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Absolutely. I would view that as knowing what’s good for them as much as meeting their needs. Assuming meeting unstated needs is a good thing, I hope. Yes, there’s a problem when people are jerks about it, but the problem is jerks being jerks. It doesn’t make what they are doing more or less...

I hadn’t caught up fully when I made that post, so I hadn’t seen post #104 yet, but I would contrast my position with the one expressed that post. I don’t think there is a reliable process for producing good games like there is for chairs (though considering how people still make terrible office...

True, there’s a balance that needs to be struck between being able to make a vision and being able to execute on a vision. Not everyone can afford to do vanity projects uncompensated. My issue is there’s too much being put on the needs of the players. Sometimes they don’t know what they want...

I think games are art. They’re more than just products that are designed. A good game inspires its audience. Look at the way Arneson and Gygax changed the way people play with the release of OD&D or the way 5e has inspired tens of millions of people to get into RPGs, creating whole communities...

I am reminded of this clip of David Bowie.

The essays weren’t written in a vacuum, so I can understand why Edwards would keep simulationism at the time (regardless of when he realized “The Right to Dream” was based on a flawed idea). However, I don’t think we need to hold ourselves to that today. The discourse can continue to develop and...

I also tinkered for a long time. For my current campaign, we went 5e → PF2 → OSE → WWN → homebrew. What pushed me in that direction is I didn’t like how bland WWN felt. I missed the more archetypical classes from OSE and started with a hybrid. After the OGL mess last year, I moved further away...

Ideally, a game should be put together well enough that people can play it without having to worry how they can break it. Silly plays are obviously bad (and obviously can lead to a player exodus if the GM is just being dumb about it), but well-meaning ones can also be bad if they come out of...

There seems to be an issue with your quote. It’s missing the last sentence in that paragraph about constraints. That’s an important one because it’s the one that introduces his comment about Mad Libs. I think he’s right on that point. If you’re just making up stuff unconstrained, what preserves...

There’s a part in the third video (see below, warning starts with NSFW language) where he discusses a PbtA move with a 7–9 result that is “Someone is watching from the shadows”. The problem as he sees it is the game is not telling you who has the authority to say what that is. Does the GM? Do...

Hence more. Look at how many video games are released (e.g., ~14k were released on Steam last year per SteamDB). A lot of those are crappy or derivative (or asset flips), but sometimes someone hits on something new or an interesting take on an existing genre.

Right, but people in the hobby really seem to like putting things into boxes. It can be a tiresome conversation to have. Is my game some amount of G or N? I don’t care. I look at it as a low-prep hexcrawl game, and that’s how I’d describe it to people. I allude to this in my comment about hobby...

I’m not trying to suggest those games are bad, but when Baker is surprised at how long it took until someone designed a PbtA game that doesn’t use playbooks, that tells me there’s a lot of space left to explore just in that particular class of games. From my perspective, I want to see people...

There are probably a bunch of reasons. People have an idea for a game, they look for something that fits, then adapt that. They like a particular system, come up with an idea, then adapt it to the system. There’s also the economic reality that using an existing system lets you appeal to that...

He talks about it in the third video and also in the comments. His view is that sim is not a creative agenda because it’s fundamental. It can’t be a goal because it’s what you need to have goals. In the comments, he adds that the essay was trying to turn it into a goal, but that was flawed...

My understanding is it’s way behind the state of the art for other kinds of games, particularly video games. There’s a bunch of ideas out there, but you how to sift through stuff that’s promoting a particular style of play to get to the good stuff, and the number of applied examples is small...

I think kitbashing is fine. The games we play need not be exactly what the game text says. What I’m lamenting is how many games are tweaked from other games, so if you’re looking for examples of applied design, you’re not going to find many. I would like to see more design diversity, especially...

I watched part 3 a few weeks ago but haven’t watched the other two. I found it interesting and insightful (into Edwards thinking). My favorite part was when he talked fondly about 3e campaign he ran (yes, D&D 3e). I also found his comments on sim (and its being fundamental) interesting and...

Admittedly, it’s a bit hyperbolic. The walls are too high, and it’s too narrow. I believe there is a large tray available, but I only have the one that comes with the tower. What happens when I roll is I have to peer up and over into the tray to see the result. It’s annoying enough I’ve stopped...

When I play an a character in an RPG, I try to do what my character would do. Sometimes I know more or less about that up front (versus finding it out as we play). It’s caused problems in the past, so I try to be mindful now of what play is going to be about by avoiding games that are a poor...