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  1. loverdrive

    A neotrad TTRPG design manifesto

    While I encountered this uhm malicious/indifferent approach exactly once and the guy was a walking red flag anyway, I've seen more than enough times GM latching on a detail player did not intend and leaving the Actual Hook in the dust, because of misinterpretation, misunderstanding or player...
  2. loverdrive

    A neotrad TTRPG design manifesto

    So, like: GM decides that there is a Dark Lord who can only be stopped with great magical artifacts. She knows that one of the PCs, idk, survived some kind of disaster but doesn't remember much. So GM decides that one of the magical artifacts is his heart that was implanted into him to save his...
  3. loverdrive

    What is, in your opinion, the single WORST RPG ever made, and why is it so bad?

    Cortex is a different beast, I think. There it's a) easier to adjust difficulty b) harder to bypass difficulty adjustment. Approaches, in my opinion, just don't really mesh with how Fate works, but yeah I love them outside of Fate. In my fates+blades hybrid I use approaches, in the second best...
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    1705522754397.png

  5. loverdrive

    A neotrad TTRPG design manifesto

    Wrt to neotrad design: the thing I'm not sure I understand is where neo stops and trad begins. Is Blades in the Dark with its character-driven narrative and plentiful fiddly bits a neotrad game? Yes? No? What if it had a dedicated combat subsystem? Yes? No? I'm not stupid. I understand that...
  6. loverdrive

    A neotrad TTRPG design manifesto

    I think there is a meaningful description between "story as a natural byproduct of things happening in a sequential order" and "story as an interesting narrative that can stand on its own merits, separate from the process of play". Because, well, not only game mechanics inherently tell stories...
  7. loverdrive

    What is, in your opinion, the single WORST RPG ever made, and why is it so bad?

    I can! It is a bad game that is chock full of just completely baffling decisions. Playbooks are weird, bonds are an asinine mechanic that works infinitely worse than Hx, but the most obvious: why the hell there is randomized damage in a game that already has a mechanic for partial successes...
  8. loverdrive

    What is, in your opinion, the single WORST RPG ever made, and why is it so bad?

    None of which even remotely resemble how they work or ever worked in D&D.
  9. loverdrive

    What is, in your opinion, the single WORST RPG ever made, and why is it so bad?

    Even if you do use a VTT for a PbtA game, there's a decent chance you will end up in "general" or "other" or whatever statistic because the only thing you need is, well, a virtual table to drop pictures onto.
  10. loverdrive

    What is, in your opinion, the single WORST RPG ever made, and why is it so bad?

    Hit points, sure. Wouldn't say it's entirely correct to attribute them to D&D, though. Classes are far from being ubiquitous in videogames, especially RPGs where a la carte menu of options is the norm. Even if a game even features a word "class", chances are, it means something entirely...
  11. loverdrive

    D&D General Styles of D&D Play

    This is splitting hairs. If I was reading a novel or watching a film or listening to a radio play and there was a character who had a dramatic moment where they abandoned their faith and in the next scene they were throwing bolts of divine energy I'd be scratching my head and considering picking...
  12. loverdrive

    D&D General Styles of D&D Play

    This is exactly what I consider an unwieldy workaround. I mean, "I rejected the power of the god because the gods are evil and uncaring for the struggles of mortals, but oh, I will continue using spells anyway" even sounds weird. "...but hey, I found a new god to pray to! Overnight!" isn't...
  13. loverdrive

    D&D General Styles of D&D Play

    Even without going into the depths of "should we count not obstructing as support", the way 3e, 4e, 5e works does actively obstruct character-driven play. The most basic thing: There's a Cleric. Over the course of the campaign, she sees full coffers of church officials, she sees how her...
  14. loverdrive

    A neotrad TTRPG design manifesto

    It's kind of hard to say. The way I envision it, the "meat" of the game, the thing the game is taken from the shelf for is combat and realistically, player goals are interchangeable. If the player wanted something else, say, become rich, the end result wouldn't be that much different, just...
  15. loverdrive

    What is, in your opinion, the single WORST RPG ever made, and why is it so bad?

    Idk, in a reality I live in, roleplaying was separately invented at least once with ERP and other chat-based forms of roleplaying. ...and also Yoko Ono's Grapefruit predates dnd by a decade. Unless you are willing to argue that this is not a roleplaying game.
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    1705478014072.png

  17. loverdrive

    What is, in your opinion, the single WORST RPG ever made, and why is it so bad?

    In my experience, using VTT for PbtA games is quite rare because, like, what would you need a VTT for? Any app that allows for a voicecall is more than enough.
  18. loverdrive

    What is, in your opinion, the single WORST RPG ever made, and why is it so bad?

    As someone who plays plenty of videogames.... No? Even in the same fantasy genre, D&D-isms are very rare. What "ubiquitous sacred cows" are you thinking about?
  19. loverdrive

    A neotrad TTRPG design manifesto

    Can someone explain to me, what is being discussed in the last dozen pages and how does it relate to neotrad design?
  20. loverdrive

    A neotrad TTRPG design manifesto

    I don't want to derail this conversation, but: I'm lazily working on a game that from what I've gathered about what neo-trad is, more or less falls into what neo-trad describes. There are two distinct "modes", "phases", whatever, of play: there are scenes where PCs are chilling on their base...
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