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You seem to think that resolving a player's move, in AW, is profoundly different from resolving a player's declared action, in D&D. I don't know why.

As per my reply to @thefutilist not far upthread, which talks about RM, I think there are limits in that game (and similar games) to how far you can get with committing yourself, as MC/GM, to the game's fiction's own internal logic and causality. I also discovered this with Classic Traveller -...

For me, "play to find out what happens" - if it is to be meaningful - has to include the GM. So I see any notion of the GM having a pre-determined pathway or storyline or "big reveal" in mind as a departure from "play to find out what happens". You give a couple of examples, but there are many...

I can see why you say this. But then it seems to pick up T&T. And bits of D&G (eg saving throws and hp, at least as Gygax articulated them in his AD&D rulebooks).

My view of sim play is mixed. I think the idea of relying on mechanics to specify outcomes of declared actions, by modelling/representing (in some fashion) in-fiction causal processes, is a real aspiration (I did GM Rolemaster near-weekly for about 9 years, and then near-fortnightly for another...

I'm not sure what you mean by this. RPGs are games. They are played by participants, who - as in any game - make "moves" that cause the game to unfold/develop/change/progress. What is distinctive about most RPGs (and is true of all the ones I've seen mentioned in this thread) is that (i) the...

Vincent Baker deliberately used some jargon to avoid carrying over too much baggage from other RPGs. But the MC is a GM. "Playbooks" are classes/professions/occupations. Other RPGs have GM moves (not all of them, but some of them), they just don't call them that. Harm clocks are a type of hit...

I don't really know what you mean by this. Eg I'm not sure what your "it" is, that you say is aiming at providing something else that is not as tightly controlled. GURPS (to pick up on an example that's been discussed) is very broad in the topics of fiction that it aims to be able to represent...

I replied to a post about "control over the fiction". I didn't know you meant worldbuilding. Players in classic D&D, if played in the manner described by Gygax in the conclusion to his PHB, exercise a lot of control over what scenes/situations are presented. Exercising this sort of control is a...

Well, as I posted upthread, Map-and-key is a way of having mechanics - in particular, the mechanics for determining where the PCs go on the map - drive play, but its role in classic D&D means that I don't see it as modern. And the idea that mechanics simply represent stuff to be imagined - with...

The bibliography for BW Revised includes Dogs in the Vineyard, Fulminata, Inspectres, My Life With Master, The Riddle of Steel and Sorcerer. The introduction to the game (Revised, p 12) refers to characters as being "represented by a series of numbers, designating their abilities, and a list of...

What do you mean by "players having control over the fiction". Players in OD&D and AD&D, who play in the manner set out by Gygax in his rulebooks, exercise a lot of control over the fiction. But those are not modern games, I think basically by definition!

Given that a particular set of RPG mechanics, in conjunction with a particular set of processes of play, really can only provide a relatively distinct experience, intending anything else seems like it is aiming at the impossible.

Why does "you" in the second-last sentence refer to the GM? Can't anyone at the table speak up about their preferences? And why are people who have these very different ideas of what they want to do in their RPGing sitting down to play a game together? That doesn't make much sense in the first...

By "theme" I also have in mind things like what aspects of the fiction will the game make salient? For instance, will emotional significance be a thing? And what sorts of ideals or conception of human life will the game foreground? For instance, as per my post not too far upthread about...

Yeah, I get that impression. Another impression that I get is that there's a reasonable chunk of players who mostly want to play a wargame/skirmish game, and the fiction beyond that is largely set dressing - so they want the GM to provide that, to create continuity and a link between the...

The idea that a table needs to be "controlled", or that players need to be "kept in line", is bizarre to me. Do people have this same problem when they sit down to eat a meal together? I play RPGs with people who want to play RPGs together. The GM role, which I frequently occupy, brings with it...

To me, it seems that a RPG can have an opinion, or an intent, even though it doesn't set out to have one. I say this not to disagree with the two quoted posts, but to elaborate upon the perspective from which I agree with them. Upthread I said that GURPS has a theme/goal: "to express a certain...

I don't want to put words into your mouth, but the general problem sounds like a perennial one: a lot of stuff is not well-designed.

Here's the Wikipedia entry on AW's mechanics: Game mechanics The system uses the Powered by the Apocalypse engine. It features dice-rolling checks for challenging situations of 2d6 plus a relevant stat. Results of 10+ are successes, while 7 to 9 are partial successes or hard choices, and...