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Journeys for their own sake (when they are mostly conflict neutral). Playing out the trip between Waterdeep and Baldur's Gate when what we care about is in Baldur's Gate is dreadfully boring to me. If getting there is a harrowing adventure within itself (like travelling through the Mines of...

A couple things - the Mouse Guard are not common soldiers. They are more akin to Special Forces or Navy Seals, but with a much wider portfolio. The missions they take on involve them travelling throughout the mice's territories, confronting dangerous animals, mediating disputes., helping guide...

From my perspective it really matters how fine-grained stuff like skill and attribute rating and like what they mean. In most games that don't put much emphasis on character progression you are already starting pretty damn close to the peaks where just maintaining that level of skill would take...

These days I find myself and more drawn to games with fairly minimal progression that start characters out as protagonists from the outset. Instead, I like the game's reward system to be focused on relationships and / or meta currency like World of Darkness' Willpower. It helps sustain play...

For more traditional games I look for: Rules that highlight and reinforce who the characters are as people. Help propel the momentum of social scenes without overwhelming them. Combat rules that mostly allow for a few dramatic exchanges, but mostly allow violent scenes to progress quickly so...

Most of my personal experience with successful long running (1+ year) games has been with mostly just sticking to the core rulebook in games like Vampire: The Requiem, Exalted, Classic Deadlands, Changeling: The Lost, Demon: The Fallen, Legend of the Five Rings 5e, Infinity, Dune 2d20, etc...

I have mixed feelings thus far. There's a whole lot of what feels more like stage rather film/television acting.

I don't think the base game of 2e was very messy (I prefer NWPs to 3e style skills), but the supplements definitely layered on a lot of stuff. All weapon proficiency style stuff, kits, specialty priests, etc. Making a character early on was easy. With the Complete Supplements involved it was...

At least for me it's more about a preference for designs that are suited for a single volume. I'm not looking for a retread of the Pathfinder Core Rulebook or Exalted Third Edition. I want games that fit, at least the core of play, into a 300 or less page book. I'm also not a fan of GM mysticism...

I'm not seeing how the differences in the 4e text or 5e text for fireball speak to design principles. It is not as if one set of designers set out to make a less evocative description than the other. I personally find neither all that evocative nor do find either makes the case that clarity and...

I'm pretty much excited by the prospect of any game designed by Rae Nedjadi. Running Apocalypse Keys was the most fun I have ever had behind a screen.

It depends a lot on the sort of game: how involved the line is, if it requires players to have their own copies of the game, etc. For games (like Apocalypse Keys or Thousand Arrows) that cost like $20 or less for a PDF and provide printouts for anything a player needs to reference that's damn...

I don't think people should be pressured to play other games. I do think people who lack experience or who play games without attempting to fully embrace the model of play they present do not give very incisive feedback about how a given game plays. I also believe that comparative claims about...

Sure, but there are levels to our interest and empathy. I do not find it all that controversial to stipulate that those higher levels of interest and empathy in a given character would make it more difficult to rely on principles alone. Just like it's harder for me to eat cookies that are at the...

I don't think player versus non-player is the best distinction. I think actively seeking to shape/influence play is the right one. Like even if a Vampire Storyteller is not considered a player no one argue they are a neutral arbiter. Same for an Apocalypse World MC. They are actively putting...

As an addendum I do not think a freeform group where a player introduces something unwanted and unwelcome to another player (that they themselves do not find unwelcome in some way) is very functional. Because that would suggest that the player in question does not have a personal investment or...

In some forms of play I believe a GM, or another player, may introduce the unwelcome and unwanted via principles alone. This mostly works fine when comes to a GM as a neutral referee or a GM as a motivated storyteller because the things they want, and desire, are not in conflict with sustaining...

@clearstream Just letting you know that I have been busy but will get back to you. We're working on finishing the characters all get to know each other at a fancy party thread before we split off for preludes for each character's individual embrace.

Vampire, Monsterhearts, Blades in the Dark, Mouseguard, The Between, Changeling. That's just in the last year. Our Vampire, Changeling and Monsterhearts games didn't even have the concept of "the party". Just intersecting characters.

It's just not credible given what you are actually capable of as it bears out in play vis a vis the antagonists you face or even basic NPCs who lack proficiency in the things you are supposed to be good at. It is more credible in say Pathfinder Second Edition where basic goblins and kobolds are...