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I consider important forces in the region -- be it factions, individuals, natural phenomena, whatever. Then, I consider how they can be hurt in a broad sense -- like a megacorp can eat financial damages, but might be hurt by reputational ones; a hot rock band can be annihilated by their frontman...

For a silly little semantic tangent for fun, where does mind control start? Sure, just directly replacing their thoughts with yours is mind control. Is, say, creating an illusory fake object that only a specific person can see can see mind control? You are manipulating their perception of...

To which extent, though? Jedi mind tricks, sure, but it can be worse. Would you prefer being necromancer's thrall to death? What if your body (that everyone else perceives as you) was to do abhorrent or humiliating things? What if you were forced to watch it, helpless, unable even to scream?

Good, evil, bleh. Above everything else, mind control is hot.

The idea is to not give any necessary details, and focus on miscellaneous things until the last mic-drop line. Technique works by making players zone out, paint a pretty but ultimately meaningless picture in their minds (that will never need to be repeated -- there's no point, nobody gives a...

I see, this makes sense. Now I wonder about, say, a mecha game where all the descriptions are aggressively condensed and even directly translated into mechanics: "Terrain difficulty 3, two hostile Scout-class mechs spotted"

I think setting up the mood is very important, kind of like there's a reason Warhammer people generally play with nicely painted miniatures and not bottlecaps, even if the main gameplay experience is exactly the same (often better, because critical information is easier to see) And how do you...

Team Fortress 2 has a very evocative "spy-tech" setting, where retrofuturistic doomsday doodads are hidden in rustic rural environments. Importantly, it also comes pre-packaged with distinct character archetypes -- suave jamesbondian Spy; relatable down-to-earth dumbass Scout, mad scientsit...

Foolishness deserves punishment. By magicianing some get out of jail free card out of a backside hat, one allows their own foolishness to fester.

I recently caught myself that I have a favorite description technique, especially in an opening scene or a new location: describe in excruciating details all the small irrelevant things, and then just casually drop a bombshell with the most important part, like The sky above Tsurugi Industries...

They all are artistic decisions, and I'm charging $50 per face per session for my artistic decisions. If a player doesn't want that, there's like ten other GMs in the same community, probably three times more in all others, and chances are, they'll have to deal with way less diva behaviour at...

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Soooo... GM, and by extension, the villain, made a mistake and players set out to rightfully punish this mistake, and that didn't work for... Reasons? Where's the game in this process?

Does it? Must I also seek council when picking the system, when introducing NPCs or when designing a new random table? Do players even want to concern themselves with design decisions, or do they want to just play the game?

I personally just make up rules and don't really consult with the players about the changes, merely inform them. I often have to modify them in the middle of a campaign because quite often it turns out that the initial idea conceived in a vacuum is... Bad. Who would've thought. And I can...

"What is and isn't Real Role-playing" sounds like an argument about semantics to me, and those tend to go nowhere. I don't find a single unbroken continuity to be a defining factor of roleplaying games.

Yes, but it's not only about story. Trying a difficult combat encounter several times until you win by the skin of your teeth is fun. If PCs just respawn as if nothing happened, it enables the GM to punch harder and challenge them more, and enables players to experiment with new strategies and...

I'm not a big fan of alignment specifically, but I think an evocative shorthand that players can latch onto is a good thing, and for the best effect, should be designed (or scavenged from the word of mouth online and offline) by the group (or, let's be realistic, the GM) to suit their wants and...

Sure. I'm operating under the presumption that the group actively likes their current situation and would rather continue playing, and thus "just start a new game" is a bummer outcome even outside the game. Does such immortality "devalue" death and reduces tension? Yes. There are no win-win...