VLessa's latest activity

not sure, they replace what used to be the class sure, but that doesn’t mean they are all that similar. The class defines abilities the...

And playbooks are just the modern incarnation of classes.

Indeed not every game tries to force players into a narrow theme - but literally every game there ever was or will be does have a set of...

Well, as I posted upthread, Map-and-key is a way of having mechanics - in particular, the mechanics for determining where the PCs go on...

I've already formed and given my answer: It's a game that wants the mechanics to actively drive play. If you've introduced (and rely...

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...

Speaking generally, the longer this thread goes on, the more I feel that the most distinctive defining feature of modern RPG design...

I feel like this is a little reductive or suggests that the Forge was more of a monolith than it was. For BW, by the time of BW...

Yes, but hawkeyefan was specifically talking about improvements in presentation, organization, etc., as things that are generally better...

This is what I see as a huge difference between the Forge games of the 2000s and the post-Forge games of the 2010s (I count both Fate...

To me, it seems that a RPG can have an opinion, or an intent, even though it doesn't set out to have one. I say this not to disagree...

While generally true, there's a tendency for people grabbing an extent base system to decide it can just do what they want it to without...

I don't want to put words into your mouth, but the general problem sounds like a perennial one: a lot of stuff is not well-designed.

Yeah. As I noted earlier, Monsterhearts is a good example: I'm not quite sure what someone trying for something like that would have...

I think what's happened is that new ways of using mechanics have been found and refined, thus essentially creating new playstyles that...