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Since I spotted vidyagame talk, here's a classic unpopular opinion: I want shorter games with worse graphics that are made by people who are paid more to work less. Aside from the working conditions, graphical fidelity is in itself, bad for videogames. From the obvious: now, because everything...

I mostly just decide. I tend to run short-ish campaigns, 4-8 sessions, so it's not that big of a commitment. That said, the decision is extra simple for me because I mostly run my own games, so there's not many options to pick.

I would go a step further and say that a heavy dose of metagaming is required for a decent game.

Cool! This "What is Fun?" is a question you have to answer! To yourself. I'd be glad to continue on your example, but I don't know enough about strategy games to not stumble into something I didn't mean on accident. For this, I apologize. Of FPS games, I know a lot. There are things that I (at...

Eh, there are rubicons that can't be crossed back. Characters aren't really people. They are vessels for emotions, first and foremost. Artificial constructs. Making them retread previous ground while retaining continuity cheapens the turning point (that is already cheapened by the lack of...

Another one: essence/cyberpsychosis/whatever are stupid ideas that don't make sense in Cyberpunk. Not even mentioning problematic implications (I have half of my body surgically constructed, am I less of a human?), it removes a ship of Theseus paradox that is important to cyberpunk as a genre...

My unpopular opinion would be: almost every game that features supernatural/sci-fi elements would be straight up better without them. Cowboys, spies, detectives or peaky blinders don't need magic to be interesting, and existence of supernatural only drives attention away from what makes them click.

There are two different things that I mistakenly lumped together in the OP: I have trouble caring about my own characters until I have played them (or maybe with them?) enough to figure out who they are through play; but at that point, there are lots of missed opportunities for things that I...

Also games can be replayed in pursuit of perfection. I've recently started playing Sifu and beaten the game the same day I bought it. But I'm still playing it, grinding for a no deaths at all of the levels. And then I'll probably start grinding no-death run of a full game... I can't see why...

I agree with @clearstream, to think about it in terms of published fiction is to wander astray. Better venues would be other games (especially not cinematic single-player ones), but I also find a dance metaphor to be both pretty close and far enough to both convey the point and don't lose the...

Adding to the "great works of fiction" examples, I've just watched Ralph Bakshi's "Heavy Traffic", and, just like his previous "Fritz the Cat" it is more or less a collection of vaguely connected vignettes. I loved both, and will continue to comb through Bakshi's filmography. Also "Sin City"...

Well, if by "never been a big seller" you mean "formula for all the most succesful videogames" from arcade era coin-guzzlers to modern day giants like Call of Duty and League of Legends... Regardless. Whether "most people" like it or not is completely irrelevant. When someone talks about their...

It doesn't even have to be a different party! Like, people always come up with the perfect words twenty minutes after the conversation is over, and it surely does apply to RPGs. Writers have multiple drafts, actors get to do recitals, why can't we? During the initial playtesting of Swords under...

Even if that's the case (it probably isn't), so what? I don't see what the most people want has to do with deliberately going against "folk wisdom" to attain new experiences.

Ooooh it sounds really really interesting

I understand it came from the player. What I mean is, anyone, including players, having narrative "plans" isn't really in the spirit of Story Now. I think there are two ways to define "comfortable" (or, rather, not comfortable): A) Frustrating, producing anger at the outcome: "I wanted my...

It's possible for intended focus to be determined by the "end users". I'm not familiar with Modos, but in, say, Fate there's no hard prescribed constraints: it's a game about whatever the hell you want it to be, and the only requirements are that the characters must be proactive, dramatic...

I think you are overthinking this. I'm not @FrozenNorth, but I don't think it was intended as a one-to-one description of SN. What moves were or were not made (none, as 5E isn't a PbtA game) is immaterial. It's context for a question: "What if something that the player doesn't want to happen...

I think you are missing the forest for a tree. A described scenario could happen in a SN game. PC interrogates an assassin, fails, and the MC shows signs of the approaching threat: turns out, the assassin isn't alone! They look for his accomplice, fail, and the MC reveals an unwelcome truth...