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That can be an aesthetic preference, sure. But if Force Points are not "meta" - even though, in the fiction, no one earns points or spends points or risks running out of points - then the limited use martial powers aren't "meta" either. Because the requirement for not meta is being set at the...

In our most recent session, one player had to leave about half-way through the session. His PC stayed at the bottom of the mountain, with the horses, while the rest of the PCs ascended.

Love it!

I don't think you have to go as far as Earthdawn. Per the 4e D&D PHB (p 54): Encounter powers produce more powerful, more dramatic effects than at-will powers. If you're a martial character, they are exploits that you've practiced extensively but can pull off only once in a while. . . . Daily...

For violent conflict/combat, I look at 4e D&D as the gold standard on this particular issue. It's encounter level guidelines are really reliable. It doesn't fully articulate the tier escalation (it's correct that at Heroic, Level +2 to Level +4 is pretty challenging, but at Paragon step that up...

Agreed re A and C. I think there's a D, or maybe it's a variant of B, where the group expresses a view about what is/isn't possible based on fictional position. It can verge into A - ie a degree of enforcement - but because it's the group rather than the GM, it doesn't have the horrible...

It's a long time since I've prepped a hex map from scratch (like, 40-ish years?) but found the procedures to be solid. @AbdulAlhazred made the comparison to BitD too, in another conversation: though in the context of Position and Effect (I think the Threat Roll is from Deeper Cuts?, but I could...

I also think of scenes in terms of how much "momentum"/"trajectory" carries across, and in what sort of way. In a RPG, this can include fictional elements (eg which characters are present and able to exert influence on whatever it is that's at stake) and game elements (eg do the players get...

I feel a little bit qualified to comment on this one, having just run a session of it. The rules are pretty straightforward. We didn't notice any particular glitches, though the designer website indicates that the Impair gambit may be a bit overpowered: Impairing Impairing The guidelines for...

At least I've now learned that there's nothing "meta" about 4e D&D martial encounter and daily powers. After all, they reference something real in the fiction - martial effort - and the mechanical rationing is just a gameplay device. EDIT: I was ninja'd by @soviet (who clearly expended an...

I think it can be useful to distinguish between establishing consequences of declared actions and framing a (new) scene. Although the borderline is not always clear (and sometimes, even often, it makes sense to describe consequence-narration as reframing a scene), I still think there is a useful...

I hadn't read this when I posted just upthread: I agree with this. I want the dice (or other system procedure) to tell me whether or not the players' declared actions work. And I'm happy to work with the group to adjudicate any prior credibility-type checks for an action declaration. But...

I don't really like the "master" label, in any literal sense. (I'm happy enough with GM as a conventional label - as Vincent Baker puts it in In A Wicked Age, "It’s an artifact of history that in these games the GM’s characters are called NPCs. It’s s similar artifact that calls you the GM, the...

This is closer to my experience too. I usually GM, but rarely host. Food and drink are brought by everyone. Scheduling is often, but not always, initiated by me. I don't see this social coordination stuff as overlapping with GMing.

I don't recall ever having had much trouble following your posts about RPGing. For whatever that's worth! In my day job I work on language and interpretation - taking ideas from technical philosophy of language, and applying them in the context of legal interpretation. I'm more at home in...

I'm not 100% sure if this expressing a degree of sympathy with my post, or disagreement. I've read a little bit of academic writing about RPGing, but didn't find it as insightful - as far as methods, processes, techniques, etc are concerned - as what I've read from Ron Edwards and Vincent Barker.

This is at least leaning in the same direction as the aesthetic opinion that I expressed not far upthread!

Or even a Master of Ceremonies?

Outrageous! I'm not trying to make my preference central to a discussion of how RPGs should be played. But I am expressing an aesthetic preference, about what I think is most distinctive and valuable about RPGing as a medium.

I think it's not just "design and prep" being the thing. There's also something about the experience of leading others through it: of putting it on display. And RPGing permits this in a way that is different from something like a video game mod. This also goes back to the "priority" point that...