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See, this is the fundamental category error. There is no "new information" or "old information". There is only the construct of the in-fiction condition state. If the condition state of "the mystery" made up by the GM six months ago---the literal definition of fiat, something that happens in...

So .... why then in the 20+ years of playing "trad" games with "trad" GMs has it never once occurred to any of my GMs to actually do it? Because it's not an inculcated / enculturated value with regards to the "trad" play loop. It's talked about in "world building" and "session zero" and "ask...

... snip ... I think this plays right along with my description of character intent. It's not simply that characters have the "agency" to go around declaring they're looking for clues and hoping to find "the answer" to "the mystery." It's that the character actions have some additional...

So going back to the Monte Cook separation of "player agency" vs. "narrative control". I think there is a missing component that lives between the two, which is "player intent". I think this is the primary locus where GM fiat lives. It's entirely possible to have near-limitless player agency...

If you want a more elegant 3.X chassis with the kind of monster templating and stats being described, then ditch Pathfinder and go straight to FantasyCraft. If you're comfortable doing basic enemy conversion work, it gives you the best 3.X rules paired with the infinite published adventures of...

When this happens, my experience tends to indicate that it's a function of me as GM wanting to unnecessarily drag out "the mystery." As a GM, I get too attached to the idea that the more "intrigue" and "secrets" and "conspiracy" I can layer on to a scene/situation, the better it will play out...

- Put my recently purchased Ironsworn: Sundered Isles material to use. - Enjoy playing in a Pathfinder 2 campaign being run by another GM (I haven't spent much time out of the GM chair the past 3 years).

Can totally relate --- I literally hurled my 1100-page hardbound copy of Wise Man's Fear across the room against the wall after finishing the first sex goddess chapter. My wife had to reprimand me for the audible four-letter profanity that accompanied said hurling.

Also appreciate this thought, because it's applicable to Guy Gavriel Kay. If a reader comes to Guy Gavriel Kay from a background of reading lots of Lit-RPG and new-age "romanti-fantasy", they're going to be in for a shock. Kay's books are prosaic and significantly more literarily challenging...

(I appreciate you saying this. If you dig far enough back in the ratings of Wise Man's Fear on Amazon, like, ALL the way back to March 2011, I was one of the first and earliest 2-out-of-5 star ratings of WMF basically saying exactly what you're saying. I loved Name of the Wind and utterly...

Frankly, there's half-a-dozen Guy Gavriel Kay books you could pull out of a hat and, depending on your taste and sensibilities, enjoy equally as well as Under Heaven. All of Kay's works take place in the same basic fictional continuity, separated by time and geography and culture, with the...

Yeah, not all fiction will be to everyone's taste, but a quick perusal of the Amazon and Goodreads ratings gives me a pretty decent leg to stand on that most fantasy fans will find much to enjoy. While from a certain point of view, I can maybe see the "Gary Stu" complaint, from another...

Beyond Tolkien, the most radical changes to my views of fantasy fiction have come from authors Anthony Ryan and Guy Gavriel Kay. If I could somehow magically convince every user of this website to read Blood Song by Anthony Ryan and Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay, I would consider my life's...

I've quoted Tommy Boy in multiple work meetings over the last 2 or 3 years, and invariably anyone under the age of 40 has just sat there with a polite smile and a blank stare. And if they were younger than 25, the name "Chris Farley" was meaningless, they'd never even heard of the guy. Richard...

Picked up Ironsworn: Sundered Isles PDFs from DriveThruRPG last week. I don't know exactly what I was expecting; I sort of just buy everything for Ironsworn these days because Ironsworn is awesome, even if I'm not necessarily planning on using it right away. :) But man, I was blown away with...

If PBTA style is okay, there's a neat Forged in the Dark take on D&D-style fantasy called Grimwild that was released just a few weeks ago. You can get the main player-facing content for free on DriveThruRPG. There's a $20 PDF for GMs that adds an additional chapter of content for running the...

Voted for, "We will be playing another game and will not be using D&D or any of its variations." The probability of me playing anything even in the same REALM as D&D (class/level based, d20 core resolution, skill proficiency scaled leveling) is very low. There's a small chance another GM might...

Okay, first session report --- We just barely got through character creation and some of the initial Great House (re: "Crew") setup. Still more setup to go, now that I've organized everything into usable digital formats (see more below), but we did start some basic Info Gathering, leading into...

Sending a Bat Signal out to @Manbearcat if he's so inclined to weigh in as well. (Forgive me, good sir, for intruding.)