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By casting every game that works differently than the model of play you prefer in a single bucket you risk providing a wildly inaccurate view of other people's play experiences and the individual games in question. It would be much more accurate to simply call them "games I don't enjoy" for all...

Autonomy and ability to impact your environment in a meaningful way are both necessary conditions to have sufficient agency. I personally that both exist a spectrum where having too much or too little will have a negative impact on play. What I really want is enough autonomy to deal with the...

Let's start with this - can we all agree that different fictional situations (and the position of the player characters within) provide different levels of agency over the fiction? That for instance, a player who is playing a political dissident serving a jail sentence would have less agency...

As an addendum, a Torchbearer test is not an abstraction because it does not model a fictional process. Tests sustain the momentum of play by either resulting in a character achieving their aims or gaining a condition / generating a twist. Fictional positioning is an input on resolution, but the...

More explicitly Torchbearer integrates GM Judgement of fictional positioning directly into the rules in a constrained way. If the player wants to do a thing, they describe what they are doing and what they hope to accomplish. The GM then determines the Obstacle by consulting the factors involved...

In the sense that no game rules (or any rules really) are binding on any given person sure. But there is nothing inherent in being the GM that grants authority not granted by the game.

Just finished Greedfall last month. Now, I am starting to dig into Thaumaturge on my PS5. Really digging the Flaws and how they shape the options available to you. Also, the way the magical world intersects with the mortal world. Hoping to see more quality AA games like this.

So, flashbacks in Blades do not work the way the author mentioned. It's not spend stress => get result. All a flashback allows you to do is declare an action your character previously took to prepare for this moment. You still have to make whatever roll would be required and cannot use it to...

I play in one in a weekly in person game (currently playing a prequel game to Final Fantasy 8 using a custom Cypher System hack) on Tuesdays. Run by @RenleyRenfield. On Wednesdays, I play in an online game run by @Manbearcat along with @hawkeyefan. Currently we're digging into Scum and...

Not likely. The closest we would likely get is Cosmere and the reason is fairly simply - our games tend to focus more on social conflicts and relationships, with occasional bouts of violence (albeit usually player character initiated). It's important to me that the game still feels thoroughly...

After Accountability (which is the most crucial skill any human can have) it's the ability to maintain enthusiasm and take joy in other people's creative work. It cannot be simply about showing off your own creative chops if it's going to last. These are also the same key skills for every player.

By and large combat in most tabletop roleplaying games is already slow and boring. Making it even more slow and boring is not really a desired state, especially when you can design debuffs that impact in a way that alters the dynamics without taking away the ability to play the game.

Not at all. It is important that they are capable of operating in the space they are expected to operate in. Too much efficacy is as much a problem as too little.

Open playtests are decent at providing acceptance testing (whether or not users will accept or value a given feature). They are poor at providing systems testing results (how components interact with one another). Targeted internal testing or with outside groups you can depend on to follow...

I think whether or not mechanics that have I say in who your characters feels or thinks are going to feel natural to you is going to have a lot to do with how you start in the hobby. I personally cut my teeth on games like Vampire, Classic Deadlands and Legend of the Five Rings. The idea that a...

In literally every instance of play where the spotlight is on a given character in games like Apocalypse World, Monsterhearts, Vampire - The Requiem Second Edition, Legend of the Five Rings Fifth Edition, insert game with binding social mechanics players are making decisions about what their...

That's the basic structure of some RPGs. There is no given set of play procedures that is fundamental to all roleplaying games.

What I'll say is this - in order for your character's desires to be at stake in a game like Torchbearer players are making active choices to enter social conflicts where they are at stake. GMs do not have the authority to just have NPCs act upon you on a whim. Having constraints upon future...

Apocalypse Keys Apocalypse World Blades in the Dark Vampire - The Requiem, Second Edition

I think there are a lot of people who are aware of the existence of other roleplaying games, but have not tried them or really even thought about them, in the same way that there is a fairly significant amount of people who have only played board games like Monopoly and Sorry and never ventured...