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Obligatory pedantry: “genus” and “species” are used in Roman-era Latin translations of Aristotle, which made them standard terms through all the following eras. Our current usage of them begins in the early modern era, in the late 1600s, but the words were there, referring to a kind of animals...

We had some tussles during the Adventure play test with one guy whose breakout wanted more detail for his field of expertise, who just wouldn’t get it when we explained how a bunch more skills required to do that one thing well would make it harder to play an expert in it than an expert in...

@EzekielRaiden , I really, really like your thoughts around D&D defaults, and agree that it’s crucial to recognize that the game began as wildly anachronistic melding of elements. In some ways, it’s culturally maybe more like the early modern Holy Roman Empire than anything else, but set in the...

I used to be a reader like you, until I took an arrow to the knee had a friend who specialized in Southern Gothic. Sturgeon’s Law was not revoked: it turns out there are great quantities of crap Southern Gothic, boring, turgid and imitative in prose (you haven’t really lived until or maybe...

Obligatory mention: “steampunk” the word was coined by K.W. Jeter, who loathes punk culture(s). He was referring to the “Victorian fantasies” he and his friends James Blaylock and Tim Powers were writing: Morlock Nights, Homunculus, The Anubis Gates, and like that. The name was an intentional...

True, and I am a fan and customer of that.

I would be a tough one to sell a game where magic is just plain innately bad. But if it were done well, I’m up for being a) impressed and b) a customer.

D6 dice pool. I don’t know anything beyond that yet. Yeah, they’re really all over the map that way. Agreed that Russell’s games are the best so far.

I’ve got Europe’s Tragedy here and am rolling into it now. All this because I wanted some historical context before rereading The Warhound And The World’s Pain. I am an object lesson of some sort.

Just finished Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire by Peter H. Wilson. It’s amazing! At 934 pages/34:03 in audio, it’s a genuine ox-stunner, but it makes good use of its space for well-structured, interesting and useful details. He starts with the lords of the Franks before...

This looks very promising as a successor/tribute/etc. I think really highly of Jack as a writer and developer. https://www.ospreypublishing.com/us/untamed-worlds-9781472860149/

If you like combat, you have many many options. If you’re serious about elevating alternatives, you don’t. Does it bear mention that you might have only 99.98% of published games catering to you?

Absolutely, on joining. Allies, friends, and rivals are good. And reasonable, about organization.

Let’s go for the fences on this one: bring back one-minute combat rounds and the explicit assumption that lots of things happen in that round as participants maneuver for the opportunity to do something major. Ross out individual combat actions in favor of stances requiring varying degrees of...

As part of the presentation of each species, include at least one heroic organization willing to work with others and one villainous organization justifying a “just whack them” response. Also include examples of each not associated with any one species in particular. Keep them pretty simple...

That sounds awesome.

Glad you liked Mwtrophage! I loved the pervasive Surrealist streak, and the Moon stuff in the background, among other things. I need to reread the Trouble stories

Wow, you’ve made Draw Steel sound absolutely fascinating to me as a conceptual resource for something like QuestWorlds! Thank you! Gonna go look at threads about it.