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As of definition, my favourite one (obviously influenced by my favourite kind of games) is "it's like watching and shooting a film at the same time". But as of expaining what RPGs are to clueless people, I just... Run them an RPG. – RPGs? What's that? – OK, imagine: you are leaving for work in...

I'll probably won't say anything new (similar ideas were voiced by Mo and Vincent Baker two decades ago), but I'm still gonna say something nonetheless. I have a thing for being showered in praise, y'know? First, housekeeping: If you are under 18, first, what are you doing here? Forums are for...

Now I have milk running down my nose. Thanks, I hate you.

Thinking about it some more (or, rather, not thinking about anything as trying to P-rank new ULTRAKILL secret boss leaves my brain exactly zero capacity to process anything beyond trying not to die), I have some more thoughts. First, cooperative nature of most RPGs definitely plays a part: I'm...

More or less, yes. Here, the crux of the point is that restricting the available options can emphasize, for the lack of a better term, system mastery. Whether it's "connected" to fiction or not, the way I see it, is secondary here. The larger theoretical framework is still very much in...

No. A "transcript of play" is produced through narration. A combat minigame produces exactly zero fiction, only boundaries in which the new fiction must be constructed. Ok, simpler example. Here's my new one-page RPG: When you do something risky, play a Quake 3 duel with the GM. If you win...

Some PbtA games have pretty elaborate moves (Undying immediately comes to mind), but yes, pretty much. I like games that demand skill, and I like storytelling games, but if skill being tested is navigating fiction, it hinders the storytelling possibilities. The solution I've found is to replace...

Only if you try to pretend that tokens on the board moving like chess pieces has any relation to what the characters in the game world are doing. Think about this way: let's imagine that a bunch of PCs are fighting in a mêlée with, say, a vampire. In Blades in the Dark, for example, that would...

"So as I pray, 'Unlimited Blade Works'"

I've said it upthread, but it's worth repeating. Roleplaying games aren't "real". Wave a stick in your FLGS, and none of the games that will fall off the shelf will be real. Rolling dice to determine the result isn't any more or less "real" than playing a chess étude, or a Quake duel, or an...

For example, your character shoots only one arrow where normally they would make two or three shots in a quick succession. Or maybe they use subpar ammunition they avoided using before. Or maybe they are so worried about expending the last few rounds that their hands are shaking slightly...

I apologize if I misrepresented your position, but I'm unfamiliar with the characters you mentioned. Can you clear this up a bit, so I can refrain from wrong assumptions down the line?

OK, let's switch to another hypothetical. There's this Dark Lord of Dark Darkness, who was foreshadowed within the game, and on top of that, the GM has been relentlessly dropping out of game teasers for the last few weeks, posting an artwork here, a blurred statblock there, a dramatic music...

I think, it kinda is. Expending a valueable resource, only for it to have no effect for no fault of your own, I'd say, is annoying, yeah. There's only so much randomness you can introduce before things go sour. Making a really hard-hitting option really hard to use works well for videogames...

I'm not talking about "damn, this story sucked". I'm talking about "damn, we could have all this cool gameplay, but it didn't happen". The players, in my hypothetical example, didn't break into the house because they had their cool gameplay of sleuthing, and then decided to act on the results...

Regardless of my very low opinion on 5e, it still is a roleplaying game and... ...the way I see it, combat in 5e (or any other game with a dedicated combat sub-system) is just an extended resolution mechanic. "Disarming a trap is resolved by rolling dice" isn't any less detached from what...

I was talking about a hypothetical situation where there's this whole investigation that would under other circumstances be a pretty huge portion of gameplay, but was trivially won by a chance instead. It's quite different from a single trap

I don't think it's irrelevant. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't gamism about deriving satisfaction from getting your skills tested (to the point where more, harder challenges can be considered are reward in of itself)? I don't see how succeding by a mere coincidence scratches that itch.

Only if there was a plan to begin with. Consider a hypothetical situation: the players are rooting out a spy that assassinated their ally. They have a list of, say, eight names of people who were seen around the victim at the night of the murder. They don't know anything else yet, so they...

If you won and it was a satisfying challenge, yeah! If you won "cheaply", then that's disappointing.