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I don't see how you get from what I posted to thinking I'm suggesting collaboration and storytelling are in conflict. But conflict as a central tenet of postmodern belief begins with the acceptance that all personal expression is oppression of other's expressions. A good game and a good story...

I'm glad they are looking to add mystery and a sense of wonder to D&D magic items, but I can't believe this is the way to go. First, they've removed game mechanics from the so-called interesting features of magic items and called them "story" features instead. Why have them in the game then, if...

That's a good post. Simulation games aren't 1 of 3 prongs of games. They are 1 of 2 popular kinds of storytelling games. Simulation rules enable players to game a currently depicted situation. They are mixing game constructs with our understandings of reality. Look at wargames, for example...

That's got nothing to do with some "sim-based formula". Players make mistakes in games. It happens. They call them Errors in baseball. When you quit trying to decipher what's going on in a game so you can use your understanding to your advantage, then you're not trying to play well anymore...

When is something definitively a depiction? Games are about enabling game play for players. Football players aren't trying to vicariously behave like some other depicted reality. Chess lovers aren't specifically attracted to it because pieces on the board have real world counterparts. They love...

I'm thrilled to hear you're having a great time running AD&D again. I know it should be boring, but rolling up random monsters and treasure to fill up a randomly generated area is still a thrill for me. AD&D has a lot of interesting tidbits that simply were shaved off in later versions of the...

This is exactly the reason why time keeping exists. To know the order of actions of everything occurring in the game. The default speed in Dungeons & Dragons is human speed, but that covers a wide range of of different time frames. Blocked time exists to assist in tracking these. Fractions of...

I have minor disagreement with this part only. Henchmen are in contracts with the PCs too (or with other NPCs, or like the PCs begin with mentors), but even Hirelings have class levels. They simply don't have PC-class levels. They have basic or expert NPC-class levels. And they gain XP for their...

A game ability for players to create contrived outcomes shortcircuits game play. They are only applicable to rules for shared storybuilding. We've been through this before. You don't want an RPG you want a set of rules to tell a story with other people. That isn't role playing or what Dungeons &...

The OP's question may lead to bad thinking from highly prejudiced theories about what games are, like GNR, GNS, and the Big Model. Instead of limiting ourselves to these two aims for D&D, why don't we try and pinpoint some more? What's more important for you in D&D? Simulating how a creature...

What you're saying here is harmony (in poetry, music, dance, song, and even stories) doesn't result in emotional or intimate fulfillment. Yes, Go is a finite game, but D&D is an infinite game with imperfect information. Neither of them are storygames where participants trade off storytelling...

If we want a game about playing a pterodactyl, presumably the rules should define what a pterodactyl or define player actions in the game in such a way that acting like pterodactyl arises from play naturally. If we want a competitive game, the rules (especially opposing game objectives) should...

The irony here is that "literary side" is put in quotation marks. Does he mean there is no literary side to the game? Every side is the literary side? Something else? The falsehood is that role playing isn't engaging in the mechanics of the game, but instead about expressing a fictional...

The central confusion here is that early D&D is a simulation. It isn't. Stories are simulations. They are fictions or non-fictions because those labels are declarations of whether or not stories exist outside the imaginations of those expressing them. Games are the things in and of themselves...

role playing was never about performing a fictional personality until the 80s. Roleplaying doesn't require pretending. It simply requires performing a social role. IOW, why D&D was called a role playing game and not a theater or storytelling game. Character isn't the focus of the game and not...

3d6 are rolled in order to represent odds. 1:216 Ability Scores may be an 18, but by removing player choice from what Ability score they represent we make characters with specifically an 18 strength or 18 intelligence even rarer. The rolls serve 2 purposes as do almost all D&D rules (if not many...

Classes are the one feature which make role playing games role playing games. Choosing a class is choosing the sphere of activity both you and your character will advance in through play. Core classes are designed to fulfill all areas of each one of these classes. Subclasses allow players to...

Your answer is going to define more than this one magic effect. Don't forget about: Clairaudience, ESP, Read Thoughts, and so on. Let's say its auditory. Are there deaf people who don't think in sounds not able to understand you? Should telepathy allow you to communicate with animal...

These kind of systems make it easy to generate game content as well as determine consequences for long chains of causality during play. The trick is, the consequences of actions must reach a certain threshold to be significant and carry over somewhere else. That way fatigue doesn't affect hit...

I choose option 2. Groups could be considered groups of subclasses in D&D. Is option 4 an actual option for a class-based game? I mean, isn't it "characters pick abilities and classes don't exist"? My understanding is every character can do any of the things any of the others can, but they...