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I think people really aren't reading the pages I noted back there about how they expect you to make GM moves via NPCs, and seeing how Motives/Traits ("tags" / moves in other games) are how you make a memo to yourself to do things. And maybe they needed to explain this a little bit clearer? The...

So I've largely been treating this thread as a mechanism to examine my own thoughts/preferences/fuzzy feelings about TTRPGing by seeing what other people put out there and how it spurs me to respond. Below is kinda my long winded response to @JConstantine and @thefutilist 's reply to my recent...

I'm getting a campaign frame together with a bunch of classic more "points of light" D&D tropes and adjustments to the Ancestries/Communities (plus adding in a couple of the missing origins; and could see adapting the Witherwild's mechanical adds into a Symbaroum campaign frame.

So a) I dont think explicit movement is particularly relevant in this system, you generally expend a resource to move within a zone, unless a specific terrain or fictional element is stopping you (eg: a gap, whatever), b) look at the Spectral Captain for an example of what you're talking about...

I dont think so, no. The most complicated thing is probably tracking and using your Hope smartly, and building your domain cards. But everything is a lot more limited at a time, so once you have the core mechanics down I think there's less overall growth?

As a player and GM, I'll ask leading/provocative/trivial questions to that character. If I'm asking as a player, they might be more in-character; if it's as the GM - I'm just asking. I may toss out a handful of crystallization ideas based on whatever they've espoused as their character already...

I've grown to really value the combination of meta-channel openness and atmosphere of inquiry the games engines I'm currently running expect for this. My players often pause and like, step through their reasoning of why their character is about to do something - or if it's a PC to PC...

The Normal Vampire has to Bite; the Head Vampire is so much more powerful they can drain away your essence just by being near you! Also they clearly have some minions(M) nearby to feed on. Note that the Head Vampire has the following motives and tactics: Create thralls, charm, command, fly...

I get to experience the story we create in the moment every time I sit down to run any of my games. I quite often truly have no idea what’s going to happen over the next three hours when I open discord and say hi to everybody; or know that they want to pursue a thing or two. Sometimes I’ve...

Im looking forward to running DH for the group I have that's currently playing through the fairly optimistic Forged in teh Dark game we're enjoying. They're big CR / 5e current culture fans, but have also really taken to collaborating on the fiction and setting elements; but also want to hand...

Ohh that's a good framing! Yeah, this. This is why I ask questions of the players and the world and leave where that's going to go open until we need to nail it down; I want all the intervening steps or the tone of the question and the answer of the dice to point what's next. Like in my...

I think that saying "when you author the scene and then put the pen down for the player's to pick up, you've written the start of something" is probably valid? If I write down "Will they gain the Spirit of the Gwead's favor?" and said spirit has said "if you want my favor you must seal away the...

From the book:

I was finally reading through the domain abilities today (I tend to GM, so hadn't really dug into the player side yet), and there's quite a few abilities that give temp boosts to stuff like Evasion and the like based on a whole lot of conditions. Not quite 4e levels of "everybody gets a...

So I can't speak for everybody, but I'm quite literally running two games of Stonetop at the same time. There's no playbook overlap between either so far, and each playbook brings its own set of priorities and "flags" of what is intrinsically relevant in play (with 3 separate Backgrounds each...

Each one has a pretty different take on things too. DS is leaning fully into the deep tactical combat side; 13th age is probably in the middle; and DH leans far more into the narrative side.

That's generally not how that's used? A soft GM move provokes tension or escalates and then turns it back over to the players: "you hear rustling in the bushes, like a creature coming towards you, what do you do?" On a miss is when you make a move "as hard and direct as you like" in classic PBTA...

The only thing that exceeds 5e's tracking here is hope (the players dont track Fear) and stress, and then armor boxes are basically the renewable/spendable resource analogous to Hit Dice imo. I'm not sure what an Action Point is?

You need to design for long term play intentionally with engines like this. Generally you'll answer what you're playing to find out at some point and work towards the "endgame" bits the game poses you, almost all of them have a "bringing your game to a conclusion" portions that help the GM guide...

I think it's pretty clear that even the designer of the game can take what they built and run it off in various directions as they desire, and tweaks things for the specific table they're running with (the players/character driving a lot of the setting details and goals of play after all). Baker...