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So, @clearstream, if I'm reading post 588 correctly, as an example of what you mean for what is ludically crux ("the important thing that is to be settled by gameplay" if that's a fair paraphrase?), in the Tyranny of Dragons adventure path, what has to be settled by gameplay is the answer to...

At this point I have to say you're also coming across as a tad self-contradictory. The following: seems to contradict: [Emphasis mine.] If "there are better mechanics ... or worse mechanics" for achieving a particular gameplay experience, how then is it "wholly out of bounds" to suggest that...

I don't think it's impossible for games to actually be badly designed, even if they have people who like them. The ET Atari game springs to mind. So does the recent Gollum game. (Personally, I would also count Monopoly as such a game as well.) That said, with few exceptions (such as the games...

This is a thread about games that aspire to be in the neotrad school of design - that is, games that aspire to deliver a gameplay experience that is recognisably neotrad. Is it not the case that games designed with some other design aims in mind - such as fully trad games (perhaps the most...

Apart from the final line, I am not so sure about this. D&D already has an extensible mechanic that the game already uses across varying scales of time and space to represent player character efforts to complete tasks where success is uncertain and stakes are meaningful: the ability check...

IMO taking a word that at this time has no antonymic denotations and using it to mean the precise opposite of its usual meanings is guaranteed to lead to absurd results. If "a lack of support" for a thing is the same as "supporting" a thing, then I guess Tetris "supports" roleplaying. Expanding...

I haven't played the game, so there's a lot of specifics that I can't conjecture about, but at least as regards gods like Silvanus being surprisingly passive, that strikes me as a game conceit - e.g. the druids are passive/cowardly because the player character party is supposed to solve the...

Contra @overgeeked, it seems to me that players as well as GMs can just as easily declare they're ignoring the rules, with the same consequences: either the rest of the table assents and play continues, the player(s) who make such declarations are given the boot (whether temporarily or...

I think that ultimately every game is about the player experience, because each game's different player experience is going to draw different players; likewise any given player will play different games at different times because they are going to be seeking out a different play experience, just...

I hope to have a few of that for each class - e.g. maybe most martial classes get a special attack that procs additional effects if the target is frightened, so that sets up a synergy that player character parties might choose to exploit if enough characters in the party pick up things that let...

Not related to the blog's particular topic, but given my son is big into the SCP stuff, it was interesting to see the blogger has analysed some of those critters for use in games. I thought the descriptions of the punishments were hilarious: "Now we all know this is a serious railroading crime...

Without necessarily disagreeing, I do wonder if the analogy to the setting fragmentation in AD&D is that useful. (1) It doesn't look at what was going on in the broader RPG market at the time, which I feel might be a more impactful analysis. (2) I feel a crucial difference between then and now...

The Rogue This rogue will not stray too far from the ideas of the 4e rogue - a martial striker/damage-dealer with some light control elements. Core Ideas The core ideas of the class are: Striking the Vulnerable Set Up and Take Down Sneaky Lurker Striking the Vulnerable The rogue doesn't want...

Oh, certainly! Part of the fun of Darkest Dungeon is having a character at death's door, and feeling that rush when they pass their save. Of course, unlike Darkest Dungeon games, each player probably only has one character that they're a bit more attached to, so I imagine it's best to be rather...

Eh, XP are just thousands of mini milestones that ostensibly get handed out for treasure or monster killing, and if the mid-80s can teach us anything, it's that what XP incentivises isn't the full picture of what motivates players to send their characters off on adventures. (E.g. by then modules...

This is objectively false. In the first place, it's a bald assertion of principle with nothing to back it up. Sure, you can say any given mechanic is bad design and on the basis of any principle you assert, but so what? In the second place, it's committing a pretty fundamental error in...

If anything, the fact that the "Hickman Revolution" happened during the age of 1e AD&D and B/X-BECMI, where dungeon-crawling or procedural world-sim play were still what the mechanics of the game supported and encouraged, belies this assertion. Another thing that belies this assertion are all...

I want to iterate on this, because I think there's something missing here - it's not just about avoiding random encounters. There's also a subtle push-your-luck play going on here! Why are you encumbered, and therefore moving more slowly, and therefore at greater risk of random encounters and...

Now I come to think of it, I mentioned more about being at 0 hit points in the berserker post, and then forgot to bring it up! So here it is. In classic 4e, when you hit 0 hit points, you are out of the action, unconscious, making saving throws until you either die, roll a natural 20 on a save...