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Why are we assuming the GM has not put any work into establishing stakes here? That they have telegraphed no dangers? Because if it's the case that they have not then they are making novice mistakes for any game that involves these sorts of techniques. If this is listed as an example than it is...

How exceptional the characters are compared to the general population will vary from game to game, but I generally characters to be capable (but not too capable) in comparison to the situation the game focuses on. What I do not generally like is dramatic shifts in character capability over the...

It's a skill that needs to be developed and you are basically starting at square one as a GM. Experience running more conventional games will get in the way more often than it helps (in my personal experience). You would likely still not enjoy playing, but there is a tremendous difference...

Fail Forward isn't one consistent thing. Different games have different implementations and often different conceptions of it in their text. The original context of it being brought into the discussion was for Burning Wheel play. In that context, the text of game is definitive of how it works...

I fully accept your preferences. What personally bothers me is the way you leap to conclusions about how these techniques are used in play. In particular you often assume that the techniques used in other playstyles will used in the most inartful way possible.

It's not about getting the terms correct. It's about accurately representing how we do the damn thing. You not liking the way a particular games does something or how it's structured does not give you carte blanche to misrepresent (whether through ignorance, carelessness or willful...

Stakes in the sense we're talking about in the context of Narrativist play are personal stakes, as in stuff that matters to the character. It's not about world stakes or danger. A lot of what you consider downtime stuff would be the focus of a game like Apocalypse World as long as they represent...

Players don't make hard or soft moves. They just declare actions which invoke basic moves or playbook moves which are just mechanics that trigger on some fictional event. GM Moves are just GM responses to player actions (Monsterhearts actually calls them Reactions). Soft moves are responses that...

Not suggesting we should want the things. I'm just disagreeing with the rules bound stuff that I feel does not describe what we do when we play Monsterhearts at all.

Thanks for your thoughtfulness. The games I would recommend most for someone coming from your position would probably be Stonetop or Daggerheart, likely Daggerheart. Both do a better job than Dungeon World of giving a more immediate context to play. Both are also likely to itch the fun combat...

It's not putting the rules over the fiction and is still very much constrained by the shared fiction (what has been established). Both the rules and not yet defined elements of the setting are serving the game's agenda. So, in a game like Monsterhearts that's keeping focus on these teenage...

So, in Narrativist play the fun is still coming from the people and the fiction we create together. We are just creating it differently. The structure is different, the technique is different, and the rules are there to support it. Different play methodologies just require different sorts of...

To clarify, Fail Forward as put forward by Burning Wheel is not succeeding when you would fail. It's you fail to achieve what you intend to achieve and here's this other thing to deal with. It's consequential failure that keeps the ball rolling, not failure which still progresses your agenda or...

When we play tested Daggerheart the GM managed the spotlight just like he does running Powered by the Apocalypse games and we had no real issues. I'll likely do the same when I run a one shot in a month or two (we have Vileborn and Achtung Cthulhu! oneshots on the docket).

So, I think the core of the issue for me is what is rewarded most (and expected most at the table) - exploring the fiction, basically investigating and poking at the setting in a conflict neutral way, or aggressing the fiction, making bold moves that result in meaningful change in the setting...

Verisimilitude and feeling real are not what exploration-oriented play does better. Puzzle solving and digging into details are what it does better. Focusing more on the fun of exploration that sandboxes offer and less on claims of comparative realism would do a much better job of explaining...

It's not about the playstyle. It's about the argument because it almost frames exploration as the equivalent of eating your vegetables so you can eat desert. When the reason you play or run a game that involves these low stake scenes should be because you enjoy those scenes. The idea that people...

The arcs are beside the point. What matters are the personal stakes. I don't play or run Monsterhearts to an outcome or for an outcome. The fun is in the tension and in finding out who these characters are right now. Whether the resulting narrative is compelling is far less important than if...

I was disagreeing with the cinematic label being applied to all Powered by the Apocalypse games. Not with moves snowballing being a thing that happens. I do think that snowballing serves very different purposes from game to game. I do not think it's a general virtue. I would not want it in Into...

I believe in doing what you want to do without hesitation and finding the people you want to play with. It's what I have done in this space for 20+ years. The "some developers are like corvids" line is unnecessary. You do not need to accuse others who choose different paths of following trends...