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I don't think time invested by the GM matters, really. From the outside, the difference between carefully planned assassination where the GM took sniper's capabilities into the account, rolled dice or whatever the same way she would do for the PCs, and a decision to screw that player in...

Yes, it is artificial. Games are artificial, they are made to be enjoyed. The abilities of PCs and NPCs don't need to be symmetrical. PCs represent actual living people in our meat-space, they are interface to engage with the game. NPCs aren't people. They exist to be interacted with, they...

Overall, balance gives freedom. Imagine like you are playing a fighting game with your friend. Situation A: the game is brilliantly balanced, not a single character has an intrinsic edge over another, there's a legitimate counter-play to every move in the playbook -- so you can pick whatever...

No. Just no. It only makes sense if you think that rules can and should be possible to be processed by a computer, meat or otherwise. There are rules to writing haikus, the author must abide the structure, but pretending like the poet is nothing but a "meat computer" is, frankly, asinine.

...what? — What if the GM makes an illegal move? — The players will point to the rules and ask how the hell that move was triggered. — So I guess just like in other games

If the question is "what will happen if the GM deliberately and maliciously breaks the rules", well, there's no clear-defined procedure. Just like there's no procedure for dealing with players who cheat with their dice rolls. If the question is "what if the GM makes a move they cannot make due...

No, because nobody cares whether NPCs get a chance to act or not. From narrative perspective PCs are more important, and from the gameplay perspective, GM's ability to participate in the process isn't predicated on NPCs, so they are significantly less valueable.

I must point out that this is not how magic in Blades works. Whispers aren't D&D wizards, their immediate magical abilities are constrained to talking to ghosts and perceiving the ghost field (which is something everyone can do with Attune action). There are special abilities Tempest and Compel...

As an example, Lifts: Powered by the ABpocalypse utilizes physical exercises instead of dice, yet the way it is played is barely different from any other PbtA game (well, except all the lifting weights thing). Should it be classified as a tabletop RPG? Or, the game I'm currently making requires...

No, not without directly violating rules. More than that, in many PbtA games, even if "rocks fall" situation is actually justified (say, there's an avalanche coming, but one of the PC willingly ignores that danger), the player is the one deciding whether their character will live or die. They...

Fifteen shots in the balls Dark Heresy has this hit location mechanic, and, well... My gal shot her rifle fifteen times. All fifteen landed in the "lower body". I guess I inadvertently recreated Sniper Elite! Also I came home and drawn a picture of her: I tried to replicate Blanche style...

Fifteen shots in the balls

...sure? Clint_L asked if there's a point in using miniatures in Dungeon World. I said yes, there is a point, as clearly conveying positional relations between combatants has value in a game that has a lot of combat scenes. The way I see the question posed, it's not about counting cells on a...

Interpersonal RPGs sounds like an amazing name!

I don't really have anything interesting to show (yet), so let's procrastinate meaningful TTRPG developments together. "Tabletop Role-playing Games" doesn't exactly represent the reality where many games there's no table, physical or virtual: PbtA games are often played using only Discord and a...

While you don't exactly need miniatures and terrain, you can use them for sure and they would serve the same role as in D&D: be an easily readable model of physical space within the fiction.

Please don't graft Warhammer rules on Ctulhu Dark, it would never work, the system doesn't support it. Graft rules from Infinity instead!

Overall I'm going to disengage from this thread. I have a proof of concept game that exploded into a giant art project to work on. But yeah, I tend to resolve to hyperbole. I find it easier to think in extremes, it gives me ways to talk about things with burning passion rather than detached...

I don't know about you, but I live in the world where Forge already happened, where Dogs in the Vineyard and Apocalypse World already exist. Well, I'm operating under the assumption that everyone at the table actively wants to participate and bought into what the system promises.