Recent content by Manbearcat

@Pedantic , I saw your tag. I'll try to get a response to you tomorrow. Just going to Snip in the prior back-and-forth here for context: Ok, I'm going to make up a game called The Fisherman and the Fighter. This is a focused game that is about (a) the nature of these two PCs as well as...

You do realize this bolded bit is an extremely subjective judgement call which can deliver terrific levels of disagreement. An easy area of disagreement actually engages with the immersion/habitation issue. If someone is playing a PC in a locale where that PC (a) inhabited for the course of...

How does this restraint manifest in a way that is knowable to the players? And not just knowable, but sufficiently decipherable such that their decision-tree work is informed by it and actually autonomous (contra the GM basically playing their character for them in various moments)? That is...

This is what frustrates me about the "trust the GM" axiom: If the actual gameplay layer is transparently systematized in a compelling, engaging way for player decision-trees and the GM executes their part in delivering that gameplay layer in an expert and deft fashion? We...don't have to...

Perhaps this is the way your unique cohort has resolved things, but this bears zero resemblance to the way small group interactions in the myriad disciplines that I've been involved with have been handling things for decades. I've been involved in multiple sports at various levels. I've been...

I just meant that you guys' back-and-forth was embedded in this greater conversation around railroading and black box GMing. Therefore there are parallels and implications. For instance, A GM's orientation to play of "I have a world simulation running in my head, it is impartial and...

You and I have been involved in a lot of threads together over the years. In the past you've talked about play anecdotes (I don't know if those are mere moments, brief interludes, session-spanning, or longer) that are low to zero stakes, color-focused, freeplay where play concentrates on benign...

Those 3 x bullet points that I put forth aren't things I would put forth as techniques. I meant them as principled constraints and requirements. For instance, engineers (including those in charge of aesthetics) and brand fans might say a Lotus coupe must have the following benchmarks: Be...

No clue where you're getting this. (a) I don't "miss the point" generally here in this conversation (my contribution has been minimal) and (b) I definitely don't "miss the point by trying to define a sandbox campaign beyond saying that players are allowed to trash the setting." No idea where...

Yeah. Exactly. (i) Setting Tourism (Theme Park) + (ii) Pick Your Own Railroad (from a menu) + (iii) Discretionally Break Your Railroad Up With Auxiliary Content ( (iiia) Side Quests or (iiib) Dollhouse Play) = A particular form of play. It might even be constitutive of "Sandbox Play" for one...

I've been thinking on Blades in the Dark vs Scum & Villainy as well as Neverwinter Campaign Setting 4e vs PoL 4e. I think there is absolutely a central lesson here in terms of "what constitutes a sandbox." I probably need to develop my thoughts more, but I think the central points of...

The idea that GMing techniques and action resolution aren't intimately intertwined as collective pieces (among others) of interconnected gameplay in service to common goal seems to ride shotgun in the "all this stuff is just intangibles for the GM to administer their sense of the feel of play...