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  1. loverdrive

    Out with the old (Game design traditions we should let go)

    To be honest, "spotlight hogging" doesn't seem like a problem to me. I mean, you want spotlight -- you take it. "Meanwhile, at Kardak's hideout...", gesture at the game master as if "go on" and puff! If somebody is being silent, I assume they don't have anything to say. Expecting other players...
  2. loverdrive

    Out with the old (Game design traditions we should let go)

    I'll just quote Baker here:
  3. loverdrive

    Why Jargon is Bad, and Some Modern Resources for RPG Theory

    Not like any rules for a tabletop game can sufficiently model the chaotic nature of actual combat anyway.
  4. loverdrive

    Out with the old (Game design traditions we should let go)

    Main cast of Breaking Bad.
  5. loverdrive

    Out with the old (Game design traditions we should let go)

    PCs just being major characters who we spend a lot screentime with, and preferably with conflicting interests, that's pretty much it. Like, say, Walter, Jesse, Skyler, Mike and Gus rather than Frodo, Sam, Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli. It works spectacularly well in Apocalypse World and Urban Shadows.
  6. loverdrive

    Out with the old (Game design traditions we should let go)

    Parties. Everybody and their mother tries to shoehorn PCs working (and often even travelling) together for exactly zero reasons.
  7. loverdrive

    Friday Musing: What If It Wasn't War Games

    All the people in the world didn't magically learn about TTRPGs that were invented by wargamers in the '70s. Some invented them separately, untouched and undisturbed by Kriegsspiel, Chainmail, or D&D, so it's a good example of an alternative evolution path of TTRPGs. It could've happened 50...
  8. loverdrive

    Friday Musing: What If It Wasn't War Games

    Text-based roleplaying games, in essence, are very close to TTRPGs and when instant messaging became a thing, the line effectively disappeared altogether. Both use words and only words to, well, roleplay, and whether they're (normally -- there are people who play play-by-post D&D, and it's not...
  9. loverdrive

    Friday Musing: What If It Wasn't War Games

    ...should I mention for the third time that TTRPGs were already invented separately with no connection to D&D nor wargames?
  10. loverdrive

    Friday Musing: What If It Wasn't War Games

    Well... No. If that was the case, all the roleplaying games (as in, not only tabletop ones) would evolve to have detailed rules on combat. Forum roleplaying games (that are often played by people who never even heard of D&D) don't. In many cases fighting another character boils down to "agree...
  11. loverdrive

    Friday Musing: What If It Wasn't War Games

    I mean, forum games and Tumblr roleplaying after that evolved pretty much separately from D&D. They tend to have rules concerning what kind of fiction you can create, but dice, detailed combat and all other D&D-esque things are quite uncommon.
  12. loverdrive

    The Eastern taxonomy

    More like post-Soviet. I'm totally not Slavic myself.
  13. loverdrive

    The Eastern taxonomy

    I think it's a useful framework to think, talk, and analyse games, so I don't see why not share it with westerners. You know the drill already, I hope: not prescriptive, rpgs are complex, all that jazz. And, yes, labels like "old" and "new" suck, as, say, Dogs in the Vineyard is almost twenty...
  14. loverdrive

    Why Jargon is Bad, and Some Modern Resources for RPG Theory

    Celerity is basically several extra turns. And with how VtM works, it's a real big time sink.
  15. loverdrive

    Why Jargon is Bad, and Some Modern Resources for RPG Theory

    Funnily, I've spotted this thread as I was typing out "The Eastern taxonomy" in another tab. Huh.
  16. loverdrive

    The GM is Not There to Entertain You

    What character (any character, PC, NPC, or whatever else) can or cannot do is absolutely influenced by things outside of the character and outside of the player because, well, there are other participants. Unless it's a solo game, but then this whole discussion doesn't apply anyway. In most...
  17. loverdrive

    The GM is Not There to Entertain You

    Agency-huyagency. All this stuff feels very silly to me. My opinion on this is dead simple: "your" character isn't your character. It's our character. Like everything else in life, it doesn't, (or, at least, shouldn't) belong to one individual, but to the collective.
  18. loverdrive

    D&D General When does the system "work"?

    Hm, I like the reliability angle. Gonna steal it, it pretty much sums up my requirements.
  19. loverdrive

    D&D General When does the system "work"?

    I've been busy the last few days, sorry if I missed something directed at me. To put it simple: I screwed up. It shoulda been in TTRPG general.
  20. loverdrive

    D&D General When does the system "work"?

    But how does disruptive look like? Like, at which point you could point at the system and say "yup, this naughty word is disruptive and doesn't work"?
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