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Why is it disturbing if we are all opting into it and trust each other? A game does not have to be a fit for every person or every group. It's obvious that you want something different than people who enjoy Burning Wheel, but that does not make the sort of play model where we are actively...

With a Duel of Wits, you are opting in. You are staking that control over your character's autonomy to have control over the setting. It's a clear-eyed decision you are making. Want to convince the border guard to let you pass then you leave yourself vulnerable to being convinced to leave the...

The Principa Apocrypha and the designs that align with it like Old School Essentials, The Nightmares Underneath, Knave and Dolmenwood represent the strain of OSR thought that starts with Moldvay's B/X edit (with its explicit procedures and approaching the game as a game) as a jumping off point...

I'd take another look at the rules for how the game is run. That's where the magic is. The mechanics reinforce the fight for what you believe in ethos, but the process where the GM frames scenes in reference to belief statements written on the player's character sheets and we test whether those...

For what it's worth I just personally degree that the output of GM has a mental model and decides what happens based on what they feel is most plausible results in a world that feels more real at the end of the day. I think the plausibility on top of plausibility often results in a world that...

At least from my perspective losing a player to the group, even for just this game, is a substantive cost. It means losing a skilled, collaborative contributor who I know meshes with the larger group. It means no one is breathing life to a character we all know and appreciate. It often means...

The GM is describing and bringing the ship captain to life, but they are not doing so as an adjudicator. They are framing - authoring details about the world that are further designed to test and provoke the beliefs of the player characters. It's a creative rather than evaluative act. It's...

So games like Burning Wheel and Apocalypse Keys are not character centric storytelling. We're not doing things to inject drama. We're addressing the premise of the characters. There's no narrative to serve. We're playing to find out who these characters are under pressure, but it's not about...

That around the horn advice linked up thread might be decent advice in the context of more conventional play. But in the context of the GM asking questions in games inspired by Apocalypse World it is terrible advice. The GM asking a player asking a player a question is not engaging in...

This stuff is not hard you just have to be the Master of Ceremonies. If people are speaking up when it's not their turn to speak the MC simply needs to remind them. I've been running Apocalypse World this way since it came out. Your title is the Master of Ceremonies and you need to be so. It's...

As an unrelated aside, I do not understand how loud guy dynamics becomes an issue with Apocalypse World style collaborative world building (where the GM still retains content authority) because the GM is meant to ask specific questions to specific players. It's never a free for all. Creative...

Given the context of this conversation it feels like you are missing something here, given that a large portion of it has preceded from the question of how play that precedes from what is established (and what is discoverable within the information environment) and how skilled play of the...

For my part the guard rails in most of the games I run (that have them) are kind of like wearing pads when you play football. I'm going to regularly do stuff that would be very very dangerous without them and know that a certain of collisions are going to happen. I just want to make the more...

Specifically in the context of trad play used for sandboxes, like Stars Without Number (and other OSR games like Into the Odd) or any game using Blorb Principles with highly prepped material what I want is success or failure to be based on my skilled negotiation of the fictional environment. If...

Ultimately the sort of games that leave the GM beholden to the rules are ones where the GM's other responsibilities make it difficult to also be a referee. To run a game like Apocalypse Keys properly I cannot be a neutral arbiter. I need to be invested in the characters, deeply invested so I can...

Basically, when a GM sits down and engages in world design and/or scenario design then they are doing the same thing a video game level designer does. They are setting the operational and information environments that players will be interacting with. This is a crucial responsibility that...

The point of the contention here is that some of us believe that when you are assigning these traits and engaging in the creative act of setting the stage that you are responsible for the impact of that NPC design (and how it ultimately impact play). I don't think anyone has to care, but it has...

I do not think it's inherently railroady. I do think this sort of thing should be meaningfully knowable before it likes trips people in the face and these sorts of landmines can be a bit of a bad smell - in terms of it may indicate but is not definitely a case of GM manipulation of play through...

Here's my personal view. That when you are stepping outside of norms formalizing things helps a lot more. I think when you are playing and running a more conventional game you can get away most relying on implicit expectations and a lack of formal process. But a lack of formal processes and...

So, it's not about forcing anyone - it's about choosing to play with people (including other players) who embrace accountability, want to be held accountable and just as crucially will hold others accountable. It's not all that serious either. We're not holding after action reports or...