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    What Do You Think Of As "Modern TTRPG Mechanics"?

    I think I'm not as sure that the original game pieces needed a particular trope or exemplar to work. Heroes and Superheroes can be Aragorn, Eomer, Conan, Lancelot, etc without worrying too much about details beyond that. And all we need to know about Wizards, exemplar wise, is that they use...
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    What Do You Think Of As "Modern TTRPG Mechanics"?

    To follow on a bit from my post just upthread, I don't think that these are "siloed roles". I mean, Conan is a ranger (say, Beyond the Black River) and a burglar (say, Tower of the Elephant) and a warrior (in most of REH's stories) all in one might-thewed package! At best I would say that these...
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    What Do You Think Of As "Modern TTRPG Mechanics"?

    Upthread, I posted quite a bit about some sorts of approaches to the setting-oriented RPGing that you describe: These posts advance a few theses: *Rules for representing elements of a shared fiction don't, in themselves, yield a playable RPG; *There also need to be rules for working out...
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    Vincent Baker on narrativist RPGing, then and now

    Not to disagree - but the first thought I had, reading your post, is that maybe there is always a degree of risk that what one participant finds compelling, another will find either (in one direction) a bit flat, or (in the other direction) a bit over the top? The second thing I thought of...
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    What Do You Think Of As "Modern TTRPG Mechanics"?

    Is that meant to be Mythic Bastionlands? If so, and if you have play experience - or other ideas about the game - feel free to post in this thread: Mythic Bastionland - initial impressions, and making a Realm
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    Vincent Baker on narrativist RPGing, then and now

    I guess, having just gone in to bat for Prince Valiant over Pendragon, that I can hardly quibble with someone else taking a position at odds with the received wisdom . . .
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    Vincent Baker on narrativist RPGing, then and now

    I think I'm the odd one out - not just between us, but across the whole RPGing community - in ranking Prince Valiant above Pendragon. But I am (reasonably) serious about it. And as I continue to cultivate my interest in Mythic Bastionland, I think the likelihood of me ever spending time with...
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    Vincent Baker on narrativist RPGing, then and now

    Ahem . . . perhaps you meant Prince Valiant?
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    Vincent Baker on narrativist RPGing, then and now

    Yeah, someone can be revolutionary (as in, upending or transforming their field) without being a revolutionary. I think Baker is a pretty perceptive designer. You can see this in the Anyway blogs from 15 to 20 years ago, where he is working through his satisfactions and dissatisfactions with...
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    Vincent Baker on narrativist RPGing, then and now

    I ran a session of In A Wicked Age for a couple of kids and a parent, who I think would all count as "casual" players. It worked fine. The kids in particular tended to use the compromise mechanic for resolving conflicts in ways that de-escalated a bit, and made things a bit more "comfortable"...
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    Art, is it important to you, does it help your roleplaying?

    The art and layout for Agon 2e played a role in my decision to buy the book: <AGON - An Epic TTRPG by Evil Hat Productions>. I didn't know I was going to buy it until I saw it in the shop.
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    How does your group handle an absent player?

    It depends on the game. Eg in our Traveller game, the character are all part of a ship's crew, and so are all "there" where the ship is. I quite like the Torchbearer 2e rule for this (from the Scholar's Guide, p 25): If your group plays an ongoing game and a player misses a session, they get a...
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    Vincent Baker on narrativist RPGing, then and now

    They're like a gibbering mouther, except some of them find gibbering to be too much effort! (Or something like that . . .)
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    Vincent Baker on narrativist RPGing, then and now

    Agreed. A lot of RPG design and play also inclines towards something other than rising conflict across a moral line. White Plume Mountain (as an example of the dungeon crawl paradigm) is an example; so are the CoC-esque mysteries that I have on my shelf. An interesting example is something...
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    Vincent Baker on narrativist RPGing, then and now

    I agree with this. I'm less sure about ths!
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    Vincent Baker on narrativist RPGing, then and now

    I think there are some accounts of old conversations that exaggerate some of what was said. As an example, Edwards, in his "story now" essay, observed that Techniques do not map 1:1 to Creative Agenda, but combinations of Techniques do support or obstruct Creative Agendas. . . . For...
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    Mythic Bastionland - initial impressions, and making a Realm

    I've thought a bit more about this. The "Oddpocrypha" - that is, the examples of play with commentary - includes this, as part of the entry on Exploration: Tal: While we’re travelling can I search for any other travellers we could speak to? I can see through my raven’s eyes remember. Ref...
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    Vincent Baker on narrativist RPGing, then and now

    I think what you're saying here is close to @Fenris-77. I was making a different point: that a lot of commentary on "narrative" RPGing from those who seem not to be especially into it emphasise (so called) "narrative" mechanics - roughly, player-side fiat (either for situation, or for...
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    Vincent Baker on narrativist RPGing, then and now

    For me, probably the most important "gap" between what Baker says, and discussion I often see about "narrative" RPGing, is that narrativist RPGing has relatively little to do with how the game is played on the player side. It's mostly about how things are done on the GM side: how scenes are...
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