Recent content by kenada

Ideally, a game should be put together well enough that people can play it without having to worry how they can break it. Silly plays are obviously bad (and obviously can lead to a player exodus if the GM is just being dumb about it), but well-meaning ones can also be bad if they come out of...

There seems to be an issue with your quote. It’s missing the last sentence in that paragraph about constraints. That’s an important one because it’s the one that introduces his comment about Mad Libs. I think he’s right on that point. If you’re just making up stuff unconstrained, what preserves...

There’s a part in the third video (see below, warning starts with NSFW language) where he discusses a PbtA move with a 7–9 result that is “Someone is watching from the shadows”. The problem as he sees it is the game is not telling you who has the authority to say what that is. Does the GM? Do...

Hence more. Look at how many video games are released (e.g., ~14k were released on Steam last year per SteamDB). A lot of those are crappy or derivative (or asset flips), but sometimes someone hits on something new or an interesting take on an existing genre.

Right, but people in the hobby really seem to like putting things into boxes. It can be a tiresome conversation to have. Is my game some amount of G or N? I don’t care. I look at it as a low-prep hexcrawl game, and that’s how I’d describe it to people. I allude to this in my comment about hobby...

I’m not trying to suggest those games are bad, but when Baker is surprised at how long it took until someone designed a PbtA game that doesn’t use playbooks, that tells me there’s a lot of space left to explore just in that particular class of games. From my perspective, I want to see people...

There are probably a bunch of reasons. People have an idea for a game, they look for something that fits, then adapt that. They like a particular system, come up with an idea, then adapt it to the system. There’s also the economic reality that using an existing system lets you appeal to that...

He talks about it in the third video and also in the comments. His view is that sim is not a creative agenda because it’s fundamental. It can’t be a goal because it’s what you need to have goals. In the comments, he adds that the essay was trying to turn it into a goal, but that was flawed...

My understanding is it’s way behind the state of the art for other kinds of games, particularly video games. There’s a bunch of ideas out there, but you how to sift through stuff that’s promoting a particular style of play to get to the good stuff, and the number of applied examples is small...

I think kitbashing is fine. The games we play need not be exactly what the game text says. What I’m lamenting is how many games are tweaked from other games, so if you’re looking for examples of applied design, you’re not going to find many. I would like to see more design diversity, especially...

I watched part 3 a few weeks ago but haven’t watched the other two. I found it interesting and insightful (into Edwards thinking). My favorite part was when he talked fondly about 3e campaign he ran (yes, D&D 3e). I also found his comments on sim (and its being fundamental) interesting and...

Admittedly, it’s a bit hyperbolic. The walls are too high, and it’s too narrow. I believe there is a large tray available, but I only have the one that comes with the tower. What happens when I roll is I have to peer up and over into the tray to see the result. It’s annoying enough I’ve stopped...

When I play an a character in an RPG, I try to do what my character would do. Sometimes I know more or less about that up front (versus finding it out as we play). It’s caused problems in the past, so I try to be mindful now of what play is going to be about by avoiding games that are a poor...

I think it was an eBook copy of Goblin Slayer TRPG. If not that, then a PDF of something I bought on DriveThruRPG. I’ve not been spending a lot on RPG stuff lately. 😅

I don’t blame people for not contributing back when the source material is permissively licensed. If the original author didn’t want that, they should have chosen a different license. I do think the way OGC is handled in the OGL is problematic (because the original author may have intended it to...