Recent content by thefutilist

I want to rewind a bit. My issues with generative resolution are: One: Structural. How the generation of content relates to the trajectory of the game as a whole. Two: Aesthetic. What does the resolution mean in the fiction and how do we read it on the level of meaning and human value. Three...

A great many people have difficulty switching between different systems of resolution. For instance: You want to escape the guards and you’re doing that by leaping across the roof-tops. (what happens next and how do we decide) You fail and the guards catch you (how did we decide?) Not...

Yeah it’s more an illustration than something I’d recommend. You can just take a resolution system and as long as you’re playing to find out, use it to find out. In practice I can’t see why anyone would use GURPS for such a thing unless they were trying to prove a point.

At minimum you need: Some kind of organisational question which we’re answering The principle that you are actually playing to find out what happens as it relates to the question Attentiveness to the ethos of the characters involved If you strip out the GM section of GURPS 4 and replace it...

Slugblaster is a good example of a game that creates story but where the player doesn’t create story. Not in any meaningful way, they just colour in the lines. It’s a bit like one of those 90’s wod games or critical role, I’d put it in the same category.

Yeah it’s a story to me. I’m making character choices based on what they would do but it’s through the prism of value rather than rationality. Same with how I perceive the other participants contributions to the fiction, they’re good if they’re expressive in the same vein that stories are...

This conversation inspired me to go back to AW and formalise and tighten up what I’d do. My word is it complicated. The way threats are organised in 2e is weird because they’re both an actual thing (sometimes) and organisation nodes. So I went and contrasted Burned Over and 1E against each...

The agenda and principles are hard, in so much as they do tell you how to generate fiction. They’re soft in that they can be replaced, re-written and even ignored if you understand the purpose behind them. To take Apocalypse World. I ignore ‘look through cross-hairs’. I think I understand what...

If/when I need to think about it more formally I consider all characters as a priority stack. So it would look something like. Jim Rebel: Part of the Z-force mutants who war against the evil mechnoids. Don’t get talked down to Get closer with Katline Fight the mechnoids Human stuff in...

Our last conversation about this was interesting. It got me thinking the constraints + authenticity are really the important part in general. Then there has to be an organising principle in play that creates trajectory. That could take the form of minimal myth + mechanics or it could be creating...

IAWA acts as training wheels in that regard I think. Apocalypse world gets more complex with it though and is like the advanced version of iawa. If you don’t know what you’re looking for then it’s hard to know what to fix in place. Where the threat map doesn’t work, is that it doesn’t show the...

it's a really pithy way to point to the difference. I like it.

Well the question is, how does the event change him? I need to know how he’s changed before I make any subsequent moves. The way I would do it is as follows. I’d think about his background and who he is given what’s been revealed in the game so far and then just be inspired. I may or may not...

There are generic narrativist principles that Apocalypse World doesn’t spell out that are far more important than most of the principles in the actual text. I’m not saying that a text necessarily should spell them out but how that hole gets plugged determines a whole load about play. Say you...

This is one of those things I’ve done a kind of 360 on. Bah the GM controls all, all role-playing is the same, just give me the mechanics > Specific text for specific games, the rules are rules > Well you know actually, all role-playing is kind of the same The issue is that people have to...