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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aldarc" data-source="post: 7573595" data-attributes="member: 5142">I do not believe that false equivalence applies here. But even if it were a false equivalence that does not make it a false or baseless comparison. I do believe that the nature of monsters (and their associated difficulty) is at least partly about outdoing previous encounters through having level-appropriate challenges for the party. Though not a sole authority, even Matt Collville, who I would say represents fairly traditional D&D play, notes how D&D generally follows a level-based sliding scale where players fight less interesting things at lower level but then fight progressively weirder, bigger badder extraplanar things at higher levels. If this was a television show, then each tier (or subtier) of D&D would most definitely be accused by audiences of attempting to outdo the previous seasons with more farfetched creatures for its foes and lower level foes who once posed problems now being portrayed as cannon fodder. The point being that "unsustainable drama" is generally not one of the most commonly listed reasons for most cancellations, so I don't think that we can say with confidence that this is why dramas are routinely cancelled. My own inclination is to approach that particular topic from a perspective critical of its capitalistic context and surrounding market forces, though YMMV. When you are done quibbling with labels of genre, please note that the point is that these are shows driven by dramatic characters who are placed into dramatic situations that typically require they make dramatic choices. Whether we call this a "drama" or not is immaterial to whether this is apt for describing the nature of the dramatic play that we are discussing. Sure, but that may be a bit of a strawman. Again, I would say that most of these drama-conducive games are about story propulsion and their dramatic framing. The idea within many of these games is that the stakes of dramatic choice remain clear for players in the framing of the fiction and that these player choices will propel the narrative into a new set of dramatic frames where the process will (hopefully) repeat itself. And this will be made up of "small" dramatic decisions and larger ones. For example, a cleric gaining a complicated success in Dungeon World (an adjusted 7-9) when casting a spell will force the player to choose the resulting dramatic complication: (1) your action draws unwanted attention (DM tells you what), (2) your spell distances you from your deity, resulting in a -1 ongoing penalty to spells until you commune, or (3) the spell is revoked by your deity and you can't cast that spell again until you commune. This is not "high drama" but it will have dramatic consequences in the fiction. And the player may believe putting themselves into harm's way (1) may be more important than the risk of adverse effects on their spellcasting. Small stakes informed by and that can build up to bigger stakes of drama. Of course, but I also don't necessarily regard it as my place to presume speaking for your position here.  Which ties in nicely about how much of this play is fueled by dramatic framing and personal stakes in the fiction. Much like  [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] says, a lot of this depends on play priorities. The Black Hack, for example, is one of several OSR games that utilizes a Usage Die mechanic for tracking ammo, rations, torches, etc. A Usage Die is an assigned die value that abstractly represents the amount of a thing you may have (d12, d10, d8, d6, d4). After using an item type, the player rolls their usage die. If they roll a 1-2 on the die, then the die downgrades to a lower die value (e.g., d12 -> d10, d8 -> d6, etc.). When a player finally rolls a 1-2 on a d4 then they are "out." Notably, the Usage Die for ammo is rolled after combat and not per attack action. This is of course more abstract than concrete numbers, but it can also simulate its own fictional coherence. Maybe not all of your torches you bought are actually good working torches. Maybe a portion of your rations spoiled in the dungeon. Just because you bought 12 days of rations does not mean that all of your rations would naturally keep well in a warm, moist, moldy place. Does each attack action with a bow represent a single arrow or is the fiction more complicated? Or do all of your arrows remain intact through your dungeoneering? Legolas may know that they have enough arrows for fighting the next group of orcs they encounter (a d4 UD), but what about the fight after that? Overall, these are facets that are typically not given much attention even in the standard resource management game. So the resource management game of Black Hack shifts from "the tedium of tracking" to gambling on using your resources. Much like with  [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s Dungeon World and Torchbearer examples, Black Hack has a different set of play priorities for its old school dungeoneering sensibilities. Torchbearer was actually the primary inspiration and influence on the hit indie video game Darkest Dungeon.</blockquote>

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