete with narrative contrivance (eg...

This isn't what simulation means in GNS/the big model. You can read here what simulationism means in GNS: The Forge :: Simulationism: The Right to Dream Summarised, and so with some nuance ignored, it is used to refer to play that prioritises engagement with the shared fiction per se over some...

In my 4e game, my scenario prep was really about statting up creatures/NPCs, and drawing maps: because 4e D&D really needs these details to run well, especially if fights break out. The direction of play - eg that the Raven Queen, or Chan the Queen of Good Air Elementals, would matter to the PCs...

And here's a separate thought on PC race/species/stock. Most recently, I've been GMing Torchbearer 2e. TB2e combines Burning Wheel's ultra-JRRT-esque approach to Elves and Dwarves with a tip of the hat to classic D&D play. Each choice of "class" brings stock with it - for instance you can be a...

I thought I'd post some examples of "lore" mattering to the players. Here are two, both from high level 4e D&D play: The lore matters to the players because it is what establishes the situation the PCs find themselves in. It explains, and indeed constitutes, the stakes - both threats and...

I'd be very surprised if the issues being discussed in this thread, around high level play and the power of control spells, has much impact on the sales of 5e D&D.

This is why I rely on others' maps more than I rely on their words. I can make stuff up about people and places. But a map is handy for coordinating the action. In that RM GH game, by the time the PCs were in the upper teen levels, they would wake up in Rauxes (they had quarters in the imperial...

AD&D Monster Manual, p 30: Dragons con attack by claw/bite or breath weapon. The latter can be used but three times per day, maximum. If a choice is possible roll percentile dice. Any score above 50% indicates the dragon will breathe.

Yes, but what does that mean in the fiction? Like, what is the trap designer thinking in saying to themself, "This will kill Kobolds, but not 2nd-level adventurers"?

I'm not sure what this looks like in the fiction, that is, what is the nature of a trap that is lethal enough to deal 7 hp damage but not more.