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So, you will conform the game to D&D, rather than conforming D&D to suit your game. I think it's pretty much the textbook opposite of "flexibility". You can't choose a suitable level of detail for a situation where everybody knows that the characters will be fighting, but nobody actually cares...

...so you will just invent rules. I fail to see, what tools the toolbox gave you? Ability to... ask for a diceroll for you to interpret? ....you can? The GM will just have to come up with new complications that wouldn't be there if PCs had enough trouble before, so they can continue thinking...

OK, how you will condense a fight into a single roll? How would you handle an actually dangerous fight (or a gauntlet of fights), where PCs might be hurt, but the only acceptable outcome is success? (e.g. the party is fighting their way through the Big Bad Evil Guy's tower -- it's not like they...

I would disagree. Like, really, really disagree. D&D isn't hackable. Well, it isn't any more hackable than any other tabletop game by the virtue of humans resolving all the rules and being able to agree to resolve them differently. To be brutally honest, I can't help than to scratch my head in...

I'd say GM should be considered a player, just with an asymmetrical role, akin to the Thing in The Thing the boardgame or killer in Dead By Daylight. Their responsibility might be different, but their abilities should still be balanced. First and foremost, because it makes the process of GMing...

Why almost every time I feel like I have an interesting thought, it turns out one of the Bakers already had it two decades ago? /j

I would disagree. Right now (well, not right right now, but you get what I mean) I'm playtesting a game. Two players take on roles of different drives: Steel: discipline, honour, cold calculation Blood: passion, love, rage and all the emotions that make us human Sun: lust, greed and utter...

Idk if this was brought up before, but a thought just crossed my mind. We talk about the distribution of authority as if it's a zero sum game, as if taking the power from someone automatically gives it to someone else. It doesn't. Let's suppose there's a meta currency that the GM can use to...

I don't feel like WotC position D&D as a "hobby kit" or a "game engine". They seem to market is as a game ready to be played, when it obviously isn't. D&D players certainly don't seem to view their babies as entities of their own, independent of D&D. I wanted to go with Unity as an analogy, but...

That's probably true. I'll specify that I'm talking about 3E and 5E in the future, as I have a very limited experience of anything before that -- well, I wasn't even alive. Post-DL means post Dragon Lance? I don't really have an answer, sadly. But just like with videogames, I feel cautious...

The limitation of a videogame is that the rules should be possible to handle by a computer, so the "hard rules" must be written for a machine with lightning-fast computation speed and inhuman precision, but with nonexistent creative potential. In tabletop space, "hard rules" can be written in a...

To use a somewhat dissimilar example: I don't particularly like Counter Strike. Well, I hate it — it's pretty much the exact opposite of my platonic ideal of the first person shooter. I do still play it and enjoy myself from time to time. With my friends. Because I enjoy spending time with...

As of "feature or flaw": it's both. When it comes to designing an actually good game, it's a flaw. Without it, the books are, for all intents and purposes, completely useless. Ooh, I have a book that tells me how much damage a sword does! Too bad it absolutely doesn't matter if I don't know...

Applying Fate rules doesn't require ad-hoc gamedesign. You are just applying rules, and the rules leverage the fact that there will be a human being at the table who can do things trivial for a human being, but impossible for a piece of paper with words written on it. Hm, I wonder, can aspect...

I think there's a difference between inventing rules because existing rigid rules ain't cutting it and applying rules that require human interpretation.

I would disagree. In, say, Fate, especially if you use a bunch of extras and supplemental books, the rules are far from trivial, while having no gaps to be bridged. Yeah, the rules require a human being to come up with compels and judge on aspect applicability, but it's not like there's a...

When I talk about "creative expression" I mean the process of creation, of expressing an idea or feeling through something. English is far from being my first language, so maybe there's a better term, I don't know. "Skill expression" (expressing your ability to play the game well) can be...

I found myself generally enjoying limited "bursts" of real agency, but only when I know when those happen. But maybe it's because I have a soft spot for Dark Heresy and the GM is hot, so maybe I'd enjoy the game regardless of anything, huh.

I mean, yeah, me too, otherwise I wouldn't stick around with RPGs long enough to even think about any of this. I'd just bounce off my first couple of campaigns. It's not really GM taking pitty, it's just how the adventure is written. The "cutscene" segment is a breather between two very intense...