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I would say it is better to look at plans as tools. They are a natural concomitant to ephemera. Humans have developed both elaborate planning and elaborate tool making. I see them as two sides of one coin. In fact we often refer to ephemera as plans, like documents or spreadsheets, etc. I...

It is most striking to me how this little exchange is echoing closely some of the discussions that happened almost 25 years ago at The Forge. Once we get past the whole pretending about what we're pretending and start talking about the actual tools and processes in an objective way then tons of...

I believe that the term 'murder hobos' is exactly capturing this.

I recall reading that at the end of WWII the US Army studied the behavior of soldiers in battle and concluded that some very small percentage of US soldiers during the war ever willingly fired their weapons with any intent to actually kill someone. People would shoot, basically at random or in...

I wouldn't be so sure. I mean, I haven't actually tried it. Still it would seem pretty frightening. If I put myself in the place of a hypothetical version of me that is actually about to kill someone, yeah that feels fairly scary, at a kind of somewhat removed level. Hard to say what I'd be...

Yeah, that can be true to a degree. I mean, in Dungeon World (which I am much more familiar with) equipment can definitely matter. If you are deep underground and run out of torches, that's not a good thing. However, the focus is unlikely to be on the mechanical disadvantages of stumbling around...

No, no! @Old Fezziwig is secretly Vincent Baker, bald mustacheless Vincent Baker. ;)

Sure, but lets imagine I start endlessly picking on how, why, when, and under what circumstances XP awards are given in, say 5e. What would your reaction be? Sure, you'd explain the rules, to some degree, in answer to my questions, but at some point you will conclude that my endless nitpicking...

Right, because you are interested in a game about these kinds of operational concerns, equipment, supplies, traps, doors, whatever, and not ones related to the goals, aspirations, and beliefs of the characters. You don't want to, and presumably don't, play BW! Honestly, there's probably a lot of...

Do they? In Chainmail dragons simply had a bad effect on morale, much like heavy cavalry charging you. D&D included that rule, but it is never described as supernatural, certainly not in AD&D. Dragons are just scary as heck!

Well, I have made no comment on this terminology. I understand what it intends to convey. But referring back to Gygax, he certainly understood that players are distinct from and have interests and agendas that go beyond playing in character. I suspect that the sorts of immersion you advocate for...

Even more central, fictional characters are not links in causal relationships. Slenderman didn't do anything, and the idea of Slenderman didn't do anything. Exposure to some sort of media or other sources of information, coupled with social interaction to lead to a murder. I would further posit...

How is that unique to BW, or Narrativist play in general? In PbtA the game will spell out its aims and describe how the GM decides what to frame into a scene. This is important!

Such things have been sprinkled throughout D&D since days of yore, trust me. Dragon fear aura, various undead, other things here and there. It was, admittedly, not some central mechanic of the game, but it has always existed.

Read the first few sections of the 1e DMG! He talks a lot about the GM's responsibilities to the players in terms of providing them with enjoyable play. No, he never approached the game from a perspective of characters developed to the level of really having significant goals or personality...

But, that focus on the peripheral aspects of play and failing to understand what is central is exactly what leads us to doubt the nature and depth of that experience you claim. Like if we were talking about the elements needed to be a successful Tour de France competitor and someone focused on...

This logic applies in spades to the GM. At a practical level, sure some things the GM might say would be contradictory or absurd, but this is, on the whole, a trivial constraint. Yet you all advertise this as if it was some mighty force in play. It is nothing, and what we are left with is the...

The funny thing is, after I read a couple of other posts I was kind of thinking the same thing. Plausibility really is a heuristic that can do a bunch of work. The most basic ones aside, I think it is mostly suggestive though. Beyond that, if I author a setting and embue it with a lot of...

But, I don't believe any GM does, or can do, this "plays the world without regard..." thing. No such possibility exists. And before you go getting your dander up, this is not a judgement on said people. It's an assessment formed out of tens of thousands of hours of play and related activity. No...

I understand that it is not some wildly unreasonable proposition to say this. I'm not sure I think it is straightforwardly true either though. I have certainly gained the ability to depict my character as being conflicted or having doubts in a pretty hefty way that doesn't really exist in your...