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I've never played BitD, and don't know it super-well, but thought I'd have a look at what the rules say about clocks: Progress Clocks | Blades in the Dark RPG This seems like it's relevant to the current conversation: Remember that a clock tracks progress. It reflects the fictional situation...

Rolling a d20 for success/fail, and rolling a d20 to see whether I get to roll damage to ablate an opponent's hit points, are not the same resolution mode. Suppose that the swim from an island to shore, through a raging storm, is DC 20. The 15th level PC with 20 STR and Athletics training has a...

Metagaming!

Here's a simple example: In Burning Wheel and Torchbearer 2e, if the consequence for a character is death, but the player of that character has a Persona point, then the player can spend the point and declare "I have the will to live". And then the PC doesn't die: rather, they survive but...

I find D&D combat too limiting of my agency. The GM keeps telling me, "the Orc deftly stabs in under your shield and . . " and I'm all like "Hang on, how come I'm not allowed to move my shield down to block their blow?"

I don't know if it helps at all to frame it as an ethical rather than moral choice (using "ethical" in the sense of pertaining to the living of a good life, as opposed to "moral" in the sense of satisfying the duties one owes to others). And so with the example of Keeler and the young sentry...

I've read, and re-read, that example. Rising conflict across a moral line: as you say, the ugly choice isn't about the player's priorities for the character, but the GM's priorities for prompting the player to reveal the truth about Keeler - ie she's a ruthless killer. Presumably a permissible...

Is the conflict trigger the connected part, or the connecting part? That is, the bridge between set-up and consequence. Let me spell out your elaboration of Harper's example: MC: OK, so you sneak into the garage but there's Plover right there, about to notice you any second now. What do you...

I've always found it a bit strange that the differentiation between classes would be found in the mechanics of action economy and resource recovery, rather than in what a character of that class can actually do. When I read someone saying that they'd rather be rid of bonus actions, I don't think...

I dunno - when I walked out of the theatre where that film was just playing, I overheard the other patrons saying "That was too abstractly mechanical for my taste."

I'm waiting for the next post!

Building on what @Campbell has said, and also what I posted upthread: if the principal focus of play - as far as story/theme is concerned - is the event or situation that the GM has authored, then I don't think we have "play to find out" in the Apocalypse World sense. I mean, a classic D&D...

I think this is absolutely one part, yes. So "play to find out" contrasts with Adventure Paths, metaplot, etc. I think the other part is that it contrasts with purely exploration-oriented RPGing (like, say, classic D&D). The focus in that sort of play isn't really on what happens (to the PCs...

The first RPG I know of to use the phrase "play to find out" is Apocalypse World. It appears on pp 108-9 of the rulebook: AGENDA • Make Apocalypse World seem real. • Make the players’ characters’ lives not boring. • Play to find out what happens. Everything you say, you should do it to...

Key to me, here, is "did as much as they could do". In a lot of RPGs - I mentioned a few in my post - this is all about GM decision-making, and so is not really gameable by the players. Which tends to reduce "play to find out". For example, in one of my first D&D sessions, the players had their...

if you don't like 5e D&D, isn't the answer not to play it?

Last Tuesday I bought a copy of Night Witches and of Badger and Coyote, both intended as gifts for family members.

Isn't it fairly apparent that they're designing for both? A lot of people look to the PC build rules to provide a set of "descriptors" for their PC, which provide flavour and also, in some cases, provide a justificatory framework for leveraging that flavour into action descriptions. I don't...

What is the process for determining the passage of time between the announcement of the deadline, and the arrival of that deadline? Some RPGs I've played are pretty clear about how time passes, and how that relates to players' declared actions: Classic Traveller (especially when it comes to...

Dogs in the Vineyard does something like this, although - at least by default - without intertwining the various characters.