Search results

GURPS has a clear focus -- providing the tools to simulate a variety of (usually reasonably grounded) worlds and settings with a consistent set of mechanics. The vast majority of games have a pretty obvious focus. If you aren't going to count them, then the "narrow' qualifier seems essential to...

If you don't want to use the word to cover the things it usually covers, then I'd suggest using a different word, or adding some qualifiers. Why say, "A distinguishing feature of modern design philosophy is to design with intent*" and confuse people, when you could say, "A distinguishing...

That was my position, but I'm not sure it was widely held -- I recall getting quite a bit of pushback (some of my earliest posts here are most likely on this very topic).

If that is what someone means to say, they should say that. "This game feels the same to me, even when it's presenting different options" is not remotely the same as claiming "The designer had no real sense of intent when creating this game." (Unless now we're defining valid intent as, "the...

This seems, again, to be nothing other than saying "Only a single, unified and narrow intent counts as being intentional. Pick up Tactical Shooting, look through it for 90 seconds and try telling me with a straight face that the author's intention is unclear. As best I can tell, the crux of...

Fair enough. FYI, I added some further context to my post while you were making this comment. No idea if it makes any difference.

Yes, I do still read it that way. From this post, it appears you're saying that's not what you mean but, in that case, I have no clue what point you were intending to make. In the context of the overall discussion, your position appears to me to be that GURPS lacks a single overt theme with...

We're talking about whether or not someone is designing with intent, or aimlessly. Here you appear to be explicitly stating that it is impossible to have a valid intention other than to have mechanics tied to the overt support of a single clear theme. That Steve Jackson designs aimlessly and...

It would depend on the specific game, but part of the intent is obviously to allow a variety of settings and/or styles to be played. At a baseline and speaking broadly, I don't think it's controversial or requires much effort to identify that the intent of GURPS is to allow for the simulation a...

Interesting. IIRC, that seems to line up with literature, but not with art, where I believe Modern means 1860 - 1960. But it's this ludicrous academic perversion of the term modern that actually makes me OK with it in this context. If people are using modern to literally mean, "things being...

I can't really speak to Palladium, as I have little experience with it. TMNT seemed reasonably coherent to me, but I'm not going to rely on my teenage memories to make any kind of hard statement. I'll take pre-3e saving throws over anything that came later, but this isn't the place for the...

Well, I also don't think it's fair or reasonable to claim you should never just play with mechanics for the fun of it and see what you come up with, nor does the fact the someone has done so at some point mean the design process as a whole is "aimless". The individual actions you take in a...

MERP (1984) and one of the RM2 companions (1988) offer static manoeuvre tables with two or three degrees of failure and three degrees of success (near, partial and complete success). Off the top of my head, I can't think of any specific examples of these being presented as success with a...

This sounds like the sort of thing I was talking about earlier, where "intention" is being linked to making sure every mechanic overtly feeds back into a narrow, precise vision and is driving players towards interacting in a particular way. You may want mechanics that drive players to invest...

Well, it's easy to say that you should have a goal when you're designing a mechanic. I tend to say something along these lines frequently on reddit when people ask open-ended questions like, "How do I make initiative interesting in my game?" The first step isn't to come up with a cool gimmick...

I think I agree with this. It's not so much that the Forge was dealing with new concepts or revealing a previously hidden truth that different styles of play are possible, but more that it was openly saying, "It is necessary for us to directly discuss and address ways in which we should deal...

My point was simply that the mechanics referenced seem seem to owe the Forge a great deal for their development. If we're defining a design style, then how that style emerged certainly seems relevant to me. You noted a number of games and didn't highlight lack of success with complication, but...

I have suspicion that what's really being seen here is the tendency of Forge-derived games and their descendants to drill down on a particularly narrow focus. Here is this one specific thing I really want the game to be about, focus on and do well, and every aspect of the game should feed back...

While your main point relates to success with complication as a main focus, I think it's worth noting that degrees of success rather than binary pass/fail is not remotely unusual. Tunnels and Trolls, Runequest and Rolemaster all implement degrees of success as core components, as just a few...

I'm very much getting the impression that "modern" actually means, "recent games that emphasise mechanics that can trace a clear lineage back to the Forge." To take the previous post as an example: So, PbtA, which is post-Forge, but by one of the pre-eminent Forge contributors. Burning Wheel...