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It's a little Inception-y but you can watch a video on YouTube of Tenkar watching the video on YouTube.

I think you're right here, in general. But I should have clarified—in the play example I gave, the situation was very much a kind of narrative aside or tangent, specifically (according to the move's guidelines) unrelated to the current mystery, which hadn't even gotten underway. My take on...

No, I totally get it, and I wasn't trying to scold you. Just noting that I think some later, post-AW PbtA games are less formal and detailed about how this stuff is handled on the GM side. Even something like Avatar Legends, which still has a decent number of moves (plus a very crunchy combat...

Brindlewood is what I'd consider—and I'm fully making up this terminology, with no authority to do so—a second- or third-wave PbtA game, where the number and specificity of moves have been pared way way down, and the extremely specific premise and tone go a long way toward managing what players...

This is an interesting example, since in a trad game this would often be separated into -an Intimidation (or similar) roll to see if Dremmer complies -a pretty standard combat scene, likely without even much in the way of an ambush or surprise bonus for the PC. Now I really like that this...

Maybe it'll help me if I get more specific about the door example, since this bit happened in the last session I ran of Brindlewood Bay. Again Brindlewood is much looser than AW with its moves and play loops, but it's still a PbtA game, so I think a lot of what's being discussed here applies...

This example kinda confuses me though. If the GM were to say "You reach the front door, which is locked," then sure, everything's established. But let's say the PC is trying to be stealthy, so there's no assumption that they're checking every door handle they come across. Or maybe the GM just...

Open Game License You know, there's this new thing called Google. You should give it a whirl sometime.

This is something I've seen for years, and I'm embarrassed to admit I still don't entirely get it, even after running Brindlewood Bay, where play is framed much less formally than in AW. Obviously the full extent or success of the PC's action isn't set until the dice are rolled—if it's something...

The more open you are to improvising—meaning the details of a prepped encounter or the entire adventure—the less you need to worry about a scripted, super-planned-out approach to spotlighting each and every PC. That and trying to make sure that every situation isn't inevitably leading to a...

I do Roll20, Fantasy Grounds, and Foundry—in all cases using Zoom for video chat—on a 16-inch laptop. It's fine. Multiple monitors are snazzy, but as with everything else they're just a luxury.

The 3D, VR, AR, etc. stuff on Kickstarter all seem like total scams, or just pipe dreams that clearly won't happen. 100 percent the same as the countless goofy tech doodads on there that never materialize.

I can definitely understand that. One of the great things about Brindlewood Bay is that there are so few moves, so all you really need to know is whether someone is doing the Meddling Move (general investigation) or something to deal with a risky situation (the Day Move or Night Move, depending...

That quoted bit from Baker is also a great illustration of the notion in AW (and PbtA more generally) of making information as open and player-facing—but not necessarily always PC-facing—as possible. Which I think feeds back into the low/no prep nature of a lot of PbtA games, where you're coming...

@Reynard Here's an example of the kind of prep that works well in a lot of improv-heavy games, but particularly in PbtA (I think). The post is by the designer of Brindlewood Bay and The Between, and the Gauntlet's current publisher. https://www.gauntlet-rpg.com/blog/the-7-3-1-technique Also...

I'm saying if you want to jazz up the business of figuring out the weakness, I'd suggest that the hurdle that they have to play to overcome isn't getting the Macguffin, but finding out what it is. Maybe they need to break into a prison to ask the disgraced noble who knows the secret, or get...

Something I really dislike these days is any amount of time spent at the table that's a whiff of any kind. I think that goes extra for investigative play that leads to a dead end. Those can be interesting in crime procedurals in books, TV, or movies, but I don't think it's satisfying or...

This doesn't apply to every type of RPG, but just like how movies can be a slog when there's just way too much samey action, and it's the buildup to the main fight—all that juicy tension and dread—that makes a story sing, I think some games can lean on anticipation more than constant combat. If...

The One Ring does this by simply suggesting that there should be long gaps between adventures, so each of those adventures is super meaningful (a bit like Bilbo dining out on his one big excursion for his entire life, basically). So you just establish that the characters have lives that aren't...

@Reynard That's a great blurb! Here's a version cut down to 392 characters without spaces, and 461 with. Note that using em-dashes, no spaces, instead of double-hyphens with spaces on both ends, helps a bit. On a Mac you press Shift+Command+hyphen to do that longer em-dash (not sure if it's a...