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So I'm of two minds on this. One -- by any measure, the "open source" movement across intellectual property contexts (software, books, games, music) is a huge boon to the public at large. The internet as it exists in its current form would bear little resemblance to what it would otherwise...

I can definitely confirm that Ironsworn and Ironsworn: Starforged have mechanics that either explicitly or implicitly ask players and GM to prioritize intent over "hidden backstory." That once agreed-upon stakes and fictional positioning align with the result of invoking the mechanics, that the...

Sure. But that's you choosing to prioritize your own desires over the players'. "I totally made up this fictional thing 6 hours / days / weeks / years ago, and somehow just because I totally made it up 6 hours / days / weeks / years ago, I cannot possibly change it. My version of this totally...

Very much this. But man oh man, was I extrapolating to keep the "living world" alive and running. I was a darn good extrapolator. I could extrapolate upon extrapolated extrapolations, then extrapolate some more on the extrapolated extrapolated extrapolations. And for a long while -- well over a...

I was never a tyrant GM even when I was running Savage Worlds for 9 years in about as "trad" a fashion as possible. But neither was I, as GM, really giving weight to character stakes and intentions during my GM play. It simply didn't occur to me that I should be, because nothing about the...

See, this is one of those things that until you give narrative mechanics an honest try, feels like it should be the absolute right move. Before I really, truly embraced what Ironsworn had to offer, I was just as terrified of "breaking the plausibility of the living world" as the most traddiest...

That's all fine and good. But the point of mechanics that point to fiction-first, non-"diegetic" conflict resolution in games like Ironsworn are to keep the character stakes relevant. So, the player is ambivalent to the fate of the princess. Okay, so, why is the player putting so much at stake...

I don't own Blades in the Dark, but I do own a hack of it called Court of Blades, so if the answer isn't one-to-one with BitD, bear with me. But when I look at the Court of Blades character sheet, I see stats, a spot for gear, the name of a general profession/playbook, a list of possible...

As far as I can tell, you've sort of broken the first paradigm of "narrative" style games, which is that you weren't bringing thematic character intentions and stakes to the table. Like, real, meaty stakes that slot into your character's real sense of self within the fictional world.

This here is the magic >>> The magic of narrative games happens when players bring thematic character intent + stakes to the fore of play, and the players and GM take advantage of the game's implicit and/or explicit mechanics and incentives to honor those intentions, stakes, and themes above...

I think I've said it probably a dozen times by now on this forum, but if anyone who has no experience with "narrative" style games wants to understand the mindset for it, go play a 2-2.5 hour session of Ironsworn solo. Then come back with how you saw events playing out in your mind, and how you...

Because as I described above --- Dungeon World both implicitly and explicitly expects the GM to hold character theme, stakes, and intent above his/her conception of the game world. Not every moment of DW play, or Ironsworn play, or BitD play, is going to differ wholly from the basic D&D play...

Yes. *Edit to follow up -- the player is welcome to then declare some other action, one that does not trigger the move in question, one that triggers a different move (or no move at all), to such point that the fictional state has been modified in a way that (s)he can then enact the move...

To carry the theme of this thread forward from my last post --- Narrative games are those that bring thematic character intent + stakes to the fore of play, and have implicit and/or explicit mechanics and incentives for GM's to honor those intentions, stakes, and themes above their own...

And the thing I've bolded is what I'm absolutely naughty word sick of in regards to trad play. For reasons unknown, the GM's creative fiction created 6 seconds / 6 minutes / 6 hours / 6 days / 6 weeks / 6 years ago is seen as sacredly immutable, wholly not subject to the player's expressed...

Ironsworn | Starforged | Sundered Isles Swords of the Serpentine Genesys | FFG Star Wars Honor + Intrigue Court of Blades (Forged in the Dark hack) Tales of Xadia | Cortex Prime

Why is it so difficult for some to differentiate the presence of certain pieces of content within a scene and what is at stake in a scene? Say, for example, a PC has entered into a jousting tournament. The presence of a duke and his daughter in an observation box, the duke's loyal knight dressed...

The strategy seems pretty obvious from the outside. The companies grouped with Asmodee are generally past their "prime earning" product years. You're going to see slow, stable revenue from them but very little innovation, very little "big bang" new product revenue (that's all going to come from...

This list seems like a good set of properties for identifying neotrad mechanics / systems. Looking it over, I can immediately pinpoint Genesys as a system that meets pretty much every criterion. The One Ring (though I've only read it but not played it) also seems to be strongly oriented in this...

I brought up the contra-narrative of "amorphous non-reality" because it was genuinely one of my major concerns about trying "narrative" style games 5 or 6 years ago. "How does the game world of Dungeon World even make sense if players are spouting off lore and it suddenly becomes canon...