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  1. Campbell

    From Bespoke to Universal: Let's Talk About TTRPG Systems and Themes

    I think the idea that game X is bespoke whole game Y is more general relies on a flawed conceit - that the sole purpose of a roleplaying games rules is only to represent a type of fiction well. In that view a Mutants and Masterminds game where you follow the adventures of a young superhero team...
  2. Campbell

    MCDM Update: The Power Roll

    I was comparing the special abilities available to each splat given we're also talking about special abilities here. Here's an Embed from Demon - The Descent Here's a Discipline power from Vampire - The Requiem: Also, not that it particularly matters, but Dramatic Failures happen when you...
  3. Campbell

    How Visible To players Should The Rules Be?

    Say we followed the advice that is being offered here. Does anyone think that you could have a meaningful dialogue wherein every time someone wanted to refer to a soft move they had to instead say a telegraphed threat or danger presented to the player characters that the GM presents to elicit...
  4. Campbell

    How Visible To players Should The Rules Be?

    I'm not going to dig into the details of 5e (it's a game I'm willing to play but not run) but in the trad games I have played and ran the assumption that our groups have taken it's in the GM's prerogative to make rulings about what a character does and does not know about the setting and that...
  5. Campbell

    MCDM Update: The Power Roll

    Basically, we're just talking about special ability writeups that are going to look pretty similar to Chronicles of Darkness (Critical Success, Success, Failure, Dramatic Failure), Pathfinder Second Edition (Critical Success, Success, Failure and Critical Failure) or Powered by the Apocalypse...
  6. Campbell

    How Visible To players Should The Rules Be?

    You are attributing malice to what was an expression of an opinion here. My personal experience is that games like Deadlands, Shadowrun, D&D and even sometimes L5R/Exalted/Vampire are pretty much run and played in almost the same way. Just like games like Brindlewood Bay, The Between and...
  7. Campbell

    How Visible To players Should The Rules Be?

    How would you propose we go about talking about these conceptually complex and novel approaches then? Don't talk about them is not really a suitable answer.
  8. Campbell

    Grade the Forged in the Dark System

    I think this critique belies a certain level of executive function that is like not universal. Stuff like faction clocks, relationship maps, fronts and Apocalypse World threats are very useful to me to help organize and reason about offscreen things. When I run other sorts of games I often lean...
  9. Campbell

    How Visible To players Should The Rules Be?

    Sure, but at that point you are saying you are not interested in the conversation rather than making a critique about the best way to bring a given game's play model forward. You're basically saying don't say GM Move yet not providing an alternative framing to talk about the concepts involved...
  10. Campbell

    How Visible To players Should The Rules Be?

    Sure. Scope of comparison is a thing. In the scope of area control games Battle For Rokugan and Twilight Imperium vary significantly. In the scope of board games in total they play remarkably similarly.
  11. Campbell

    How Visible To players Should The Rules Be?

    My experience is that the core gameplay of many of these games does not significantly vary. Different sorts of fiction, but at the end of the day we are dealing with teams of specialists going on adventures presented to them by the GM. In the grand scheme of things playing Shadowrun, Legend of...
  12. Campbell

    How Visible To players Should The Rules Be?

    Would you have interest at all in learning a game that requires you to learn how to run roleplaying games in a different way than you are used to or that are structured differently than you are used to? Do you actually want to learn a new game or just play basically the same game with minor...
  13. Campbell

    How Visible To players Should The Rules Be?

    We have gotten into this before. Stuff like kickers/fronts/GM Moves are conceptually complex enough that you do not want to have to reexplain what they are in everyday language every time you need to talk about them, particularly given the impulse some have treat them like things that have some...
  14. Campbell

    How Visible To players Should The Rules Be?

    Make you fat.
  15. Campbell

    How Visible To players Should The Rules Be?

    What was said is that the sort of fiction where characters immediately recognize the purpose of the runic circle is not inherently more realistic than one where they do not. That the choice between these sorts of fictions is one of personal aesthetics rather than one built on realism or...
  16. Campbell

    How Visible To players Should The Rules Be?

    @Crimson Longinus There's a very large difference between content that makes character specific motivations, history and themes central to play and using these things to motivate a player to engage with adventures that might have a brief taste of these things but really asks them to take on the...
  17. Campbell

    How Visible To players Should The Rules Be?

    The GM does the framing but must do so in regard to established player character beliefs (and with the sole purpose to challenge those beliefs). This is explicit in the text. The game both establishes the GM's authority over scene framing and constrains it to addressing the enumerated belief...
  18. Campbell

    Grade the Forged in the Dark System

    In my experience most longer running characters in Blades will end up taking substantial part of their move sets from other playbooks. My first long running character was a Hound (Imperial sniper) that sort of become more of a Slide (from brokering a lot of deals) as the game went on. My other...
  19. Campbell

    Critical Role's 'Daggerheart' Open Playtest Starts In March

    This might just be a result of the play priorities of the groups I have run and played with in the past, but my experience with games where characters can degrade as a result of loss conditions (Vampire - The Requiem, Legend of the Five Rings Fifth Edition, The Doomed Playbook in Masks...
  20. Campbell

    Critical Role's 'Daggerheart' Open Playtest Starts In March

    My biggest concern personally is losing the spirit of the game as constituted. What I like about the game I'm seeing is that it appears to be gloriously unafraid of its players. From the unstructured nature to combat, to spells/abilities with minimal caveats and not a lot of strong rationing, to...
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