Recent content by thefutilist

Are you talking about something that isn't a generic system? For instance Prime Time Adventures is generic but there's no rules for fighting per say. Or are you talking about situation specific games? For instance My Life With Master, Hot guys making out, Under Hollow Hills. Either way those...

We'll have to agree to disagree. Anyone else interested who is reading this can check the primary sources for themselves.

Well you need to understand what the constituent parts are doing to use them well but more fundamentally the text can't give you an understanding of why a decision criteria is fun. Here's a practical example that comes up in a load of different games. Say you're playing A savvyhead and you're...

A few things: What I've found as a player and GM in a game like Apocalypse World (or more trad games generally), is that changing character backstory from what I thought it was is unsatisfying. In those games I want to advocate for a characters worldview. How does their worldview work out for...

None of that really talks to my central issue. My issue was that introducing backstory on failure interferes with prep so why bother with the prep? The prep is meant to pin things solidly in place, Specifically the backstory and personality of the primary npcs and their relationships to each...

So what I mean when I say high improv is that the resolution mechanics can introduce characters and retcon motivations and effectiveness. Here are some examples: Fred is trying to prevent an audit of his ghost hunting business. He's arguing with a city official and trying to persuade them...

@soviet basically the above. Although my interpretation of, Apocalypse World at least, is that it's far more 'vanilla narrativist' than the culture at large interprets it as. In fact it's core mechanics are, ill considered, if you play it in the high improv way that seems to be the usual...

The GM is playing to find out how it resolves as well. Using the two primary methods the players use. 1) Deciding what their characters do and how they react. 2) Using system when appropriate or mandated to see how something resolves. It's why I said if you're using GURPS you had to ignore...

Good post although I think it somewhat confirms my point that there are loads of different interpretations of what play to find out means. In the bit I snipped you talk of nothing being found out or discovered, only resolved. To me that's the platonic ideal of playing to find out, play to find...

I'm honestly not sure what people mean when they say 'play to find out what happens', I've seen it used in a load of different ways. Same with Sandbox really, two people can say they run a sandbox but recoil in horror when they learn what the other one means. To use a previous example. If three...

This is also the way I see it. Although your view may be more nuanced than mine. It could also be that there are two camps or approaches to rpgs and we're really talking about what separates them. I'd like to think that the three hall marks of post-Forge design are: Intentionality and also...

Here's an open question to anyone. Say I get sick of Apocalypse World's nonsense. I decide that the failure mechanics don't allow me to disclaim decision making enough. You know what does though? GURPS. So I decide to run an Apocalypse World game in GURPS. I create templates for the various...

@pemerton expressed my thoughts so well that what follows amounts to footnotes. Forge philosophy relies on intent but is also specifically a reaction to system as GM tools, where the GM is seen primarily as an entertainer. The last clause is important. Moldvay, Bunnies and Burrows and Alma...

The above is very close to the standard Narrativist model for situational play but I want to emphasises a few things. One big difference is that you almost always want to start with, at the very least, an implied connection between the agendas of the player characters and the NPC's. In other...

So to ramble on about it. Best interests were (and I think still are) Vincent's term for the motivating force of a character. As a game mechanic in IAWA, they're formalised so as create an unstable situation (characters in conflict) and to guide the GM in framing scenes (kind of). They're...