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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 9241332" data-attributes="member: 71699">I'd advise not to draw constraining, rigid implications from the proposed manifesto. That's not it's purpose. My idea was to publicly declare a north star, without rigid instruction how to get there. I was aiming to be economical and provocative. The former to avoid saying to much, the latter to undermine assumptions. Thus, revised to align with conversation so far -Neotrad game designs ought to Promote the lusory-duality of players Shift GM to or toward a role taken on by a player Because play is more likely to deliver on the former given the latterIt wasn't until [USER=42582]@pemerton[/USER] pointed out in their <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/a-neotrad-ttrpg-design-manifesto.701957/post-9239852" target="_blank">#253</a> that I realised I'd failed to join the dots all the way to that crucial point about centrality of players (I just assumed everyone had <a href="https://imbrattabit.wordpress.com/2019/12/09/what-does-it-take-to-be-a-neotrad-role-playing-game/" target="_blank">taken note of it</a>.)The "failures" I perceived were with regard toAnd the importance of stating that outright become clearer after I read [USER=6696971]@Manbearcat[/USER]'s <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/a-neotrad-ttrpg-design-manifesto.701957/post-9240036" target="_blank">#270</a> and <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/a-neotrad-ttrpg-design-manifesto.701957/post-9240065" target="_blank">#274</a>. I don't, incidentally, claim that this is all their should be in a neotrad manifesto, As I saidtl;dr if you're reading it to be rigid, that's not what's intended. It is intended to challenge thinking and influence design in a certain direction.Reasoning about play is something you'd do as part of TTRPG design anyway. How could you not? That may be organised like this.Say what you want the experience of play to be. Design the play to enable that experience. Iterate.I think you can see at once that this is doing a different job. The manifesto raises questions, without necessarily offering answers. Most of all it says - "have an opinion on this". Whereas this here is rigid instruction for design: do this, and then do this; repeat. On the premise that doing those things in that sequence will organise and ease the process.Again, I don't (and based on comments in thread I feel confident TH didn't) see them as imposing rigid constraints. Although I absolutely agree with your sense that they can have that effect when imposed with authority or submitted to without challenge. A taxonomy organises the design space, so that the designer can address it methodically. It can, for example, narrow down the number of other games you will want to observe to understand design patterns that will most likely be valuable to your project. It can help you decide which audience you want to address, by seeing what kinds of folk are playing games of similar ilk; and what they care about. Taxonomies are just a tool of game design: rigid to the extent you allow them to be, or force them upon others without considering their take.</blockquote>

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