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It's not about the playstyle. It's about the argument because it almost frames exploration as the equivalent of eating your vegetables so you can eat desert. When the reason you play or run a game that involves these low stake scenes should be because you enjoy those scenes. The idea that people...

The arcs are beside the point. What matters are the personal stakes. I don't play or run Monsterhearts to an outcome or for an outcome. The fun is in the tension and in finding out who these characters are right now. Whether the resulting narrative is compelling is far less important than if...

I was disagreeing with the cinematic label being applied to all Powered by the Apocalypse games. Not with moves snowballing being a thing that happens. I do think that snowballing serves very different purposes from game to game. I do not think it's a general virtue. I would not want it in Into...

I believe in doing what you want to do without hesitation and finding the people you want to play with. It's what I have done in this space for 20+ years. The "some developers are like corvids" line is unnecessary. You do not need to accuse others who choose different paths of following trends...

Cinematic implies genre reinforcing which does reflect Monster of the Week but it is not reflective of the sort of choices Apocalypse World puts forward through its moves. This is the problem with being far too general and lumping things together to make declarative statements about whole...

It's a lot more like American Football and rugby. Maybe even American Football and soccer.

Within the context of this thread people were making points about roleplaying games in general (that is what brought me to this thread personally and usually what brings me to these threads). If we're going to speak about roleplaying games (and how they are structured or should be structured on...

That is the intended mentality for the playstyles Apocalypse World and Burning Wheel were designed to support. To stay present, focus on what is on-screen. Don't commit to anything off-screen. Think of possibilities, sure, but do not get attached to them. Because as a GM the job is maintaining...

I do agree that rules will not resolve social issues and that a functional set of creative relationships should basically be assumed. That's what I would call basic stuff. The fun bit to me is what happens once we have those functional relationships. How can we get to diverse and compelling...

It's not about legislating good behavior. It's about establishing shared creative goals (that we all agree to take on). This is no different than deciding to play Resistance, Uno or Battle For Rokugan (all board games). Part of playing any game is taking on the roles it defines and the...

In game texts I have really only seen bypassing encounters addressed in regard to games where you specifically receive XP for overcoming combat challenges. There is a bit of combat being the assumed form of conflict in some more conventional games (D&D 3e to 5e, Pathfinder, Iron Kingdoms, etc.)...

Absolutely. There are all sorts of possible arrangements for this stuff. Like Chronicles of Darkness and the Legend of the Five Rings, Fifth Edition both have strong character and game premises reflected in the rules of the game but often include a lot of low stakes exploration, but players are...

I mean that D&D (the 5e texts) does not contemplate non-exploratory play or play that is not structured around discrete adventures. This is a good thing by the way. It's part of what makes the design so polished. As for Apocalypse World it's not a single path to proper play. It's a different...

I am speaking to exploration as an activity of play here (akin to the exploration pillar and the described 5e play loop). Exploring your environment in a conflict neutral way in order to find out more about the world and its inhabitants. This free exploration comes from two places - players are...

I think Narrativist game assumes Narrativist play is not any more One True Way than the described D&D play loop and description of the GM as Master of Worlds, Master of Adventures and Master of Rules. Especially when it goes out of its way to say this is how you play this game, not all...

Games like Monsterhearts, Sorcerer, Burning Wheel, et al are not adventure games in the same way that D&D is an adventure game though. You do not have the freedom to "go anywhere and do anything". These are games with premises, with characters who have their own premises we are expected to...

On the players make a premise-breaking but still fictionally reasonable move thing I would have an out of character conversation with the players about what sort of game they want to play and see if it might be a game I would want to run. I do not consider it my obligation to keep running a game...

Pretty much all of the Spider clan events, them getting amnesty, becoming Great Clan, etc. A lot of the conceptual space the various clans became confused by metaplot events, largely driven by dumb card game tournaments. I was so happy to see a return to the original form of the setting and a...

Legend of the Five Rings, Fifth Edition is one of my favorite roleplaying games ever made (right up there with my group's Vampire hack, Apocalypse Keys and Dune 2d20). From my perspective, much like how Vampire - The Requiem, Second Edition finally makes good on promise of a game of personal...

Mostly on stage, some backstage. High school drama club and community theater. My experience was very collaborative. Everyone taking notes from the director, giving each other notes, etc. A lot of problem solving when it comes to props, etc.