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A really good discussion of this point is this Eero Tuovinen blog: The pitfalls of narrative technique in rpg play EDIT: not to mention the collected blogs of Vincent Baker, especially his discussion of the importance of rightward arrows (ie from clouds to boxes).

Also, "narrative currency" is generally used to refer to things like Fate Points in Fate. Which are not a part of Apocalypse World (the best-known narrativist RPG); and which don't work the same way in games like Burning Wheel as they do in Fate. The sort of play that Fate best supports would...

This isn't true for DnD Beyond. See, eg When you take the Magic action, you cast a spell that has a casting time of an action or use a feature or magic item that requires a Magic action to be activated. On your turn, you can move a distance up to your Speed and take one action. You decide...

I guess the counterpoint to this is that the rules describe Reactions as a special sort of action. So Reactions are an instance of actions (a special instance), not a contrast to them. Now, if in saying that an Action is not a Reaction you're simply restating the action economy of a turn - ie...

The point can be stated more fully: *The additional action from Action Surge is supposed to be fighter-y stuff, not magic action-y stuff. *The Eldritch Knight has a special feature which makes some magic action-y stuff fighter-stuff for them, by letting them substitute spell casting for...

To me, this seems a contentious ruling. I personally don't think that the rules text supports it. Eg the Ready rules say "When the trigger occurs, you can either take your Reaction right after the trigger finishes" - if this was meant to include the additional gloss "unless you have readied an...

Whereas I think they've chosen the wording they have so as to make their action economy rules easier to state (ie they don't want to foreground readying, which is relatively complicated, in their basic statement of the action economy). The fact that this causes some confusion is evident in the...

Aren't your contradicting yourself here? In the second quote, you say that (i) an Action can only be taken on your own turn and that (ii) a Reaction can be taken both on-turn and off-turn (depending on when the trigger occurs). In the first quote, you say that (iii) a Reaction may involve...

The rules say that "When you take the Magic action, you cast a spell that has a casting time of an action or use a feature or magic item that requires a Magic action to be activated." The Reaction that follows readying a spell is neither the casting of a spell (the spell has already been cast...

Your proposed rule - "You may choose to Ready your action (or the ability to move up to your speed). Doing so allows you to take the action as a Reaction in response to a set trigger, which must be a perceivable circumstance." - doesn't treat Ready as an action in itself. Rather, it is a type of...

Nor does it specifically say that a <thing that I have my PC do> is both a Reaction and an action having a category (such as Attack, Magic, etc). It leaves that to be inferred. And the idea of "spending" a Reaction to use an action is not set out in the rules either. Eg when a player has their...

I don't think railroading depends on a lack of player acceptance. A lot of RPGing that players accept involves railroading! I've played in railroad scenarios - mostly CoC ones, years ago now at conventions - that were well-done and enjoyable. And in more recent years I've run some railroad-y...

"Specific beats general" is a principle for establishing hierarchies of norms. Not for varying, or departing from, lists and definitions. The "clearly laying out" isn't a way of changing the action economy, though. It's a way of making readying a spell more "burdensome" than (say) readying an...

Yes, I made this point upthread. 4e is similar. But then Ready isn't an action in itself; and it has to be described as something you do in lieu of taking an action.

A RPG doesn't have to explain the laws of biology or physics to not have "edge cases". Of RPGs I'm familiar with, I don't think Agon 2e or Prince Valiant have edge cases in the way that D&D does.

I haven't changed my mind on this over the past month. The Doom Pool doesn't involve manipulating anyone. To elaborate: In classic D&D (Gygax & Arneson; AD&D; B/X) the fundamental job of the GM is to (i) draw a dungeon map, then (ii) key that map (with monsters, traps/tricks, and treasure)...

I think railroading is primarily about the trajectory of play: What scenes are framed? And what is at stake in them? Who decides what happens next? A GM who requires 3 natural 20 rolls in a row to (say) disarm the Balrog might be making a bad decision as GM - it might just be better to say that...

Doesn't it? Ready says: You take the Ready action to wait for a particular circumstance before you act. To do so, you take this action on your turn, which lets you act by taking a Reaction before the start of your next turn. First, you decide what perceivable circumstance will trigger your...

I think this very much depends on the RPG in question. D&D, increasingly over the past 25 years but going all the way back to its origins if one thinks about spell/magic item interactions, approaches action resolution by reference to all sorts of intricate individual components that must be...

I'm not sure "railroading" applies outside of the context of a game where one participant - the GM - plays an important role in choosing what happens next. But anyway, I don't see how M:tG is a "total railroad". Each player gets to make their choices within the rules, and the state of the game...