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You said it was it's implausible that something interesting happens every time we roll the dice. I responded with why in Stonetop, we are only rolling the dice when something interesting is at stake. Thus, something interesting should happen regardless. Does that make more sense? Like, the...

Perhaps even in systems that have "Be a fan of the characters" written in their Agenda... You know how in D&D the classic line is "Are you sure you want to do that?" When I run Blades in the Dark and similar games, I'm often telling the players "oh, no, you should totally go with that first...

Let's recast this a bit: when I run Stonetop, we roll the dice because we are doing something interesting, there's an obstacle of some sort or the rules demand it, and we want to see if our goals are going to be achieved. The triggers by which the rules of the game say to roll the dice are...

Not that PBTA design precludes this. We do an awful lot of setting discovery in Stonetop, it's a core component of the Agenda and Principles ("Portray and Rich and Mysterious World" / "Exploit the Setting Guide") and an XP trigger (the one that's designed to be an end-of-session reflection on...

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I think Micah is possibly the one person here open and clear that his preferences are such that “hewing as close to fictional reality” is the ultimate priority of play over about all other considerations. I don’t understand it, but it’s what he wants - and all these posts coming from that...

Eh, to be fair the OP was more about all the people whinging about the new art and tone and such - “you can stick with what you like without putting the new stuff down because it doesn’t feel like what you’re accustomed to” seems valid when I think it’d safe to say WOTC knew the wide audience...

Most games that have innate complications as a potential outcome of their rules probably don’t have you attempting to open a lock for the sake of opening a lock. In Blades, you might be seeking to get the Idol of some demon hidden in a cultist’s sanctum because really wouldn’t it be better in...

I think that if even the 5e.24 DMG is telling DM's to consider this, it's about as mainstream advice as you can possibly get. To posit otherwise is to grab the thread's statement and hug it close. Again, the entire OSR play style/culture largely exists to be conservative in a rebellion against...

Ok, “has a distinct and separate mode inclusive of initiative where you’re expected to resolve the conflict/encounter fully within the combat rules.” Or however you want to parse out that stuff like 5e and PF2 has “battle mode now guys” and “ok that’s done” as discreet markers.

As a side validation to this, my Stonetop game had 3 different sets of "stuff" going on in 3 different geographic regions of the area around the Town at one time for a while. The players were excited to all get back together and collide off each other / tackle things as a group again, but the...

Most games that include the idea of "combat" but have no set initiative, also don't lock you into combat; you instead are in a scene which may evolve into direct conflict, or not. Daggerheart is a little interesting because it's trying to do the "you don't have to solve scenes with combats" but...

On top of this, DMs are the keepers of the shared fiction because they need to adjudge how the impacts affect everything outside of the direct player’s action; and are updating that model constantly to define the play space for reaction or next steps in their head. Before a player does...

Interesting! Every game I’ve ever played has pointed in the rules to the GM to facilitate the table and manage play. I’ve had players DM me to bring problems and concerns up that they wanted addressed, because they didn’t want to “derail” or have a fight over chat about stuff. I think DH’s...

Yup, same. I think that prioritizing dramatic and cinematic emphasis will be the criteria for t-ing up a GM action and pivoting, but I refuse to let a game with this much promise to lag outside of clear periods of downtime / chill-ness where you frame stuff with the players and they take it for...

I just don't see how you can see the "Sharing the Spotlight" section and "Engage Quiet Players" and think it doesn't apply to all scenes across all aspects of play.

A) Daggerheart fundamentally disagrees with your point. It expects the GM to actively pull the players, all of them, into the game. This shows up under pretty much all of the Best Practices in various ways, see especially the amplification under Gain your Player's Trust, Cut to the Action, and...

THERE'S NO INITIATIVE. All play is play. Spotlighting an adversary happens in Combat, or in Social scenes, or in Exploration, etc. The GM Best Practices apply to all play at all times, as do GM Actions.

This thread has hundreds of posts of people implying that if you arent doing some sort of pure sim / traditional D&D / something else style of play, it just "won't have verisimilitude." I definitely accept that like for @Micah Sweet he wouldn't find Blades in the dark or whatever to feel "real"...

The Trade Baronies expansion adds in what are functionally tweaked Blades in the Dark style playbooks to facilitate narrative play with more meat on the bones. ICON takes this a lot further up front, in that there's an entire FITD narrative play side that you could run on its own; and the...