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There’s potential for non-combat conflicts, but there’s so little in the way of support for them in terms examples and quick build content. I can see NPCs having certain mannerisms reflected in the skills they use during a debate or an airship having a specific routine it follows while trying to...

They’re new in the Bestiary (“Introduction”, p. 15). They’re meant to (summarizing the section): Give the NPCs personality and tell them a story through mechanics. A particular NPC might always (or never!) support allies, or they might make bad decisions when affected by a certain condition...

I really like the addition of routines. It’s one of the things I really like about Middara. Encounters are a puzzle the players have to figure out, and part of that is figuring out how to apply their abilities effectively while manipulating and dealing with the monsters. It’s way better than...

I’ve only gotten through the introduction, but I’m liking what I’ve seeing so far. My only complaint is I wish there were quick build rules and example skills for NPCs targeted at non-combat conflicts. Maybe for the next bestiary ….

When the players killed every animal in a five mile radius for food, were they still only able to carry 100 lbs of meat back to the wagon?

What convenient timing! We play again in a few weeks.

Anyone who wants to make a living at doing something is going to have that goal. Baker’s even successful at it, which suggests that he’s not merely expressing preferences but has applied his ideas to games people want to play. Games everyone wants to play? No, but that’s fine (and preferable...

The original phrasing (“a revolutionary trying to get his message to the widest audience possible”) implied that Baker’s purpose in designing these games and talking about them is advocacy. While he has said that he designs games as a way to say something about design, the goal seems to be to...

I don’t think of Baker is a revolutionary. I think of him more as a game designer who is very happy to share his thoughts and experiences designing games (and one who apparently has always been able to make money doing it). People are interested in how Apocalypse World is put together, so...

Some games might not appeal to them, which is okay. However, if they’re willing to go with the flow, I suspect those players will be fine.

After not being able to play or run since the birth of our son last year, I got to run Fabula Ultima a couple of times towards the end of this year. I’m looking forward to getting to run it some more next year. I did get to go to Origins this year, but I signed up so late that I didn’t even try...

It seems I never posted our session zero. It ended up taking two sessions (2025-11-08 and 2025-12-13) due to the time needed to go over the rules (twice because we had our other player join us for part 2), but we were able to get through setting creation. We created a number of different places...

Commentary for post #5093. We only had about 45m or so for a prologue today. As I mentioned in post #52 of the “How do you like to start a campaign” thread, I rolled on the Seekers table and got: Late at night in a warm tavern, you are all discussing your next move — but someone approaches you...

Starting in a tavern, really?

In our Fabula Ultima prologue today, I rolled on the Seekers table and got: Late at night in a warm tavern, you are all discussing your next move — but someone approaches you with reports of a terrible event! Admittedly, not exactly the most exciting in concept, but it was enough to get us going.

I finished reading the GM’s booklet tonight. I really appreciated the opening section that reminds you to rely on your group and be open with them about your doubts, concerns, and needs. I haven’t run anything since last year (before our son was born), and I haven’t run something that wasn’t my...

I did a read through of the Core Rulebook on the Ars Technica forum. I’m not going to link it here because: the forum allows swearing, and there is swearing; and to stay within the bounds of both this forum’s rules and the spirit of a [+] thread. I will summarize my thoughts though: The book is...

I know, but I view that as what they’re calling their design preferences. This is something Baker discusses in the first article of that series I linked. Many things that people think are properties of “PbtA” are historical accidents due to choices he made when designing Apocalypse World. Using...

But Apocalypse World does use harm clocks, which is functionally a form of hp. PbtA as described by Baker in his “What is PbtA?” series of articles is actually not all that prescriptive of which techniques a game uses or even the conversation structure or how premise is approached. There are...

I contribute to nixpkgs, which forms the basis of NixOS, but it supports other platforms too. I primarily focus on improving the support for Darwin. I first learned about Nix about six or so years ago. It took a few attempts for me to finally get it, but I did, and I use it to manage my computer...