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I haven’t read the Hunger Games, but I didn’t think there was any space travel in it? And is there really a lot of death in palaces? Or alien creatures? I thought it was mostly about people killing each other in contest grounds from my admittedly Limited exposure. Actually though, I do...

Here's a pretty well-known editorial comment from Locus: "Old school space opera was all about scale. Everything in it, from the lushly romantic plots and the star-spanning empires to the light-year-spurning space ships, construction of any one of which would have exhausted the metal reserves...

I often wonder how many people who equate immersive roleplaying with "being in actor stance" have actual strong experience of being an actor? Because they seem to describe a state of mind in which 100% of the actor's mind is so immersed in the character that anything external to the character is...

[edited post — on reflection, arguing merits of literary criticism of Aldsis’s writing in this forum isn’t on topic] I have read Non-Stop, The Primal Urge, Hothouse, Report on Probability A, Barefoot in the Head, Moreau's Other Island, The Helliconia Series, Jocasta, the collections "Space...

OK, you think the opinions of other writers and sci-fi fans are trash, and apparently 1987 is a terrible year for defining space opera (slightly curious as to what you think the best year would have been -- 1990? 1974? 1800?) but please, please, if you are going to keep referring to one of his...

Would this would be the same Brian Aldiss who was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and awarded an OBE for services to literature? The one who as well as being an accomplished poet was an artist with international reputation? The guy who won a Hugo award for his history of science...

Just a quick note on the Heat mechanic. This is essentially a value that can be assigned to a specific area that measures how much the PCs have come to the notice of the authorities. The more heat you have, the harder a lot of actions become, especially those involving avoiding notice. It’s an...

Although you raise an important point on what is "tasteful" or offensive, this is not actually what we are talking about. There is a big difference between "in bad taste" and "causing real hurt to others" which is what we are discussing as the unacceptable limit of fun in a game. Queer as Folk...

yes that cleared it up -- I did have that misconception of your intent, so thanks for the clarification! And I completely agree with the looser definition; hard and fast rules for "what causes people pain" doesn't seem a reasonable thing to expect. With your clarification in mind, I'd say your...

I’m not sure actually that I agree; unless you spent a lot of time describing in detail the process of torture it doesn’t seem offensive. Playing bad people and doing bad things is not in it self abhorrent. But my suggestion wasn’t suggesting that if a game seems awful to reasonable. people that...

I think the main argument against this point of view would,d be aimed at the escape capsule for indirect harm. The OP suggests that if playing a game causes indirect harm to someone else, but is fun for everyone at the table, then it is good. Many people would disagree with that point of view...

Time is the most fitting for a medieval feel. A three-day trip would be a very reasonable way to describe a distance.

@Lanefan : That's the American view, a culture in which for some reason every game musthave a winner and loser. qq: do you have access to the OED, or is this just your gut feeling? I don’t have paid access, so the closest I can get is from lexico.com, which is “powered by Oxford”. That site...

Absolutely -- I wasn't as clear as I should have been. I did not mean to equate "play to have fun" with "no win condition", but meant to say that for roleplaying games at least, "playing to win" is a secondary criterion, with "fun" the more general one. So for some people and some systems, you...

The purpose of a roleplaying game (or at least the ones we eternally talk about) is to have fun. So overall, people play to have fun, and that's why many people will say role-playing games have no win condition, and essentially I'd agree with them. But how people have fun is quite different...

Just started a MIndjammer (High-crunch FATE) game -- here's the trailer I made for it:

In Fate, I would say "Since you are a <choose suitable aspect> you know that fighting this would be near-unwindable" in Night's Black Agents (Gumshoe) "Since you are skilled in Tradecraft, you can tell that these guys re so far above your pay grade that fighting them would be suicide" In...

I don't think it's mentioned because it's always in effect and GMs are expected to use it. I've played quite a few adventures and APs and it's always been a factor. In online convention play. most GMs will ask early on what mode people are using and then use that as we move along through play...

Responding as I feel about them right now, rather than at the time: 1E: A sense of the zany and random that later editions smoothed over. It's unpolished and random, but that can be a ton of fun. The "The frog demon shoots at you with the laser before teleporting to its orbit base" edition 2E...