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Good summary. There's times when all four block points come into play: Intent - you want to do something but you're prevented before you start by internal (e.g. alignment, vows) or external (e.g. laws, physical restraint) considerations. Initiation - you set out to do something blatantly...

Uhhh...yes? Why else do we do this, as opposed to playing a board game or card game? "Moved past" it to what, though? Game-izing the in-character dialogue piece is in no way a forward step, so how have we moved past anything?

Your analysis falls apart a bit before it even starts, because you've put the GM in the position of having to frame scenes (a very NY approach where action is more expected to jump from one discrete scene to the next with little if any detail given to what happens between the scenes) rather than...

I agree it's not impossible. In fact, it would be pretty easy to implement; far easier than a lot of other kitbashes I've done. The more important question is whether it's desirable to add in these sort of mechanics (or expand them such that they work on PCs just like they do on NPCs). I'm...

They probably experiment by doing, not asking. Could that be because you're inserting mechanics into them on a regular basis and thus disrupting their flow? Free-form roleplay of social encounters is often* as smooth as just talking to friends in the pub, except the in-fiction topics are...

The root goal being rolled for was to catch the assassin. The roll(s) failed, and the assassin was not caught. Therefore, result and roll match. That you got a bit of his cloak is what I would call "fail with extras". You failed the root task but got something directly related as a...

Those would be the people who don't go out in the field looking to save captive princes from fire-breathing dragons or raid the trap-filled tombs of Antioch. :) The people who do do these things would, one would think, leave their precious possessions at home or in safekeeping somewhere, unless...

Tough. I'll deal with that argument as and when I have to. :)

"Cavalierly destroy"? Your precious item has the same chance of being destroyed as anything else you're carrying, mitigated by any protective measures you've taken to help ensure its safety. It happens all the time: characters lose items that are mechanically vital to their ability to do...

No. Next question? :)

TSR-era D&D is a better starting point IMO due to its discrete-subsystem design. WotC-era unified design is, by comparison, terrible for kitbashing as before long you're rebuilding the entire thing from the ground up rather than just changing/adding/eliminating a subsystem in relative...

Not quite. I'm saying degrees of success all have to be contained within the "success" side of the roll while degrees of failure all go under the "fail" side. Success with complication is still success.

This treads close to suggesting that either a) narrative games never have players who try to game the system or b) that only good players play narrative games. Hard to see how that comes across very well. The other key thing with the 1e system was that even if you managed to recover those lost...

I don't disagree. The problem comes when you take one really-well-done mechanical element from this game, another from that game, a third from somewhere else, etc. etc. and then try to cobble them all together into something the least bit coherent and-or playable. I won't say it's impossible...

Sorry, but other than the first one "Be a fan of your character..." (which is excellent advice) that mostly speaks to a game that, taken at face value, I'd have little to no interest in playing and less than no interest in running. I'm a bit surprised that in the "Speak to the characters..."...

So if I've got a character who never drinks, in a system with binding social mechanics someone's not even allowed to try to persuade me to drink? Or, if you like, flip it around: it's an NPC who never drinks and a PC doing the persuading.

Bluntly put: yes. If one's enjoyment of a character in part hinges on that character's possession and-or use of a possibly-fragile item, whose job is it to make sure said item is and stays protected? Hint: the answer is not the DM. Further, my take is that if you take something out into the...

No saving throw and you get to know what the target is thinking? Nasty. Does using Detect Thoughts give anything away about the user, e.g. do their eyes glaze over for a moment while they're detecting such that the target might notice? Also, after the fact does the target have any way of...

If the PCs have in-fiction reason to know or think there's a time crunch, then sure. Where it would get really interesting would be if the players (as their PCs) were put in the position of having to choose between: 1. Climb safely, you'll get to the top for sure, but you maybe won't make it...

I'll go a step farther and say that including mechanics to govern ordinary social interactions (as opposed to outright control abilities a la Suggestion, Charm, Dominate, etc.) are the root mistake. I'm fine with control abilities for a few reasons: --- there's only a fairly small subset of...